Tuesday Evening Revival January 20, 2009

PREACHER: John Ritchie, Assistant Pastor

JEFF CLARK TESTIMONY

Romans 1:20

God’s data is absolute truth.  You can trust God. 

PASTOR SCHWARZ SPECIAL: My Redeemer Is Faithful and True

THE GREAT OMISSION: THE NECESSITY OF DISCIPLESHIP 

Matthew 28:18-20

What are we commanded to do?  Do we know entirely what it is that we’re commanded to do?  We are told to give the gospel, and to be engaged in the continuious act of teaching those who trust Christ.  Is it more than Sunday school?  What God had in mind was discipleship.  This is often the greatest failure in the church today. 

Discipleship–Who is it for?  Anyone who gets saved. It’s to bring people who get saved into an intimate relationship with Christ.  You have to get it on your own by yourself.  Salvation and discipleship are not the same thing, but they must work together.  Salvation gets you on the train, but discipleship improves the quality of your trip.  There’s a lot of track between where you left and where you’re going.  The ticket to first-class is discipleship.  We must show the saved how to develop a relationship with the Savior for themselves.  What do I do with what I just got?  And why?

Where does it begin?  When we understand that we do really need eachother and commit to eachother in friendships with Christ as the focus. Only when devoted Christians obey the command to teach (as in verse 20).  We are all in this together. Everyone is at a different spiritual level.  If we make the effort, we can seek out and create relationships with others that are spiritually beneficial to both parties.  A friendship must start before any real teaching can begin.  We are all in this together.  We are all called to be disciplers.  Have God shown you some things in your life?  If so, you’ve got something to teach!  Anyone can be a friend.  Realize that people are worth the investment of your time.  Count on God to do the teaching through your friendship.

What do we teach in structured discipleship?  It’s as much what you’re taught as how you’re taught.  There is no dumb question.  Go at your own pace.  Two are better than one.  If you fall alone, who’s going to be there to pick you up?  Teach Bible and Bible alone.  Don’t teach preferences.  Don’t teach what to think, but HOW to think for yourself.

Know the whys to doing things.  Decide to be a friend, not a know-it-all.  We’re all in this together and we all need eachother.  Look around you to see who needs you to be their friend.  God will bless both you and that other person.  Have a friendship with the focus on Christ.  Be a friend, have a friend.  Let’s get busy teaching!

Sunday Evening Service January 11, 2009

PREACHER: John Ritchie, Assistant Pastor

Intro by: Associate Pastor Ed Schwarz

How to Pitch a Tent/Why Lot Flopped

Genesis 13:12

We don’t often recognize emotional or spiritual dangers.  God knows what’s best for you, and it may not be the same thing that is best for someone else.  God expects you to posess your posessions, not to allow them to posess you.  You can’t be honest with God until you’re honest with yourself.  How do you hold your posessions?  It determines the decisions you make in your life.  How do you view the things you’ve got?  It’s a lot easier to manage your things with an open hand. 

We undervalue the importance of the decisions we make today and their impact on tomorrow’s. The things we see are temporary.  Be careful who you allow to influence you, because you will become what they are. 

The tent represents your life.  What are you going to pitch your tent towards?  Which way and how are you pitching your tent?  What have you turned yourself over to or given yourself over for?  God often has more for us if we would just wait on His timing.  God has so much for us! 

Don’t straddle the fence spiritually.  God didn’t save Lot from himself more than He will save us from ourselves.  We choose to make God Lord of our life or to reject His leadership.  Is there any proof in our lives/the way we pitch our tents that we are Christians?  Look at things through God’s eyes and not your own.

Where are you pitching your tent?  Are you serving God?  Do things His way.  He’s got so much to give!  He wants to bless you.  What are you going to do with what you hear?  When are we going to wake up? When are we going to decide to make a change?  Resist the temptation to submit too much to time-consuming temporal things.

Sunday Evening Service – May 18, 2008

PREACHER: John Ritchie, Assistant Pastor

Sermon Outline: “Why sit we here until we die?”

II Kings 7:3-16a

Sometimes we think that after we get saved, everything will be peaches and cream from then on. We expect to never have any more problems from that point on. The truth is, living the Christian life is not always easy. It seems that those who are the most serious about their Christianity often have the most and biggest problems.

Often we find ourselves in desperate situations with no reasonable solutions at hand.

When difficulties come—and they will—they don’t necessarily indicate anything (like sin).

A. For a nation.

B. For an individual (vs. 3-4)

a. Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people.

b. Difficulties don’t define people. They don’t automatically mean that someone has done something wrong.

c. Don’t automatically assume that difficulties are God’s judgment in your own life. It could be that God is trying to teach you something or preparing to deliver you to glorify Himself.

