29 Mar Developing a Big Mission in the Body of Christ | Woonsocket & Apollo Beach

Announcements:

NEW ENGLAND LOCATIONS: TWO UPCOMING EVENTS FOR WATERS FOR LIFE TEAM!  THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT AS WE CELEBRATE, REMEMBER AND FIGHT BACK AGAINST CANCER!

MARCH 29 – This coming Tuesday – eat at Chick-Fil-A in South Attleboro,  between 4:00p and 8:00p – mention our team and 20% of your bill goes directly to our team!

MAY 1 – Sunday at 2:00p at Towne Tavern in North Attleboro – Silent Auction and Raffles – $15 for early registration and $20 at the door!  Your ticket price includes hot and cold Hors d’oeuvres.  It will be a fund afternoon and all proceeds go to Waters for Life Relay for Life Team. Click below for early bird registration and share with friends!

Silent Auction Early Bird Registration

Click link below to check out what relay for life is, join team, or donate to Waters for Life:  RelayforlifeGreaterAttleboro

We are also accepting Silent Auction and Raffle donations!

Apollo Beach Only: Get text alerts by texting ‘waterschurchab’ to 81411.  Woonsocket will have their own soon, stay tuned.

Woonsocket Only: text ‘waterschurchws’ to 81411.

NA: ‘waterschurch’ to 81411.

Tuesday Cafe is open from 10-1 in NA.

All announcements can be found at:  waterschurch.guide

Our text alert number is 81411.  Text ‘waterschurch’ to 81411 to join our text alert system.

The Deep End, the new Deep Dive Bible Study, and 10 questions with Tim are back! Please note that The Deep End will only be available on timhatchlive./live.  Be sure to like and subscribe to the channel to be notified of each new podcast.

Key Verse: Luke 14

Developing a Big Mission in the Body of Christ

Happy Anniversary to Apollo Beach!!

Sometimes we forget what the Church is about.  It is not our idea, it is Jesus’s idea. We belong to Him and He has a big mission to accomplish before He comes again.  We are here for His glory.

Matthew 16:18 (ESV)

Jesus is going to build His Church not matter what the enemy does.  The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church of Jesus Christ.

We don’t want to BUILD a BIG CHURCH, we want to be a BIG MISSION church.

A big mission church is a church for those who don’t know Jesus and that is our heart. “We are here for those not yet here’.  The moment we got saved the Church stopped being about us. Now we are the Church. We have a purpose. We are ambassadors to Christ.

Q. How have your thoughts on Church evolved from when you first got saved (how long did it take you to realize you ‘are’ the church)?

Luke 14:1-6 (ESV)

Religious people were getting real tense at this party because of Jesus.  He makes everything uncomfortable for religious people.  A lot of people don’t realize Jesus makes religious people uncomfortable, not sinners. They were upset about Him healing on the Sabbath among other things. The Pharisees were very devoted to the idea of Church: being religious, showing up at a building, singing some songs, reading scripture.  The purer they were the closer to the coming of the Messiah they would get.  This is what they believed.  They loved religion but missed the purpose of it all.   We can love the idea of Church but hate the mission.

We are not about religion we are about relationship with God through Jesus Christ who loves us and died for us so we could put our hope not just this life but the one to come. 

Q. What are some religious ideas you may get hung up on that make it difficult for you to move forward in the true mission of the Church (maybe something you may take literally in the Bible that you miss the point)?

Enemies of a Growing Church:

#1: APATHY produced by ASSUMING everyone is going to HEAVEN.

Luke 14:15-16a (ESV)

Verse 15, one of those who reclined at table with HIM… said, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” 

Heaven is going to be a party this is true and this man says everyone will be blessed but the assumption is that  ‘everyone’ is his ‘everyone.’ Blessed is ‘everyone that I like’ is going to be in the kingdom.  The shocker for some of us may be that people we think are going, aren’t going and ones we may thing aren’t going are actually inside the kingdom. We don’t get to heaven because we are religious.  We cannot earn our way to heaven.

Q. In what ways might you identify with different guests at this party (are you or have you ever felt like this Pharisee)?

People are lost, we cannot assume everyone is going to heaven.  People need to know they are sinners and Jesus can forgive them of their sins.  There are no good people.  Jesus passed for all of us.

Matthew 7:14 (ESV); Matthew 21:31 (ESV); Matthew 8:11–12 (ESV); Matthew 18:3 (ESV)

Enemies of a Growing Church:

#2 DISTRACTION rooted in the POSSESSIONS of life. 

Luke 14:16b-20 (ESV)

Notice that all these excuses why they can’t come to the party is are because of possessions or affections.  They will take you away from the Kingdom.

Three things that SEEK to take you OUT of the MISSION of Jesus. 

• Your WORK/INDUSTRY
• Your WEALTH/PROSPERITY.
• Your AFFECTION/INTIMACY. 

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” — Jim Elliot

Q. What are some things you may have held on to, or still do, that keep you from carrying out God’s purposes in your life?

Enemies of a Growing Church:

#3. PREOCCUPATION with RISK AVOIDANCE.

Watch out for the idol of safety, because this is not a game and Hell is real.  The devil loves to tell the Church to play it safe because he wants to keep stealing our children and stealing more people into the kingdom of darkness.

Luke 14:21-23 (ESV)

Q. What kinds of risk have you taken for the sake of Christ?

We don’t GO TO church, we ARE THE church, here to pierce a DARKENED world and declare the LIGHT has COME.