Foothills Christian Church
Weekend Services
Today many California Christians are feeling overwhelmed by the overall problems in California
A short list of current major concerns:
1. The continual championing of immorality- both with our government and the secular culture
2. The continual government pandering to special interest groups while continually raising of taxes
3. The government incentivizing unemployment
4. The government sinking billions into green projects while ignoring current infrastructure needs
5. The government’s flip-flopping policies on Corona virus lockdowns
6. The recent state laws which favor criminals and fail to protect and pursue justice for victims of crime
7. The hypocrisy of our governor, who refused to allow public schools to meet in person while his own children attended their private school in person
8. The government, which has not only failed to protect many neighborhood families from homeless issues, but has actually facilitated the increase homeless issues.
9. The government’s wholesale agenda to indoctrinate public school children with secular humanism based morals values
Vertical Thinking versus Horizontal Thinking
Vertical Thinking versus Horizontal Thinking
God is in the business of bringing life out of chaos, and beauty out of ashes!
Habakkuk 1:2-5 ESV
Vertical Thinking versus Horizontal Thinking
‘Vertical Thinking takes us from good ideas to God ideas!’
Vertical Thinking versus Horizontal Thinking
An example: The Loaves and Fish Principal (Matthew 14.13-21)
Jeremiah 29:11 ESV
Vertical Thinking versus Horizontal Thinking
The grass is not always greener on the other side. It’s greener where you choose to nourish it!
Vertical Thinking versus Horizontal Thinking
The Redemptive Promises of God are contingent on our obedience to God! Our obedience to God is often contingent on having ‘ears to hear what the Spirit is saying’!
A Picture of Vertical Thinking;
God’s Redemption in Babylon
1. In approximately the year 608 BC, Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon conquered Jerusalem and Judah and then carried off many to Babylon.
2. The book of Jeremiah, chapter 29, relates that many prophets began to prophesy to the exiles that God was going to rescue them quickly and they would be brought back to Israel.
3. Jeremiah, however, said that these prophets were prophesying out of their imaginations, not from the Holy Spirit!
4. He prophesied that the exiles and their children would reside in Babylon for 70 years.
5. He prophesied that if they would seek after the welfare of Babylon, THEN God would bless them!
Jeremiah 29:4-11 ESV
The church’s mandate has not changed in the last 2000 years- it is still ‘seek first the Kingdom of God, and it’s righteousness’ right where we’re at!
1. Rather than looking for more righteous places on earth, let’s seek first God for breakthroughs of righteousness right here!
The church’s mandate has not changed in the last 2000 years- it is still ‘seek first the Kingdom of God, and it’s righteousness’, Matthew 6.33
2. Let’s Believe God’s Promises and
* Live Biblically based lives
* Build Godly marriages and families
* Serve one another in the Church and those around us
* Model Christ in our jobs and neighborhoods
* Be a people of Prayer & Worship
Jeremiah 29:7 ESV
The Encouragement of Past History; The Great Awakenings!
1. 1730–1755
2. 1790–1820
3. 1855–1875
4. 1906
5. 1960–1975
Vertical Thinking versus Horizontal Thinking
Like the Sons of Issachar we need to know our times and Seasons. (1 Chron. 12.32) This begins by perceiving world events around us from God’s perspective not thru a secular humanistic lens of fear.
2 Chronicles 7:13-14 ESV
Vertical Thinking: We are in a Time of Divine Acceleration
Isaiah 9:6-7 ESV
A Vertical Thinker; William Wilberforce
Wilberforce was one of the chief voices, which spoke out against the Slave Trade in Great Britain. He was also used powerfully by God to bring a nationwide revival in a time of great moral depravity.
In 1787, as Wilberforce was beginning to fight against slavery, he also began to speak out against immorality in England.
At that time England was ripe with prostitution, lewdness, drunkenness, and indecency.Drunkenness and foul talk were common to all social strata.
In 1797 his book was published which called for the rise of authentic Biblical Christianity
The immediate fruit of Wilberforce’s book was many were led to genuine faith in Christ through reading it.
Wilberforce’s effect on the following season of Great Britain cannot be over estimated:
The early Victorian period, which followed Wilberforce’s time, is commonly agreed to have been an age of moral earnestness. One historian wrote ‘Victorian politics as having been injected with moral passion. An ethic was established which was acknowledged in common by all classes. At the core of this moral society was religion, and Evangelicalism was the dominant religious movement’.
Just as William Wilberforce prophetically called to for a rise of true Christianity to emerge from the Church of his day, so the Holy Spirit is doing so today to ‘those who have ears to hear’!
As Christians in California today we have 3 choices before us;
1. Simply seek our own blessings and end up like the ‘frog in the kettle’.
2. Move to where we think we will be more blessed.
3. Be God’s people who seek first His Kingdom right here, right now!
Vertical Thinking versus Horizontal Thinking
God promises us that if we seek the welfare of our cities and state so shall our welfare be established. As we seek first His kingdom ‘all of these things (we need) shall be added to us’. He will give us a hope and a future and cause our souls to prosper!
Foothills Text Line:
Text PRAYER to 619-375-0805
Text DECISION to 619-375-0805