The Final Exam (8 of 8)
Series: Unleashed
Craig Smith
Acts 10: 1-48
Introduction I want to talk to you today about God’s plan for this thing we call the church. For the last few weeks, we’ve been looking at a section of the book of Acts in the Bible that talks about some challenges the early church faced in getting off the short leash they had put themselves on. And we’ve been talking about how God wants us to deal with the same kinds of challenges in our own lives as followers of Jesus...because we are the church, ok? The church isn’t a building we come to, or an online service we tune into, it’s a mission we choose to be part of. The church is a group of people living on mission with Jesus. And today I want to talk to you about that mission. I love how the Apostle Paul described the mission of the church. He said: 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. (2Co 5:17-19) This is how Paul described the mission of the church: that we have a ministry and a message of reconciliation. Now, reconciliation is an interesting word. It comes from the Latin re which means again and conciliare which means ‘‘to bring together.’’ So reconciliation means ‘‘to bring together again.’’ That is the ministry of reconciliation...to bring together again. And the message of reconciliation is that God desires, and He has made a way, to bring us back together again. To bring us back together with Him, back into relationship with Him. And I think most Christians understand that aspect of our mission...but what we all too often overlook is that there’s another side to the mission of reconciliation which is to bring us back together with one another. Because bo ...
Series: Unleashed
Craig Smith
Acts 10: 1-48
Introduction I want to talk to you today about God’s plan for this thing we call the church. For the last few weeks, we’ve been looking at a section of the book of Acts in the Bible that talks about some challenges the early church faced in getting off the short leash they had put themselves on. And we’ve been talking about how God wants us to deal with the same kinds of challenges in our own lives as followers of Jesus...because we are the church, ok? The church isn’t a building we come to, or an online service we tune into, it’s a mission we choose to be part of. The church is a group of people living on mission with Jesus. And today I want to talk to you about that mission. I love how the Apostle Paul described the mission of the church. He said: 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. (2Co 5:17-19) This is how Paul described the mission of the church: that we have a ministry and a message of reconciliation. Now, reconciliation is an interesting word. It comes from the Latin re which means again and conciliare which means ‘‘to bring together.’’ So reconciliation means ‘‘to bring together again.’’ That is the ministry of reconciliation...to bring together again. And the message of reconciliation is that God desires, and He has made a way, to bring us back together again. To bring us back together with Him, back into relationship with Him. And I think most Christians understand that aspect of our mission...but what we all too often overlook is that there’s another side to the mission of reconciliation which is to bring us back together with one another. Because bo ...
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