The Gain In Your Groans

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The Gain In Your Groans

2 Corinthians 12:1-10

August 6, 2023 • Jeff Lyle • 2 Corinthians 12:1–10

The good news is that you are not alone in your desire to have a problem-free life. We all desire this. The bad news is that you will never experience this until your life on earth concludes. There is no getting around it: being a follower of Jesus does not immunize us in any way from problems and pain in life. For those who live by faith in the goodness of God, there is an offer to us from Heaven to enter into a deeper understanding of why God allows problems in our lives. The testimony of the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12 helps us to learn from his extreme privileges as a follower of Jesus, and his example of suffering for Christ as we consider our own apportioned troubles that God permits to find us. There is always a greater gift of grace that far surpasses the weight of our groans. To learn this lesson early in your faith-journey is extremely helpful. For those who learn it later in life, there is the ability to look back and make sense of why God permitted the problems and the pain.

Fixing Your Focus

November 26, 2023 • Jeff Lyle • John 21:15–22

It might sound somewhat simplistic to some, but it really is true that each Christian's life can be summed up with the headline of, "I am a Jesus-follower." As we enter into relationship with Jesus Christ by faith, Heaven's expectation is that we live all our days following Him in trusting obedience. As we all commit to keep our eyes on Jesus, many potential distractions come along that can result in us getting off track. One of the most common and lethal distractions to those who are to follow Jesus is our tendency to fixate upon what is happening with other people. The life of a Jesus-follower requires intense focus on the Lord as He leads us. When we become distracted by how He is leading others, or the degree to which we believe they are faithfully following Him, we become sidetracked as we take our eyes off of Him. No clearer example of this danger is found in Scripture than that of the Apostle Peter. From this pivotal moment in his life, we see how easy it is to get distracted from following Jesus, and how intense Jesus is in His command for us to keep our eyes on Him.

Dangerous Elevations

November 19, 2023 • Jeff Lyle • Mark 9:30–35

We should not glamorize or romanticize the early Church - they had major issues just like we do today. If we go back 2,000 years in Church history, you will find there a problem that is still around today. One of these problems is our tendency to divide and fragment the unity of the Body of Christ based on what particular leader (or what type of leader) we think is the best suited to lead us. Jesus first followers had a major problem with envy for positions, leader-worshipping, and faulty awareness of inferior motivations for Kingdom ministry. What is the cure for these types of ills? Remaining centered on the person of Christ, and remaining tenaciously committed to the big-picture of the Kingdom no matter what others might be doing around you. In the end, the words of Jesus and the Apostle Paul empower us today to miss the landmines that the early Church repeatedly stepped on.

We Need A Move

November 12, 2023 • Jeff Lyle • Isaiah 64:1–9

If we are walking in the Spirit, then we are always hungry for more from God. We long for more of His presence to manifest. We see the great need for His power to change our own lives and the world around us. We pant after a greater experience of His ways becoming our ways. Yet, we also sense the struggles. We hit the bumps in the discipleship-road. Our flesh (and the flesh of others) hasn’t laid down and fully died. We live in the tension of knowing what God can and will do, versus the sometimes overwhelming reality that we are only experiencing a fraction of what we know is available to us from Him. In the end, we discover like the Prophet Isaiah long ago that we stand in need of a move from Heaven. This message reveals how we can position ourselves to receive and steward a move of God.