Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

Good morning!

We are so glad that you are here with us this morning!

We had an incredible launch weekend last week.

We are celebrating this morning that 12 people gave their lives to Christ last week for the first time, and a quite a few of you indicated on your connection card that you were re-dedicating your life to Christ!

And thats what its all about!!! Can we just take a moment to celebrate what God is doing here at Generations Church??

Just a housekeeping note....last week we quickly discovered that the parking lot was overflowing and people had to park on the road and down the street.

So this week one of our guys pushed the snow all the way back to the hill back there to give us more parking in grass.

We also know that the parking lot is an icy mess this morning.

It melted all week and then refroze so please, please be careful again as you exit this morning.

One more thing

Walk people through downloading the Church Center App.

Before we jump into our message this morning I want everyone if you have a smart phone take it out.

Yes it’s okay to take out your phones in church.

Listen, here at Generations Church we want to give you every opportunity to grow in your Christian faith and in your relationship with God.

One very practical way to do that is by downloading apps that will help you do that.

Its incredible that we live in a day and age where technology can help us stay connected with everything at the church as well as have the entire Bible in the palm of our hands.

We would like to encourage you to download two apps that everyone would greatly benefit from.

The church center app and the Bible App.

Everything that happens at Generations Church, all our events, our registrations, our calendar, and even our online giving is all available in the Church Center App.

so you can have it at the tip of your fingers.

I want you to go to your app store right now.... go on......and search the church center app (Put Picture up)

Everyone find it and when you find it hold your device up in the air.......okay click download.

If you want you can download it on your iPad or tablet after church.

It will ask for your location and say yes…it will list the churches in our area which use this app…look for Generations Church.

It will text you a code to make sure its really you…just enter the code and you will have access to everything.

You can add yourself to the church directory if you want…tithe right in the app…register for events etc.

Men you can still register for tonights Bible and Burgers event simply by clicking on registrations there inside the app.

Then there is one more thing we want one to highlight which is one of our values here at Generations Church, and that is serving.

At Generations you will here us say we don’t want to sit, soak, and sour, but rather that we want to be the hands and feet of Jesus .

One way that we do that is by having a Saturday Serve opportunity each month where we will be giving you opportunities to serve others in one way or another here in our community.

Our first Saturday serve is happening on February 4th here at the church and we would love for you to come out for an hour or two to help us.

One of the coolest things about this church plant journey is seeing God use different people in different ways!

Everything that you see around you has an amazing God story.

The chairs you are sitting on were purchased on Facebook marketplace from an online store in Michigan and right around the time we bought them the Lord brought a guy to our launch team who is a full time over the road truck driver.

In God’s sovereignty the Lord brother Bo Schuety to partner with us.

Bo scheduled himself to pick eggs up in Indiana and deliver them to Michigan where he was able to pick up these chairs and put them into storage in one of his tractor trailers in Dunkerton.

What we found out was that Bo although he is a truck driver by occupation He is a missionary to his very core.

Bo saw so many hurting, empty, people in with great physical needs every would drive so he began collecting toiletries , toothpaste, deodorant, warm socks, stocking hats, mittens, etc and began to give out what he now calls blessing bags.

He meets physical needs of people all over the country in order that he can share the life changing message of the gospel.

As I was praying and thinking about about our Saturday serve schedule I thought “Who better to serve, than one of our own partners and friends” so next week we will have collection bins in the lobby as well in here and we want you to overflow these bins with toiletries.

We will have a list of items that are needed attached to the bins and then Saturday the 4th we will pack blessing bags with the items and Bo is going to try to be here on Feb 5th so we can present him with the filled blessing bags as well as hear a little bit about how God began this ministry giving his life purpose and making a difference in peoples lives all over the country.

Now…with all that being said let’s turn to the Lord in prayer and ask Him to continue to work in our lives like only He can do.

Prayer

This morning I want to give just a little review for those of you who were unable to be with us last week, as we began a four week series entitled “What’s Next?” and we introduced our mission statement which is this:

“We exist to help people Know God, Find Freedom, Discover Purpose, and Make a Difference.”

We talked about the fact that God loves you!

