Hayti First UMC

ADVENT BEGINS WITH HOPE A Christian’s definition of hope is far superior to that of the world. Instead of wishing or hoping for something to happen, a believer knows that their hope is solid, concrete evidence because it is grounded in the Word of God and we know that God cannot lie (Heb 6:18; Num 23:19). The Christian has a hope that is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1). It is a hope that is like faith…a faith that cannot be moved by circumstances or what the eyes see because an unseen God is seen in His faithfulness.

It all comes down to this! There is a key, to living the Christian life, to being the church that Jesus called us to be! In this final part of our series we take a really close look to see what that key is and how we can use it to open the door to being the church we were called to be!

What Christ did on the cross, if we accept it, changes us, we take off the old cloak of sin and self, and put on the new cloak of righteousness and love, so how is we keep wanting to put on our old dirty clothes instead of wearing our brand new clean ones?

If we are in Christ then we have died with Him and we are raised with Him, He lives in us and we take Him with us everywhere we go and He is with us in everything we do. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me to will and to do His good pleasure. So then why do we get bogged down with the rules and regulations that the world tries to shackle us with?

There was a time when spiritually earnest people were told to justify themselves by charitable works, pilgrimages, and all kinds of religious performances and devotions. They were encouraged to acquire this “merit,” which was at the disposal of the church, by purchasing certificates of indulgence. This was the context that prompted Luther’s desire to refocus the church on salvation by grace through faith on account of Christ by imputation of Christ’s righteousness to us. To those spiritually oppressed by indulgences and not given assurance of God’s grace, Luther proclaimed free grace to God’s true saints

God wants established Christians, solid, deep rooted, strong, who don't get pushed around by false information. And here's how. Get the Word in your mind. Scripture Tells us "In him lie hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" Start out by feeding on the Word, let it produce activity. That activity will give you settled conviction, the conviction will be that Christ is who He claimed, and then you can claim all of His promises and begin to walk step by step like He walked, and that's where your life will come from and as you walk in Him you'll be built up, and you'll even be more established in the faith!

There’s a lot of disenchantment for the church these days there’s a lot of disgruntled people who look at the church as irrelevant, a waste of time, and a useless endeavor. A lot of Christians seem to have forgotten the value of the church. For some it is nothing – a place one could go to. Some have lost the meaning, the purpose, and the joy of church. The church is, at it's core, Christ body here on earth, all serving under the headship of Jesus!

In the first chapter of Colossians Paul includes a hymn, whether it is one Paul wrote himself or one that was being used in the first century church is unimportant, what is important is that this hymn is used to remind us of who Christ is and what He has done for us!

The church of Jesus Christ exist for a reason, and it is when we forget the purpose of the church that Jesus bought with His own blood, that the church goes astray, it amazing how much of what the Colossians were facing we are facing in the church today! in this message we continue our study

The church at Colosse had established a good reputation among the Christian community of the first century, perhaps that is why Paul went to such lengths to remind them of that in his letter to them, to help combat the heresy that was making it's way into the church by reminding them of what they had first learned!

"Because of the rising tide of human philosophies confronting us today, no New Testament book speaks with more relevancy than does the epistle to the Colossians. Not only do we live in an atomic and space age, but in the most technologically advanced age of all time." Dr. S. Lewis Johnson In this message we begin our study of the letter to the Colossians.

If you have accepted Jesus as Lord and savior you have a new nature, but that doesn't mean that your old nature doesn't try to hang on, there is a constant battle within yourself, a battle for your mind and heart for your very soul, there is a conflict of interest between the things of God and the things of the world. We'll talk about how to battle that in this important message!

"Come Unto Me and I will Give you Rest" This is one of the most quoted bible verses from Jesus, but what does it really Mean? Most Christians are dealing with the same stresses and busyness of the world, but we know that God keeps His promises, so what is this all about? Find out in this special labor day message!

This is the final Lesson in the "Head Games" series and in this lesson we give some practical things you can do right now to begin renewing your mind, to think like Christ thinks, to become all that He wants for you to be, it really is simple, but it isn't easy, it takes an intentional effort to overcome the voices of the world and the enemy! But God has given the tools, and one of the best, your imagination!

Bad things may have happened in your life, things that made you wonder if God was there, if He really cared for you! The thing is, whatever has happened to you is NOT what defines you, and when you start looking at you, the way God looks at you, then your whole world will change!

