Sunday Outline – August 13, 2023
Pastor Terri Copeland Pearsons ministered this past Sunday,
“Aspects of faith and faithfulness.”
Ephesians 3, Paul said; Assuming that you have heard of the grace that was given to me to dispense to you, and when you read this, or when you hear this, then you will understand my revelation that I received directly from him.
What does that mean? There's a grace upon the ministry gifts that are given to dispense to you. That grace is God's ability, His willingness, and the sharing of His power for us to be what He wants us to be, do what He wants us to do, and to have what He wants us to have; that encompasses all of life now and forever.
The amazing part of His grace is that as it is dispensed to you, then that grace takes on the individual nature for you. It will help you become what He wants you to be, first of all, as a believer, then individually. The Bible says that grace is very discriminating while equally available as a believer to all.
What He wants you to do and be is different than anybody else ever was or ever will be. His grace is there for you to do that. Your who you are, your relationships, your job, your calling, your mission; everything that He has designed for you to be and to do. It's all wrapped up in His grace. That's why it's so important to stay faithful in the church that God has put you in. When He assigns you to a part of the body, then that person, that pastor, along with other ministry offices impart grace to you for which you will be held accountable.
A pastor said, it's very sad that there are people sitting in another man's church listening to his message while I have the answer that they need because they were assigned to be a part of this congregation.
God is not confused and He's not as transient as people act like He is. Come here, come there, go here, go there. I feel led and I feel that. You need to just not be so feely!
As believers, we have core values. What are our core values? At EMIC we have seven.
- We put the Word of God first place
- We live by faith
- We walk in love
- We are led by the Holy Spirit
- We pray about everything
- We protect the anointing
- We honor God
I'm passionate about these as they are essential to our life and to live victoriously in life. The mission of Eagle Mountain International Church is “To take a group of people, disciple them intensely in the Word of God, teach them an uncommon faith and help them stand victoriously in life.”
A core is a central part of something. It's where seeds for reproduction are produced. It is central to its existence and character. And it's that which is of greatest importance. Nothing is more important than the core. What's a core value? It's an individual or organization’s fundamental root belief, highest priority that drives their behavior. These things should drive our behavior. It is an internal compass guiding all decisions and actions, core values to actually be a core value. They are inherent, intrinsic, and can never be compromised.
To the degree to which they are compromised is the degree to which they have moved from being core.
While initially challenging to our flesh, adhering to the core values set forth in God's word has benefits of eternal impact that far outweigh any temporal inconvenience to our flesh.
Without core values rooted in God's Word. We are ships without rudders. James says, destined to be tossed back and forth, subject to every whim of the evil one. James said, don't think that this man can receive anything from God.
Jesus said, these days would be like the days of Noah. They were wicked days with no value for life. Debase, violent, full of hatred for God and everything that is good, full of betrayal, betrayal for one another. With wars – military wars, cyber wars, verbal wars, social media, wars, email wars, competitions, widespread disease. The earth revolting under the pressure of sin with cataclysmic storms, weather, earthquakes that result in famine and death. Paul said that great judgments would unfold because people didn't love the truth more than they loved pleasure, money or themselves.
Jude warned and said, deceivers who will be in the church, in fact even are already in your midst. They will pervert grace. And there is a great judgment that unfolds for these people that's wickedness. Without these values at our core, the pressure of the world and the deceptions of the age, you see will cause people to become caught up in those things thinking you're doing something right.
The Bible says that in these days they would call evil good and good evil and without the Word of God. There is confusion. People will decide what's good. They decide there own truth. They love my truth more than His truth, which is the truth, because He is truth.
We have a formidable enemy against us that's working in the age, working in the world, working through every worldly avenue possible. He has also maneuvered his way in the church and perverting the very foundational truths and beliefs of the church. It's not essential that we all have the same doctrine about everything. The unity of the faith is not the unity of all our thoughts and ideas and doctrines. But when perversion comes to the very foundational principles of the new birth by which we are born again, allowing people to assume that they are born again when they are not, what a hellacious deception. And to deceive even the elect to living in a compromised life that supports and perpetuates evil, evil thinking, evil doing, evil believing.
