Sermon Note Sunday

A new thing I have decided to do is share the notes I take from church or different podcast. There will be Sermon Note Sundays, and then SNS - Wednesday Editions, and other editions for the other days that I may listen to Podcasts or something.
If you aren't a Christian and you are saved and you don't like it oh well, it's my blog and I want the chance to share it with people in the hope that maybe I can help them.

So, for my first ever it'll actually be a Monday Edition, but posting it on Sunday anyway.

Pastor Steven Furtick at Elevation Church

Core: True Identity in Christ.

• The church is people, not just a building.
• The Christian life isn't about what God can get from me, but about what He can do for me.

*** Ephesians 2:1-10
"As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." ***

There are 3 things that Christian's are not:
1. Christian's are not God's improvement projects.

• People can't understand how good it is in Christ, until they realize how bad it was before Christ.
• I am not God's makeover, I am God's start over.
• We can't improve our relationships without realizing the presence of the Spirit of God.
• A relationship can't work and run without the supernatural presence of God in the relationship.
• Every evil desire I have can be dealt with the cross; it died and was taken care of on the cross.
• Jesus doesn't want to fix me up, and cover me up, and make me up, He wants to start all over demolish the old, excavate the foundation, then rebuild the foundation and make me brand new.

2. Christian's are not just sinner's saved by grace.

• Jesus got up, He didn't stay dead...He got up! Up is becoming above it not staying in it.
• God made us alive in Christ.
• We are God's saints, workmanship, children...we aren't sinner's covered in grace we are His beloved.

3. Christians are not spiritual schizophrenics.

• We do not have a good dog (Christianity) and a bad dog (sin) in us fighting, we are new creations.
• The Bible teaches us that a house divided against itself cannot stand. 

** Matthew 12:25 -  Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand."

• The old nature before Christ is dead, it's gone and my new identity is my rebirth with Christ, my new identity isn't about my behavior.
• People don't want to come inside Christianity, because they can't see the joy, purpose, etc. that comes with belonging in Christ.
• The moment I was born in Christ my identity changed and my nature changed; the old was gone.
• God made me brand new!!!
• It's not my nature to do what I use to do.
• Identity determines nature; as a Christian I have a new identity and a new nature. The reason I don't act the way I do is because of habits that become patterns. It's not my nature (in Christ) that causes me to sin, its my habits.
• Identity and behavior being misaligned leads me to sin.
• The Father in heaven is looking for everything I do right, and He is proud of everything I do right. He doesn't look for the wrong, He looks for the right.
• I am a saint in Jesus Christ at the very core of my being, even if the flesh is sinful.
• How I see myself and my identity is the second most important thing about me; the first being what I think of God.
• God looks on me with love....Always!

4. Christianity is not stopping what I love and starting what I hate.

• When God rebuilds me, He builds a 7 lane highway from my heart to His. My desires are His desires, and His desires become my desires.

** Psalm 37:4 - "Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart."

• My pattern/behavior is not my identity, its not really who I am. The core of my identity is to be more like Jesus, if I am with Him, but that doesn't mean I don't have tendencies to not want to act like I am in Christ and be sinful.
• Identify a need and a way God has spoken to me.
• (God has spoken to me a lot through this sermon. First He really helped me realize that Randy and I need to start over, we need to rebuild our foundation on solid ground it didn't necessarily get built on the most stable foundation at the beginning and in the early stages of our relationship holes and cracks happened all we did was cover them up; now we are in need of a serious excavation of everything so we can rebuild it strong in Christ. But this sermon also taught me about myself, I am new in Christ, I have a hard time seeing past my sin and my past but God doesn't see that and I am brand new so I don't have to keep going back to my old negative sinful self I have the ability to rise above it God has designed me to rise above it).
• God wants to make you brand new. He has already made me brand new.