Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Community Service

And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power. NIV

*Prayer before sermon

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*This letter is written to a community of believers that first heard the Gospel from the Apostle Paul. In fact, every book that is part of the New Testament was a letter written to communities of believers in the early Church.

*We were created by God with a desire to belong. We all want to belong to something bigger than ourselves. Sin has twisted this God-given desire, but Christ is calling us to a community that will last forever!

**My desire to belong—teaching—local restaurant—i believed the lie of Satan and of my own sinful flesh that I had to find my happiness in my job and my place in life. God can use you right where you are. Your desire to belong to a community is a God-given desire that can only be fulfilled when you part of the body of Christ, fulfilling your role in a local church gathering.

And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.

*We were created by God with a desire to belong. We all want to belong to something bigger than ourselves. Sin has twisted this God-given desire, but Christ is calling us to a community that will last forever!

**My desire to belong—teaching—local restaurant—i believed the lie of Satan and of my own sinful flesh that I had to find my happiness in my job and my place in life. God can use you right where you are.

When I Came To You

“When I came to you”—here we see Paul obeying the command of Jesus given in , what we have come to know as The Great Commission. Jesus’s call to make disciples is a call to create an eternal community in Christ Jesus.

**My desire to belong—teaching—local restaurant

A. Paul went from where he was to Corinth to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. If Paul had not went, we would not have this letter to the Corinthian church to read. He was being obedient to the teaching of Jesus.

a. As believers, God is calling all of us, every single one, to share the Good News of Jesus with others.

As believers, God is calling all of us, every single one, to share the Good News of Jesus with others.

b. “When I came to you” means that God is calling each one of us to go somewhere physically.

i. For some of us, that may be crossing oceans, cultures, languages, and even risking our lives for the cause of Christ.

ii. For most of us, however, our going will not be far distances but that is still answering Jesus’s command to make disciples.

*We all come in contact with someone else on a regular basis. We all have neighbors. How does the Bible define a neighbor?

*Jesus tells us, You shall lover your neighbor as yourself.

*: Good Samaritan-a neighbor transcends man-made barriers to include all people we come in contact with!

*I would say that every person knows at least one person who is hurting right now, and that person could be you. If we know someone who is hurting we can tell them the words of Jesus from . “Humans don’t readily admit desperation. When they do, the kingdom of heaven draws near.” Philip Yancey

c. “When I came to you” means that God is calling each one of us out of our comfort zone.

i. We all have a desire to be comfortable. But answering the call to make disciples will make you step out of your comfort zone!

(Ex: