No Longer Controlled, But Free

First, this will be Sunday you don't want to miss, so be there!

Have you ever felt, well... Stuck?

Have you ever felt like you are controlled and you can't do anything about it?  Let me guess, at some point or another you have thought, "I want to be a Christian, but I'm not good enough!"  Or maybe, "If I could break these addictions, then I could be a Christian, but there is no way, so I won't even try."

You have a sense of defeat.  Like you won't go anywhere... Ever.

Or maybe, speaking to those who are Christians, you feel like you want to live better, but you can't.  

We all feel stuck -- at some point or another.  We are stuck in a rut that we either don't know how to get out of or feel like we can't get out of, and we are defeated.

I have news: this isn't what God intended.  Do you want to know what God intends to do?  To set you free.  God wants to set you free from a life of control and put you into a house of freedom -- His own house.  He wants to... Well, he wants to adopt you.  

But what is this freedom stuff?  Aren't Christians supposed to do good things?  They can't cuss can they?  Well then how are they free?

Here's the thing: the story of the Bible is not a story about you, or me, chasing God.  Rather, it is about Gods pursuit of you.  He has chosen that even though we messed up, I messed up, you messed up, and chose to please ourselves rather than Him, that He would still pursue us.  Relentlessly.

But here's what happens.  As soon as you recognize what God has done for you, you will recognize the freedom you have, not to serve yourself, but to serve Him and to serve others.  After all, He served you by paying a hefty price on the cross.  That was no small price, and He did it because He was pursuing you.

You are being pursued by your Creator.  He made you.  He formed you.  He loves you.  And most of all, He wants you to love Him back.  That is why He is pursuing you.  He pursues you, and He pursues me so that we will love Him, just like He created us to.  And when we fulfill what we were created to do, we are set free.  

Now here is the challenge:  don't go back.  In the book of Exodus, in the Old Testament, God freed His people.  They began the journey to the land that God had promised to them, but then, when it got difficult, they wanted to go back.  They didn't think it was worth it.  They had been set free!  But they wanted to go back to a bunch of angry Egyptians who would enslave them once again.

Don't return to the slavery.  Don't serve yourself.  Don't serve the world.  Do what you were created to do.  Worship God.  After all, you don't want to return to the constrictions of this world, constrictions from which Jesus the Messiah rescued you.

Galatians 4:1-11

Five reasons you should come (and invite people) to Friday Night Fires, THIS WEEK.

First, I would like to say, this Friday Night Fires is unique!  We will have candy bags for the kids.  As always, it will be a family friendly environment.  It is specifically being done for the kids to have a safe environment for Halloween!

Here at English Mountain we believe that in order for people to believe in God, we must believe in Him first, and in order for people to see God, we have to show them who He is.  This pushes us to think differently.  Right now we often think of showing others who we are, but not about showing them who God is.

But, if we believe, others will believe.  And if we show them who God is, a God who lays down his life for His people, a God that gives up everything for His creation, by the way we live, then they will see who He truly is.

This is why I fully believe that these five things will enable us to build a healthy community that reaches people for God.

1.) Community

We believe that it is essential for you to be plugged in.  It is our vision to see you emerge as someone who is completely devoted to Jesus, to empower other people in the church to do Gods work, and to expand by reaching new people for Christ.  We believe that this happens through community.  After all, we exist to Engage God and Engage People so that all will be TRANSFORMED!  And we believe that there is no better way for you to be transformed than by getting involved in community and growing.

2.) Devotional

Every Friday Night we have a short devotional.  It is an environment where people feel comfortable to share and we have very good discussion.  By sharing with one another, we believe that we will all be challenged, we will all be encouraged, and we will all be drawn closer to one another in love.

3.) Impact

By inviting people, you can make a direct impact on the community.  When people come and experience the love of God that we show them, it makes an impact.  When they see that we believe, they will believe.  When we show them our own self sacrifice, they will ask why we love them so much.  And we will directly impact their lives by being able to say, "we love because He first loved us."

4.) Serve

There is no better way to continue your walk with God than by serving.  I heard it said once, "you are only as deep as the last person you served."  That statement is very true.  Christ said he came not to be served, but to serve.  We should follow His example.  We have many opportunities for serving.  We need food, tables set up, chairs set up, firewood to burn, etc.  You can also serve by offering to give your testimony.  If you would like to do so, please contact us with the info provided to the right.

5.) There will be FREE FOOD!

Who doesn't like free food?  "Free food is the best food."  We hope that by offering this and serving people, we will show people who God is.  We hope that we will make a direct impact on their lives.  If they do or do not return, we are glad we had the opportunity to serve them.

We hope to see you THIS FRIDAY!

BrickByBrick: Nehemiah Series #2

In the first sermon of this series on Nehemiah, we learned that we don't have a vision from God until we are concerned about something.  But, when we are concerned about something, inspiration begins to grow.  We begin thinking about making something better or building something.  Whether it be our relationships or our church, we learned that there must be a concern that things are not the way they should be or the way that they could be.  We learned that during this process, three things are necessary: concern, patience, and prayer.  You can follow the link to the explanation here.

