Sermon Central
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The Attitude Of Now Series
Contributed by Kirk Devine on Feb 21, 2007 (message contributor)
Summary: Our church theme for 2007 is "Kingdom Now Living" based on Matthew 6:10. The Lord gave me a series of messages to share with our congregation as we started out the year that will carry us throughout 2007. We took the word ’NOW’ examined each letter to see
The Kingdom Now Series
DEVELOPING A NOW MENTALITY (Part 3)
THE ATTITUDE OF NOW
In part one of this series, we looked at the Anatomy of Now… We discovered that it was not God’s intention for us to live broke, busted, and disgusted down here on earth only to have wait to enjoy His riches and His Glory went we got to eternity… He wants us to have the Kingdom Living Mentality right now…! NOW: “at the present time or moment; without further delay; immediately; at once…” (Matt 6:10 Literal Translation) “Let your Kingdom manifest (show itself, become evident, be revealed) on earth, right here, right now…” And when we looked at the anatomy (analysis or examination) we discovered that the “N” in the word now dealt with (1) Your New Birth… (2) Your New Position… and (3) Your New Commitment…
Then we looked at the second letter of the word ‘now’; “O…” and we talked about “The Argument of Now…” Argument: “a process of reasoning; series of reasons; A statement, reason, or fact for or against a point…” (Romans 8…) (1) Through Deliberate Obedience… (2) Through Divine Orchestration… and (3) Through Destined Overcoming…
So to close this series out, I want to look at the third letter of the word ‘now’; “W …” and we’re going to examine “The Attitude of Now…” Attitude: manner, disposition, feeling, or position… a tendency or orientation… A state of mind or a feeling… If you’re going to have a Kingdom Living Now Mentality, you must first understand that it begins…
With Your New Birth…
With Your New Position…
With Your New Commitment…
Through Deliberate Obedience…
Through Divine Orchestration…
Through Destined Overcoming…
And finally you must first understand that Kingdom Living Now Mentality embraces an attitude of…
I. TRUE WORSHIP (John 4:23-24)
Worship comes from the Greek word, proskuneo… It is a compound word with two meanings put together. Pros: towards and Kuneo: to kiss… Worship means to kiss towards… there are two components of worship…
(1) Praise: (Story of my daughter’s puppy Chuckie…) (Point…) When Chuckie comes in my presence… That’s praise…!
- He gives praise because he’s in the presence of his master… - Who will care for him… He gets on his hind legs…
- Too macho… Too sanctified and saditified to praise Him…!
When you think about His Goodness and all He’s done for you… You can’t help but to praise Him…!
(2) Falling Prostrate: After Chuckie would praise me… He would come over to my chair… Lay his front paws way out… Stretch his hind legs way back… And lay flat on his stomach…! (You missed it…!)
Once you praise Him and recognize His awesomeness…
You can’t help but to fall prostrate before Him and worship…! (The act of worship…!) We must understand what it means to lay before the Lord in worship… (Difference between praise and worship…)
Praise: Gets us in the Presence of God… (His Attention) Worship (Falling Prostate): What we do when we get there…!
Gary Oliver: Praise: Talk Him Up (Give Props) Worship: When God gets a case of the “can’t help-its…!”
What I really trying to say is that the Kingdom Now Living mentality requires an attitude of True Worship…! Not only that, but secondly it requires…
II. TRUE WORK (Luke 2:41-52)
The word “work” comes from the Greek word, Ergon… It means to toil, or to labor… And I’ve found that most folk don’t want to work when it comes to kingdom issues… Most folk would rather just sit back and wait for “God to move…” They would rather wait for the church to become big, instead of helping it to grow… They would rather jus show up at the ‘new building’ than become a part of the building process… (Mess you up…) Work is not just showing up and having services… Jesus shows us true work through:
1. Edifying… (v 46-48)
2. Exercising… (v 49)
3. Exemplifying… (v 50-52)
(Trying to say…) A Kingdom Now Living Mentality requires an attitude of True Worship… It requires an attitude of True Work… Not only that, but finally it requires an attitude of…
III. TRUE WARFARE (2 Cor. 10:3-6)
Warfare is derived from the word strateia (stra-t-ay) in the Greek… It’s where we get the word strategy… And in light of this text, I have come to the realization that as believers, we are still lacking in some areas when it comes to warfare… Yes, we are on the “Battlefield, fighting for the Lord…” But we’re fighting the wrong war…! We’re fighting personalities… We’re fighting stress… We’re fighting each other…! But the text says, (v 3 Msg) “The world is unprincipled… It’s dog-eat-dog out there! The world doesn’t fight fair. But we don’t live or fight our battles that way—never have and never will. The tools of our trade aren’t for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture…