These men in II Kings truly were afflicted, just as we are.

a. They were afflicted with leprosy—something they could do nothing about. We often dwell on the problems we can do nothing to fix or change—like our pasts.

b. They were afflicted with hunger—something they could possibly do something about. These show us situational difficulties. Given enough time, some relief can usually be found. These difficulties drift in and out of our lives.

These men accurately assessed their situation. They seemed to be between a rock and a hard place. Before they could find a solution, they had to assess their situation objectively.

a. Ask yourself, “Is this situation changeable?” Is it really a problem, or are you making a mountain out of a mole-hill? If it is not changeable, we need to move on. If it is changeable, we need to see what we can do about it.

b. Be honest with God and with yourself. Make sure that you are right with God. If you are, look elsewhere.

These men took action.

a. These men determined to do something.

b. These men ventured into the unknown. God already has all the answers for our unknowns. What appears to be desperate and hopeless to us appears to God as an opportunity for divine deliverance!

These men achieved.

a. Personally

b. For a nation

Conclusion:

A good relationship with God is gained when we develop a proper perspective on the trials of life. Instead of focusing on the hardship, focus on the fact that God is getting ready to do something!

Building a Fire Revival – January 22, 2008

PREACHER:  John Ritchie, Assistant Pastor

SERMON TITLE:  “Don’t Wait Too Late!” Convenient Christianity

TEXT:  Matthew 4:18-22, Jeremiah 35:17

We have a calling, then an enabling, and then the response.

God is asking you to do some things.  There is a surety of God’s calling. (vs. 19)  God is still calling out to men and women today.  He’s calling us to follow Him and serve Him. 

Where are you tonight?  God’s calling you.  Are you saved?  You know whether you are or not.  If you are, then there’s more.  God is not done with you once you get saved.  God’s call to salvation is also a call to service.  If you’re saved, start serving God. 

It is God who enables/gives us the ability to fulfill the duties of that calling.  We ignore God’s callings because of a fear of the unknown.  We fear what may happen, what we will miss, or what He may request of us.  Where God guides, He provides.  God’s callings are God’s enablings.  Rust ruins tools. 

When God calls, what is to be the acceptable, expected response from us?  (vs. 20)  Peter and Andrew’s response was to immediately leave their nets and follow Jesus.  God wants us to follow Him immediately, and not procrastinate in doing what He wants.  Don’t put things off until tomorrow.  Tomorrow is not guaranteed.  Today is the only day we have with certainty.  God will let you off the hook and pass you by if you choose to keep waiting.  Don’t wait to do what God wants you to do. 

Don’t wait too late to invest in your marriage.

Don’t wait too late to invest in your children.  

Don’t wait too late to tell people how you feel about them.

Don’t wait too late to get serious about your Christianity.  People are watching you and making a decision about what they will do with Jesus based on your actions.

Let God paint the perfect picture of His Son upon the canvas of your life.

Don’t wait too late to trust Christ as your personal saviour. 

May 6, 2007 Sunday Morning Service

This sermon was given by Pastor John Ritchie on May 6, 2007 at Lighthouse Baptist Church.  Right Click Here and “Save Target as” to save the sermon to your computer.

Matthew 14

JUST A LITTLE FAITH IS ALL IT TAKES!

Do you have trouble making decisions?  Does it take you a long time to make up your mind about something?

Be careful about what you pray for.  Ask for Him to guide and direct you with a willing heart to follow His leading.  God often leads into these times and places of decision.  God will not force His will upon you.  He will bring you to a point of making a decision for Him.  But, it is still ultimately up to us as to whether or not we choose the God-honoring choice.   God never forces His will or His way upon us.  God is a gentleman, who allows us to choose.

If God really has our best interests in mind, then why do we struggle so much in our decision making? A lack of faith in God is the basis of our indecisiveness.   God is not expecting you to be a spiritual giant.  We are constantly prone to unfair comparisons.  We should not compare ourselves among ourselves.  God has an individual, specific will for your life.  Don’t campare your calling to others’.

All God expects is that whenever He leads us to a place of decision, we will excersise our faith.  If God is the Giver of our faith, then the robber of our faith (satan) is the one who we are allowing to complicate our decision making. 

Just a little faith is all it takes!

It is God who is leading us into these places of decision.  God leads men to places of decision where a choice must be made within a particular period of time.  Don’t let Jesus of God’s will pass you by.  If you don’t choose, your chance will be missed.  These men had to decide who Jesus really was.