Yesterday, we looked at the life of Jesus and how he poured himself into reaching the city(s) in which he lived. Matthew 11:20 says that Jesus did most of his miracles in Capernaum, Korazin, and Bethsaida. These three towns on the north shore of Galilee "saw a great light" (Matt. 4:16). (The picture to the left was taken in the synagogue in Korazin. This is the "Seat of Moses" on which Jesus would have sat and opened the scriptures to read to all those gathered in the synagogue.) On Sunday, I asked the question "What is your passion level for our city?"
Now its Monday. My question is what will you do this week to engage lost people in your circle of influence. Who will you stop by and visit in your neighborhood? Who will you invite over for dinner or take out for coffee? Who will you passionately pray for today? And every day this week?? Have you walked your neighborhood or campus and prayed recently?
My next question is do you understand the spiritual power of the church to reach our city? Giving 100% in your ministry area at All Nations empowers us corporately to reach our city. God has called us not just as individuals but as a Spirit-empowered community to reach people in our city for Jesus. I honestly think that people do not feel fullfilled in their ministry within the church because they do not give 100%. I believe God wants us to serve with passion and excellence. When our service is done with excellence, we experience greater personal fulfillment. God illustrates this principle in creation when at the end of each day, he looks back on it and says "It is good." What a great feeling at the end of a day of serving the Lord in our local church, we can look back and say "It is good!"
One of our most strategic opportunities to reach the neighborhood around the school that we are meeting in on Sunday is coming Easter morning. I think that this is an incredible opportunity to serve the Andersen community and to connect with many new families. Festivities will include free family photos at 9:15, Easter Egg Hunt at 10:00; and Worship service at 10:30. Over the last two years we have seen double attendance and many new people on Easter because of our Easter Egg Hunt. We are in a new neighborhood and this may be our best opportunity before we outgrow this space and need to move. We need everyone serving that morning, pouring out 100%. We need people a week before canvasing the neighborhood with doorhangers. We need people stuffing Easter eggs with candy ahead of time.
How can you pour yourself into reaching our city? Make an opportunity this week. Take the opportunity to serve together this Easter to minister and bless the Andersen community.
Now its Monday. My question is what will you do this week to engage lost people in your circle of influence. Who will you stop by and visit in your neighborhood? Who will you invite over for dinner or take out for coffee? Who will you passionately pray for today? And every day this week?? Have you walked your neighborhood or campus and prayed recently?
My next question is do you understand the spiritual power of the church to reach our city? Giving 100% in your ministry area at All Nations empowers us corporately to reach our city. God has called us not just as individuals but as a Spirit-empowered community to reach people in our city for Jesus. I honestly think that people do not feel fullfilled in their ministry within the church because they do not give 100%. I believe God wants us to serve with passion and excellence. When our service is done with excellence, we experience greater personal fulfillment. God illustrates this principle in creation when at the end of each day, he looks back on it and says "It is good." What a great feeling at the end of a day of serving the Lord in our local church, we can look back and say "It is good!"
One of our most strategic opportunities to reach the neighborhood around the school that we are meeting in on Sunday is coming Easter morning. I think that this is an incredible opportunity to serve the Andersen community and to connect with many new families. Festivities will include free family photos at 9:15, Easter Egg Hunt at 10:00; and Worship service at 10:30. Over the last two years we have seen double attendance and many new people on Easter because of our Easter Egg Hunt. We are in a new neighborhood and this may be our best opportunity before we outgrow this space and need to move. We need everyone serving that morning, pouring out 100%. We need people a week before canvasing the neighborhood with doorhangers. We need people stuffing Easter eggs with candy ahead of time.
How can you pour yourself into reaching our city? Make an opportunity this week. Take the opportunity to serve together this Easter to minister and bless the Andersen community.
9 comments:
Hey, welcome to blogging! I will be adding you to my blog roll ASAP. Love your call to action for Easter, I hope the saints there in Tulsa will follow the leading of Christ. Blessings.
Well, I am excited about this Easter, but I am unaware, as is most, about the up and coming outreach. We need to make it bigger than life itself. Let me know what I can do, and we will do it.
Loved the sermon, but sometimes I get confused on what you are trying to communicate in church. Now that I know from reading your blog I am excited about reaching people all around us. Making a difference and seeing the light of Jesus Christ shine in the hearts and lives of the people all over our city.
I encourage everyone to be sure to read your bulletin each week and the scrolling announcements. We are limited in time and cannot cover all the upcoming events during announcements. And people tend to tune out of announcements after the second one. So we just focus on the most prominent announcements. I hope that places like this blog can help people stay more up speed on all the great things happening.
Pastor John,
I'm so glad that you're blogging. Joe Schmidt and I talked about how much you pack into your sermons--it's incredible. I don't know if you write out your sermons, but I'd appreciate it if you put those up here too.
