What Would Make God Rejoice In Us?

What would make God rejoice in us?

Isaiah 12:1-6

And you will say in that day, "I thank you, God. You were angry but your anger wasn’t forever. You withdrew your anger and moved in and comforted me. [2] "Yes, indeed—God is my salvation. I trust, I won’t be afraid. God—yes God!—is my strength and song, best of all, my salvation!" [3] Joyfully you’ll pull up buckets of water from the wells of salvation. [4] And as you do it, you’ll say, "Give thanks to God. Call out his name. Ask him anything! Shout to the nations, tell them what he’s done, spread the news of his great reputation! [5] Sing praise-songs to God. He’s done it all! Let the whole earth know what he’s done! [6] Raise the roof! Sing your hearts out, oh Zion! The Greatest lives among you: The Holy of Israel.

Question #1: “When do we need to see a spiritual renewal from God?

1. It is when there is a lack of love and confidence among Christians. If there is friction or division among God’s holy people that has come because there has been a slack of being alive and active in living a holy life. Christ loves us even if do not live up to all He desires. So believers need to love one another though some may disappoint us in their living for God. We are to love others as Christ loves them. When this is lacking we are in need of spiritual renewal.

2. When there is found in the church any spirit of discord, jealously or evil speaking spiritual renewal is needed. MT 5:23-24 "So if you are standing before the altar in the Temple, offering a sacrifice to God, and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, [24] leave your sacrifice there beside the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.” If those in the church know they are not getting along with another one and does nothing about it, it cannot be a healthy church and be blessed by God. In our life as a Christian we do not have to be accountable to the minister or a fellow believer but before God. He alone knows how much we are like Christ in being holy.

3. When in the church there is a spirit of worldliness.

1 JN 2:16 “For everything in the world--the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does--comes not from the Father but from the world.”

“For the world offers only the lust for physical pleasure, the lust for everything we see, and pride in our possessions. These are not from the Father. They are from this evil world.”

“Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him.”

Romans 12:2 “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.”

“Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”

“Don’t become like the people of this world. Instead, change the way you think. Then you will always be able to determine what God really wants—what is good, pleasing, and perfect.”

Worldliness means that we conform to what the world is thinking and following that thinking in the way we dress, the way we talk, in our actions, what we find pleasure in, what we take time to think about and whatever take us away from God being first in our lives.

4. When in the church there is prevailing sin. James 5:17 “Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.” 1 John 5:17 “Every kind of wrongdoing is sin, yet there are sins that don’t lead to death.” Rom. 14:23 “for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.”

“Anything that is not done in faith is sin.”

“If you do anything you believe is not right, you are sinning.”

I would just like to comment that if we belong to God if we sin we are hurting His name.

5. If in the church there is a spirit of controversy. This is when people in the church have disagreements over non-spiritual issues. This has come in some churches over color of paint or carpet.