how christians limit a limitless god - Harvest Free Will Baptist Church

HOW CHRISTIANS LIMIT A LIMITLESS GOD
#4 A Selfish Heart
Text – Psalms 78, Ephesians 1:10
Introduction One of the most common ways we can limit God is by being selfish. The children of Israel were
selfish towards their God! They took all God offered them and God gave freely to their need. However, God got very
little in return. They were selfish, mean and ungrateful. They limited God through their selfishness. Can this be true
with some of us Do we take willingly all our inheritance in Christ
1. God is Shamefully Limited by the Selfishness of His People
1. God gave the Israelites nothing but love, and the spurned the hand that fed them.
2. Selfishness always produces an absence of peace in the believer.
3. You show me a person who is enjoying the real deep peace of God, and you will be showing me
someone who is unselfish.
4. We have just one life to serve the Lord before we spend eternity enjoying our glorious inheritance.
5. The cost of being a Christian becomes a challenge to our natural selfishness.
God Wants to Rule Our Hearts the Human heart is composed of three parts - mind, emotions, and will, in these
three areas the Lord seeks to rule from the throne.
2. If God Is Going to Rule in Our Hearts then He Must Be Lord of Our Mind.
And many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds. Many of them also which
used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted
the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. (Acts 19:18-19)
Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God,
and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; (2 Corinthians 10:5)
1. When we allow Jesus to come into our hearts, we have many decisions to make.
2. If Jesus Christ is to be Lord of my mind, then my mind must be prepared to
receive Him.
3. The Christian’s thinking process must be pure and holy.
4. Jesus Christ must be the Lord of my mind, and what ever is dirty or doubtful, should be burned.
3. If God Is Going to Rule in Our Hearts then He Must Be Lord of Our Emotions.
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I
now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
(Galatians 2:20)
1. If Jesus Christ is to be Lord of my heart, then He must be Lord also of my emotions and affections.
It is here that the outward presence of the indwelling Lord should be most demonstrated.
Harvest Free Will Baptist Church
www.harvestbakersfield.com
Pastor Kurt Lindgren
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HOW CHRISTIANS LIMIT A LIMITLESS GOD
2. Our human emotions and reactions are many and varied like the keyboard of a piano.
i. If Jesus were Lord of my emotions, there would be no sudden outburst of rage or childish
temper, no petty jealousy, no mean thoughts or vicious backbiting, no fake flattery seeking
personal advancement.
ii. If Jesus were Lord of my emotions, there would be pure and a holy quality about my
emotions that would be outstanding.
iii. If you are ruling your own life, then you will display your emotions at your own pleasure.
iv. If Jesus were Lord of my emotions, people would see a visible change in the way I act.
v. If Jesus were Lord of my emotions, Jesus would have an opportunity to display Himself.
vi. If Jesus were Lord of my emotions, my whole character will change.
vii. If Jesus were Lord of my emotions, people will recognize it, wonder, and ask why, and
Christ will be magnified in you.
4. If God Is Going to Rule in Our Hearts then He Must Be Lord of Our Will.
Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.
(John 4:34)
I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not
mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me. (John 5:30)
Conclusion
1. The mind reasons, the emotions react, and the will responds in an act of decision.
2. Often the will seems unreasonable, impetuous, and stupid.
3. We blurt out a remark, then wish with all our hearts we had never said it.
4. We decide a course of action and then spend months, sometimes years, in agony of remorse.
5. In the will, more than any other area of the human heart, the selfishness of a person is displayed.
In no other way can we give God the pleasure He seeks. Only when he is allowed to overrule, reason and
guide the area of my mind, to react to a given situation through the means of my emotions, and to respond
to a decision He has made.
Harvest Free Will Baptist Church
www.harvestbakersfield.com
Pastor Kurt Lindgren
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