First Church Charlotte

January 24, 2021 | Pastor Nathan Elms So since we understand the problem, let’s agree that a wrong view of God will cause us to ask amiss. A wrong view of God will lead to a wrong relationship with God. Our own wisdom is insufficient to understand God 6 foundational, biblical truths that you need to know about God! 1- God loves you 2- He is HOLY 3- We must trust His JUDGMENT because ours is limited. 4- We must trust HIS TIMING 5- We must RESPECT HIS STRENGTH 6- We must seek HIS PRESENCE Now that we have been given, by divine gift, insight into God... How do we implement this understanding... CONFORM: to fit into a mold; make or become the same; to behave in a conventional way by accepting without question the customs, traditions and prevailing opinions of others. TRANSFORM: to change the nature, character or personality. Repent: metanoia = change the way you think Confess: homologeo = say the same thing Q: HOW DO WE THINK LIKE GOD? WHEN I SAY WHAT GOD SAYS, I BEGIN TO THINK LIKE GOD THINKS God isn’t

January 20 2021 | Rev Lisa Epinette How do we overcome the fear of the day? With an encounter with the Lord, Who is the bringer of true peace. Allow the Word of God be a light unto our path. The Lord came to heal our broken hearts and heal us of so much pain.

January 17, 2021 | Bishop David Elms Worship draws God to us. The one true living God Who created all things in the heavens and the Earth. The everyday cares of life can strip us our love for God our Savior. Judgment is coming to those who ignore God and this great salvation. It is time to understand what is presently happening to repent and turn to God. The Lord and all of Heaven loves and rejoices when someone repents and turns to God. Do everything in Jesus name! Let us renew our first love for Jesus Christ. It's a wonderful truth to know the Lord and fellowship with Him. Emmanuel literally means, "God with us", and will go with you anywhere you go. It is good to know Who Jesus is. This understanding allows us to reflect the love of God to our world. Faith in Jesus, repentance, baptism in Jesus name and the in filling of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues, as it happened in the Book of Acts. When we love and respect people, we can exemplify Jesus and teach of This so great salvation

January 13, 2021 | Pastor Nathan Elms Matthew 23:11-12 If Jesus was here in the flesh, what would He do? WWJD Would He go to churches, or would He minister and serve wherever He was? Wherever He chose to go, He would be serving others. Serving others promotes unity because it makes those serving less likely to speak against other people. Serving promotes teamwork; which is the expression and the language of grace. Join your abilities & talents with others in a church, and witness to everyone around you of the Savior, Jesus Christ by serving those around you.

January 10, 2021 | Pastor Nathan Elms Spirituality is a slippery term but the phenomenon itself is not new. Christian spirituality is nothing other than life in Christ by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit: being conformed to the person of Christ, and being united in communion with God and with others. Spirituality is not an aspect of Christian life, it is the Christian life. As those following Jesus Christ, we should learn to think like Jesus. How did Jesus think? 1. Jesus modeled spiritual clarity for His life, and spoke it! 2. Jesus modeled spiritual purpose for His life, and spoke it! 3. Jesus modeled a pursuit of God. 4. Jesus modeled submission to God’s Words. 5. Jesus modeled complete focus. 6. Jesus modeled complete surrender. 7. Jesus modeled mercy towards others. 8. Jesus modeled a life of sacrifice for others. 9. Jesus modeled the surrender of his wants 10. Jesus modeled a focus upon eternity.

January 6, 2021 | Pastor Nathan Elms If Jesus visited a modern church as a physical person, what kind of church would He visit, and be comfortable in? It would probably be a church containing humble believers, who are surrounded by broken people, who want help, and hope for their lives. Broken people who know that they need a Savior. A church of formerly broken people who welcome the broken.

January 3, 2021 | Pastor Nathan Elms On average, we have tens of thousands of thoughts a day, but we don’t register most of them. We tend to ignore the most repetitive, persistent thoughts, such as the ones that take us through our morning grooming ritual or our daily commute. What we do is so driven by habit that we don’t have to think ourselves through every step. To feel how this works, try brushing your teeth with your nondominant hand. Odd, right? In the same manner that we do not think about habitual actions... we have habitual thoughts, that we think about WITHOUT THINKING about it. • The thoughts you think WITHOUT thinking are who you are… • The thoughts you intentionally think are who you want to become... • We can think just like unbelievers… • We can respond to trouble just like unbelievers… • We can deal with pain just like unbelievers… In fact, re-forming how we think about things is one of the most important things about becoming a believer. 9 Biblical Truths 1. MY THOUGHTS CONTROL MY

December 30, 2020 | Pastor Nathan Elms People of faith strive to make a difference that goes beyond our own abilities and talents. Although we are sometimes defined by our own limitations, through faith, God uses our weaknesses for showing demonstrations of Divine strength. When we reach the end of our own abilities and become completely reliant upon on our heart for God, we then enter into the place where God can partner with us and our efforts. We then more fully understand and relate to the Apostle Paul, who taught the Colossians church to keep the focus on the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the power and love of God. What he basically taught was that even though we go through difficult times, keeping Jesus Christ as our focus gives us power over the storms of life and leads us and those around us into life in a more abundant way.

December 27, 2020 | Pastor Nathan Elms The most celebrated event for the parents of a baby is when he or she learns how to walk. Even when God came as a man in Jesus Christ, He had to also learn how to walk. Walking with God is the most used example of spiritual growth and progress in God that is given by the Bible. Just as we as humans had to learn how to walk, we must learn faith and how to walk with God. Just as a journey is made up of one step after the other, our walk with God is a spiritual step after the other. Although there are times that we run in the Spirit or even fly at times in the Spirit, the majority of our spiritual journey will simply be walking with God.

