Baptized, Capsized and Deputized! (The Role of the Holy Spirit)

Role of Holy Spirit

• Awakens us to grace (1 Corinthians 2.10)
• Beckons us to our inheritance (Galatians 4.6)
• Equips us for service (Acts 1.8)
• Offers us God’s Presence (1 Corinthians 6.19-20)
• Empowers us for victory (1 John 5.4)
• Sensitizes us to revelation (St. John 16.12)
• Makes us One with the God and God’s Family (1 Corinthians 6.17)
• Guarantees our eternity with God (Ephesians 1.14)

Next Steps

1. Pray for the continual filling of the Holy Spirit
2. Pray for sensitivity to the leading/prompting of the Holy Spirit
3. Seek the evidence of transformation of character by the Holy Spirit
4. Trust God’s power within you to overcome obstacles to faithful living.

(Verses from Role of Holy Spirit)

1 Corinthians 2:10

10 these are the things God has revealed(A) to us by his Spirit.(B)The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.

Galatians 4:6

6 Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son(A) into our hearts,(B) the Spirit who calls out, “Abba,[a] Father.”(C)

Acts 1:8

8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you;(A) and you will be my witnesses(B) in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria,(C) and to the ends of the earth.”(D)

1 Corinthians 6:19-20

19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples(A) of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;(B) 20 you were bought at a price.(C) Therefore honor God with your bodies.(D)

1 John 5:4

4 for everyone born of God(A) overcomes(B) the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.

John 16:12

12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.(A)

1 Corinthians 6:17

17 But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.[a](A)

Ephesians 1:14

14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance(A) until the redemption(B) of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.(C)

God Takes Action! (New Series: The Enduring Church: God's Abiding Presence

God Takes Action (Sermon Set-up) Sunday, March 16, 2014

➣Jesus shows shows up for 40 days

➣ “Ummm, are you going to break up the Evil Roman World-Power?”

➣Jesus was not as interested in ruling people as freeing & empowering people!

• God is not passive
• God is not ineffective during periods of apparent silence
• When God takes action, it is deliberate (connected & connecting)
• When God takes action, it is subtle, yet, blatant (depending on your eyes and ears)
• When God takes action, it is typically in response to a wrong He wants to correct, and a right he wants to establish.
• Since a day it like a thousand years and vice versa to God, when God takes action it’s way too late for some...and way too soon for others. However, God’s timing is always impeccable (meaning, it can’t get no better!)

God is a Creator! An Establisher! An Innovator! God is the Impetus to Life!

• Adam (breathes in his nostrils) & builds humanity with him
• Noah (rebuilds a new pared-down humanity with him)
• Abraham (builds a new family/ a preferred people group with him & his kin)
• Moses (Leads Abraham & Joseph’s descendants out of Egypt to establish a new nation)
• Raises David, from the chosen family’s bloodline, to be Head over his new Kingdom (sphere of influence)
• Jesus Christ then comes, from the chosen family's bloodline, to bring others into the bloodline who are not physically related to the family of God. His blood as mingled with that of outcasts, murderers, prostitutes, foreigners, etc.

*God has always chosen a progenitor* through which a new order of people and/or relationships were created.

➣We look at the Book of Acts today...same STORY, but a DIFFERENT TWIST!

➣Luke is writing a letter to Theophilus (Book of Acts...a letter or legal brief)

Acts/Operations/Functioning/Duties/Responses/

➣Dreaming of a loved one who has died to awaken & you feel the loss....

➣When the person of positional power dies...you’re up! You’re next. Top Dog.

5 Stages: 1. Denial 2. Anger 3. Bargain 4. Depressive 5. Acceptance

• Disciples hadn’t gotten thru the 5 stages because Jesus returned on Day 3

• Before they can’t get through stages one or two...Jesus shows up for 40 days... Just to leave again!!!

➣Some likely misunderstood and thought Jesus would drop in from time to time for a chat...

➣They didn’t realize that today was a major handoff and set-up for a new dimension of God’s presence in the Earth. 

...Without an owners manual...And they moved from Crisis to Courage!

➣2 Angels seem like a duplicate of an O.T. symbol that meant God’s presence

(Like Luke 24.4; John 20:10-12)

➣Numbers 7:88-89 (The Message)

89 When Moses entered the Tent of Meeting to speak with God, he heard the Voice speaking to him from between the two angel-cherubim above the Atonement-Cover on the Chest of The Testimony. He spoke with him.

➣Called the chariots of God

Challenges & Next Steps~

● Join a Life group and experience a closer connection with God & His people

● Share with your group where you’d like to grow in your faith (understanding scripture, prayer, sharing your faith, getting connected, godly living & victory, accepting God’s love). Receive prayer for this requests, believe God hears you, follow the leading of the Holy Spirit as you are directed in areas of growth and development.

