Hamilton Hills Church

The overwhelming majority of parents say that parenting is harder than expected, and that they often parent based on others perception of how they parent.If only there was a book that could tell us what the purpose of children are.

There is nothing wrong with being a good person. Virtue is a good thing. But when we put on the Virtue Filter, it can turn be dangerous for ourselves and to others.

On Mother's day we hear from Denise, who share's her testimony about finding Jesus through her mother's strong and resilient faith. Denise shares how she found joy and peace in her life by loving Jesus with all her heart.

The Bible talks more about money than any other subject. We use money to achieve security and status in our life. In the Bible we learn that we get our security by the riches of God's glory. And we get our status from Jesus' sacrifice on the cross. 

Has there ever been a time in our life that you felt completely overwhelmed? You don't have to look very hard to see how distracted we are as a culture. One of our most valuable resources is our attention. Let's find an alternative to busyness.

Your body is important not because of how much better or equal it is compared to another body. It is precious because it is woven by God Himself. Because you were seen from the beginning of time. 

In Scripture Jesus consistently says that what is in our hearts is the most important. It is what inside that counts. Jesus teaches us that using filters to make ourselves look one way only keeps us from working on our self. 

Will you start a different life. Will you turn from the old disappointment and will you meet Jesus? He will take all of your mess ups, sin, and disappointment. Jesus will make you new. 

The more time we spend with Jesus. The more time we spend learning Jesus. The more time we will be like Jesus. The more that we are with Jesus the more we will conquer land for the Kingdom of God. 

When we give our heart to King Jesus and we turn away from the kingdoms of this world we desire His law. We love it actually. We don't look at it as a job or toil, but rather as a guideline on how to best represent the King. 

God wants you on the team, not just in the arena. God wants you in the Kingdom, but not to watch, but to be a part of the movement. To participate. We each have a job, a skill, a gift...an experience. And it's all for Him. It's time to get in the game!

The rule of King Jesus is benevolent. To be under the rule of Jesus is to be loved and cared for. To be under the rule of Jesus is to give your life to Him. To be under the rule of Jesus is to serve others.

When we turn to King Jesus for our direction, order, guidance, plans, dreams and thoughts. We join into His Kingdom here on Earth. So how do we repent, so that we can take part in the Kingdom of God?

Marriage is a God-designed order. The Bible clearly says that men and women are valued equally by God, and should be valued equally by followers of Christ. And in marriage, the roles of Men and Women are based in love and service to each other.

When talking about sex “Echad” means one flesh; spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Sex is meant to bring about oneness of a married couple. Echad, when practiced outside of marriage, can be destructive. It is like starting a fire outside a fireplace that was designed to safely harness it.

From the beginning the purpose of marriage was to help build the earth. Ultimately we all have a calling. God created marriage for a man and woman to find friendship and their spiritual calling in life.

God defines love as something that does not start with a feeling. Love starts with sacrifice. It is not a transaction, and it is selfless. The difference between the worlds definition of love and God's definition is vast. This is the message from Hamilton Hills Church on Sunday, February 5, 2023.

Do you get frustrated when you pray?  Maybe you don't know what to pray or even how to pray. Jesus says that prayer is about you and God. And Jesus gave us a good roadmap in the Lord's Prayer, found in the book of Matthew. We are going to break down how this gives us a clear indication of how God desires us to pray.

The correct posture of prayer is realized when we understand who we are in view of who God is. Our challenge when approaching God is often that we are not still enough to hear what He is wanting to tell us. Being still is derived from the concept of vacating.  We must find time to be still with God.  If we are not seeking to hear God's voice and seeking to be in His presence we will never find true shalom.

To Believe that God is near is to believe that he cares about you. The Bible instructs us "to not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." When we pray we can have the confidence that God is near, and He hears each an every prayer.

In our life, there will be a time when our understanding of God's character will not match up with our life's experience. When that happens, it can only be solved by the medium of prayer. By praying all of our thoughts, we are trusting in God's character, that He cares and understands and that there is no one else that can help, care, or love like He can.

