Renew Me Oh God: A Renewed and Improved

Transcription

1 Renew Me Oh God: A Renewed and Improved A Wheat Street Bible Study Rev. Ralph Basui Watkins, DMin, PhD Interim Pastor In every relationship there comes a point in that the relationship when we have to ask the question, How are we doing? I think the reason so many relationship get old and stale is because at some point people go on automatic pilot and their relationship becomes routine and boring. The excitement of the new relationship gets lost in time and some of us think that is just the way it is and has to be. I come today to defy this myth. Relationships can be renewed, joy can be restored, excitement can be created and fun can be put back into your life. This lesson not only applies to our relationships with other humans but it also applies to our relationship with God. In many cases our relationship with God becomes routine and we have to work at renewing and restoring the joy of our salvation. #1 Ask to be restored and renewed. Psalm 51: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit. 13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, Page 1

2 and sinners will return to you. 14 Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance. 15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. Restore, Renew, and Praise We must go to God and ask God to restore us. We must ask God to restore a clean heart in us and we must constantly ask God to renew us. We can t take renewal for granted. Some of us have overdue relationship with significant folk in our life and some of us have overdue relationships with God. We have to pray and ask God to restore and renew what needs to be resorted and renewed. In final part of vs. 15 David proclaims after this he will praise God. A sign of renewal and freshness is the ability to praise God (in your own way). Matter of fact the sign that any relationship has been renewed is when you have the ability to praise the person you are in relationship with. If you think back to any new relationship, when you were all tingly you praised that person. I don t care if it was a boy friend, girl friend, or a new born baby. We praised them, worshipped them. Couldn t wait to see them or hold them but over time they have a tendency to get on your nerves. We have to go back to God and ask God to restore us, renew us and then we will know when it has happened when we look forward to being in presence of God! We can't wait to come to church, Bible study, serve God in ministry and pray to God. This issue of praise is also relevant to how we see God. In order to maintain a renewed relationship with God we have praise God. We have to praise and worship God in spirit and in truth. #2 Come to praise and worship expecting to be challenged and changed. John 4: But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. What does it meant to worship in spirit and in truth? To worship in spirit means that we invite the Holy Spirit into our space as we worship God. We allow the Spirit to move us and minister to us. We don t fight Page!2

3 the truth of the word as it divides and dissects us as God gives us a spiritual make over every Sunday. We come to worship expecting to be changed. We don t walk in inspecting and correcting but we walk in expecting a word from God. We don t care who is singing, we don t really care who is preaching we simply come looking for a word. We pray for our Pastor all week long as we ask God to minister to pastor so that God can minister to us through our pastor or preacher for that week. We pray for the choirs / music ministry. We pray for an atmosphere of praise in the Church. We come to church acknowledging and recognizing God s anointing. We are focused on Sunday because we know this is God s big day! Worship is not something we do but it is something we enter into with the expectation of God challenging and changing us. We can never come to a true worship experience, and worship in spirit and truth and not be changed. When was the last time you came to church and you felt you were changed and the change stuck? Date Date Date #3 Serve the Lord with gladness. 2 nd Timothy 1:3-7 3 I am grateful to God whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. 4 Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. 5 I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. 6 For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; 7 for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline. If we are going to renew our relationship with God and others in our life we have to have faith. The bible calls for a genuine faith. Over time, in any relationship, our faith can begin to wander. This could be because the person you are in relationship with has let you down (child, significant other, family member). As a result we find it hard to trust them. Sometimes we project onto someone we are with now what someone like them did to us in the past, therefore we don t trust them (child, significant other, family member). When we project from our past into our present, faith becomes retarded because we find it hard to believe God for what God didn t do yesterday! Page!3

4 What is a genuine faith? Genuine faith believes in God and the relationship we have with others despite what happened yesterday. It realizes that even though yesterday is filled with disappointment and pain, God has yet to make today. On any given day your entire life could turn around. A genuine faith looks at God through his word and realizes all God did in the Bible God can do for us. A genuine faith was exercised by Sarah, Hannah, Esther and so many sheroes and heroes of faith. When it all looked bad and over they still believed God and woke the next day and tried God again. A Genuine Faith Knows! What God hasn t done has nothing to say about what God will do! A genuine faith knows this. A key way to stir up our faith or grow our faith is to serve God where he tells us to serve, and how God tells us to serve when we know we aren t capable but called. God doesn t call people who are capable in their own right. God doesn t call equipped people but rather God equips those who are called and answer their call. God calls folk who are willing to use what God gave them to do great things for God, not by their personal power or might, but they want to be used in the power of God. They know that they can t but God can. They know they have just enough to get started on the task but they know God will finish the work. We have to stir up our gifts, by using them, and this will stir up our faith. When you stir up your gift you step out to be a part of something great for God that far exceeds what you could do. As a result you do things that transcends and goes beyond your power. You step out on faith to do what you are called to do and as you do it your faith grows in the process. In our relationship with God if we hope to renew it we must find our place to serve. We have to ask God, I am serving in the right place doing the right thing, at the right time? How will I know if I am serving in the right spot? You will know you are in the right spot when you have passion and enthusiasm about what you are doing as you go through the renewal process. You might be dead in something now but that doesn t mean you are in the wrong spot. You have to wait until you go through the process of renewal before you say that what you are in is dead. Some people leave stuff as if it is dead when God is willing to come and resurrect it. Many times we have a funeral over stuff that is sleeping because we haven t asked God to renew it and then submitted to process of renewal. Page!4