Built To Last! ("Enfrastructure")

Enfrastructure

Infrastructure According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word infrastructure has been used in English since at least 1927, originally meaning "The installations that form the basis for any operation or system".

The term typically refers to the technical structures that support a society, such as roads, bridges, water supply, sewers, electrical grids, telecommunications, and so forth, and can be defined as "the physical components of interrelated systems providing commodities and services essential to enable, sustain, or enhance societal living conditions."

Viewed functionally, infrastructure facilitates the production of goods and services, and also the distribution of finished products to markets, as well as basic social services such as schools and hospitals; for example, roads enable the transport of raw materials to a factory...

*Infrastructure for us:

• Spiritual Vibrancy (prayer for sensitivity to Spirit, study of scripture, living out faith in community, sharing faith & service)

Generosity---------> Sharing the wealth of God

Hospitality----------> Sharing the heart of God

Administration-----> Facilitating the strength of God

------------------------------------------------------------------------

They all undergird the Plan of God

The role of structure is sustainability!

Leaving a legacy for the generation requires sustainability

Enfrastructure~

Admin: Mo. Lola/Carolyn/Judy/Brian W./ Gloria/Denise Boss/ Renee Daniels...

• Communications (Powerpoint, graphic design, newsletter, video editing)
• Grounds (Flowers/Fruit trees/ Gardening) & Maintenance

When properly laid, enables quick expansion e.g. 2nd service, Service for Spanish Speakers

Needs: Phone coverage/Volunteer Coordination/Benevloence/Communication 

What changes and impoverished mindset into a resourced mindset? (Answer: A person’s giving)

Challenge: Pray for a spirit of generosity to erupt in our hearts and midst!

The New Table (Empowerment)

The New Table (Empowerment)

Contract~Contact~Impact (Act~ing) 

➢God’s empowerment comes upon us as we find ways to empower others

➢Those who were sent and spent by God were those who went for God

Mephibosheth

1. Probably didn’t have a true sense of his worth or identity
2. Had royal blood in his veins but no avenue for living it out
3. Called into community to show God’s compassion...he was @ the table
4. He was resourced independently of David. He was resourced appropriately.
5. He ate with the king’s son...heard their strategies, their conquests & their dreams. He got to hear how empowered people think! 
6. He had to first change his address!

➢Empowerment is not merely about being trained and sent...

●Empowerment is about being released by a community...

●Because your empowerment benefits the community...

➢Empowerment is about being fueled & resourced for what you were created for

➢Empowerment is dangerous~ it removes all *excuses

➢An empowered person is not a devoured person, or soured  person or coward person.

But rather...a towered person, a flowered person and a showered person.

*When empowering...God has already assessed where you're limited by reality (which He can change); by your limited perceptions of Him (which you must be willing to have changed); and by your limited understanding of yourself in Christ (which is the hardest to change)

Before Mephibosheth was empowered...a few things happened first:

• David, while considering his own blessings...sought to bless others
• The thought of others caused him to ask about Saul’s legacy
• Because Mephibosheth was seated at the table, he could empower someone else with his own god-given resources.

Next steps: 1. Get to a new table. 2. Get around those who awaken God’s Dream within you. 3. Try a Life Group

I've Got You Covered! (Expounding on E-Cubed Vision Day Goals)

ENGULFING: (Surrounding, Covering): “I’ve Got You Covered: The End To Privatized Faith.”

➢Madison Magazine Cover Photo

• Life Groups*
• Fellowship/shared life
• Prayer and study

• Fun & Fellowship
• Family Fun Night*
• Annual Picnic/Affinity Groups
• Sunday Mobile Cafés

****

➢Godly service requires such a vivid understanding of Who God is and what God wants

➢True godly love------sees God and others

➢This true love rises above the distraction of feelings/emotions & is a constant

Engulfing: synonyms: inundate, flood, deluge, immerse, swamp, swallow up, submerge. Surrounding

Relevant

Touch (Mark 1 The Leper vs. The Man With Leprosy)

(of a natural force) sweep over (something) so as to surround or cover it completely.

"the cafe was engulfed in flames"

1 Peter 4:8-10 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. 

• Love is the hallmark of the church
• God is love

1. 1 John 4:8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
2. 1 John 4:9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
3. 1 John 4:10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
4. 1 John 4:12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
5. 1 John 4:16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
6. 1 John 4:20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.
7. 1 John 5:2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands.
8. 1 John 5:3 In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome,

➢Love is the blood that makes us all kin!

➢If you can love, we can create family!

➢Love is the bedrock for the community we’re building

➢Love is to the kingdom what reproductivity is to society!!

Widows/orphans/poor/outsiders

Church History

At no other time in the history of Christianity did love so characterize the entire church as it did in the first three centuries. And Roman society took note. Tertullian reported that the Romans would exclaim, “See how they love one another!”

Justin Martyr sketched Christian love this way:  “...We used to hate and destroy one another and refused to associate with people of another race or country. Now, because of Christ, we live together with such people and pray for our enemies.”

When a devastating plague swept across the ancient world in the third century, Christians were the only ones who cared for the sick, which they did at the risk of contracting the plague themselves. Meanwhile, pagans were throwing infected members of their own families into the streets even before they died, in order to protect themselves from the disease.

➢Korean Immigrant families would attend church to meet other Koreans.

➢Other groups (Dearborn, MI) attend churches to learn English

➢History of Sunday School was to reach poor children to read

The love of the early Christians wasn't limited simply to their fellow believers. Christians also lovingly helped non-believers: the poor, the orphans, the elderly, the sick, the shipwrecked—even their persecutors. 

The Scriptures teach that a Christian shouldn't take his brother to court. Rather, he should suffer fraud at the hands of his brother, if need be. (1 Cor. 6:7) It's no wonder that Christianity spread rapidly throughout the ancient world, even though there were few organized missionary or evangelism programs. The love they practiced drew the attention of the world, just as Jesus said it would.

Questions/New Steps

➢What keeps you from engulfing others?

➢How has God resourced you for engulfing?

➢Pray that you’d be able to demonstrate your love God by engulfing others

➢This is the only true measurement of our love for God

E-Cubed (Engaging…Engulfing…Empowering…) Vision Day Plan 2014

ENGAGING: (Pledging, Taking Part, Involving)

• Reaching Latino neighbors with The Good News
• Spanish Table & ESL Services
• Sunday School for neighborhood kids
• Bible Studies

• Reaching unchurched youth with our sports field
• Soccer leagues & Basketball leagues
• Golf lessons

• College Ministry & Community Outreach

• Early worship services

• Expansion of housing services

• ETS Table and sign-up

* I need teams for each undertaking & I need leaders

ENGULFING: (Surrounding, Covering)

• Life Groups
• Fellowship/shared life
• Prayer and study

• Fun & Fellowship
• Family Fun Night*
• Annual Picnic/Affinity Groups
• Sunday Mobile Cafés

• Church Vitality Team (Rethinking church for our urban, multiethnic context)

* I need 7 more life group leaders; 5 creative strategic thinkers for CV team; and organizers for fellowship efforts.

EMPOWERING: (Investment in & Coaching and Releasing of Leaders)

• Urban Impact Center (World Impact partnership)

• North Park Seminary Partnership

• Resourcing creative leaders: “You can do it, we can help!”

• Boomerangs South/West
• Jobs
• Affordable shopping alternatives
• Training
• Scholarship
• Youth leadership development
• Social entrepreneurialism

• Producing well-trained servant leaders

“Enfrastructure”

• Administration (FOL has entrepreneurial genius but we are administratively challenged)
• Receptionist and light office work i.e. graphs, charts, spreadsheets, research, organizing, etc.

• Coordination of a Connections Team

• Hospitality 
• Welcome Center
• Greeters/Ushers
• Parking lot attendants
• Create warmth in the atmosphere

• Generosity
• A response to God 
• A response to a real need
• An act of worship, faith and joy

Reforming the Reformers (Vision Day 2014)

Reforming the Reformers (Vision Day 2014)

Nehemiah 8:1-11

Reformation comes with commitment to understand God’s mind, God’s message, God’s mission and God’s mandates. (The Word)

➣Josiah in 2 Kings 22

➣Ezra and Nehemiah

➣1st Century Church

➣Reformers

The Kingdom is where God’s RULE is witnessed

Universal Church is where God’s NATURE is witnessed

Unity of Believers is where God’s GRACE is witnessed

Transformed communities are where God’s POWER is witnessed

God’s purpose turns us from a:

• Hurried Life
• “Me” centered life
• Powerless life
• Purposeless life

Why were people crying as Ezra read?

• Word put their lives: historical, spiritual, financial, national, cultural, future...into perspective!

[Slide #6]

Next Steps: 

1. Commit to this community
1. Regular Attendance
2. Involvement
3. Generosity
4. Pray for vision, body, leaders, community, revival
5. Invite others

1. Decide where you enter our formula and commit yourself to community (accountability); Study (stability) and training (ability).

1. Commit yourself to the process of personal, corporate and societal transformation.