I think about pastors who wear the cloak of a pastor around their shoulders in rainbow colors and are purporting wickedness that the scripture clearly names as abominations against God.
The Bible says that the danger for that person is; it's much better for you that you had a millstone around your neck, and you be thrown into the ocean than to bring even one of God's little ones into offense of sin.
If we wear the name of Christian, then each one of us is equally responsible for the testimony of our lives. We are responsible if we want to have an expectation of God and His faithfulness to His word and to perform His promises, then we must accept the responsibility of living our lives in such a way that it testifies of His testimonies.
Our mantra should be: Greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world.
Hebrews 11:1;
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for. The evidence of things not seen for by it. The elders obtained a good testimony by it.”
By faith we can obtain the testimony of His faithfulness and His promises. Without faith, we have no guarantee that we can walk in the promises that He has given to us.
“By faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.”
God did NOT make the world out of nothing. He made it out of faith, and He made it by the Word of God. Faith and God's Word are forever entwined. The Word of God produces faith. And the faith in the Word produces the Word of God.
Faith is the substance. Faith is not imagined. Faith is not your best effort. Faith is not an attitude. Faith is not an identity marker. The faith that the Bible speaks of is not the faith that the world claims.
Gandhi was a man of faith.
Confucius was a man of faith.
Truly they believed in something, but that's not what this is. Faith is not imagined.
Faith is now! It’s always present, and it is always at the ready. God’s faith is always prepared and always ready to engage.
Isaiah 57:15;
…the God who inhabits eternity.
That means He is God in every dimension, on every level, and on every plane. Faith is married to time as God sees it, not as we define it.
Faith is the substance of the spirit; therefore faith is a heavenly spiritual materiality. It's real. While we often consider it intangible, it can be intangible to our physical or mental or emotional definition. But it can be sensed. And by spiritual definition even felt in the spirit to become, when you become spiritually aware of spiritual things, having developed your spiritual inner man and your consciousness of it.
Faith is a spiritual law. The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the laws of sin and death. Those are spiritual laws.
Faith operates and it is akin to the natural laws or to physics. Misapplication of the natural law of electricity, misapplication of gravity, misapplication of any of the physical laws can be catastrophic. Adam misapplied his faith and the results are still unfolding, bringing eternal damnation to countless billions. He was created in God's image. He was created in faith. He was created with working knowledge. How do we know that? He named all the animals. He didn't just give them a name like Fred and Tom and Sally. But when he named them, they took on that nature. He called forth from them, and it ignited what God intended. He worked with God for them to be what God intended for them. He named them so he understood faith, he understood the application of it. And in all that God said to him.
Adam misapplied his faith and moved from faith in God to faith in an alien source for wisdom and knowledge. But Jesus precisely applied his faith and the results are still unfolding for us.
Hebrews 11:6;
But without faith, it is impossible to please God.
There are two sides to pleasing God.
Colossians 1:10
Walk worthy of the Lord fully, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work.
There is a responsibility, and with the responsibility is accountability for what God has given to us, provided for us not only all the things that pertain to life in this earth, but also to be that testimony. To be that example, to demonstrate God's goodness, demonstrate His love, but also to demonstrate the difference between Him and satan.
- The difference between light and dark
- The difference between holiness and ungodliness
- The difference between righteousness and unrighteousness.
- The difference between true morality and immorality.
- The difference between right and wrong.
You weren't worthy when He provided grace to you, but once you receive grace, you've been elevated to a place of worthiness. Now, walk like that, you're supposed to live like that. The perversion of grace is to think that because of God's goodness and His grace, I can live like it really doesn't matter.
We walk worthy of the Lord fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work. Works are important!
