The Forgotten God wk 3

INTRO

Good morning! My name is Ryan, I’m one of the pastors here at Georgianna.

It’s so good to be with you in worship today…

[MENTION LIVE STREAM AT 9:45]

DO YOU HAVE A SERIES ANCHOR PASSAGE, REPEATED DURING THE INTRO OF EACH SERMON THE IN SERIES?

Maybe the intro has to do with the sad irony of a Forgotten God whose power is at work within us???

ME

HOW DO I STRUGGLE WITH THIS?

WE

HOW DO WE ALL STRUGGLE WITH THIS?

Find common ground with your audience around the same or a similar dilemma.

OPENING PRAYER

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in Your sight… O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

GOD

WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT THIS?

Transition to the text to discover what God says about the tension or question you’ve introduced.

PASSAGE

Promote Bible, YouVersion, Pew Bible with page #, take it if they don’t have one

SCRIPTURE (PEW BIBLE PAGE #)

REFLECTIONS

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APPLICATIONS

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WE

HOW CAN WE ALL LIVE THIS OUT TOGETHER?

Close with several statements about what could happen in your community, your church, or the world if everybody embraced that particular truth.

Take-away, phrase it like… Imagine if… what would our church/city/world look like if…?

CLOSING PRAYER

Who You are, who we are, who You’ve called us to be…

COMMUNION

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BENEDICTION

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NOTES

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Pose a question that your audience wants answered.

(In your introduction: What can I do to get my audience to want to know the answer to that question?)

Create a tension they need resolved.

(In your introduction: What can I do to make my audience feel that tension?)

Point to a mystery they have been unable to solve.

(In your introduction: What can I do to make my audience want a solution?)

Forgotten God series, April 16, 23, 30

*Bigger Than Jesus first?

*Then move into peace? Maybe as a response to Corky’s “Anxious for Nothing” message...

*Does Acts 2:42-47 fit into HS series? And 1 Thess 2:8 (on the wall)

As in, challenge: Invite someone to dinner this week. Break bread together

*Funny story- Dove tattoo- I never even see it? Not even sure which shoulder it’s on… “forgotten God”

-talk about how “this is how you justify tattoos when you’re young and in college… if you can somehow force a religious connection… then it’s okay.”

wk1- Bigger Than Jesus

wk2- Maybe Pentecost?

wk3- Something about Evidence or Proof? But talk about the Fruit of the Spirit… mention story about Tony Campolo coming to Lee… don’t tell in a disparaging way but in a “We get this confused sometimes, right?” sort of way :)

Chan’s “silly illustration” on pg 32

For wk 1- Paul specifically talks how Jesus “empties Himself,” make Himself less, limits Himself… and if God continues in the form of a man then He becomes inaccessible for the generations to come.

*Maybe NON-SENSE is a week of Forgotten God?

Specifically how the Holy Spirit speaks for us in groans, etc.

Proverbs 3:5???

January 23 devotion… THIS is the work of the Holy Spirit!

Without [the Holy Spirit] people operate in their own strength and only accomplish human-size results. (pg 16-17)

We are not all we were made to be when everything in our lives and churches can be explained apart from the work and presence of the Spirit of God. (18)

That by keeping in step with the Spirit, we might regularly fellowship over what He’s doing rather than what He did months or years ago (19)

Thousands of years later, I think most of us would also choose a physical Jesus over an invisible Spirit. But what do we do with the fact that Jesus says it is better for His followers to have the Holy Spirit? (35)

It seems to me that we have far more KNOWLEDGE about the Holy Spirit, but far less power… the disciples, on the other hand, had far less knowledge… there was no fully thought out doctrine of the Trinity in the New Testament… but they had far more power. There is no doubt that they were led by the Spirit and that God’s Spirit was AT WORK through their lives.

Include the scripture that says… “The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is alive in you.” MAYBE IT’S THE BANNER SCRIPTURE?

Include Asbury story in HS series? About the guy thinking it was a terrible sermon

Nuggets from Forgotten God book:

Luke 11:13 NIV

13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

See pg. 55, middle 2 paragraphs. Is there a point in the series when you can share you own struggles with “Spirit-filled” things? “Here’s how I saw it for a long time...”

save for wk 2

A couple of weeks ago was Pentecost Sunday.

Churches all over the world “observed” Pentecost that week.

But if we really took it seriously, I think Pentecost is worth more than just an observance.

_____________________________

Let’s look at it again for a minute…

After that very first Easter… Jesus was raised from the dead… it was a celebration… but he doesn’t stick around very long. He ascends to heaven…

And his followers have to figure out what ministry looks like without God by their side…

Or so they thought.

INSERT THE PART WHERE JESUS TELLS THEM TO SIMPLY WAIT IN JERUSALEM. KIND OF CRYPTIC?

LIke listen I know everything is upside down now and you feel like the rug is out from under you… you’re wondering What Now? And God says… “I know… and I’ll meet you in Jerusalem.”

STOP AND LIVE IN THAT FOR SECOND.

50 days after Easter Jesus’ followers are gathered together for another holy day.

The very Spirit of God enters the room… the description is really interesting…

They said there was “a sound from heaven LIKE the howling of a fierce wind… They saw what SEEMED to be individual flames of fire” on each of their heads…

In other words… it was really hard to describe…

God’s own Spirit shows up and it’s chaotic and loud and hard to put into words…

It’s a really rich story… but essentially it gives Jesus’ followers the power and the confidence and the calling they needed to spread his message all over the world.

They realize now that they DON’T have to do this without God. God’s own Spirit is now there with them.

And right here OUR story begins. Pentecost begins the story of the church.

And so it demands more than just an observance.

We should be celebrating… probably on par with Christmas and Easter.

And we mentioned this a couple weeks ago… it is your birthday church! I hope you ate some cake! If you came to the celebration later that day we had cookies… and that counts.

Without Pentecost… the church is never born… we don’t have any of this.

We’re going to dive a bit deeper into this today… but it’s only through the Holy Spirit and the story that begins at Pentecost, that we are here together worshipping today.

And so Pentecost is a day to truly celebrate you and me and us together… and all those around the world who are meeting in the name of Jesus.