Andrew Fountain - Responding to God
- Artist: Andrew Fountain
- Title: Responding to God
- Album: Newlife Church, Toronto
- Year: 2012-05-13
- Length: 27:37 minutes (9.36 MB)
- Format: MP3 Mono 44kHz 47Kbps (VBR)
Link to Video:
Responding to God Full sermon notes - Responding to God
- There will be a day when we see “face to face”
- but now it is like seeing God in a mirror
- Like hearing God on a noisy telephone line
- but then we will talk directly
- But the gap between this present world and the new creation is very thin
- the spiritual reality is around us. God is present
- very often this new reality breaks into our present world
- But we long for this to happen more often!
- We pray for more healing,
- We pray to hear God’s voice, for answers to prayer, for his presence in our lives
- sometimes he seems far away
- is there anything that can bring us closer to this new spiritual reality?
- Jesus’s name for the new creation was “the Kingdom of Heaven”
- When he announced the kingdom, Matthew tells us it was like people were living in the shadow of darkness and a great light dawned.
- So Jesus starts to preach about this new creation
- what were people to do to experience this reality?
- This was at the start of Jesus’ ministry
- but there seems to be a continuing connection between repentance and the supernatural
- This goes on into the book of Acts
- History of Revival—very very often began with a spirit of repentance
- Can anyone define repentance for me?
- What about faith?
- How are they related?
- like two sides of the same coin
- The tooney has a bear on one side and the Queen on the other
- But its the same coin
- You can’t have one without the other
- You can’t say “I want a tooney with the bear, but I’m not so fussed about the Queen, give me another bear”
- So with faith and repentance
- All of us want to be self-reliant
- we don’t want to admit we need help
- we are too proud to admit we have serious problems
- Repentance is saying “I can’t do this by myself. I am not self-sufficient. I need help”
- Jesus explained it like this:
- Story of Bedford church
- plateaued at 200, for years, no growth
- the leader felt he had some issues in his life but wasn’t sure what they were
- Someone sent him to see “brother Nelson”, a man in his 80’s with a gift of discernment
- Brother Nelson identified the sin of “self reliance”
- The leader realized this was true, and admitted it to the congregation
- Suddenly people felt they had permission to be real about their faults and not try and present a perfect image
- A spirit of repentance swept the church, and soon supernatural signs and wonders began to grow
- not counting people healed in the church, around 50 unbelievers have been healed in the streets
- The church started growing again as people were attracted by the life, and now there are around 1000
- In many churches its all about wearing the perfect mask
- But the irony is that is the very opposite to what God wants
- He wants us to be real about our brokenness and failure
- Did Jesus repent?
- Jesus did about half of that
- The half that he could do as a sinless person
- not because he had to, but to model for us the new humanity
- Here are some more verese that describe this reliance:
- So let’s come back to our original question
- How do we experience more of the power of the New while still living in the old?
- Admit just how needy and inadequate we are
- Be open to change
- Ask God’s forgiveness for self-effort
- Rely totally on God
- God has such joy when we repent he sings over us!
- I want us all to stand and I want each of us to ask God where we need to repent
- He is so glad when we repent, because this opens the door to him blessing us
- The lost son—when he repented, the father poured out blessings on him
- Ask specifically for him to tell you where you are depending on yourself and need to depend on him!
Updated on 2012-05-21 by Andrew Fountain
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