No Regret Sermon Series

Click on the link below to hear my sermon series on living with no regrets, we learned the verse that moses spoke in his only psalm, "Teach us to number our days aright so we may gain a heart of wisdom." Psalm 90:12 this scripture and the book 1 month to live inspired this sermon series. i hope thee bless you and help challenge you to live well and live fully the way God has intended for you.

LIVING OUT THE DASH

LIVING PASSIONATELY

LOVING COMPLETELY

LEARNING HUMBLY

LEAVING BOLDLY

if you like what you have heard and live in the sacramento elk grove area join us on sundays, visit www.elkgrovechurchofchrist.org for more details. if you don't live close and these sermons bring up questions for you please leave comments or email me directly you can find my email on the website listed.

Leaving the world a better place

Have you ever been in a situation where you were it group and you had to add a new person, that person came in caused a ruckus and left the group all together and when they left, the group was way worse than when they Joined. Man is that frustrating! It is very rare in our world that someone leaves a situation better than when they got it. Everyone who has ever rented a car knows what I mean, you know who you are, you get your ford festiva and pretend it is a off road rock crawler, you feel like its no big deal when you got your car it was clean and had good alignment, and you returned it with a new mud paint job and a wobbly suspension. Have you looked at your life and thought about how you are living it and will that life make this world better after you've gone or will no one even remember it, or even more important will they remember it for the wrong reasons. When Paul was talking to Timothy he was confident in the life he lived, he said I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I am ready to meet my maker. In a sense, I have left this world much better than I received it. I hope that the series we have been covering has helped you realize that we only have one dash between the day we are born and the day we die, it is usually shorter than expected and only you get to choose how to live it out. I hope this series hasn't been a series about dying for you but one that has inspired you to live fully. Part of living fully is to know our days are numbered, and that we need to live the out with passion, to love completely, to learn humbly, and to leave boldly. In your journey through this life what legacy are you leaving along the way? What are you teaching your children? Are you taking serious the call to make disciples, are you being a good mentor to others? Are you going to be remembered more than just for being a good person? Are you living so fully for Christ that others can't deny your faith? You can't change your past but you can spend more time in your present making each day the best you can so that your future will be stamped and sealed, a future that was promised to us, a future living in Glory with God our father. As the song says, "this is your life are you who you want to be." Well..... Are ya, are you who you want to be, are you who you want to be remembered as, are you who God made you to be, are you timid, weak in heart, ashamed? If so then you need to wake up o sleeper and rise from the dead so Christ may shine on you, because Christ didn't give you a spirit of timidity but of power, discipline, and self control. Lets get out there and leave this world better than when we entered it, leaving an amazing legacy for Christ!

Leaving Boldly

We have reached the end of the series of 30 days to live, it is interesting where we have gone, we have learned that we have a dash between the day we are born and the day we die, we only get one and it is usually a lot shorter than we expect it to be. W have learned that to live a life with no regrets we should allow The Lord to teach us to live with passion, to love completely, to learn humbly, and ultimately to leave boldly. The apostle Paul talked to Timothy about his days coming to an end, that he had fought the good fight and he had finished the race, he stood upon the goal of leaving a legacy that would out live him. He was investing into something that was bigger than him. There was a professor that did research based on people that were over a 100 years old and they asked them if they could go back in there life would they change anything. There were 3 things that stood out the first response was I would take more risks, the 2nd wash would live with more purpose, the 3rd stood out the most, they said I would spend more time investing it things that would out live me. I would invest my energy, time, money, talents etc... Into things that had legs as they used to say in the news paper. To me that sounds like leaving a legacy. What are you doing now, what are you investing your time in now, are your investments currently building sand castles or are they building foundations that are solid that generations behind you can take and start to carry out, continuing the legacy. Wouldn't you want to invest into things that will out last you, the biggest legacy you could leave with anyone and will out last anything is the foundation of Christ, that foundation is based on love, forgiveness, grace, and everlasting life in heaven. Gd is good and his love endures forever! For more on leaving boldly joins on Sunday for more info on times and locations, elkgrovechurchofchrist.org