I want to read what you did say on Sunday.
Pradeepan,
Thanks for the feedback. I used to write full manuscripts. Now I use detailed outlines. I'm not sure if its in the best form for a blog?. We want to get the audio files of the sermons on our website soon. Then you can really hear what was actually said.
Pradeepan,
Here was my outline from Sunday. What do you think? Does a blog format work for this?
Places of Power:
In Your City
Intro:
• Talk about our city: Tulsa
• Talk about its founding and its spiritual heritage
• Talk about why I love Tulsa
READ Matt. 4:13-17
Capernaum: The City Jesus took up residence in
Because of Jesus’ presence and ministry here, this was a place of power. Here the people saw the light of God. It is here that that light of the ages dawned that the kingdom of God drew near to humanity.
• Capernaum was a frontier town of 1,000 to 1,500. Located on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee (the Lake of Geneseret). A fishing town.
• Capernaum was closely connected with two other neighboring towns: Bethsaida & Korizin.
Three towns all within walking distance.
Each had a synagogue and Jesus would travel between these towns and minister in the synagogues and discuss the scriptures with his disciples in these towns.
It was a cluster, like Broken Arrow, South Tulsa, & Jenks
Because of Jesus’ ministry here these three towns have been called the Evangelical Triangle.
• It is here in Caperaum, Korizin, & Bethsaida that most of Jesus’ miracles were performed.
• It was on a hillside above the lake just outside of Capernaum that Jesus gave his famous sermon on the mount to the multitudes that had gathered. It was here that he fed 5,000 men, plus women and children, probably a crowd of 20K. A huge gathering for that area.
• People came from all over to see and hear Jesus
• It was here that Jesus lived in Peter’s house
• It was here that Jesus launched out on his ministry trips
What we learn from Jesus in Capernaum
# 1 Pour your life into reaching your city!
• Bloom where you are planted
• Give God 100% by pouring yourself 100% into your community and 100% into your church that is called to reach this community.
• What does it mean to give 95% to God? It means you are 5% short. People who give 75% to God, look at those who give 50% and almost break their arm patting themselves on the back. God’s not looking for 75%. He’s not looking for 95%. He’s looking for 100%.
• When God calls you to serve in a particular ministry in the church, what % service do you give? I’m not talking about quantity. I’m talking about quality. I believe God longs for us to give 100%. But we are too busy, too preoccupied. I think we often don’t get much out of volunteering in church because we are not pouring much of ourselves into it.
• You don’t have to exercise all day to feel its effects. But you do need to hit a certain level for a period of time for the endorphins to kick in. Like the high that is experienced with running, many people are not experiencing the high that can be experienced with serving in ministry because they are not jumping in to act of service with both feet.
• In the same way, we are to jump into reaching our community for Christ, not 50%, not 75%, not 95%, but 100%.
Praying for this city! : as it is blessed, you will be blessed (Ezekial)
Proclaiming Christ in this city!
• First, Jesus and his disciples ministered to the crowds in Capernaum.
• Some suggest that it was the last six months of Jesus’ 3 years of ministry that he sent the disciples out to the surrounding towns. But he restricted them to go only the cities of Israel.
• Later he would lead then out to do ministry beyond the boarders to places like Tyre to the Northwest in what is now Lebanon and down into the Roman cities of the Decapolus.
First, to our own city. We all want to go on missions and reach the world, but that’s putting the cart before the horse. First, reach our city then reach our nation, then reach our world. Until we reach lost people effectively here, we will not be sent out to reach people in other places. There are other churches who have paid the price and impacted this city and God has expanded their influence to the nation and the world. Our day of expansion beyond Tulsa is coming but right now, we are focused on reaching the nations right here in Tulsa. Let me define the mission for us at All Nations Fellowship, which is you. The mission is here. The mission is to reach people near us first. Then God will send us out to do more in other places.
Jesus did most of his miracles here.
• What is your passion level for Tulsa?
• On Wednesday night Pastor John Barber was leading the family fellowship and discussing Romans 10. One of the points that really jumped out in the discussion was verse 1. “Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved.” Paul’s passion was for his own people, the Israelites to be saved. Paul had an incredible ministry to all people. He reached Jews and Gentiles. He planted churches across the Roman empire. But you see here his heart for those near him, for the Israelites. He prayed, he poured himself out sacrificially to reach people.
# 2 When lost people get it!
• Had a garrison of mercenary soldiers under the supervision of a centurion stationed there.
Protected the frontier & provided backup for the tax collectors (one of their jobs was to collect tax on the fish caught in the lake)
Excavations found the military garrison east of the Jewish village with better houses than the local population. To the surprise of archeologists, the garrison even had a Roman bath for the soldiers.