Christ has given us a wonderful gift, the gift to be transformed from what we were into something totally new, but we have to do something too, we need to accept His gift and we we do, we find that we are transformed, like a butterfly fro the caterpillar we are a new creation made in the very image of God!

The 2 biggest questions of life who is God? and who are you? Answering these will determine everything, the world would have you conform to it's standards, but we are called to be different, to be a light to those who are living in darkness and when you realize who you really are in Christ, then you can fulfill the mission God has for you!

Who are you, that is the real question, some have, over the years, tried to convince us, in essence, that Jesus sacrifice isn't enough, that we must also conform to some set of do this and don't do that rules. But the truth is, that if you are a Christian, then you are the dwelling place of Jesus through the Holy Spirit, and if that is so, then God is with you everywhere you go! Let's think about what we are thinking about!

What we are thinking about is important! God has given us all the tools we need to live a Godly and Holy life, but if we don't take advantage of it we can be conned by the world into thinking that this is all there is! Time to think about what we are thinking about!

Whatever occupies most of our thought life is what we are meditating on, and what we meditate on ends up controlling us, God wants His people to start thinking about what they are thinking about!

There is a battle going on for your mind, the world pulls in one direction, the enemy in another, we act and think the way we were taught we are suppose too! But for the Christian it is different or at least it should be! It's time to start thinking about, what we are thinking about!

Christians and the church in general is suffering from what could be considered “Battle Fatigue” we look at what is going on in the world around us, and it doesn't matter what side of any particular issue we are on, the fatigue is real, the stress overwhelming! The truth is the church has become like the Israelites when they sent spies into the promised land, the spies came back and said “Yes this is truly a land flowing with milk and honey, but the problems are insurmountable” They stopped looking at what God had promised and instead started looking at the problem. Fatigue does this, the first symptom of battle fatigue is numbness, apathy, the inability to act, followed closely by irritability, lashing out, blaming others. And finally comes total breakdown. However by God's grace there is a way to overcome battle fatigue in the church!

Christians and the church in general are suffering from what could be considered “Battle Fatigue” we look at what is going on in the world around us, and it doesn't matter what side of any particular issue we are on, the fatigue is real, the stress overwhelming! The truth is the church has become like the Israelites when they sent spies into the promised land, the spies came back and said “Yes this is truly a land flowing with milk and honey, but the problems are insurmountable” They stopped looking at what God had promised and instead started looking at the problem. Fatigue does this, the first symptom of battle fatigue is numbness, apathy, the inability to act, followed closely by irritability, lashing out, blaming others. And finally comes total breakdown. However by God's grace there is a way to overcome battle fatigue in the church!

After the Lord ascended the disciples headed back to Jerusalem to wait and after arriving at the upper room the disciples had the first church business meeting! Here we look at this meeting to understand how God meant for us to handle the business side of the church!

We can never fully comprehend the concept of the Trinity, however The First Person of the Trinity, in His role as Father, loves the Second Person of the Trinity, the Son. And in His role as Son, the Second Person of the Trinity listens and follows what the Father says because of His own love for the Father and because He knows and has known the Father’s love throughout eternity, so following the Father is anything but a burden, it is a joy because of the love they have. And this love is experienced through the Third Person of the Trinity, the Spirit, also known as the Comforter. This lesson attempt to help us understand that we experience God, for the most part, through the Holy Spirit!

A guarantee of payment is a legally binding document that is issued by a bank or similar financial institution on behalf of a client. The letter is essentially a contract that confirms that, in the event that the bank client should default on a specific debt obligation, the bank will settle the outstanding balance owed. God Made Us a promise and on the Day of Pentecost He made a good faith guarantee that He will fulfill His promise!

Easter Sunday, every year we celebrate it! But do we really get it? When we think about Easter we think of the Resurrection but let's go a little deeper, it is the culmination of a plan God made to redeem His people, God didn't do it for Himself, He did it because of His everlasting Love for Us, in other words, Easter is truly All About You!

What is so Good about Good Friday, it was after all the day on which our Lord was crucified, but without it, where would we be? On the cross Jesus proclaimed “It is Finished!”, What did He mean by that? and What does it mean for Us? In this special Good Friday message we take a closer Look.

When Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday the people cried out "Hosanna to the Son of David! 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!' Hosanna in the highest!" but did they really understand what was happening? Do We? In this message we continue our study on Grace and the significance of what was really going on on Palm Sunday

Philip Yancey said this “Grace is unfair. We deserve God’s wrath and get God’s love, deserve punishment and get forgiveness. We don’t get what we deserve. Paul put it ironically, “The wages of sin is death, the gift of God is eternal life.” We work hard for wages, which vanish at death; we do nothing to deserve grace, and get life eternal. If you want fairness, try a religion like Hinduism, which says we may have to go through thousands, even millions of incarnations before paying for all our sins. It’s unfair that a human rights abuser like Saul gets forgiven, or a murderer/adulterer like King David, or a thief hanging on a cross who has a conversion just before death. Yes, it’s unfair—gloriously unfair I would say. The message of grace is that we fall down, and God picks us up and dusts us off. Again, and again…” In part 2 of our series we look into why grace was something we so desperately needed

“Do you believe in grace?” We talk as though we understand the term. The bank gives us a grace period. The seedy politician falls from grace. Musicians speak of a grace note. We describe an actress as gracious, a dancer as graceful. We use the word for hospitals, baby girls, kings, and pre-meal prayers. We talk as though we know what grace means. But do we really understand it? Have our churches settled for a wimpy grace? It politely occupies a phrase in a hymn, fits nicely on a church sign. Never causes trouble or demands a response. When asked, “Do you believe in grace?” who could say no? But Have you been changed by grace? Shaped by grace? Strengthened by grace? Emboldened by grace? Softened by grace? Here we begin a series based on Max Lucado's book "Grace: More Than We Deserve, Greater Than We Imagine"

The voice we listen to will determine the direction we will walk. If we listen to our emotions we will remain in the spiritual desert. If we listen to the whispers of the enemy we will by intimidated. If we listen to voices of our critics, we will be distracted. Only if we regularly hear the voice of God will we have the courage to do God’s will.

The Lord speaks to us through the Holy Spirit. He is the third person of the Trinity, co-equal with God the Father and God the Son. God’s Spirit dwells within each Christian and as much as we would like to hear God speak loudly He most often is identified as a still small voice that we must learn to tune in to!

What is the will of God for your life? Is this something you would like to know? To know for sure that you are walking in his will for you, personally. And to know when you are facing a problem exactly how God wants you to handle it. Listening to the voice of the Lord is probably the single most important element in having a victorious Christian life after being born-again. The Lord knows all things and will show us things to come. There is no problem that His wisdom can't solve. In part 2 of our series "The Voice" We look at ways we can tune ourselves in to His Voice!

Good listening is not a skill that we are born with, it is not a natural gift. Without practice and training we are unlikely to be particularly effective listeners. Believing that you are a better listener that others is unlikely to be true unless you have taken the time to learn and practice your listening skills over a period of time. And that is with each other, the matter of listening becomes more complex when listening for the voice of God! We live in a world that is full of busyness and clatter. People are distracted and unable to hear the still, small voice of God as he speaks to them. This is part 1 of a series to help us learn to listen to the voice of God!

It has been said that Baptism is to the Christian faith what the wedding ring is to a marriage. It is a symbol. Baptism is symbolic of the washing away of our sins. It is also symbolic of a new way of life. "Like the wedding ring, baptism draws a mark on the ground between the past and the future. Like the wedding ring, it says, "From this day forward, I stand with God." And Just like a marriage when we are baptized into Christ we take vows, vows that signify from this moment on, I will stand with Christ, from here on out I will follow, I will endeavor to do all that is within my power to be all that Jesus wants me to be, vows that state from this moment on I belong to God!

Epiphany, most know it as the day the Wise Men came. And that is right–partially. The word Epiphany means “manifestation” or “revelation.” So the Wise Men are celebrated on Epiphany because they represent the revelation of Jesus to the Gentiles When the wise men arrived they came bearing gifts, gifts appropriate for a King! In this message we ask the question, What gift do you bring that is appropriate for the Son of God!

Have you ever waited for something? Something big, something important and had to wait a very long time? Do remember what it felt like when your anticipation and expectation was met, when you finally received what you had been waiting for? In this message we take a close look at Anna the prophetess who had been waiting in the temple for the coming of the promised Messiah and learn how she sets an example for all of us who are Christians to follow!

