“When will you allow yourself to be set free from the past that you’ve created?”

-Jason Stone

Phil. 3:13-14

Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

What in your present is affecting your future?

*Maybe you’re a slave to a past that you had nothing to do with.

*Maybe you’re a slave to a present that you have no control over.

Some of you may be going home to drunk parents...

Some, maybe to parents that don’t tell you how much they love you or how special you are. 

_______________________________________

Are you going to let someone else blaze your trail for you?       I know I’m not.

YOU ARE SPECIAL TO GOD

Deuteronomy 32:10-11 (The Message)

He found him out in the wilderness,
in an empty, windswept wasteland. He threw his arms around him, lavished attention on him, guarding him as the apple of his eye. He was like an eagle hovering over its nest,
overshadowing its young, Then spreading its wings, lifting them into the air, teaching them to fly.

I hope that you can feel God’s love tonight.

He is wanting to father you.

Wanting to teach you how to fly!

He is the Father of fathers...the perfect father.

REGARDLESS OF YOUR PAST, PRESENT, OR FUTURE, GOD IS CALLING YOU TO FIX YOUR EYES ON ONE GOAL, JESUS CHRIST!

WORSHIP!

What is worship?

“Worship is...our response, both personal and corporate, to God--for who He is!  And what He has done!”  -Louie Giglio

“We don’t initiate worship; God does.”

God works and we respond...

Has God worked in your life?  What has he done in your life?

2 Samuel 6:12-15; 21-22

12 Now King David was told, "The LORD has blessed the household of Obed-Edom and everything he has, because of the ark of God." So David went down and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the City of David with rejoicing. 13 When those who were carrying the ark of the LORD had taken six steps, he sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf. 14 David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the LORD with all his might, 15 while he and the entire house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouts and the sound of trumpets.

21 David said to Michal, "It was before the LORD, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the LORD's people Israel—I will celebrate before the LORD. 22 I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. 

David saw God’s blessing and he responded with complete abandon.

How does God desire us to worship Him?

1)  With your life

Romans 12:1

  1Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God this is your spiritual act of worship.

2)  In Spirit and Truth

John 4:23

23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.

God will still be God even if we don’t worship Him.  He doesn’t need us; He wants us.  It’s an invitation.

Luke 19:37-40

37 As he was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives— the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, 38 saying, "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!" 39 And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, rebuke your disciples." 40 He answered, "I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out."

Even the rocks cry out!

The Wild Dance

The Wild Dance

Wild- stormy; violent. Savage; ferocious. Extravagant; fantastic.

Dance- v. move quiveringly from emotion. n. a party for dancing; ball.

The Christian life is a STORMY, FEROCIOUS, EXTRAVAGANT party filled with EMOTIONAL DANCING!!

It is a wild dance.

There is nothing tame about it.

If your walk with God seems tame, boring or mundane, YOU AREN’T LIVING A LIFE IN LOVE WITH JESUS.

Jesus is romantic.

He is wild, unrelenting, persistent, courageous, bold, valiant.

He is LONGING to engage you in a PASSIONATE dance.

Are you dancing?

“You turned my wailing into DANCING; you removed my sackcloth and CLOTHED ME WITH JOY, that my heart MAY SING TO YOU and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.” (Psalms 30:11-12).

Why are you not dancing?

You fell out of love.

Rev. 2:2-5

Doing the “right” thing is not good enough....

In the midst of you trying to be the BEST CHRISTIAN YOU CAN BE, “You have FORSAKEN your first love.”

You have left Jesus out on the dance floor all alone... 

How do I start dancing again?

“Remember the height from which you have fallen.” (Rev. 2:5)

You were once in love with God.

Jesus is waiting right where you left Him to pick up right where you left off.

There was a time when God was your pursuit and Jesus was your delight.

Jesus is simply saying, “Come back!”

There is no need to be cleansed...He’ll take care of that.

He doesn’t care where you’ve been; He just wants you with Him.

“I want to get lost in the BEAUTY OF JESUS and DANCE through the night around your throne.” –Evan Earwicker

“God is not merely the reason behind existence, nor the curer of ills and confusion. Matter and thought are a canvas on which god paints;  ...a painting of tragedy and delivery, with sin and redemption. Life is a dance toward god. And the dance is not so graceful as we might think. For while we glide and swing our practiced sway, god crowds our feet, bumps our toes, and scuffs our shoes. He lowers his head, whispers soft and confident, 'You will dance to the beat of 'amazing grace' or you will not dance at all.'  So we learn to dance with the one who made us. And it is a taxing dance to learn. But once learned, don't we glide. And don't we sway. And don't we bury our head in his chest. And don't we love to dance." -prayer and the art of volkswagon maintenance (Don Miller)