Abraham was accounted as righteousness by his faith, but his faith produced a work. There was a work of faith. He walked it out. When he laid Isaac on the altar, he obeyed God. He followed God as he learned obedience.
Later, God laid out through Moses and defined those good works so that it could impact and bring light to the rest of the world. And their righteousness was measured by those goods work. In other words, He said, this is how righteousness thinks. This is how righteousness acts. This is how righteousness does. And when you act like righteousness, think like righteousness, and behave righteously with a righteous motive and intention, then these are the blessings that come.
If you act unrighteously, then this is the curse that's waiting out for you. The works were trying to move them towards a righteousness unto God. But it was unattainable to be as righteous as God Himself. You could move in righteousness and become more righteous, but you could never attain to the righteousness of God, which is where God intended for man to be. Those good works were essential to qualify them as righteous, and to perpetuate God's plan for mankind.
When we come through the cross, we are made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Ephesians says, unto good works.
The works really don't change. When you go back and look at the Old Testament and see what those works look like… We're supposed to walk in love. You go back and read those commandments, you'll find out what love looks like. God defined it, and laid it out with 613 different ways to walk in love.
But when we go through the cross, we are elevated to the end from the beginning and we see that we have been empowered to walk out those good works, which is for what reason, to perpetuate God's purpose and desire for mankind.
Psalm 35:27;
Let the Lord be magnified who has pleasure and the prosperity of his servant.
We please the Lord by allowing Him to prosper us inwardly, so that that prosperity will show up outwardly. He takes great pleasure and delight in it.
Hebrews 11:6;
He who comes to God must believe that He is, and He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
“Believe” comes from two Anglo-Saxon words. We're accustomed to think that the word belief is simply a mental agreement. The roots of belief leads to action. Therefore, we don't truly believe in something unless our conviction is manifested in our lives.
True Bible belief expresses itself; it is living out our core values.
Hebrews 11:8;
By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place where he would receive as an inheritance.
Faith is attached to an inheritance. He went out not knowing where he was going. By faith, he dwelt in the land of promise in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise for he waited for the city, which has foundations whose builder and maker is God. By faith, Sarah also received strength to conceive. She bore a child when she was past the age because she judged him faithful who had promised.
Sarah judged him faithful, but if you go back and read the account in Genesis 18, we find out that Sarah laughed at God.
God had promised that they would have a son years before. But Abraham had to come to the place where he understood that God is able, but Sarah had to come to the place where she believed that he would.
Sarah got past her thought of how ridiculous it is to promise me a child. She became fully persuaded that He who was able also would.
- Abraham's understanding of God's ability,
- Sarah's understanding of His willingness,
- Together, they became faith in His faithfulness.
How do we develop faith in God's faithfulness? We live our lives in line with His Word. He rewarder those who diligently seek him.
So to believe is to live like He is.
We have to seek to know Him.
To understand Him, His personality, His nature, His character, what He will do, and what He won't do, what pleases Him. He's defined what pleases Him, all the way down to the clothes you wear…
There are some who say, God has to love me like I am.
He may love you like you are, but He might not like you very much! The question isn't how much He likes you, or how much He loves you, but how much do you love Him?
Studying and thinking about who He is. The Bible is an ongoing revelation of Him, because He desires to reveal Himself. God has done much of that revealing of Himself through His names. i.e., Jehovah the Lord, the self-existent one. What does that mean? Self-existent one meaning that He draws no support. Nobody has promoted Him, nobody's taught Him. Nobody has given Him anything that empowered Him to be Lord.
He is Lord. He's the original. And what is He? He named Himself.
- I am the Lord, I am the original.
- I'm the “All in all”
- I'm the Alpha, I'm the Omega.
- I'm the beginning of this, I'm the end of this, and I'm everything in between.
- I am Lord to you, your Shepherd.
- I am Lord to you, your provider.
- I am Lord to you, your healer. I am Lord.
