Believers Church, Chesapeake Virginia

Following God is not passive. It requires making decisions about who you want to be BEFORE you are in situations that test your convictions and then courageously holding to those.

If you really want to win in life you have to build your life on God. He is the author of life, he is the designer of the life we live and he knows best how it should be lived. A right relationship with God is the foundation for the rest of the wins that we will look at in this series. It is the very thing that can help us to run the rest of the bases in the correct order without taking shortcuts.

Third base, developing competence so that you can have winning results in the work place. With the great foundation built on God, having the right character, establishing great relationships, you are now positioned to achieve great things healthily!

Second base, how do you win with relationships? Most people learn and desire to be successful at work but they do it without winning at home. How can you do both? Winning in relationships is key to a home run life.

First base is all about developing character and building a solid foundation for relationships and work, which come next. This message will talk about how to win in the character department.

God has a plan for our lives, and it's for us to win in life. The problem is, many of us don't understand how to work with how God has designed the win (running the bases in the right order). Using the life of Joseph, I will walk through the bases and lay the foundation for the rest of the series on how to live a life that wins in all areas (inner self, in relationship, at home, and with God).

Our culture says that marriage should not be confined to just a man and a woman. Love is the only thing that really matters, and if that is homosexual marriage, then so what? Why does it matter and what does the Bible really say? This message will clearly define what the Bible says.

Our culture seems to say that when it comes to sex outside of marriage that people are going to do it anyways, so we should teach them to do it responsibly. Well, how's that working out for our culture? STD's are rampant and on the rise. Unwanted pregnancies and abortions rates are rising, divorces rates are climbing, commitment levels are falling. Have we done anyone any favors by blurring these lines that are firm in God's word?

Our culture says it doesn't matter what you do; if it feels good, it is permissible. Christians seem confused. Some say certain things are okay, like having a drink, but not other things, like having a smoke. Some can watch R-rated movies and don't think much of it and for others they view it as sin. How do we know what is sin and what is not? Which prohibitions are cultural and which are biblical?

Is there room in the church for more than one political party? If Jesus was here, how would he be voting? In this message we'll discover that Jesus transcends politics. He was not a one issue voter. He was for love and compassion and he was for personal responsibility. Jesus didn't come to start a political party but start a spiritual uprising...a revolution.

Our culture seems to say that Jesus was a good man, a good teacher and was loving and wise. But is that enough of a reason to follow him? Haven't there been other loving, wise people with good philosophies? Culture says, "yes, and it's up to everyone to decide for themselves who they will follow." But we don't follow Jesus because of what he said or for what he taught. We follow him because he is the only one who predicted his death and rose from the grave. He is alive today!

In this message we will examine how God provides rescue for those who belong to Him and call out to Him in prayer.

Don't Let Us Yield to Temptation!

We'll discover what to do with the sins that we have committed AND what to do with the sins that people have committed against us.

This is the only part of the prayer that tells us to ask for our physical needs to be met. It's also interesting to note that the prayer is for our "daily bread."

We won't understand the unclear portions of God's will without first being obedient to those things that are clearly seen and understood. We'll be challenged with DOING what we know to be God's will, and trusting in those things that MAY be God's will.

When we pray for the kingdom of God to come soon, we are asking that the Gospel be spread to those who don"t know Jesus. We are praying for our global partners to be effective, we are praying that many people come to faith here as well. Another aspect of this petition is praying for Christ to return in order to establish His kingdom.

One of the reasons tht we don't experience God's presence when we pray is because we don't worship him when we pray! Also, when we pray for "his name to be Holy" we are asking God to refine us and shape us and make us holy.

Prayer can be overwhelming; it can feel like our prayers don't go anywhere and we can struggle to practice prayer...and yet...Jesus told us exactly how we ought to pray when he responded to the disciples request, "teach us how to pray."

The final message of this series will be about finishing strong and developing the endurance needed to win. We will experience relapses and failures. We will discuss what to do when failure happens and how we don't have to let failure define us.