Learning Humbly (are you willing to Learn)

As we start to finish up on our series of 30 days to live we have reached a part that is pretty difficult. Which is being a humble learner. I am going to give the tease version and hope that you tune into church on Sunday at 10am for more on this but as I was studying for this my heart started to weigh on me. Long story short there is something that gets in the way of us learning and being humble learners; that something is pride. Pride doesn't allow us to be good listeners and in turn when we do not listen we have a hard time hearing what God is trying to teach us. When Cain was angry that God found favor in Abel instead of him, God tried to teach him something but pride plugged his ears. God was teaching Cain that if you do what I ask you will be blessed but if you do not sin is knocking at your door and you must conquer it. We find out later Cain didn't conquer it instead he felt killing his brother was a better solution. There are so many times in our lives that sin is knocking at our door and instead of listening for gods guidance and learning through the struggle we play def to it and act as if it doesn't exist. When we do this I often call us appearance managers. An Appearance manager will do whatever he has to do to let people think he has it figured out where in fact we don't. Appearance managers are people that get frustrated and ticked off when things are said about them that aren't glowing remarks, A.M's are people that get upset when others around them get promotions instead of them, A.M's are people that when things start to unravel in their lives they blame others and circumstances first... Is this hitting home? Well it did for me, I have a huge issue and I will give full discloser here sometimes to save face or to avoid conflict I won't tell the truth 100% of the time. I has been eating at me because I have found myself doing it over little nothing situations. Let me tell you there are a lot of regrets here; I got some good news however, I am a person that wants to learn, and learn humbly... I have started truly listening to God to allow him to guide my heart and choices. God is trying to teach me something and for so long pride blocked my ears but I am ready for them to be open so I can truly hear his calling for my life. Your word to know for the day in tapenoprosune I may have spelled that wrong so forgive me... It is the Greek word that means push down oh your gut when translated directly. It also means, the having a humble opinion of one's self a deep sense of one's (moral) littleness modesty, humility, lowliness of mind. God is saying when your sinful gut desires approach you push them down and come before him with a humility, understanding that you do not know everything and believe it or not God knows you better than you do and he wants to prosper you. Take time today to be still and know that He is God, and he is trying to teach you something today, are you listening and are you ready and willing to learn.

May God bless you, if you need prayers or have something on your heart you want to share, leave a comment or email me, ghavinn.crutcher@elkgrovechurchofchrist.org we would love to be apart of your lives and have a great family that will support you, come visit it us elkgrovechurchofchrist.org

The Mountain of Resentment

Another teaser for this sundays sermon on "No Regrets: Loving completely" we are going to be talking about love with the metaphor of being like a mountain. There is a point toward the top of Mount Everest that is called the dead zone, it is called the dead zone because at that high of altitude there is not enough oxygen to sustain life, and it is an awful and slow way to die. When we are learning to love completely and we are loving people regardlessly of how they perform, and loving people that may not deserve it we have to learn how to forgive. it is like looking at a mountain that is impossible to climb because it is a mountain full of resentment, a mountain full of hurt, full of disappointment, and it sucks the life right out of us. Maybe you have found yourself saying but he lied to me, or she wasn't faithful, or he took my heart and crushed it. Maybe today is the day that you decide in order for me to truly live a life that is full and has no regrets, I need to forgive those that hurt me, to forgive those that have taken advantage of me, because in doing so you are allowing yourself to finally heal.

For more on how this all wraps up join us sunday, there is a hint here, we will never understand the power of forgiveness until we can see for ourselves the depth and height of God's forgiveness for us.

jon us sunday at 10 am Elk Grove Church of Christ

www.elkgrovechurchofchrist.orrg for more details