17 Jun Be the Church | Part 5 “Step Down To Step Up”
15 for 15 – If you group would like to nominate a ‘miracle’ please go to waterschurch.org/15for15 and fill out the application. Deadline for submissions in June 30!
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Elevate Fundraiser Car Wash: June 23 from 9-2 at Triboro Gulf at the corner of Toner and John L Dietsch Blvds. Elevate youth is raising money to send the youth to Camp Manadnock! Get your car washed for a donation!
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Saturday Summer Nights Registration – register to help another group! There are three dates your group can sign-up for: June 30, July 28 and August 25th!
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Chick – Fil-A – Come out for dinner and a portion of what you spend goes to Elevate Youth to send kids to Camp Manadnock this summer! This will be held at the Attleboro Chick-Fil-A only from 5 – 8 on Tuesday, June 26! Spread the Word!
Key Verse Acts 6-8 ESV
Our world is infatuated with ‘up’. We want to move up in lifestyle, career, we want to climb the corporate ladder. Our aim in life is to move up. However, we are not really moving up, our bodies tell us we are moving down. The hope of Christianity is that in Jesus we don’t stay down!
Q. What ‘up’ do you seeking in life?
There was a complaint in the church as it was growing. Churches have problems when they are growing. The Hellenests were Greek Jewish widows who left and then moved back to Jerusalem so they could be buried there when they died. They were outsiders being neglected by the insiders. These widows had no means of support and were the most vulnerable outsiders to the insiders in Jerusalem.
We are not here to make insiders comfortable. We are here for those not yet here. The heart of God is to get sinners saved not to keep Christians sanctified.
Q. What experience have you had being an outsider? Have you ever been an insider who had neglected to help those outside your circle and why?
God has a heart for the orphans and the outcasts (James 1:27 ESV). We are to go out and and replicate what Jesus did so those who are outside can see Him. (Romans 5:6)
Stephen and Philip and every name on this list is Greek. The problem was that the Greek widows were being neglected, the Greeks felt bad so they looked for Greeks to step up.
IF YOU SEE A PROBLEM – YOU BE READY TO FIX IT.
Christians are fixers not just complainers. Jesus came down, born as a baby to a Jewish couple, bore our sins, died and was buried, then rose up again for our justification. He came down and did something about it. His Church must do the same. Church cannot be about titles and positions.
Q. What kinds of problems have you been aware of where you have been the one to resolve it and how? If there is currently a need, how do you plan to fulfill it?
(LEADER: THERE WILL BE MANY NEEDS FROM THE 15 WISHES, THIS WILL BE A GREAT OPP TO FULFILL OR HELP FULFILL A NEED).
Jesus’s heart is to serve. There is a huge difference between religion and Christianity. Religion is doing good things to get in good with God. Christians know that we can do nothing good. The ultimate God did the ultimate good so we can do ultimate good for everybody!
The heart of Jesus is to serve even our enemies. He served those who hated Him and those that ignored Him.
Q. What enemy have you served and how did you serve them? What transpired from helping that person?
STEPHEN AND PHILIP’STORY: ACTS 7-8
Stephen goes from waiting on tables to preaching the Word of God. He preaches a powerful message.
When you are willing to step down for Jesus, He stands up for you.
Philip who waited on tables is now being used by God to bring the Gospel to the Samaritans. When he preaches, the entire city comes to Christ.
He was asking Philip to step down into the desert after He elevated him and Philip went.
Because of Philip’s obedience and willingness to step down, the Ethiopian Eunich comes to Christ and then wins the queen to Christ and then his entire nation came to Christ in droves. This is what happens when you go where not one wants to go.
Q. Where have you been ‘willing to go’ where your obedience to Christ led to others receiving Him?
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WHEN I STEP DOWN TO SERVE, I SET UP THE IMAGE OF JESUS.
Jesus emptied Himself in the form of a servant. He stepped down for us.
Q. How is Jesus the best example of humility and unselfishness for us?
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WHEN I STEP DOWN TO SERVE, I STEP US TO THE LEGITIMACY OF THE GOSPEL.
Acts 7:59-60 ESV (as you already read this above)
Saul was in that crowd. Philip’s death might have seemed senseless. He was a young man and just starting out, preaching the Word of God. But Saul was listening, Saul who hated Christians is now Paul. Jesus can change the hardest of hearts and turn them into radicals for Jesus!
Q. Who might be a Saul in your life and why? How might you be able to serve this person so their hardened heart might change?
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WHEN I TO SERVE, I STEP INTO GOD-SIZED OPPORTUNITY.
Q. What God-sized opportunities have opened for you because you had stepped down?
IF YOU WANT GOD’S POWER TO STEP UP IN YOUR LIFE, BE WILLING TO STEP DOWN INTO THE NEEDS OF OTHERS.
Q. Where, if you are not already, are you will to serve at Waters?
PRAY FOR EACH OTHER, THE LOST, THE CHURCH, WOONSOCKET, NEW CHURCH PLANTS, NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES AND PASTORS, LEADERS AND GOVERNMENT.
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