More Of You In 2002

More of you Lord in 2002

Thesis: In 2002 we need to actively dispense more of God’s love, God’s grace, and God’s forgiveness to others in the Body of Christ and outside the Body of Christ. Because the more of Him we allow to flow the more power we experience.

Introduction:

I believe this next year will hold some life challenging issues for the USA and the church of Jesus Christ. I firmly believe the church needs to become more Christ like in character if it desires to make the maximum impact on the world. My heart’s cry for New Life over the next year “Is more of God’s grace, love.”

I would like to see New Life Community Church become more like Jesus. The first character trait I ever noticed about Jesus was how he had grace on people. I would like to have New Life become known as a church that dispenses grace. A graceful church is one that loves the outsider and the insider. This leads us to the 2nd quality I would like us to focus on becoming more ready to give offerings to the Lord. Jesus exhorted us to also love one another the 3rd quality we need to develop. Love is who God is and should be a primary character trait of his church. The 4th character trait I would like our church to hone better is the willingness to forgive one another. But we also need to forgive the world.

The 4 character traits we are going to focus on honing and developing better this year spell GOLF. I believe for these traits to become more prominent we need to learn to play GOLF. Not only learn how to play GOLF but actually get out there and play. We need the discipline and the exercise that will come from participating in the tournament for life. I encourage New Life Community Church to take a New Years resolution that we all play more GOLF.

G-Grace

O-Offering

L-Love

F-Forgiveness

To begin the act of Golf we have to learn a few basic instructions about how we should play. In other words we need to have the essential ingredients necessary to win at GOLF? To be a winner in Golf you must start with the right mindset or attitude. This is an essential skill to develop even before you pick up a golf club.

T.S.-Lets explore what type of attitude and mindset is necessary to win at this game of GOLF.

I. Grace is the cornerstone and the starting point to playing Golf God’s way.

a. Grace is the Jesus mindset and attitude you need to have to play golf and win in the spiritual realm.

i. It is a psychological and spiritual mind set that will help you to achieve your goal of winning the game and eventually getting the golf ball into the hole on the green.

1. The golf ball is the primary object that we hit and lets imagine that the golf ball represents your life and the hole on the green represents Heaven.

2. Your task is to get into Heaven-How will you achieve this goal? It first starts with the mindset of grace. An attitude of grace.

ii. It’s imperative in our Christian walk that we understand the importance of having a mindset and a focus on grace. We need to see the field of grace.

1. I Timothy 1:2,12-14

2 To Timothy my true son in the faith:

12I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me faithful, appointing me to his service. 13Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. 14The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

2. II Timothy 1:2, 8-10

2To Timothy, my dear son:

8So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, 9who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, 10but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

a. In these two passages of Scripture the Apostle Paul speaks about grace with great passion and focus. But if you have ever read through the New Testament writings of Paul you see a common theme in his writings to the church and us. He always opens his books talking about God’s grace to you. He always started talking about grace-he focused on grace and he always finished his books referring back to grace.