The Centurion had good relationship with his Jewish neighbors. The elders of the Jews told Jesus “he loves our nation and has built our synagogue” (Luke 7:5). They told Jesus “this man deserves you to do this” (7:5).
The Centurion exercised incredible respect and humility saying that he considered himself unworthy to receive the Jewish Rabbi Jesus into his Gentile home.
• Amazing attitude. He had the best house around. He had built the Jewish synagogue for the God of the Jewish people to worship in. Jesus was a Rabbi who spoke in the synagogue that this guy built and yet he did not feel worthy for Jesus to come into his house.
• Jesus said he had not seen such great faith even in Israel.” Is the faith because he understood that Jesus just had to give the word to heal his servant, or is the faith because of the humble attitude that the Centurian expressed toward Jesus? Perhaps the latter just as much as the former!!
• Story in Russia: pray, nobody wants us, 5 minutes later, off to a pioneer camp, incredible response. The director takes us to another camp and on the way says can we stop, I want to get baptized right now. She got it.
# 3 Its dangerous to see God’s miraculous power!
READ Matthew 11:20-24
• To whom much is given, much is required
• I was just with someone yesterday who has not yet become a follower of Jesus. They grew up in a Christian home. God has done several miracles for them recently. Yet, they have not yet put their trust in Christ. You know people who are in the same boat. It’s a dangerous place to be.
• But I think Jesus was not just speaking about those people. He also was speaking about the religious. These were religious villages. The orthodox triangle where devout Jews lived
Though they were not large towns, all three had a beautiful synagogue at its center. All three had a mikvah, a ceremonial bath., All three had a courtyard. In the center of town with rooms around it for children, for adults, and for scholars to study the torah during the week.
Yet the religious resisted Jesus. Its easy for the religious to get caught up in the actions and miss the heart. So easy to do for God and miss being with God.
He saw the hypocracy of the religious. He knew their hearts.
• Most of miracles happened here, but they did not repent and Jesus condemned them for this.
The point of all of God’s activity is not just to bless people. It’s do demonstrate who Jesus is and to bring people to a point of surrender to God.
Do we take God’s activity lightly in our lives? This is so incredibly dangerous!! Do we make promises if God will do such and such? Do we keep those promises?
Big deal if you’ve experienced God in your life. Have you repented? Are you following Jesus? Are you living a 100% surrendered life.
• What does repentance look like? Sermon on the Mount
Don’t be angry with someone, don’t lust, do let your relationships be easily broken, keep your word, don’t retaliate but repay evil with good, love your enemies, give to the needy without drawing attention to it, pray without drawing attention to it, fast without drawing attention to it, invest in heaven not in earth, be radically generous, don’t worry about money, food, clothing, and stuff but seek first his kingdom, don’t judge others but rather judge yourself, know God and obey him.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. This was the attitude of the Centurion, this was not the attitude of the religious.
What do you need to repent of today? Where to you need to get right with God?
• How is your passion meter for your city?
• Has God bent over backwards for you and you still are not following him?
• Are you doing religious stuff but you’ve got areas in your life that are not right with God?
Hello from Gainesville, FL (Gator County)
I enjoy Matthew it is such a great focus on the doctrine of Father God.
Matthew has close to 50 ref's to father and most directly communicating Jesus relationship to the Father as his source of motive, direction, focus for his daily life. He understood what the Father understood, He did what the Father did, He said what the Father says, He talks about the here and now; and the future in and through the Father.
Matthew 5 and 25:34 thru 36 talks of those had done the right stuff in life. (Luke 4 Jesus reveals this Father passion to a bankrupt people who were at home with religious teaching but had no clue of Father God engagement).
Jesus would say who’s your father – I’ll see it through your works – the father the devil or the Father of the fatherless, thirsty, hungry, poor in spirit, mourn, meek, without mercy, pure in heart, peacemakers, etc.
- Mat 12:50 For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother."
The Fathers son’s do good works because they were conceived according to his good pleasure, they are provisioned through the limitless of his good pleasure, and they are predestined because of his good pleasure. A good Father completes what he starts. A good Father calls back to his bosom his children far above all authority, powers and dominions to His place of favor.
Mat 3:17 And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."
- Eph 2:10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
- Eph 1:19 and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe,…
- Eph 1:5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,
- Eph 1:5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,
- 2Th 1:11 Therefore we also pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power,
- Php 1:6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;
- Mat 3:17 And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."
- Mat 17:5 … "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!"
Ps. The McVicar’s are moving to Claremore, OK sometime in the summer or fall of 2007.
Ron & Cynthia McVicar
rmcvicar@cox.net
Ronald,
Thanks for joining the conversation. Glad you are still progressing toward your move.
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