Kickoff to Christmas
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Introduction
Introduction
Fun night.
Thank you all for coming out
I want to take a few minutes this evening and talk a little overview of what you can expect the next two Wednesday nights.
Over the next two weeks on Wednesday night I hope to communicate to you why we have a vision of Loving God, Serving Others, and Making and impact. I want you to understand why we use the terms Connect Grow Serve and Share.
Neither of them are arbitrary words that we chose because there weren’t any better. They each have meaning and line out the disciple making process here at Liberty.
That’s what we as a church are called to do right? Make disciples.
Matthew 28:19-20
19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
Acts 1:8
8 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
The Great commission that that the church has ben given is that of going and telling others about Jesus, baptizing them, and teaching them more about Jesus and how to live for Him.
Jesus also gave us the two greatest commandments we could follow. The ones that ALL the others are based on.
Mark 12:29-31
29 And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:
30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
We’ve summed that up with Love God Serve Others.
Why Serve Others and not love others? Because I believe we show our love to the world by serving.
Remember James this morning? he said that faith without works is dead. Loving God is our faith, Serving others is our work, and through those two, we make an impact with the gospel.
The gospel, the death burial and resurrection of Christ, and the truths that are contained with the understanding of that are the only way to have an eternal impact in the lives of those around us.
It’s why we have our #4Bristol fund. It’s why we seek ways to serve the community. So that we can do more than say “be warm and filled”
We can serve so that we can share so He can make an impact.
Love God, Serve Others, and Make an Impact.
How do we do that though? How do we as a group of people come together and accomplish this vision?
By Connecting, Growing, Serving, and Sharing.
We connect to God, Grow closer to Him as we grow together, we serve each other and the community, while Sharing the gospel locally and worldwide.
What brings people from different backgrounds together to accomplish this?
Phil 1:5
5 For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now;
The gospel and our fellowship around it.
It is our faith in Jesus that brings us together. It is our love for the Savior that unites us and not just our common interests in football teams, or hobbies, or anything like that. Our connection is much deeper.
Because our connection is around the gospel, our fellowship should be around the things of God. Does this mean Christians should not just get together for coffee or to watch sports? Not at all.
I do believe it means that the church should not seek to provide opportunities to just “hang out.”
Look at tonight. Look at what we are doing. We are having fun, eating, fellowshipping before and after the service, and what else? We are worshipping and we’ve opened the Word of God to learn from it together.
We are hanging out around the Worship of our God and the Word of God.
We have purpose in our gathering. Because the church has been given the purpose of making disciples. So all that we do as a big church family, needs to be centered on making disciples.
Fellowship for the sake of fellowship can take place in small groups, and organically as we as people decide that we won’t depend upon the church as an organization to connect us to others and we accept the role God has given us in this life to connect to others on an individual level.
Over the next two weeks I’ll be presenting what it means for us to Connect, Grow, Serve, and Share while helping us to understand this disciple making process and the role that each of us an individuals play.
What’s the application from tonight? From the Great commission and our fellowship in the gospel?
Take it upon your selves as individuals to tell others about Jesus and how to be saved. Take it upon yourselves to connect with other believers outside of scheduled services and enjoy coffee, dinner, sports, hobbies, and other things like that.
Because you and I both have been called to Love God, Serve Others, and Make an impact.
Pray