Dayspring Fellowship Podcasts

How Does Prayer Fit into My Life Prayer and Your Purpose (Luke 22:42)

The fifth of five message on
talking with GodLuke 22:42
This sermon title proposes a question that each one of us must
answer. It is up to you what role prayer plays in your life. For some, prayer
will be an added extra – something to quickly toss in the air before a meal or
tack on to the end of a meeting. This weekend I’ll present my case for why
prayer should have a central spot. Prayer should be central because our purpose
in life if to glorify God. Even if you don’t know this or agree with it,
honoring God is the actual reason you were created. Our Creator’s will should
be our highest concern here on earth.
In prayer we discover God’s will, submit to God’s will, and accomplish God’s
will. Come to worship this weekend where we will sing together, partake in
communion and study the connection between prayer and your purpose on earth.

Does God Need Reminders? Persistence in Prayer (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

The fourth of five message
on talking with GodWhat should we do when we come up against what
appears to be an immovable wall? We want to break through, but we can’t. Should
we give up, or keep trying?
On one hand, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over
and expecting different results. So if our approach hasn’t worked, we should
adopt an alternative. After all, why bang our heads against a wall?
On the other hand, we may be on the right track but we haven’t stayed with it
long enough. We just need to keep at it and persevere. Some things that will
eventually work don’t appear to work immediately. Maybe the wall will fall.
Which of these competing principles apply to prayer? When we don’t see evidence
of an answer, is it time to quit? Should we give up? Or are we to persist even
in the face of no objective observable results?
Come worship with us this weekend as we study and apply what the Bible says
about persistence in prayer.

What Does Prayer Accomplish? Prayer and Peace (Philippians 4:6-7)

The third of five
message on talking with God
Prayer works, but not always in just the way we hope. We don’t
always get what we want but we do get what God wants, which is best, though we
can’t always see that from our finite vantage point. When we point our prayers
up to him we await his reply understanding that he has the right to tell us no
or tell us to wait. He knows best and we trust him.
     
That same trust leads to one result that is guaranteed every time. What can we
be sure we’ll receive as the result of our prayers? Peace. God grants peace to
those who trust in him. In prayer, we place our worries right where they
belong, at the feet of God. We may not yet see the answer to our prayers, but
we trust God. Peace is the assurance that the situation and our very lives are
in God’s hands.
     
Prayer may not change the outcome of events every time in the way we want, but
even when it doesn’t, prayer changes us. This week’s key verses point this out:
prayer leads to peace.
     
Join us in worship as we devour Philippians 4:6,7. I look forward to seeing
you.

Can My Prayers Make a Difference? Prayer and Power (1 John 5:14)

The second of five message
on talking with God
Have you ever wondered why we seem to have so many more prayer requests than
answers? If prayer works, then why are so many people still suffering?
     
Many of us lack amazing stories of answered prayer but we have plenty of
confusion about how prayer works, if it does at all. We feel guilty about our
doubts. Our deepest questions about prayer are so troubling we don’t dare ask
them out loud. But we do want answers.
     
This weekend we will consider the puzzle of prayer, looking first at some
classic misunderstandings, then exploring some of the difficulties involved in
talking to God. While resolving the tension is a life-long process, we will get
creative in order to clear up some of the confusion.
     
A key feature in our explanation will include considering the “fasten
seatbelts” signs in airplanes. Come find out what this has to do with life,
freedom, and prayer.

A Life Offered in Worship to God (Romans 12:1-2)

This weekend we continue a mini-series on worship. In Romans
12:1-2, we are urged to "offer our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and
pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship." How do we do
that? Are there areas of life you find yourself holding back from God? 
Join us this weekend as Pastor Nathan helps us to understand this passage more
clearly, so we can truly live a life of worship.

How Should I Begin? A Pattern of Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13)

The first of five message on
talking with God Have you ever met with someone and been uncertain about what to say? You felt
the awkwardness begin to grow and you struggled for a way to get started.I’ve taught recently on the importance of meeting regularly with God, but what
do we say once we get together? It’s hard to know how to begin a meaningful
conversation with the eternal Creator of the universe! Prayer doesn’t come
naturally to many of us.    
Where do we turn for help? Who could know more about talking with the Father
than Jesus? He is the expert and we get to read what he taught about prayer in
one of the best-known passages in the Bible, “the Lord’s Prayer,” found in
Matt. 6. This weekend we will learn what the ultimate teacher had to say about
the ultimate subject.

