Extravagant worship

Be extravagant

So we are coming to the end of 2018 & i believe that 2019 will be an awesome year in the life of this church, in fact i will prophesy it over Restore church, i believe we will see the church grow in numbers & in influence but it’s gonna take something from us, it’s gonna take us to be extravagant.

English Standard Version (ESV)

12 And it was told King David, “The Lord has blessed the household of Obed-edom and all that belongs to him, because of the ark of God.” So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom to the city of David with rejoicing. 13 And when those who bore the ark of the Lord had gone six steps, he sacrificed an ox and a fattened animal.14 And David danced before the Lord with all his might. And David was wearing a linen ephod. 15 So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the horn.

English Standard Version (ESV)

The Widow's Offering

41 And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. 42 And a poor widow came and put in twosmall copper coins, which make a penny.[a] 43 And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. 44 For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

English Standard Version (ESV)

A Sinful Woman Forgiven

36 One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table. 37 And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, 38 and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment.

What have all these pages got in common?

What are they all about?

They are all about extravagant worship, extravagant giving.

It speaks to me of being extravagant with the giving of ourselves to God.

If we call ourselves Christians then we need to mirror the behaviour of Him who we say we follow, God gave of Himself and has continued to give us all that we need, He has been abundantly extravagant towards us, so shouldn’t we in return.

Every Sunday we gather here together to worship our God, to praise Jesus and we do that with passion. We give of ourselves freely and gladly because we love Him and we want Him to know it and that’s good.

Let me ask a question

Is the rest of your life lived in the same way with the same passion?

Do you give of your time?

Could you give of your time?

What about finances?

Do you give of your finances?

Do you tithe 10% of your income? To some that sounds legalistic church telling me what to do.

But you won’t find tithe in the new testament, in the NT it speaks of generous giving a tithe is what we should give to God being generous is above and beyond that.

Or do we keep it for ourselves?

When everything we have is God’s given provision, to us, from Him, so that His plans and purposes can be worked out through the local Church.

Do we give God what we think he deserves?

What if God gave us what we deserve?

What then?

By the way just to let you know this isn’t all about money, this is about us as a whole person and what value do we put on Jesus.

How do we see the value of Jesus?

How can we know the truth, for the truth will set you free?

How do we see things, do we look at things with our eyes or with our spiritual eyes because that is the only way we can see the truth.

We are not alone and never will be.

But we have to see beyond our circumstances, we have to see how God sees things.

When we look at people what do we see?

Do we see what colour they are, or nationality, what clothes they wear, the shoes on their feet, if they are dirty or clean?

Do we see what God sees, someone who is hurting, someone who is lost because if we see that then it would break our hearts just like it breaks God’s.

What do you see when you face a problem?

Do you see how big your problem is and take it to your God or do you see how big your God is and take Him to your problem.

Nothing is too big to be brought before our God.

I got it after I had pneumonia the 2nd time and then had 2 or 3 bouts of pneumonia the last nearly killing me and putting me in Hospital in January 2011.

I have not been ill like it since and I don’t believe I will be again.

I could have been all doom and gloom and probably would have, if I would have had to face it alone.

But I have a loving family and a great fantastic God; I know what God has called me to.

We need to know for ourselves that God has called us to something that we are here for a purpose.

Not just to live out our lives.

God says this over us as individuals and as a Church

But to shine bright we need to

1) Get our priorities right

We need to be a Church of soul catchers, everything we do as a Church has to aimed at building up the Kingdom of God.

Nothing changes through good intentions but through action.

We must go out into our world, next door, school, work, people we see down the road.

Lost and hurting people, without Christ in their lives aiming for the wrong destination.

But don’t just talk a good talk you have to walk it too, living your Christ like life out in front of them.

Die for a cause, don’t just live for s dream.

What is the cause that drives you.

As a leadership how can we help you do something about it.

2) To shine bright we need to model grace and truth

We need to speak truth to each other, but we need to speak in love, because of love.

That’s not an excuse to say what’s on your mind and then say “I said it because I love you”

That’s rubbish.

If you say something in love it’s with the other persons feelings at the forefront of our minds when we say it.

God has shown Grace to us, we need to show Grace to others.

If we want to mirror God, then we need to act in the same way, let it go through your mind.

How would Jesus act at this precise moment.

We are His ambassadors, His representatives here on Earth so we need to act like Him, Be one.

3) We shine bright when we work together

We are united because of a common cause.

You know this is a critical time in the History of this Church.

We have the founding Pastor retiring, stepping aside to let a younger man take on the role as , senior minister, me.

We have a new building and as a church we are in the process of getting this building right to be able to use it right so that we will be able to serve our community from, there’s still some work to go.

But for this to happen we need to pull together.

We need to be in the same boat and all rowing together so that we can move forward and not go round and round in circles.

4) We shine bright when we invest generously

I’ve come back to giving

Giving generously

Invest yourself in your community

Have a generous eye backed up by generous hands.

Get stuck in get involved at Church.

How can we facilitate your dreams?

What can you do to help from this point.

Maybe it’s being generous with your time, maybe it’s being generous with your money.

You don’t have to be rich in either money or time to give,

You just need to have a generous spirit like the father who is always generous to us.

Maybe we need to be like the widow in

Mark 12:41–44 ESV

And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”