What makes Him our healer is that He is healing and He's given himself to you. Therefore, He heals you. He is the Lord our peace. He is the Lord. Our banner. What does it mean? Our banner? It means He's our identity. He is our leader. He is our champion. He is the Lord, our righteousness, and He is ever present on our behalf.
He is the bread of life, the Son of God, the everlasting one, the good shepherd. He's our wisdom. He's our righteousness. He's our sanctification. He's our redemption, our ever-present help in times of trouble. He is light, he is life, he is truth. He is the way.
You could spend an eternity meditating and thinking about what each one of those things means. He is all knowing.
The scripture that says that God sees when every bird falls. The word there actually means He knows, He's so sensitive to all His creation that He can sense when every bird lands.
He knows your name. He calls you by your name. He has a purpose and a plan for your life.
Psalm 139:16 says that every day has been written out in His word, even before one of them came to be. Every one of your days is encoded in the scripture.
There are times you are reading a scripture and think, “Boy, that is so timely.” Why? You're encoded in that. The Word of God is alive. It's quick, it's powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. It divides between soul and spirit and joint moral, even down to your thoughts and your intent. The Bible says that we are naked before it. This word discerns it knows. So we can go to it and, and you, you are in it. Yes, your life is in the Word.
One translation says, every moment is laid out before you.
Thank you Lord — He's all powerful. He holds back the sea. He maintains the universe with His words. Nothing is impossible to Him. There's no force that is greater.
Psalm 62:11 says, power belongs to the Lord.
Matthew 6:9, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed, holy, separated different is your name. It's different than every other name for there is no name and His name identifies who He is and what He is.
There's no right, no privilege, no ability, no power, nothing nor all the things combined that are greater than He is.
He is unchanging. He is consistent. He is reliable. There's no darkness in Him, no weakness in Him. He's good. He's merciful. He's patient. He's kind. He's generous. He is wise. Why is He wise? Because He is wisdom. He doesn't seek wisdom. He seeks to give wisdom. He is wisdom.
1 Corinthians 1:30 says, Jesus Christ is made unto us wisdom.
Proverbs says, wisdom cries in the streets, in the marketplace. He cries. He cries. How long will you remain ignorant? How long will you be foolish and not come to me for I desire to impart to you of my very self? He is just, He is a God of justice. He is fierce against His enemies.
He is a fire from the loins up. He's a fire from the loins down. He is love.
Hebrews 11:6, He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
Diligently seeking Him is that place for responsibility and accountability. While God reveals Himself and shows Himself to you, it is meaningless to you if you do not seek Him.
It's like the old show, “Let's make a deal.”
He is behind the door and you have to knock so that it will be opened. You have to seek so that you can find,
you have to ask so that it would be given to you.
In other words, you have to want Him. That takes practice, that takes development, that takes willingness, that takes effort, that takes sacrifice, that takes choosing. That takes listening. That takes diligence. That takes commitment. That takes consistency. Otherwise, you will relearn the same lessons over and over.
When the Word is sown, what does the Bible say? The enemy immediately comes to take the word which was so sown, so that you're unproductive and bear no fruit.
You can't worship God for what He has given you only, anymore than you can worship God for only who He is. The two are connected. To worship is a step beyond thank you. It's a step beyond an acknowledgement of His greatness. Worship for the believer is a word that means to yield to, with a desire to become like. It’s staying skilled and watching the movements of God and responding to His heart, desires and will.
Worship is bowing and means to kiss the hand of, but it is not forced. It is knowing Him and having faith in Him. Faith that He’s healing, and He therefore is my healer. He is providing and therefore He is my provider. He is wisdom, and therefore He has my answers.
No matter what the world brings, how dark it gets, and it will get darker still. He's the light. And when I have faith in His faithfulness, and His reliability to shine that light in me, for me, and through me; I declare by faith, I have no fear of the darkness.
Amen.
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