A foundation has been laid, and our core base of people has greatly expanded from where we were on January 16. Our first series came to a close on Sunday, and I think there's reason to be excited about the direction we are headed. Over the past four Sundays, we've tried to communicate a few things that are important to us as a church. No two churches are alike, so hopefully we've communicated a few characteristics about our church that makes us unique. Now, as we move forward, we have the responsibility to live out these commitments we've made.
RECAP
Part 4 of our series, "Confessions of an Imperfect Church," encouraged people to take action and begin doing the things we've been called to do. In other words, it's time to start leading people towards Christ with overflowing love. The clearest demonstration of love was God sending His Son Jesus to die for our sins. God is love, and no one has or ever will communicate love in such a clear and powerful way. Therefore, our response to God's love should be to obey His commands, which begins by loving those around us.
Worship set was...
-I Will Go (Starfield)
-Your Love Never Fails (Jesus Culture)
-Jesus Paid It All
-Oh How He Loves (David Crowder)
-Only You (The Overflow Band)
Message...
You can watch the video of the message and read the weekly devotional thoughts on our website by Tuesday afternoon.
Confessions of an Imperfect Church #4
CONFESSION: We'd rather preach to the choir than love the people around us.
James 1:19-25
Obedience is a better reflection of our commitment to Christ than our willingness to hear His Word.
-"I love you" is perhaps one of the most powerful phrases we could ever use. For some people, this phrase is encouraging and comforting, but for others, it brings back bad memories of pain, rejection, and hurt. Therefore, as the church, we have a responsibility to help those around us properly see real and perfect love, which only comes through Jesus Christ!
-If we desire to obey God's command to love the people around us, then we must first clearly hear His plan. However, this will require us to do less of somethings so that we can hear and do more for God. Here are four things we identified in this passage that most people need to decrease from their life... Noise, Talking, Anger, and Sin. By removing these things from our lives, we'll better hear the truth of God's Word, which should lead us to do more for Him.
-We'll never perfectly hear or do God's will, but this shouldn't keep us from doing all that we can to get in a better position to hear from Him and respond. We must learn to decrease our desires so that He will increase His influence in our lives.
-As we approach God's Word, we should do so in such a way that it causes us to act. If we read His Word carefully, but never let it impact our actions, then what's the point in reading it to begin with?
COMMITMENT: We won't shy away from overflowing God's love through our actions.
No comments:
Post a Comment