Generous Living

Petra Church

Generous Living

Part 5

October 22, 2017 • Brian Flewelling

This is week five of our All-IN Teaching Series. The gospel of Jesus is a radical re-alteration of our lifestyles. If you start following Jesus you quickly realize “I can’t go on with life as usual.”
To help you evaluate your own life and commitment to Jesus we wanted to give you a set of questions.
The questions we asked so far have been:
➢ Week 1: Am I living to please God, or myself? (Heart Attitudes)
➢ Week 2: Have I given all to God, or am I holding something back? (Practical)
➢ Week 3: Am I living by faith in what God can do, or in fear of what I might lose?
(Intensity & audacity of faith)
➢ Week 4: Am I using what I have to glorify God? (Practicality & Devotion)
➢ Week 5: Am I generous in life, or reluctant in giving? (Generosity & joy of faith)
The shape of the gospel is the shape of generosity. If you want to know what generosity looks like look at Jesus. He had mad talent. But he chose to give himself constantly to the needs and the development of the people around him.
“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.” 1 John 3:16. If we’re becoming like God then we’re becoming generous people like Jesus.

Lifestyle Christianity

October 29, 2017 • Lester Zimmerman

Today is the last part of our ALL IN series. We have been exploring what it means to go all in with God. What it means to be fully surrendered to Him. The sad reality is that it is possible for us to go to church every week and never go ALL IN with Jesus. That’s called religion and there is no life or power in it. The Christian life is meant to be so much more than that. God wants us to live by faith - not fear, play offense - not defense, use all we got, holding nothing back, being surrendered fully to his purpose in our lives. We don’t just add Jesus to our lives like another friend on Facebook. Jesus calls his followers to abandon all to him, go all-in, give it all up. You see, Christianity is more of a way of life then a belief system. We are called “followers of Jesus” which means we follow his example, his teachings, his moral code, his daily direction in our lives. We are to make our faith our lifestyle not just a Sunday morning experience! We are - Empowered by God for daily encounters. Following Jesus is not easy, but it is fulfilling with eternal rewards. Going ALL IN means different things to different people. In this series we tried not to create a rigid definition of what it means to go ALL IN. Instead we asked a key question each week to challenge our hearts. Today’s question is: Is my devotion to God consistent and enduring?

Use What You Have

October 15, 2017 • Patrick Thuo

Pastor Patrick Thuo, leader of the Hopewell Network in Kenya, brings us Part 4 of our All In Series with the message entitled "Use What You Have".

Playing Offense

October 8, 2017 • Lester Zimmerman

We are in the midst of a series called ALL IN. We are exploring what it means to live a life that is sold out to God. Full abandonment. Full surrender. Going All In. We are not trying to create a cookie cutter Christian because going ALL IN will look differently for each person, however, there are some basic truths that we can all grab a hold of. We are using a set of questions to help us define the idea of going ALL IN. Today’s question is: Am I living by faith in what God can do, or in fear of what I might lose? The title of today’s message is PLAYING OFFENSE. A lot of Christians play defense instead of going on the offense. They circle the wagons to keep the devil out instead of fully engaging the culture and taking the fight to the enemy’s camp. A sports team can have good defensive players and have a great defensive strategy but if they don’t have a strong offense they aren’t going to win any games. God didn’t put us on the earth to play it safe but to be dangerous. To take ground. To advance the ball downfield. To attack the gates of hell. To take risks. The Christian life is not a spectator sport. Actually, We have been born on a battle field right in the middle of a cosmic war. A war between good and evil and evil advances when good people do nothing. There are those who are satisfied sitting on the sidelines and there are those ready to charge the gates of hell and take back what the enemy has stolen from us.