Would our church or community feel the difference if you left the area? Do you think you are leaving an eternal impact on the people around you? These questions are questions of value and worth. As followers of Jesus, we can often make decisions to minimize our value and worth in this life without even knowing it. The story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego goes far beyond a group of three men standing up to their government. It goes beyond their choice of obedience over disobedience. These men pursued a life to bring rightful glory to God over themselves no matter what it cost them. How can we stay faithful to the pursuit of lasting impact when we can be so easily tripped up with the worthless? How does being ALL IN aid in our pursuit of a valuable life? Join us as we answer these questions!
We sometimes view our circumstances as the measure of God’s love for us. If life is going well and we’re feeling good, it’s easy to acknowledge God’s love. But if life gets a little messy and knocks us out of our comfort zone, we begin to wonder about how much God really does love us. The book of Ruth is a love story. It is first about the love of individuals for the LORD. It is also about the love of a mother (in-law) for her daughter (in-law) and vice versa, as well as the love of a man and a woman for each other. But ultimately, Ruth is the story about the love of God for His people. Ruth has a storybook ending, but life isn’t always like that. How do we remain ALL IN when life gets chaotic and downright painful?
The story of Gideon usually focuses on Gideon’s hesitance to believe that God could really use him to defeat the Midianites . . . remember the fleece? But the defeat of the Midianites was only a means to the end. Israel was told not to worship the gods of the land in which they lived, but they did not listen to the LORD. They forgot that the LORD is the one and only God and they were to love Him alone! Israel had a heart problem and they were suffering for it. God chose Gideon to bring Israel back to a place of ALL IN DEVOTION to the LORD.
Do you ever wish you could just isolate yourself from the world and all of its evil influences? Or have you ever found yourself under pressure to compromise your biblical convictions to get along or get ahead in this world? Could there be another option between these two extremes? Listen as we learn from Daniel that obedience without compromise can open doors to influence our world.
If you look back on the last four weeks of your life, would you say that time was characterized by joy? What about the last six months? A year? At the deepest level of our souls is a yearning for true, lasting, constant joy. However, often joy only comes in seasons and is based on specific circumstances. Listen as we examine the life of Paul to see how to find true joy in all seasons of life.
Moses: Who Am I? What are the priorities that control the choices we make? How can we be sure those priorities will produce the outcomes we desire? This Sunday, we will continue our ALL IN series by looking at the choices Moses faced, and the priorities that governed those choices. From his example, we will be able to examine our own priorities and the outcomes they will produce.
Complaining . . . we all do it. Some more than others, but we all grumble and complain about how hot it is, the price of gas, health insurance, our kids, the cost of groceries, our parents, how cold it is, politics, people, traffic, our spouse, aches and pains, our job, etc., etc., etc. We tend to excuse our complaining because “everybody does it” or justify it because we simply believe we have the right to complain. It is important that we understand that a complaining spirit is a refusal to acknowledge God’s involvement in our lives and indicates that something is not right in our relationship with Him. Listen as we examine the life of an individual who was so ALL IN with God that he never complained! You can also click here for the discussion group questions on today’s sermon.
ALL IN … good enough isn’t good enough! We began our summer schedule with the introduction of our new message series, ALL IN . . . good enough isn’t good enough!