Somewhere along the line of inspiration, there will come a period that we are convicted that our vision is not only something that should or could be, but that it is actually something that can be.  And it is during this time that we realize that God has called us to be the one who makes His vision a reality; turning what is into something much greater; something that looks a little more like heaven.  During this time of conviction, it is important to know two things.  One, God is always working whether we see it or not.  Two, God is the one at work, not us.  God works through the one who is dependent on Him.  Let's look at both of these a little more in depth.

#1 God is at work.

It is no surprise that God is at work.  This is not something that should take us off guard.  After all, God has been at work for thousands of years.  For instance, God was at work in the life of Joseph, a man who was thrown into a pit by his brothers, sold into slavery, accused of hitting on Pharaohs' wife, thrown into jail, and eventually brought back out of jail to interpret the dream of the Pharaoh.  Though it doesn't look like it on the surface, God was at work throughout Josephs' entire life.  Through everything that happened to Joseph, God strategically placed him in such a position that he was able to provide food for his family.  The life of Nehemiah is similar in this way.  We do not know how Nehemiah became the cup-bearer of the king, but we know that there was a story behind it.  A story that God was at work in the entire time.  After all, the only reason that Nehemiah had the opportunity to do much at all was because of his relationship to the king.  And so it is with us.  We can rest in the fact that God is at work behind the scenes, even though we feel like we may not be in the right position.  God has a plan.  The question is, are you convicted that God is at work in your life?  Are you convicted that he will bring the vision he has placed in your heart to fruition?  And that brings us to the second point.

#2  God is at work setting the stage.

As we have already seen, God has been at work and God remains at work.  But one thing that we need to peer into a little deeper is the fact that God is the one who brings things to fruition and sometimes we may never know how.  For instance, God gave Moses a vision to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt and to enter the promised land.  And this vision was steadily playing out until eventually the people of Israel were not allowed to enter into the promised land.  Instead, they wandered in the desert for forty years.  Moses never saw the fruit of his labor, yet Joshua did.  The point is this:  God orchestrated his plan to happen the way that he wanted to.  He had the people of Israel enter the promised land at the opportune time.  We are not promised that we will ever see the fruits of our labor, yet we are called to work.  We may never see how we impacted another persons life, but yet we now that God is at work.  This is the very reason that we are to do all things to the glory of God.  If we are constantly doing all things to the glory of God, then we are allowing God to work through us, and if He is able to work through us, He has one more tool to use in order to orchestrate His will.

So there you have it.  We now know how to start bringing Gods will to fruition in our lives.  The question is, what is concerning you?  What is it that God has laid on your heart?  Do you desire to see your relationship(s) changed?  What about the community?  Or, maybe the biggest of all, do you desire to see the church reaching out to those in need, helping them, sharing the Gospel with them, and seeing the Kingdom of God brought to earth?

I desire to see this world flipped upside down, and I know that we have to do it #brickbybrick 

Are you ready? 

1.)  Concern.  Patience.  Prayer.
2.)  God is at work.  God is at work setting the stage.

BrickByBrick: Nehemiah Series #1

A few weeks ago we began a new series on the book of Nehemiah.

The goal of this series is to learn how to discern what Gods vision for our lives is and how we allow Him to work His vision through us.

During the first week in the book of Nehemiah, we looked at the concept of inspiration and the three prominent things that it consists of.  We learned that those three things are concern, patience, and prayer.

#1 Concern

Every vision that we have is driven by a concern.  The only reason we have a vision at all is because we see something that is not the way it should be, or maybe not the way that it could be.  This concern drives us into a picture of something that is better than the present.  Concerns surround us.  Our relationships can be better, the amount of debt we are in could be less, we could be reaching more lost people and sharing the good news of the Gospel with them.  They surround us.

#2  Patience

A lot of the time, we see a concern and we want to get to work right away.  We could be in the midst of a separation with our spouse, and we want to fix the separation right away.  But, what we have to realize is that most of the time we have no power and no control over the situations we face.  What is even more important to realize is that God does have the power to change our situations.  For, as Paul tells us in Romans, "All things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose."

#3  Prayer

Since we know that God has the power to change situations and we do not, it is important to spend the majority of time in prayer.  Prayer concerning the vision that God has placed in our lives should be centered around the will of God.  Often, we come up with great ideas, and we see wonderful things that could happen, but yet we lack the anguish that is necessary.  We lack the broken heart that it takes to actually make a difference.  The anguish and the broken heart should be present because we see things the way they are and we desire them to be different in order to glorify God.  But, our desire should be the same as Gods desire.  As the Psalmist says, "Delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart."  If we delight in the Lord, our desires will become the same as His desires.  This happens the most through prayer.  As we immerse ourselves in the will of God, we will become people who want to take part in the vision of God.

These three steps are the most crucial to the vision that God may be placing in our lives.  Don't forget them.  Concern. Patience. Prayer.