- Sunday night kicked off our One Prayer series. If you don't already know what One Prayer is all about, then just click here: 2010.oneprayer.com We are focusing on four elements that will make the church UNSTOPPABLE. While we can talk, dream, and envision many great things taking place within and out of The Overflow, the only way The Overflow will be unstoppable is if each believer understands their responsibility. I tried to make it clear Sunday night that from this week forward, we'll push our believers each week to take steps forward in their walk with Christ. While the Inside Out series was beneficial and important to us being able to lay a solid foundation within our group, the real growth and progression forward has now begun!
- The first element to an unstoppable church is this: Our faith in Jesus Christ must be our motivation! While this sounds very basic and obvious, so many Christians are not serving God with this motivation. As a result, the church in general has been motivated by other factors and has basically stopped growing!
- Common, but WRONG motivators...
1) Frustration- When frustration is your motivation you're setting yourself up for devastation. We never make an effective impact serving out of our frustration.
2) Feelings- Some days I don't feel like being a loving husband and dad. So does that mean I get the day off? No! Same for serving God. We don't always feel like doing it, but our feelings don't change our commitment.
3) Failures- Yes, we can and should learn from our failures, but eventually we should start succeeding more than we fail. While failures can be a short-term motivation, what will be your motivation when you aren't failing as much anymore? - If our faith in Jesus Christ is going to be our motivation, then here are the 4 principles we must begin to apply to our lives. We pulled these principles from Hebrews 11:1-2, 11:6, 11:8, 11:13, 12:1-2
#1 See it when you can't see it
God requires us to be able to see (mentally and spiritually) what He is doing and wanting to do even though we can't fully see it (physically). This is what faith is all about. However, unless you are seeing God (personally) on a regular basis, you won't be able to "see what you can't see."
#2 Pursue the calling even though you may not completely achieve it
Following the example of Abraham, who set out to pursue a calling he personally would never embrace, we must do all we can to take full advantage of the present opportunity. We have to live in such a way that if we don't experience the fullness of the caling, our lifestyle won't prevent future generations from achieving even more than us. My prayer is that I can lead The Overflow in such a way that when I'm dead and gone, this church will accomplish even more than when I was alive!
#3 Remove the barriers between where you are and where you're going
Hebrews 12:1 tells us to get rid of the things that are holding us back. Our faith in Jesus won't be our motivation when He isn't our priority! These barriers may be obvious or they may be things you didn't even realize were holding you back. At the same time, we have to be preparing ourselves for the race God has called us to run. For some of us, we invest in our walk with God as if life is a WALKATHON. In other words, there's no need to train. I'll just show up on Sunday and "walk" through the motions. Others may train like they are prepping for a 40YD DASH. These people focus on God only in short, quick sprints. They only prepare for your regular ministry opportunities: Sunday worship, community groups, etc. However, when Jesus is our motivation, we understand that life is a RACE/MARATHON, and we must be in constant, disciplined training.
#4 Sacrifice our comfort and become contributors
First, in response to Jesus' sacrifice, the very least we can do is take our relationship with Him seriously, so this means getting uncomfortable, taking some criticism, and enduring some difficulty from time to time. Second, The Overflow does not have room for Christians who only want to show up, consume the worship time, Bible teaching, etc and never do anything personally with their faith on a regular basis. Actually, people who live like that don't really have faith anyway, but that's another conversation. The Overflow is all about allowing those far from God to take their time and find Him and His truths. Additionally, people who are just coming back to the church must be given time to get back on track. However, people who seek to join The Overflow and consider themselves "active" Christians, must realize that we take God, reaching the lost, and living our faith SERIOUSLY. If you want to be a contributor, then great, but if all you want to do is consume what we do for yourself, then this is not the place for you!
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