Grace Chapel Podcast | Leipers Fork, Tn

As followers of Jesus, we all have an enemy that is always planning and scheming to destroy the good work that God wants to accomplish in us and through us. While we can't avoid hardship or challenges in life, we can be prepared to overcome the enemy's temptations by expecting to be tested, preparing in advance, and predetermining our limits.

This morning, Pastor Jimmy spoke on the importance of forgiveness, the dangers of unforgiveness, and the practice of forgiving. The purpose of forgiveness is to create a community that is full of grace, where imperfect people live together, overflowing with God’s love.

With the events unfolding in Israel, Pastor Rob is joined by Pastor Don Finto to talk through what is happening on the other side of the world, how it relates to what we see described in Scripture, and what it means for us as the church in America here and now.

Last week we talked about being bold in prayer, and this week Pastor Rob shared with us the importance of being persistent in prayer. There are things that happen when we pray that wouldn’t happen if we didn’t. Jesus invites us to relentlessly bring our requests to the Father with a childlike audacity – like a child pestering their parent, we are to ask, and ask, and ask until we get what we're asking for. If you have been asking for a long time and have grown weary, God's invitation for you today is to ask again, seek again, knock again, and continue to do so until you get an answer.

By teaching us to pray "on earth as it is in heaven", Jesus extends an invitation for us to pray prayers that change earthly realities by finding broken things of this world and praying Heaven into those situations with boldness. We tend to pray vague, general, and safe prayers because we don't want to be disappointed by God. If we get specific there is potential to be disappointed by God if He says no, but we’ll also never see the power of God as long as we pray vague prayers. Start praying bold, specific prayers that have power to move mountains!

God cares about our desires, and He wants us to express them to Him, but when we pray "Your will be done", we are choosing to trust and submit to God because we believe that what He has planned for us is far better than anything we could come up with on our own.

This morning Pastor Rob reminded us that the Kingdom of God is not just in heaven, but right here in our midst! When we pray “Your Kingdom come” from Matthew 6, it means we are desiring others to experience the Kingdom of God and for us to be more present in it. It also means we're clinging to the incredible hope that no matter what our circumstances look like right now, one day the One True King will return, His kingdom will be fully established, and there will be no more tears, no more suffering, no more hate, no more division, no more injustice, and no more heartache.

Hallowing the name of God is about recognizing and honoring the greatness, power, holiness, and majesty of God. However, Jesus didn't tell us to hallow the name of God for God’s benefit – it’s for ours. As humans we were made to worship, and because of this, everyone hallows something, but the only way we ever find peace and rest for our souls is if we hallow God. Praying this way is a reminder to ourselves that God alone is holy, distinct, set apart, the One all of our love and worship must be set upon.

In Jesus' model prayer, He teaches us to start with “Our Father” because not only does this change how we think of God, it radically changes how we think of ourselves. It’s not only a reminder of who God is, it reminds us of who we are. God invites us to address Him as our Father. Our prayers aren’t heard because of rhetoric, ritual, or religion; our prayers are heard because of relationship.Today, go to God as your Father and be His child. Remember who He is, who you are, and who we are to one another as you pray “Our Father.”

This morning Pastor Rob broke down the passage in Matthew 6 that we know as the Lord's Prayer into six themes, each of which we will be diving deeper into in the coming weeks of the series. Whether you're new to prayer or you consider yourself a prayer expert, grab 5 or 10 minutes this week with your Bible in a quiet place where you won’t be distracted or interrupted, and work your way through the Lord’s Prayer. As you invite God to teach you to pray, as you learn to be with Him and enjoy Him, prayer will eventually no longer be a discipline, but a delight that you cannot go without. Prayer isn’t a formula, it’s a relationship that changes us.

This morning Pastor Rob kicked off the Enjoying God series on prayer with the obstacles of prayer, the purpose of prayer, and the practice of prayer. God is deeply personal and relational, and He’s created us to enjoy Him forever! We can’t enjoy someone we are not in relationship with, and we can’t be in relationship with someone we never communicate with. Prayer is our primary connection point with God and it is our means by which we get to enjoy Him.

Our hope and desire is for our body of believers to become people deeply formed into the image, the character, and the ways of Christ. That through growing in the spiritual disciplines, we would be people that go deep with Jesus and experience the life that He invites us into by living the way that Jesus lived and doing the things that Jesus did.

We have a million reasons to do life on our own, but we were made to be in relationship with others. God’s strategy to reach the entire world is through discipleship –  the call on every believer is to make disciples. When regular, imperfect people step up, and step in to invest in a few the Lord moves in powerful ways. Pastor Jimmy's challenge to us today was to step up and step in, and watch what God will do!

This morning, Pastor Jake Spencer from Grace Chapel Knoxville, preached from Joshua 23 & 24 on what it means to live a legacy. As Christians, it is important for us to understand our legacy, carry our legacy, and endure our legacy.

In Ephesians 6:13-20, Paul tells Christians to put on the whole armor of God. Putting on the Belt of Truth, the Breastplate of Righteousness, the Sandals of Peace, the Shield of Faith, the Helmet of Salvation, and the Sword of the Spirit are vital to fighting the spiritual battle around us.

In Ephesians 6:12, Paul tells us we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but that there are evil spiritual forces at work against us that we need to be prepared to withstand. We are not called to live a safe Christian life. God has created us to live a dangerous, risky, and courageous life! While the devil wants to keep us comfortable, entertained, and distracted, God wants to fill us with a vision that will compel us to get radically uncomfortable so that the world would know the goodness and glory of God.

This morning we were reminded from Ephesians 6:1-9 that as followers of Christ, we can make a kingdom impact by serving with a sincere heart in both work and family life. All (moral) work is a calling from God, which should affect how we view and approach our daily lives. No matter what your vocation is, do it with all your heart as serving the Lord.

This morning Pastor Dave Buehring brought wisdom and clarity to what Paul is saying in Ephesians 5 about how godly marriages should function. Both man and woman are to live first unto and for the Lord – the real “head” of the marriage is always Jesus – and to live in mutual submission to one another, seeking to come alongside each other in fulfilling the calling and purposes of God in their lives.

This morning Pastor Jimmy dug into the first half of Ephesians 5 where Paul explains how to be imitators of God and says, "At one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light." As God's beloved children, we are all called to walk in love, in purity, and in wisdom.

In the second half of Ephesians 4, Paul says to put off your old self and put on the new self, and what he’s telling us is how we are to live now that we’ve been rescued and redeemed by Christ. Becoming a follower of Jesus is not about behavior modification, it’s about identity transformation. You don’t have to get your life cleaned up before you come to Christ. However, when we become followers of Jesus, even though we are a new creation, we must be intentional about putting off the old life and putting on the new by the power of the Holy Spirit living inside us.