5 John 11:11-15 / 11: After saying this, he told them, Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him. 12 The disciples said to him, Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right. 13 Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. 14 Then Jesus told them plainly, Lazarus is dead. 15 For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him. John 11: Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again. 24 Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day. 25 Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life.[a] Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? You will know you renewed when your passion and enthusiasm for the relationship is contagious. Those who serve under and those who serve around you will catch your fire. If you are not burning anything up you may be tearing it down. This service principle applies to serving God and people. They way we renew our relationship with people is serving God through them. Let us go back to our earlier example. When our relationship was new we didn t have a problem doing for that infant or that significant other, but now!!! We have go back to serving while not being abused or taken advantage of in the process of serving. If there is someone getting on your nerves a little who you once upon a time couldn t wait to see ask yourself are you serving them? How are you serving God through serving others? Who are you serving? Who should you be serving? When it comes to serving God we must intensely listen to God. Sometimes we can get so busy doing the work of the Lord that we can t hear the word of the Lord. 1 st Samuel 2:18-21 Page!5

6 Samuel was ministering before the Lord, a boy wearing a linen ephod. 19 His mother used to make for him a little robe and take it to him each year, when she went up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. 20 Then Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife, and say, May the Lord repay[a] you with children by this woman for the gift that she made to the Lord ; and then they would return to their home. 21 And the Lord took note of Hannah; she conceived and bore three sons and two daughters. And the boy Samuel grew up in the presence of the Lord. 1 Samuel 3:1-10 Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread. 2 At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; 3 the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. 4 Then the Lord called, Samuel! Samuel! and he said, Here I am! 5 and ran to Eli, and said, Here I am, for you called me. But he said, I did not call; lie down again. So he went and lay down. 6 The Lord called again, Samuel! Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, Here I am, for you called me. But he said, I did not call, my son; lie down again. 7 Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. 8 The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, Here I am, for you called me. Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. 9 Therefore Eli said to Samuel, Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. So Samuel went and lay down in his place. 10 Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, Samuel! Samuel! And Samuel said, Speak, for your servant is listening. Here we see that Samuel was so busy doing church work that he didn t even recognize what God was calling him to do. God was about to promote him as God was to speak against the house of Eli. Samuel wasn t to remain an acolyte. On too many occasion we start serving God in one spot, or one ministry, or one position and we get stuck. God is always moving us along as we grow in God. We you think something was wrong with a child that stayed in the fifth grade their entire lives. The question for us is, Where or what is God trying to promote us to? We will only find the answer out by listening, serving and being willing to go where God is trying to take us. If we aren t going anywhere with God or for God then we are stuck or we are being held back. God should be promoting all of us. Where or what is God promoting you to? Page!6

7 What is your next step of faith in God? What is your God given timetable? Listen to God about what you are called to do. God doesn t call you once; God calls you over and over again as God tries to get your attention. God reveals God s will to you for life in the process of progressive revelation. Accept the will of God as it comes along and don t think the word you got ten years ago was the final word. God is always trying to get word to us about what to do next. 2 nd Timothy 1:7 7 for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline. Why does it mean to walk in the spirit of God which is not a spirit of fear but rather it is a spirit of POWER / LOVE & A SOUND MIND? In the final word God is saying to us as we walk in our areas of giftedness, are restored, and renewed as we praise God we will have power, as evidenced by the love of God working in us which will enable us to see right and put our minds at ease. When we know we on God s agenda our minds are put at ease even if everything doesn t appear to be alright. We then have: Philippians 4:6-7 6 Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Page!7

8 Spiritual Check-up Vital Signs Use this check up list so that you can know what to pray for and work on in the spirit. How you doin? Prayer Life Worship Life (change your seat to see and feel differently) Study of God s Word Use of Gifts Ministry Involvement Enthusiasm for the Lord Intimate time with God Passion about serving God through others Hearing from God Clear on calling and career direction Giving of tithes and offerings Practicing of spiritual disciplines (fasting, prayer, meditation, solitude, silence, time, study, scripture reflection, etc ) Giving time back to God through service (inside and outside the church) Reflecting the fruit of the Spirit in my life all day every day (Galatians 5:22-23) Practicing what I am preaching Being who I say I am Self affirming Self critical Passionate and thankful for the life God has given me Very Good Good Needs Attention Page!8

9 Passionate and thankful for those God has put in my life and around me Passionate for God Passionate for worship Passionate for the Word Page 9!