Hamilton Hills Church

In our life, there will be a time when our understanding of God’s character will not match up with our life’s experience. When that happens, it can only be solved by the medium of prayer. By praying all of our thoughts, we are trusting in God’s character, that He cares and understands and that there is no one else that can help, care, or love like He can.

In the new year we are looking for something new. Something different. We are already looking at new goals. Hoping that a new physical goal or new financial goal or new spiritual goal will fix the hole we have inside. Here is what you should consider today: waiting on God and listening for his voice. This is the message from Hamilton Hills Church on Sunday, January 1, 2023.

Many of you are waiting to be used by God or you are waiting to be able to praise God, but you haven’t surrendered to God being able to use you. Your mouth is shut, your praise is gone, and you have no testimony to share with your Oikos.  God is calling you into His Story despite all the mess in our lives. He is calling you into a story of grace and story of love. The greatest story ever told. You have a role to play.

Christ came to live in our suffering, he didn’t just take our suffering away. Through His suffering we can have an eternal relationship with God our creator. There was no other way it was going to happen! We are all responsible for the suffering in this world. We are sinners. Short of the glory of God. But Christ came and suffered in this life and took our mess and sin on Himself. He paid for it. This is the Christmas Story!

At the root of jealousy is comparison and at the heart of comparison is a lack of gratitude and awareness of purpose. One of the highlights of the Jesus’ story is how everyone builds each other up. They encourage one another in faith. WE have a choice. We can b\rise to power in this world. Or we can in humility encourage each other in the roles that God has given all of us.

God wants you to be a part of the story He is writing. The shepherds, Mary, and Joseph wouldn't have the story God was writing if Mary didn't place the hope, peace, and love of Jesus in the manger. The manger was not, in this moment, a beautiful picture. And our story might not be a beautiful picture either, but God is writing you into His story.

We can say thank you to someone for a gift and it can be lip service. There is a difference between feeling gratitude and having a grateful heart. Gratitude genuinely acknowledges the efforts, sacrifice, and charity of others. What do you have to be thankful for? Remember, no matter what is going on in your life, God is always with you, God is always in you, and God is always for you.

God is not asking you to single-handedly save the world. Jesus Christ already did that! He is asking all of us to collectively spread the Good News to our Oikos. He gives us all the power and authority to reach others. What are you waiting for? 

Do you feel that you have lost your purpose? Or have you wandered and wavered from your faith? Maybe you only need to be reminded that your purpose is not over. With the principles in Oikos, you can be effective in reaching the people around you! God has strategically put people in the front row of your life. 8-15 people.

Do we value our faith community, but not the purpose of our faith? In other words, do we like what church community provides us? Those in our Connection Group or our Christian friends. Or do we get fulfilled by doing the purpose of the church with those in our Oikos that are actively pursuing their faith?

We know we are on mission with God when we are following Jesus. He said come after me. Are we doing just that, going after Jesus, pursuing Jesus and walking with Him? Discipleship, at heart, involves transformation at the deepest levels of our understanding, affection, and will by the Holy Spirit, through the Word of God and in relationship with the people of God.

We believe that are actions are what causes the Father to be pleased or displeased in us. Instead of living into our calling and purpose. Many of us will miss the greatest joy in life and live a life full of anxiety and pressure. And we will miss it. We will let everything else pull us away from the truth.

A healthy church is one in which there is unity in mission and from this flows enormous generosity. When the church begins to grasp Kingdom Theology it puts the Enemy on the defense, because the citizens of Heaven have realized their vocation. In order for this mission to become a reality each and every one of us is going to have to be of the same mind and heart.

All of us have desire and all of us have been taken captive by our desire. We have all let our desire, our affections, the eyes of our heart be deceived into thinking we needed something more than what we already have in Jesus. The real question is, “What are the eyes of our heart looking for?” We fixate on what we desire most.  To become more like Christ we must be sure that our affections are more for Him than anything else or any other!

How many of you would answer the question, “Why did Jesus die on the cross?” with “To pay for my sins!” or "So we can go to Heaven!”? This is not the wrong answer, but it's not the whole reason that Jesus died for us. By dying on the cross Jesus bridged the gap for a relationship with God. We get to be in a perfectly reconciled relationship with God!

God does not cause everything to happen. He causes everything to work together for the good of the people that choose Him. God did not create evil, but through His goodness he allows us to choose evil so that the love we would have would not be a manipulated, disingenuous love. And this is the lie that Satan wants you to believe: That God is not good. But, we know God is good, and nothing can separate us from His love.

The lies that we learn in church always come with a one dimensional truth. The church should be the one place we should hear the whole Truth. The hard thing about the truth is that we love to hear only what we want to hear. We need to take the Whole truth, and declare the goodness of God.

God has done some amazing things at our Church in last year. God worked through our people in missions, children's ministry, foster care support, production, first impressions, small groups, and worship.  Today we take time to celebrate some specific things God is doing in our midst. We are thankful for a church that serves God together!