Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

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Grab your Bibles, iPads, iPhones, or some inferior device and turn to .

Yes, Jesus still loves you if you use an android.

He understands.

Just kidding.

DEEP BREATH

Big Picture Series

Big Picture Series

Wow!

It is really good to be here with you.

It really is kind of surreal.

It feels like it’s been a long time in this process but in reality, it’s been quite short as these kinds of things go.

God really worked all of this out in some amazing ways.

Alex told me to send you his greetings!

Thank you all for your very warm welcome.

The church council, the staff, all of you today.

We feel loved.

I’m very humbled.

We feel taken care of!

However, I’m not above asking for help if I need it.

On Monday night, our trailers get here and I would love a few hands to help unload them.

It’s actually right around the corner on Mills.

Friends of ours have a warehouse that they are graciously letting us use.

We will send out an email this afternoon with the specific address.

Any help would be great.

I will probably say this often but I want to communicate clearly that I consider it an honor to be your pastor.

It is not something I take for granted at all.

I see this incredible opportunity to help lead (I certainly won’t be doing it alone because of the great team here) a group of people to be more like Jesus and make a significant impact in the communities around us as we proclaim the good news about Jesus.

I’m excited.

I’m really looking forward to what where God is taking us.

So… Speaking of traveling.

On any journey, you have two kinds of people.

You’ve got the big picture folks and then you’ve got the turn by turn people.

The turn by turn folks just want to know the very next step.

Don’t bother me with a big picture.

It will just confuse me.

The big picture person gets out the map because they want to see it all in one place.

I’m choosing to believe that a healthy marriage involves having both.

So, honey, we have a balanced healthy marriage.

Amanda is a turn by turn person and I’m definitely a big picture person.

I just have to know where we are going.

So that’s what we are going to do for the next four weeks as a church.

We are going to look at the big picture.

Sure, we will talk about some specific turns but we’ve got to start with the big picture.

Week one.

Week two.

Week three.

Week four.

A Big God

A Big Mission

Introduction

A Big Difference

A Big Family

Some of those are pretty obvious at we are referring to but if not, you’ll just have to come and see what they are all about.

In September then we start a series on the Kingdom.

The King and his Kingdom.

A walk through Matthew’s account of Jesus’ teachings on the kingdom.

We’ll take three months to do that.

We’ll celebrate advent and then in January, we will start the year with a huge emphasis on prayer but also present the next chapter in the vision that we believe God is going to give us.

I invite you to be a part of all of that.

If you’ve been a part of Gateway, great!

Keep going.

If you are new, jump on board.

Come be a part of what God is doing.

Get to know Gateway.

Dinner with the pastor.

Becoming a ministry partner.

Serving.

Giving.

Let’s do this!

As many of you know, we moved from here 2 1/2 years ago to west Michigan to oversee church planting for our denomination.

It was a good 2 1/2 years.

God did some really cool things.

One is that I had the opportunity to learn a ton.

It was a very different role than pastoring.

In a good way.

One of the truths that grabbed me in deep way as our need for churches to be VERTICAL vs. horizontal.

Love God.

Love your neighbor.

It’s sort of easy to focus more on the horizontal.

A couple of books really challenged me in this area.

The first was vertical church by James McDonald.

Wow.

He challenged church leaders and pastors to focus on how Great God is and how he deserves all of our worship.

That then forms the foundation for our relationship with each other and with a broken, fallen world.

This might be a book some of our church leadership reads together.

The other one really messed me up as an individual follower of Jesus.

JD Greear wrote the book, “Not God Enough - Why your small God leads to big problems.”

God has incredibly convicted me that my sinful struggles in life are because I simply do not view God for who he is - A REALLY BIG GOD.

Our culture wants us to believe that God is small.

As Lebron would say, “The big man upstairs.”

My friends, he’s not the big man upstairs.

He’s almighty God, the perfect, holy, just, creator, savior, sustainer of the world!

It’s all about him!

He’s the center of the universe.

Not you and me or anyone else for that matter.

Bottom line, there is no one like our God.

Let’s take a quick walk through together.

Probably a bit familiar to some of you or at least some of the verses might be.