Pentecost 2: 2014 Worth The Risk

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

GYC Southeast

Jeffrey Marshall

4. Disciples Disciple

Dear God, you came to this world and then you left.

And you promised to send the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth.

Without your promise being fulfilled today, we'll have wasted our time.

Maybe not even wasted, but maybe even been misguided.

But with your Holy Spirit's presence, you'll guide us to something that can make a difference in our lives and make a difference in other people's lives.

So if you've come a couple times, you've probably figured out that I have a little bit of an aversion.

Altar calls, I have an aversion to altar calls.

That's not, I wanna be very clear on something.

Maybe because I'm bad, to be honest with you.

I grew up and I answered so many alter calls that it became kind of, I didn't know when it was real and when it wasn't.

And someone could say, well, maybe someone gave a bad altar call.

And then I was never actually taught, like, here's what a good altar call is and here's what a bad altar call is.

So I have an aversion to it, but that doesn't mean that altar calls are bad because decisions are what?

I would ask you now, there will be a bit of a call today, ask you to take this green card.

Don't just take this as a passing announcement that came from up front.

Because if you don't make a decision, if you just walk away and like, oh, that was inspirational, that was nice, I liked this thought or whatever, you know, that's pointless.

You can get that off of any quote book that you find in Barnes & Noble.

But if you make a decision for God, it can be something different.

The reason I can't totally get away from altar calls is because Jesus made them.

And if I wanna be like Jesus, well then I have to be conscious of that.

If you were Jesus, what altar call would you make?

If you had 1 chance, if you had a final chance to make an altar call, what decision would you ask people to make?

Open your Bibles, if you will with me, to John Chapter 3.

John chapter 3, we're gonna be going on both sides of this actually.

We're not actually gonna be in John chapter 3.

And then we went to John chapter 4, and we went to the beginning of John chapter 3.

Today we're going to the end of John chapter 4, and to the end, or the middle and the end, of John chapter 2.

We've kind of started here in the middle, we've done things on both sides, and now we're doing things on both sides again.

And today what we're gonna do is we're gonna look at John chapter 4 pretty intimately.

Then we're gonna look at some stuff in John chapter 2 pretty intimately and then we're gonna try to take that and apply it to ourselves.

And what are these 4 words but a way to witness to people, correct?

But they're also a way to be witness to yourself.

If you're struggling in relationship with God, well, be honest with God about your desires.

Just have honest conversations with him about your desires.

And out of that honest conversation will spring up conviction.

God will bring, if you're honest with God about where your desires are and where they are not, God will take that conversation and he will start to convict you.

And when he convicts you, he will call you to something different, and then you're under obligation.

You should act on it, you should do something, not just let it live up here in your head.

We're gonna see that pattern played here.

We read about the woman at the well and we came to an end in verse 26, John chapter 4 verse 26, but we're gonna pick that story back up.

Jesus declares himself to be Christ to her.

And at this point, his disciples came and they marveled that He talked with a what?

The woman then left her water pot, went her way into the city.

That wasn't what he was after in the first place, remember?

He listens, he focuses, he understands people's desires.

And he understood this woman coming in the middle of the day she's disconnected from who?

And so in Jesus asking for water, asking for something that would quench his thirst, his desire, he's actually trying to give something to her, give her the desire of her heart, connection with other people.

It goes on, she says, she tells all the men of the town, verse 29, come see a man who told me all things that I ever did, could this be the Christ?

Then they went out of the city and came to him.

In the meantime, his disciples urged him, saying, Rabbi, eat.

I have food to eat which you do not know.

He's doing the same thing that he just did with the woman at the well.

He's starting with desire, but it's not really about food, it's about something that's behind the food, right?

Desire, the food isn't the main desire, there's something behind it, there's something beyond it.

He's starting with desire, and he'll move on to conviction, and then on to call, and then to action.

So he's starting with desire here with his disciples.

He says, I have food to eat which you do not know.

Therefore the disciples said to 1 another, has anyone brought him anything to eat?

Verse 34, Jesus said to them, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.

Back to Menu

4. Disciples Disciple

Transcript

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

Wondering After the Beast

45m

GYC SE 2013 Plenary Sessions

Doing the Wrong Job Well

57m

Cycle of Evangelism

What do you do when the meetings are over?

1h

The Final Call

4- What will it Take?

1h

Our Message Has a Name

44m

GoTential

Die and Multiply

30m

Dumb Dogs

1h 20m

Gospel First

49m

Plenary

A Personal God

49m

Plenary Session

A Touch of Faith

1h 57m

The Renaissance of Adventism

The Renaissance of Adventism, Get Out the Magnifying Glass

53m

A Sure Foundation

31m

Sound Doctrine