more than we can imagine

1 Corinthians 2:1-9

I have a confession to make, I am prideful, because I think I know what will make this church grow.

I am vain because I think I can get this done.

I am arrogant because I am sure of my knowledge and experience.

But I am confronted by God, that my knowledge, hard work, experience, cannot force the church to Grow.

I get angry and blame people who do not support my ideas for the lack of growth in the church.

While cooperation would help, it will not by its self, bring success.

Only God can bring success and growth to our church.

Only God can heal the wounds you have inflicted on each other.

Only God can turn angry people into loving people.

Only God can fill each life in our church with grace and hope.

I cannot do these things. I is my pride, Vanity, and arrogance that thinks I can.

Jesus put it this way. John 15:5

The monkey in Kenya

You can get everything right but if you fail to have God behind it you will fail.

For some people Spiritual failure has become a way of life, even comfortable. Like welfare.

For some churches failure to thrive and grow….

But Paul gives us hope.

1 Corinthians 2:6-9 (ESV)
⁶  Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away.
⁷  But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.
⁸  None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
⁹  But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—

 

While our knowledge, wisdom, strength cannot make our church Grow, God can.

God creates the universe with a word. God causes great floods to cover the land.

God who makes an axe head float, a donkey talk, the sun stand still, protects his people in the fiery furnace. God heals the lame, blind and leprous. God who walked on water, took your sins to the cross and then rose from the dead, He can do what you can’t.

So what is the key to the wondrous power of God?

John 15:16 ask.

A theology lesson.

Predestination and providence. God is in control, God determines what happens, God has chosen you before you were born.

There are two groups of things,

Things pre-determined.

Things yet to be determined.

God chooses that a person will come to faith and be saved, but how that happens is not.
How many years a person suffers without Jesus is affected by our willingness to reach them.

The way you live your life matters, to your family, the people you live around, our community and our church. Your prayers matter, for while somethings have been predestined by God others have yet to be determined.

While we are powerless to accomplish anything on our own, God can do all things and even more than we can dream of or understand.

Pray for God to do amazing things, believe God to do amazing things, and then you will see God do amazing things.