Pastor Felipe Borja:  Sermon at New Heart Baptist Church ……………… 19.07.15
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Acts 17:24, 25   Good News Translation
God, who made the world and everything in it, is Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made by human hands.
Nor does he need anything that we can supply by working for him, since it is he himself who gives life and breath and everything else to everyone.
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> Living to God _____________>>>> do we expect God to do this and do that?
> Do not serve God …… He is not served by human hands
> There is a huge curve ball in our Christian worldview. All of us in the Bible are called to serve the Lord. The Bible describes non servant hood as being empty and void.

> There is a paradox here:
Serving God >>                << Non Serving God
Service that is owed to God _____________>>>> God doesn’t approve at all.

There are three things we need to practice in this area:
1. Serve God with the strength to serve him. I Peter 4:11 If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.

2. Serve God with the strength He supplies.

3. Serve God because who made the world and everything in it so that God may be praised that God be glorified. In-spite of our hardness God still gives us grace throughout our week in whatever we are doing.

Acts 7:24,25 He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defence and avenged him by killing the Egyptian.
Moses thought that his own people would realise that God was using him to rescue them but they did not realise this. ie. He is to get the glory vs. God. It says in Psalm 100:2 Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.
This Psalm means that God is extremely valuable in Himself.  It means that we serve with from glorifying God. The Pharisees in comparison tried to serve God and get payment from God for their serving.
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Personal Reflections on Serving:
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New Heavens and New Earth: Jesus through the Apostle John says in Revelation 21: 1-2 (GODS WORD Translation):  New Heaven and a New Earth: 21 I saw a new heaven and a new earth, because the first heaven and earth had disappeared, and the sea was gone. 2 Then I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, dressed like a bride ready for her husband. ie. Paradise is a new heavens and a new earth. I suggest you read Revelation Chapters 21 and 22. Also read overtime the whole of the book of Revelation to get the overall context and see how it all works in the end.

Your and my involvement in what do we from hereon  comes from the above passage.  The new heaven and a new earth  that John saw, is in future but for the followers of Jesus on earth (Christians) were meant to be a faint glimmer of that future New Heaven and a New Earth. This is what the church really is. The Church of Jesus Christ is a communal thing experiencing experience koinonia in a major way (rather than a Christian Corporation). In the Lord’s Prayer Jesus says in Matthew 6:9-13 (GODS WORD Translation) This is how you should pray: Our Father in heaven, let your name be kept holy. Let your kingdom come. Let your will be done on earth as it is done in heaven. Give us our daily bread today. Forgive us as we forgive others. Don’t allow us to be tempted. Instead, rescue us from the evil one.

He says: Let your will be done on earth as it is done in heaven. This prayer is a faint glimmer of that future New Heaven and a New Earth. This means in that we do we are to bring Heaven down to earth.

The Kingdom of God is all that Jesus is focused on in His 3.5 years of mission on earth. In all he did and demonstrated, it was a visible demonstration of what that new heaven and a new earth was all about.

Then you come to  an encounter between Jesus and the  the  Pharisees.  Jesus says in Luke 17: 20-21 (GODS WORD Translation) . The Pharisees Ask about the Kingdom of God
20 The Pharisees asked Jesus when Gods kingdom would come (ie. Paradise). He answered them, People can observe the coming of Gods kingdom. 21 They cant say, Here it is! or There it is! You see, the kingdom of God is within you.

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