Love Out Loud (Colossians 3:17)

We used to sing "They Will Know We are Christians by Our
Love" when I was a kid. Though the song never was my favorite, the words
perfectly align with an aspect of worship we seldom think about.
Jesus said the the most important commandment was to love the Lord our God AND
to love our neighbors as ourselves. In linking the two, He was saying the
quality of our worship of God is inextricably connected to the quality of our
love for others. We can't love God without loving the things God loves, and God
loves people.
In Colossians, The Apostle Paul teaches us to be clothed in love because we are
representatives of Jesus in everything we do. What kind of clothes are you
wearing when you interact with others? Join us this week as we look at what it
means to make our love of others an act of worship. - Pastor Chris

Trust in Jesus (John 14:1)

Philip Yancey begins a chapter in his book, “Disappointment with
God”, by quoting the opening statement of another author’s book. Yancey writes,
“The Road Less Traveled,
by M. Scott Peck, opens with a blunt three-word sentence: ‘Life is difficult’”.
 I have not yet read The Road Less Traveled, but I can agree with Peck’s
statement completely.  Life is difficult.  Life is often more than
difficult.  In fact, many would agree that the statement “Life is
difficult” is an incredible understatement when we look a the troubles and
tragedies many are facing.  Life can be so difficult that it leads many to
question God’s love and power.  We ask, “Where is God?  “Why is God
allowing this to happening to me?”  “Doesn’t he care?” “Why doesn’t he do
something?”. 
           
These questions are primarily about the heart.  In times of life tragedy
our hearts are troubled by the pain we experience as life’s “difficulties” try
to convince us that God is absent or sitting on his hands while we
suffer.  The truth is, God
has done something, he is
not absent, and he is not
sitting on his hands. God is always at work on our behalf even when we cannot
see him through the fog of pain and difficulty.  God is concerned about
our troubled hearts.  
           
While Jesus never directly addressed the exact questions that many of us may
ask when we are facing incredible difficulty, he did give us what we need to
carry us through the hard seasons of life.  At a point in time when his
friends, the disciples, were about face the most heart wrenching tragedy they
could never imagine, Jesus said to them, “Do
not let your hearts be troubled.  Trust in God; Trust also in me”
(John 14:1).  In these words from Jesus, as stark and simple as Peck’s, I
believe we have the answers to the questions we ask when we are hurting and
facing tragedy.  Whatever difficulty, crisis, circumstance, or tragedy,
you are facing, Jesus is more. Trust in Him. - Kap Otten

To Experience Victory, We Need to Surrender (Galatians 2:20)

The
final of four steps in conquering spiritual ADDI’ve heard people say: “I’ve grasped how to become a Christian, but I’m having
a hard time being a Christian. It’s not working for me. It seems impossible to
live the Christian life.” That’s right. It is impossible to do it alone, by our
own power. Only Jesus does a good job living the Christian life. After all, it
is his life.
For the last three weeks we’ve been talking about how to really connect with
God. So far we’ve considered some upper-division disciplines like silence,
solitude, and slowing down. I’ve got one more to for you and it is the ultimate
spiritual discipline: surrender. To surrender is to yield completely to God. It
is making yourself so available to him that he lives his life through you.
Surrendering to God means relinquishing your will to his.
There are many verses about giving ourselves completely to Jesus, but my
favorite is Gal. 2:20 – “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer
live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in
the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” This is a wonderful
verse and I plan to present it with all I’ve got this weekend. I hope you will
join us in worship.

To Gain Strength We Need Rest (Mark 6:31)

The third of four
steps in conquering spiritual ADD 
My son and I have read about what NBA players do on game-days.
They do nothing much at all. They mostly just relax. Even on normal training
days during the season, they don’t workout very long. A few hours of extremely
hard work is all they can handle each day. After that, they need to rest and
refresh or all their work will just tear them down and wear them out.
     
Rest is equally important for us socially and spiritually. You need rest if you
want to be healthy and strong. We’ve been talking about conquering spiritual
ADD; we want to learn to focus on God in a daily quiet time and experience the
strength and security that only he can provide. This weekend I will add to what
we’ve already learned.
     
Last week we talked about how Jesus started his day. He made time to meet with
the Father, even when it involved the sacrifice of getting out of bed early
after a long, hard day of work. In Mark 6:31 we will see that he not only
modeled this practice of getting away, he instructed his disciples to follow
his example. They also faced many demands so they needed to take a break and be
refreshed.
     
Come worship with us and learn the importance of spiritual rest.