In the new year we are looking for something new. Something different. We are already looking at new goals. Hoping that a new physical goal or new financial goal or new spiritual goal will fix the hole we have inside. Here is what you should consider today: waiting on God and listening for his voice. This is the message from Hamilton Hills Church on Sunday, January 1, 2023.

Many of you are waiting to be used by God or you are waiting to be able to praise God, but you haven't surrendered to God being able to use you. Your mouth is shut, your praise is gone, and you have no testimony to share with your Oikos.  God is calling you into His Story despite all the mess in our lives. He is calling you into a story of grace and story of love. The greatest story ever told. You have a role to play.

Christ came to live in our suffering, he didn't just take our suffering away. Through His suffering we can have an eternal relationship with God our creator. There was no other way it was going to happen! We are all responsible for the suffering in this world. We are sinners. Short of the glory of God. But Christ came and suffered in this life and took our mess and sin on Himself. He paid for it. This is the Christmas Story!

At the root of jealousy is comparison and at the heart of comparison is a lack of gratitude and awareness of purpose. One of the highlights of the Jesus' story is how everyone builds each other up. They encourage one another in faith. WE have a choice. We can brise to power in this world. Or we can in humility encourage each other in the roles that God has given all of us.

God wants you to be a part of the story He is writing. The shepherds, Mary, and Joseph wouldn't have the story God was writing if Mary didn't place the hope, peace, and love of Jesus in the manger. The manger was not, in this moment, a beautiful picture. And our story might not be a beautiful picture either, but God is writing you into His story.

We can say thank you to someone for a gift and it can be lip service. There is a difference between feeling gratitude and having a grateful heart. Gratitude genuinely acknowledges the efforts, sacrifice, and charity of others. What do you have to be thankful for? Remember, no matter what is going on in your life, God is always with you, God is always in you, and God is always for you.

God is not asking you to single-handedly save the world. Jesus Christ already did that! He is asking all of us to collectively spread the Good News to our Oikos. He gives us all the power and authority to reach others. What are you waiting for? 

Do you feel that you have lost your purpose? Or have you wandered and wavered from your faith? Maybe you only need to be reminded that your purpose is not over. With the principles in Oikos, you can be effective in reaching the people around you! God has strategically put people in the front row of your life. 8-15 people.

Do we value our faith community, but not the purpose of our faith? In other words, do we like what church community provides us? Those in our Connection Group or our Christian friends. Or do we get fulfilled by doing the purpose of the church with those in our Oikos that are actively pursuing their faith?

We know we are on mission with God when we are following Jesus. He said come after me. Are we doing just that, going after Jesus, pursuing Jesus and walking with Him? Discipleship, at heart, involves transformation at the deepest levels of our understanding, affection, and will by the Holy Spirit, through the Word of God and in relationship with the people of God.

We believe that are actions are what causes the Father to be pleased or displeased in us. Instead of living into our calling and purpose. Many of us will miss the greatest joy in life and live a life full of anxiety and pressure. And we will miss it. We will let everything else pull us away from the truth.

A healthy church is one in which there is unity in mission and from this flows enormous generosity. When the church begins to grasp Kingdom Theology it puts the Enemy on the defense, because the citizens of Heaven have realized their vocation. In order for this mission to become a reality each and every one of us is going to have to be of the same mind and heart.

All of us have desire and all of us have been taken captive by our desire. We have all let our desire, our affections, the eyes of our heart be deceived into thinking we needed something more than what we already have in Jesus. The real question is, “What are the eyes of our heart looking for?” We fixate on what we desire most.  To become more like Christ we must be sure that our affections are more for Him than anything else or any other!

How many of you would answer the question, “Why did Jesus die on the cross?” with “To pay for my sins!” or "So we can go to Heaven!”? This is not the wrong answer, but it's not the whole reason that Jesus died for us. By dying on the cross Jesus bridged the gap for a relationship with God. We get to be in a perfectly reconciled relationship with God!

