Move Out: Prepare For Committment
Notes
Transcript
Attention Getter:
A hen and a pig approached a church and read the advertised sermon topic: “What can we do to help the poor?”
Immediately the hen suggested they feed them bacon and eggs. The pig thought for a moment and said, “there’s only one thing wrong with feeding bacon and eggs to the poor. For you it requires only a contribution, but for me it requires total commitment.”
Last week we started a new series named Move Out. We’re talking about moving out to people beyond these walls. People who need forgiveness. People who need hope. People who need a Savior. People who need Jesus Christ.
We talked about how we are all called to move out. It’s not just for pastors, elders, deacons, and church leaders. The call is for all of us to move out.
The first step is prayer. Prayer focused specifically on us. Jesus tells us in Luke 10:2 that we need to pray for harvesters. We are those harvesters. We need to pray that we have the desire to move out into the harvest.
We talked about asking others to pray for you if you don’t feel the desire to move out. I want you all to know whether you asked for it or not you have been prayed for. Diligently and daily every one of you have been prayed for.
We talked about how prayer is paramount to anything God wants us to accomplish. It’s not just something we do for a week and say okay that steps over let’s move to the next step. No, prayer is continual, constant, never ceasing and must undergird everything we do without ceasing.
We’ll never move past the step of praying for harvesters. Prayer is the foundation that holds up everything else that follows. It must always remain under our plan to move out. Just like a building if you remove the foundation the building will crumble. The same is true with prayer.
Today we’re going to add another action step to move out. But before we do let’s remind ourselves why we need to move out in the first place. We need to be reminded what’s on the line.
John, in 1 Jn 5:12, explains it so concisely and so completely.
He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.
So why all the emphasis? Why all the focus? What’s on the line? Life!!!
If you have the Son you have life. The Son John refers to here is the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Do you have Jesus? If you do you have life. Whoever has Jesus has life.
That life isn’t perfect, it isn’t care free and trouble free, but it is full of hope and grace. It comes with a promise that one day it will be perfect, and eternally in harmony with the presence of God’s glory.
But John doesn’t stop there. There are two kinds of people in this verse:
He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.
There are many who don’t have the Son. Who don’t have eternal perfect, harmonious life. Lest we sugar coat anything I want to make sure we understand something. The eternal life they have will be full of weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Jesus makes that clear in Matthew 13:42 and Luke 13:26. What better motivator is there than a person’s soul. A person made in the image of God. Before we commit there’s a question we have to ask ourselves.
Is it worth it? Are other people’s lives worth what God is calling us to do? Is their eternal life worth it? Because that’s what is on the line? Are they worth it?
Because that’s the reason we are praying for harvesters and why we’re going to discuss how to prepare for commitment in our move out series.
Last week Jesus tells us to pray for harvesters for laborers.
After these things the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place, whither he himself would come. Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.