December 23, 2020 | Bishop David Elms The Christmas Story read by Bishop David Elms Luke 1:26 / 1:46 / 2:1 God Almighty gave the greatest gift for the salvation of humanity by being born as a baby boy, named Jesus

December 20, 2020 | Pastor Nathan Elms God created humans in His own image for the purpose of fellowship and family. When mankind broke the relationship, God decided to pay the price to restore the relationship by becoming the sacrifice as well as the High Priest to administer the sacrifice. Although we in our humanity may not know how to fellowship with God, we only need to want to be with God, & He will find you. The church is God's plan to accommodate the relationship with humankind.

December 16, 2020 | Pastor Nathan Elms • It is easy to be sick of waiting. • Simeon & Anna were promised that they would see Messiah before they died. • It's easy to be religious & miss what God is doing. • When Jesus did great things, many criticized instead of what God is doing. • Instead, we want to get it right. • What does it mean to wait on the Lord? • What if we serve God instead of God serve us? • Waiting can be likened to moving at God's speed instead of our own. • Why would God rest when He wasn't tired? Instead God reflected on His work. • When we rush instead of living at Spiritual speed, we lose the ability to reflect with God and allow God the ability to make us what He wants. • When we stop the frantic we make space for the eternal. • When we wait upon the Lord, we make space to become the people God created us to be.

December 13, 2020 | Pastor Nathan Elms We tend to symbolize Christmas with tensile and sentimental warm happy memories of gifts and the magic of the season, but when Jesus Christ was born, it was a stressful time of the difficulty of traveling on a donkey while at the point of giving birth, and no place found for the pregnant couple. It must have been very difficult for Joseph, as the husband of a very pregnant Mary, to have to settle on her giving birth in a barn. The true story of Christmas is about the gift of hope for all, and especially for those who are hurting.

December 9, 2020 | Pastor Nathan Elms You may not realize what you truly want for Christmas...

December 6, 2020 | Pastor Nathan Elms Some of the most significant spiritual lessons are learned from the most unlikely people. Such is the case with the story of Simon of Cyrene. We know very little about this figure who, like a small drop in a giant bucket of water, could easily go unnoticed. But what we do know about Simon should be enough to draw us in close and to draw great encouragement from, especially during these long and uncertain days. I believe Simon has much to teach us on what it means to follow Jesus in the great interruptions of life. (Read Luke 23:26) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+23%3A26&version=MSG Life Interrupted Simon had come to Jerusalem for a totally different purpose but he left encountering Jesus. Maybe there’s a Simon watching this right now. Maybe you jumped on the Internet for a totally different purpose and you stumbled across this message. You didn’t just happen to tune into this. God wants to interrupt your life in the most beautiful way possible. He w

December 2, 2020 | Pastor Nathan Elms • Is:64-1 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=+Isaiah+64%3A1&version=MSG • The Scripture read shows a heart that is in pursuit of God. • The holidays beckons our society about the sacred event of the birth of our Savior. • What do we mean by a relationship with Jesus Christ? • Fear always has a self-interest to it, but is not the goal for a relationship with God. • The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and helps us understand the correct respect for God, but does not help us understand a relationship, but can turn into a duty relationship. • We seek God beyond fear and duty, by looking beyond that and seek relationship. • What moves you? The universal language of love? The moral law within each of us that transcends culture? • Allow yourself to see God in that you hold higher than anything else. • Let the Christmas season this year usher you into a pursuit for a relationship with Jesus Christ.

November 29, 2020 | Pastor Nathan Elms • God has made pleasurable experiences such as physical intimacy or existential experiences for the purpose of making us whole. • In contrast, these same things outside of God's design, which is called "sin", may be pleasurable for the moment, but will cost us pieces of ourselves along the way and lead to ruin. • If our life is only led by our appetites, our life will lack meaning and satisfaction. • In the presence of God is the fullness of true joy. • Joy unlike happiness isn't based on a temporal feeling or experience, but can hold through the difficulties and tragedies of life. • Although our physical bodies are temporal, we are eternal beings made in the image of God. • We choose either to seek the temporal or the choose the eternal by faith in Jesus Christ.

November 25, 2020 | Pastor Nathan Elms • As a nation, we make an intentional point to be thankful one day a year. As Christians, it is more than what we do, but it is who we are. A way of being. • Gratitude is a foundation for a Spiritual life. • Once we are thankful for what God has already done for us, it opens to us the opportunity for correct worship. • We should always try to thank those in our lives who have impacted us in positive ways. • Gratitude naturally happens when kindness exceeds expectations. • Feelings of entitlement kills gratitude. • As in some countries, instead of simply giving a verbal thanks, we should be willing to tell someone else about it.

November 22, 2020 | Pastor Nathan Elms Our souls are exposed to a toxic environment... • God has made a way of escape from this toxic environment of everyone doing what is right in their own eyes. In fact, this is the way of the believer. • Sin (spiritual rebellion) creates both a toxic nature and a toxic environment. This is imaged in death following sin (toxic nature) and banishment from Eden (sin creates a toxic environment... God says, not here... ruin your own world) • Repentance is us turning away from ourselves and saying, “Forgive me for what I’ve made of myself... and my world” • Baptism of water and spirit is the transformation of heart and soul. Having turned away from this world, our hearts are changed to desire another world, a better world. • Spiritual maturity is the nurturing of a spiritually healthy inner world while we survive a toxic world of sin and self. • Spiritual mission is to demonstrate this way of a spiritually healthy soul to the world around you... that others might see... So wh

November 18, 2020 | Pastor Nathan Elms The New Testament admonishes that Christians are priests unto the Lord, and as priests we should bless others, especially our families and loved ones. God bless you and keep you, May God smile on you and gift you, God look you full in the face and make you prosper. Numbers 6: 24-26 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers+6%3A22-27&version=MSG