God does not cause everything to happen. He causes everything to work together for the good of the people that choose Him. God did not create evil, but through His goodness he allows us to choose evil so that the love we would have would not be a manipulated, disingenuous love. And this is the lie that Satan wants you to believe: That God is not good. But, we know God is good, and nothing can separate us from His love.

The lies that we learn in church always come with a one dimensional truth. The church should be the one place we should hear the whole Truth. The hard thing about the truth is that we love to hear only what we want to hear. We need to take the Whole truth, and declare the goodness of God.

God has done some amazing things at our Church in last year. God worked through our people in missions, children's ministry, foster care support, production, first impressions, small groups, and worship.  Today we take time to celebrate some specific things God is doing in our midst. We are thankful for a church that serves God together!

The church is more organism than organization. Church is not man-made. Jesus Christ Himself started the church when He came to earth. It is the organism that Jesus started to bring about His Kingdom. But church is where we grow.

Have you ever met a bold or confident person? You know, the type of person that may even come across as a little intimidating? Maybe the boldness of this person attracted you or maybe you found it to be off-putting. If our confidence is not in Christ, we have a false sense of boldness, with can be “arrogance.” In order for the people of God to live bold lives, we need to serve God boldly.

You cannot be content while holding on to the chain of bitterness, resentment, and anger. When Christ died on the cross He didn't just pay for your sin, He paid the price for you to release the chains and forgive others. When the chains fall off, and we forgive, we have the ability to live in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Our Family members are the easiest to love, and the hardest to love...the easiest to bond and the easiest to be hurt by. God has given you your family for a purpose. In all its chaos, messiness, brokenness, and hurt. If your communication within your family does not line up with God's Word, then you are doing the work of the enemy, intentionally or not. What conversation do you need to have with someone in your family?

We think of rest as something that helps us work more, but God views work as something we do so that we can rest. Resting in the Lord is not binge watching Netflix or scrolling social media, it is setting aside time to be still. Rest is a scheduled refueling of our souls. We need to find rest in our lives in order to be available to follow God's leading.

Many in our culture have a skewed view of faith in which certainty is demanded, doubt is shunned, and ironically, explanations are scarce. The bible teaches us to create a culture in our lives where questions are welcomed and where uncertainty is OK. When we talk with people in our lives that are not sure about the Bible and Jesus, we need to help them through their doubt.

We cannot walk in humility, unity, separation, light, love and wisdom apart from the empowering of the Holy Spirit. All believers in Jesus Christ have God's Spirit living within them, or dwelling within them but not all believers live filled or controlled by the Spirit's power. If we are obedient to Christ, filled with the Spirit and living in the fullness we will have no problem filling every position needed to function the local church.

The bible teaches us the importance of doing good with our lives, and to avoid being overtaken by lust, pleasures, envy, evil and hate.  When we have already submitted to the teaching of God's word we will have the proper reflexes to the stressors and pressures of this world. We must commit ourselves to God and always be ready to do good.

Being totally committed means you are “Not Trying, You Are Training”. Allowing God to perfect His work in you, so that you can reflect Who He is and How He has changed your life so that other will see the work He has done. Committed doesn't mean perfect. Committed doesn't mean done. Committed doesn't mean you are accomplished. The more your life mirrors and reflects the Good News of Jesus the more that you will have influence in the front row of your life. 

The model structure on the blueprint of a healthy church is that each one of us as Jesus-followers, model Jesus' living through our lives. We all must live our lives as role models for others by standing for the truth and live out the truth that you have been taught and entrusted with. Maybe you feel like you haven't been the role model, the mom, the dad, the friend, the example for Christ that you should be? God is able to help you if you turn to Him.

We can find a great blueprint for a healthy church in Paul's letter to his disciple “Titus.” The more health the church is, the more health the people are. The healthier the people, the more influence you have to reach the people in your Oikos. The more the church grows, the more the Kingdom of God grows. We are called to be a church that is producing fruit.