Our House (Week 2), Jan. 16, 2022 - Andy Turner

In our second week of the sermon series "Our House," we continue discussing how we can become more like Jesus, individually, so that the church becomes more like Jesus, collectively. Andy shares about ways that we can live according to Jesus’ example, and follow what the scripture says, especially when it comes to forgiveness, guilt, apathy, and our relationships with those around us. “The only way to be the kind of follower that Jesus called for you to be… and the only way to the live the kind of life that Jesus desires for you to live… is to do the things that Jesus did and to follow the example of Jesus’ life.” “Each and every one of us have been gifted by the Holy Spirit, in some way… and that gift hasn’t been given to you so you can hoard it away, but so you can help the church be who the church was meant to be.” “The more that you become like Jesus, individually… the more that we become like Jesus, collectively.” “Guilt is not a good motivator. Guilt is not of God. Conviction is – but guilt is not.” “Maybe you look at yourself in the mirror and you just don’t care what you see… like you look into scripture and you just don’t care what you see. It’s not that you don’t see it… it’s just that you don’t care enough to remember it.” “How different would your life look if from the very beginning, you took the words of Jesus and the Apostles and you actually lived them?” “Here’s what I know about unforgiveness and bitterness – it doesn’t only affect the one person you’re unwilling to forgive. In time, it will impact every single relationship that you have. It’s going to cause your heart to become so, so hard. If we would just listen to the words of Jesus, from the very beginning, that bitterness and unforgiveness never would have had a fertile soil to grow in the first place.” “A lot of people want to ask ‘How close can I get to this line and still be ok?’ But if we would just listen to what the scripture says, we would understand how awful of a question that is.” “Scripture tells us to flee, to run as far as we can from sin, but we don’t always listen to scripture and do scripture. Instead we listen to scripture and try to find the loophole so we can still do pretty much whatever we want.” “Whenever we begin to listen to the words of Jesus and put them to practice, we will see that the Word is Living and Active. We will begin to see that this Word begins to transform who we are through the power of the Holy Spirit. We will begin to see our hearts change, and our minds change, and our lives change, that the things that we desire are no longer the things that we desire, but the things that we begin to desire are the things that Jesus desires because we are being transformed into his likeness.” “Whenever we begin to listen and do the words of scripture, we will realize that we have a solid hope to stand, whether things go our way or not – all because we heard his word and we did what he said.” “There are so many roadblocks that the enemy wants to use to distract people from who Jesus truly is… and my prayer is that we are not one of those roadblocks.”