In the Christmas classic movie “the little drummer boy” there comes a part in the movie where Aaron's little lamb gets injured in an accident and desperate to heal his friend. the little drummer boy ask the king to heal is little lamb, the king replies that he is only a mortal king, but he introduces Aaron to a King Among Kings, that has the ability to help the little lamb, Aaron looks at the child in the manger and exclaims in astonishment "the babe? I don't understand".... That statement makes me think about all the things about the Christmas story that I don't understand. and maybe there are a lot of things about the Christmas story you don't understand either. In this special Christmas eve message we talk about the things we just don't understand.

To be faithful is to be reliable, steadfast and unwavering, and the Bible speaks of this type of faithfulness in four ways: as an attribute of God; as a positive characteristic of some men; as a characteristic that many men lack; and as a gift of the Holy Spirit. Scripture speaks often of God’s faithfulness. Over and over we learn that when God says He will do something, He does it (even when it seems impossible). When He says something will happen, it happens. This is true for the past, the present and the future. In this message we explore how God has shown his faithfulness to all mankind!

When thinking about the attributes of God Jealousy is not usually the first thing that comes to mind, and there aren't any Christmas songs about the jealousy of God! In fact failure to understand this little talked about attribute of God has been a problem for some, even some celebrities. But the Holy Living God of the Bible is described as jealous for his people. This jealousy is not the sin of jealousy that is to be envious of another person’s position, abilities or skills, beauty, or possessions. This message tries to demystify this attribute of God and understand what God's jealousy really means.

What do you think of when you think of God? especially at Christmas! whatever comes to mind I would be willing to bet that the first thing you think of IS NOT that God is dangerous. In C.S. Lewis's book, The lion, the witch and the wardrobe, there is a question asked by Lucy of Mr. Beaver about Aslan the lion, she ask Mr. Beaver "Is he safe" and Mr. Beaver responds "Safe, of course he isn't safe! but he is good!" In this message we explore one of the lessor talked about aspects of God and What it means for us.

It is an Unfortunate truth, that we, as human beings, have a hard time sticking to what God tells us to do, especially without supervision!, Sometimes we forget that God is ALWAYS watching us, and we can do fine, if we have someone watching us to make sure we behave, but for most of Us, "When the Cat's Away!" we will push the envelope as far as we can!

True Repentance brings sorrow, but God doesn't want us to live there. God has always commanded his people to celebrate as we remember how good He has been to us! It is right and good to be sorrowful for disappointing our Father, but once he has forgiven us, once we understand how much God Loves us, It is a cause for us to celebrate: to Eat, Drink and Be Merry!"

Most often, If a person is going to do a work for God, as God has instructed, They will encounter resistance, at the very least, all out attack on other occasions, whether it is an attack on one's character, or something more drastic. In any case, when following Gods commands, you will need to have "Courage Under Fire!"

The Scriptures are full of list, and if your like most of us you have a tendency to skim these chapters, if you read them at all, but if we stop and study some of these list we can find some amazing things hidden. This lesson takes a brief look a Nehemiah chapter 3 and discover that the record he leaves us has got some interesting things we can learn!

Once you have prayed and developed a plan based on what God is leading you to do, then it is time to go to work! If you want to see your church or your life changed there is going to be work that has to be done, yes it is important to study the problems, and it is important to come up with a plan, but that is all a waste of time unless you are willing to roll up your sleeves and get to work. This lesson shows us exactly how that worked in Nehemiah's situation.

Any Great work begins with a broken heart, and prayer is essential!, but none of this will accomplish anything unless we are willing to back it up with action! It does no good to worry or sit around complaining about how things are if you are not willing to BE the change you want to see, Here we learn just how important it is to have the courage to follow God!

What is it going to Take to put the church back on Track? We continue our study of Nehemiah's call to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem , the prototype for the church, and learn the type of prayer that is effective for bringing the church back to where it belongs!

This id the first installment of our New Series "The Church that God Built" and we start in the book of Nehimiah because the North American church needs to be renewed, if we are going to have the kind of church that Jesus envisioned we need to Start with a Broken Heart!

Have you ever been so desperate that you Wrestled with God in prayer? Today we look at the time that Jacob, when desperate and afraid actually DID wrestle with God and when he did, he was changed forever!