Loved church yesterday. Loved it. Our 9AM service was pretty full and our 11AM service was filled to capacity and then some. In fact, half the foyer was filled with rows of chairs. As you can imagine the energy was sky-high! Our attendance was 457 and this is without a 4PM service.
The best part of the day for me was the response in both services to the altar call including a first-time salvation of gentleman with terminal cancer. That’s what it’s all about! Woot!
RCBand tore up the stage with the following set list:
- Shepherd (Lp, RC original) (This has to be the ‘crunchiest’ song we do!)
- Let It Rise (Big Daddy Weave)
- Better Is One Day (Chris Tomlin) (Okay, I finally like this song.)
- Hosanna (Hillsong) (Becoming one of my favorites.)
BTW, RCBand’s offertory jams weren’t too shabby either!
I was pretty anxious to kick off our new Sticky Relationships series! Here are the notes/takeaways for Part 1 – Cohesiveness with Christ:
Joke: Love is grand. Divorce is 50 grand.
TOP 10 Cheesy Pick-Up Lines:
- 10. Baby, you must be a broom, cause you just swept me off my feet
- 9. Can I buy you a drink, or do you just want the money?
- 8. Are you religious…Because you’re the answer to my prayers.
- 7. You don’t need car keys to drive me crazy.
- 6. You must be a magician, because every time I look at you, everyone else disappears.
- 5. Do you believe in love at first sight or do I have to walk by again?
- 4. Are you a parking ticket? Cause you got FINE written all over you.
- 3. Can I borrow your library card? Cause I’m checking you out.
- 2. Your feet must be tired, because you’ve been running through my mind all day long.
- 1. My love for you is like diarrhea. I just can’t hold it in. (Sorry for the mental image! Okay, I’m not sorry.)
- BONUS: Anything out of the mouth of Charlie Sheen! (Winning!)
This series is about making relationships last. In week one, we are focusing on making sure our relationship with Christ sticks.
Verse 5: …Those whoremain in me (Jesus), and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.
It is a joy to Jesus when a person takes time to walk more intimately with Him. The bearing of fruit is always shown in Scripture to be a visible result of an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.” ~Oswald Chambers
John 17:3 (NLT)
And this is the way to have eternal life—to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth.
We need to not only know about God; we need to know Him…through Jesus. Intimacy.
Daniel 11:32 (NKJV)
…but the people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits.
Hebrew word for know / knowledge in Old Testament is yada.
The Hebrew word yada has a much broader meaning than the English word know.
The Biblical OT word for Knowing God means:
- to Perceive
- to Learn
- to Understand
- to Recognize
- to Believe
- to Accept His Claims
- to Conform
- to Be Willing
- to Perform or Live
- to Obey
- to See or Experience
Greek words for know in New Testament are oida and ginosko.
Ginosko has a wider meaning, too.
The NT phrase to know God means:
- Jewish idiom for sexual intercourse between a man and a woman
- to know, understand, perceive, have knowledge of
- to become acquainted with
- to be sure, as in to respond in faith
How can we develop cohesiveness with Christ?
- Prayer
- Word (reading, studying, memorizing, obeying)
- Worship (singing, dancing, playing instruments)
“We are at this moment as close to God as we really choose to be. True, there are times when we would like to know a deeper intimacy, but when it comes to the point, we are not prepared to pay the price involved.” ~J. Oswald Sanders
Verse 5: So they concluded, “Our only chance of finding grounds for accusing Daniel will be in connection with the rules of his religion.” (What an example of character and integrity!)
Verse 10: But when Daniel learned that the law had been signed, he went home and knelt down as usual in his upstairs room, with its windows open toward Jerusalem. He prayed three times a day, just as he had always done, giving thanks to his God. (Daniel knew God. Daniel was loyal to God. Daniel loved God.)
Showed this video that sums up Daniel and the lion’s den. Enjoy.
Philippians 3:8 (NLT)
Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ
Four Cohesive Disconnectors
(The following will get you unstuck from Jesus)
1. Shame
- Romans 8:1 (NLT) says, So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.
- Don’t let guilt and condemnation keep you from running to Jesus.
- Condemnation pushes people away from Jesus. Conviction pushes people to Jesus.
2. Self
- “The measure of the greatness of a man’s love for God is not found in his attention to the things he has to do, but in his attention to the things he doesn’t have to do.” ~Karl Ingersoll
- Psalm 37:4 says if we delight ourselves in the Lord He will give us the desires of our heart.
- James 4:3 says that we ask and don’t receive because we ask with the wrong motives.
- “People still respond to the things of God, when the things of God are viewed by us as important enough to talk about.” ~Ed Stetzer
- “Nothing is worth holding on to so hard that you can’t hold Him.” ~Tommy Tenney
- Shared a Tweet: Intimacy means in-to-me I see. If you want intimacy, honesty is a must.
3. Spite (as in bitterness and unforgiveness)
- Matthew 6:14-15 (NLT) (If we refuse to forgive others, God won’t forgive us.)
4. Sin
- Romans 3:23 says, For all have sinned…
- Sin separates us from God.
- Isaiah 59:2 (NLT) says, It’s your sins that have cut you off from God…
- Remember Adam & Eve
- “Repentance prepares us for His presence. You cannot live in His presence without repentance.” ~Tommy Tenney
“God is waiting for someone who is willing to tie a rope around an ankle and say, “If I perish, I perish; but I am going to see the King. I want to do everything I can to go behind that veil. I’m going to put on the blood, I’m going to repent, I’m going to do everything I can because I’m tired of knowing about Him. I want to know Him. I’ve got to see His face.” ~Tommy Tenney (The God Chasers)
Hosea 3:1 (NLT) (What an illustration of God’s faithfulness!)
Hosea 6:3 (NLT)
Oh, that we might know the Lord!
Let us press on to know him.
He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn
or the coming of rains in early spring.”
Our podcast of this sermon will be uploaded this week. That should help you understand these notes.
In the meantime…
Stay Stuck to Jesus,
~PC
