Sticky Thoughts- Week 2
With my recent trip out of town, and the recent renovations in our offices, I’ve not been posting with any regularity. I’m sorry. I’ll try and do better. Today, I figured I would catch you up on the latest two sermons from my “Sticky Thoughts” series.
My “sticky thought” during week two of the series was this: “The local church is the hope of the world”
About seven or eight years ago, I first heard this thought from Bill Hybels, the pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, and I’ve never been able to forget it!
Anyway, here are a couple of the thoughts I shared during that message on that thought:
“God can do anything He wants to bring about change in people’s lives, but I think we can all agree, that throughout history, God has used and continues to use the local church to change people’s lives.”
“It’s not wrong to say that Jesus is the hope of the world or the Gospel is the hope of the world, but the reality is that the church is the institution that God planned from the beginning of time to be the vehicle through which Jesus would be known, through which the Gospel would be spread.”
“I love the word devoted. We don’t use that word very much anymore. And yet, that is what the early church was. They didn’t play church. They weren’t hot and cold with their Christianity. They were ‘devoted’!”
“How strong would this church be if we were more attentive to the teaching of God’s word, if we were more devoted to community, if we more serious when we took of the Lord’s Supper, and we were more constant in our prayers to the Father?”
“These early Christians did life together. They didn’t just see each other every weekend. They did more than shake hands and sing a fellowship chorus every week together. They made commitments to each other. They opened up their homes to each other. They shared meals together. They cared deeply for one another. They even made sacrifices for each other.”
“For almost 2,000 years now, Jesus has been building his church.” “Jesus said, ‘I will build my church’. He didn’t say he would build your church. It’s His church, not yours. Southside isn’t your church. It’s not my church. It’s His church.”