Empowered and Free 1

"Sermon - Empowered and free

I wish that there was a formula that we could follow that would supply us with the merits so we could come before God and say, “Lord, I’ve completed the course, I have all the documentation together, and here I am, worthy to be empowered and set free."

In our humanness some of us would really like it to work this way.  We do a certain amount of things, follow a certain set of rules and wala, we receive from God.

We want everyone else to go through the same things that we did too.  We want others to have the same experience we had.  We want them to study as much as we have.  We want them to work as hard as we did.

"Lord, I have been working for you for two decades and I haven’t received what they have, and they have just recently been saved."

Some of us think: Why, the thought of someone coming to Jesus, getting saved, getting filled with the Holy spirit and getting blessed without measure is unfair, it’s suppose to take years or even decades.  It did for me!!! 

Let’s see what Jesus has to say about it.

Matthew 20:1-15

Over the years, we have developed a works philosophy.  We have tried to disguise it, but we have started to go the way of the Sadducees and the Pharisees and the Priest.  And yet scripture clearly reveals to us that God calls people from where they are.

 God calls you to:

cleanse you

fill you

empower you

and free you

God calls you to give to you Himself freely.

God gives to the one who has worked one hour the same wages as the one who has worked 12 hours.  That is not how we would do it, but it is how God does it."