He knows you intimately, that contentment is found no where apart from a relationship with Jesus Christ, and that Knowing Jesus is just the beginning of your journey.

This week I read a great descriptive about what it must be like to work at a church, written by a Christian satire writer named Jon Acuff.

Since today is my one week anniversary of being a lead pastor I thought I would share this with you so you know what my week looks like.

He says

Don’t you wish you worked at a church?

That would be such a dream job!

My assumption is that other than Sunday it must be like having a long quiet time.

You probably get to read the Bible all day long and take breaks in your prayer closet and spend eight hours a day growing your spiritual life.

I’m sure the phone rings sometimes, like when someone needs a casserole of hope after a death in the family or a youth group van breaks down.

I bet there is an acoustic guitar being played somewhere in the office and when you go to make copies on the printer you’ll hear it and join in a sing-a-long.

Is it even a full time job?

Seriously other than a few hours on a Sunday morning, what else are you doing?

Praying?

Worshipping?

Holding car washes to raise money for missions trips?

What’s that take?

Four hours tops?

How do you spend the rest of your week?

Being loved on I bet! Plus You’ve got an entire congregation full of people that love you unconditionally.

Imagine having hundreds of people that are fans of what you do and how you do it.

People that are going to wholeheartedly accept what you do and never write mean emails no matter if they disagree with your decisions or not.

They are opening thank-you notes and sunshine emails and gift baskets with delicious cheeses and spiced meats all day long!

Someday if they ever eliminate my job maybe I’ll get a church job and get to live the sweet life!

Oh Yes….the sweet life.

I have not yet gotten to experience most of that yet, but the truth is that because I am living in obedience to God I am living a fulfilled life of purpose.

Next week we will dive into discovering your God given purpose so you’re gonna want to be here for that!

So be sure to invite a friend!

And just a side note - We know inviting people to church can be intimidating so we are trying to make it as easy as possible and have printed off some invite cards.

Please be sure stop by the welcome center and and take a few and hand them out.

Give them to your barista, or drive through friends.

Invite everyone you can because at Generations Church it’s all about the Gospel!

If you have your Bible or your favorite Bible app with you today I want to ask you to turn to Ephesians 1:17-19 with me, and here we find the Apostle Paul writing to the new believers there in the church in Ephesus.

In chapter one Paul is writing about the incredibly rich blessings we experience by the fact that our sins are forgiven and that we can know God.

I don’t know about you but there should be incredible joy in the fact that you once were lost and a captive and now you are found and you can experience freedom in Christ.

This morning we want you to find that Freedom from our sin, from addictions, from fears, pains, anxieties, depression and hopelessness can only come from Christ.

Here in Ephesians 1 Paul prays a prayer for the church and this is what he prays.

He says,

“I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, would give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him.

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the mighty working of his strength.”

Paul is praying first that God would give you the spirit of wisdom and divine revelation that you can Know him.

There are people that believe God exists but that He has nothing to do with you that God simply created the world, set it spinning and no longer interacts or wants anything to do with us.

That simply is not true.

Above everything else Paul, and I could insert my name here as well because it is my prayer for you is that you come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Paul says “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened!”

Why? “So that you may know what is the hope of His calling.

We mentioned it last week but you need to understand that coming to Christ is the starting point on this journey, and so many people make that commitment to Know God but they stop there.

What people fail to see and believe is that you are not saved simply from Hell when you come to accept the free gift of salvation but you are now an adopted child of the king and everything that He has is now also yours.

That’s why we can be weak and say “I am strong.”

We can be poor but can stand and say “I am rich”, we now have the immeasurable greatness of His power because He has purchased our freedom.

And in this new year if you know God you can now stand and say “this is the year where my addiction will not define who I am.

I will no longer be labeled by my past” I will no longer be labeled by my mistakes, or my failures, my shortcomings, because I am no longer a slave to who I was because my freedom has been bought by the blood of Jesus Christ.

And my prayer for you this morning is that you not only Know Him, but that you also know the glorious hope of His calling for your life and that calling on your life starts with the fact that you have been set free from from not only an eternity in Hell but you can now be free from the sins that so easily entangle us!

Some of you are treading water in life right now and you are going under.