Just finished a great set of worship with Glenn Green. Steve Pettit takes the stage next!
7:50 PM Steve Pettit
Steve offered his standard opening reflecting on our current status with Christ. I won't try to copy him, but it is always refreshing to begin with the right standing.
Introduction:
This weekend we will discuss what it means to be a courageous men. Steve defined Courageous men as men who conquer anything that threatens the common good. The question for us then is what is the higher good. He quoted 1 John 2:6. Everything Christ did on earth, He did as a human. He approached life in three key ways.
By Faith: (Saying what God says)
With Hope: (Seeing what God sees)
in Love: (Living as God lives)
These are the ABC's of living a life here on earth through Christ.
Part 1: Faith: Saying what God Says
This session was hard to take notes for. To be honest, the information was so transformative it is hard to compile it quickly. Romans tells us that faith comes through hearing. Steve gave three postures for hearing God.
We must believe that He is speaking
-we live in a world where we are taught that God only speaks in certain circumstances. We have fallen into a pattern where we spend most of our time trying to hear God through others, (pastors, teachers, etc.) rather than expecting to hear from him directly.
He is always loving
- it sound very elementary, but it is really true. He always loves us no matter the circumstances. It is more than having our best interests in mind, it is truly loving us.
Listen with a single heart/mind
- Steve used a diagram to explain this, I will attempt to draw it now and will provide a better picture later.
The person of God must always be the object of our faith:
We are shaped according to the objects of our faith:
[Actions}
[Attitudes]
[Values]
[Beliefs]
_____________
[Obects]
Our objects the things that we use to establish our beliefs.
These can come from a multitude of areas and can be both God based and human based (emotions, thinking, upbringing.)
We must learn to hear from God and He must become the object of our faith. This allows to make actions that are based in God, rather than ourselves or others.
Steve used the Living above the Line reference to explain that we tend to operate below the line, in our own circumstances. But God calls us to live above the line and wants to draw us into a life that is fully engulfed by Him.
Steve pointed out that emotions are ok. We often forget that Christ experienced emotions and the experience of those emotions are not sins in and of themselves. Christ experienced all that we experienced, but because his values were based on God, He did not sin.
To really experience this we need to do the following three things:
1. Own my own sourish emotions - We must be real about how we feel
2. Insert the holy but. - In the garden of gethsemene, Jesus prayed that he did not want to go to the cross, but desired to do God's will so much that he could put his own feelings aside. We must learn to say i fell ____, but, God wants me to...
3. Lay hold of my Godly options - Courageous men see their below the lines activities as an opportunity for God to lead them. As I begin to let God work, I become less impulsive and more deliberate in my actions. I learn to stop and say, God is this what you desire?
To live courageously, we must resist the lie of self determination and dare to say what God says.
I hope that you find this interesting? If you would like to know more about Steve or his attention, send me an email.
Darrell
