Matt Sturdevant: “The world has yet to see what God will do with and for and through the man who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him.” These words were spoken by British evangelist, Henry Varley, in 1873. There’s also an interesting verse in the Old Testament found in 2 Chronicles 16:9, and it starts out like this. It says, “For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him…” I want you to imagine with me for just a moment what your life could look like if you were fully committed, fully surrendered to God. That you were holding nothing back, no part of your life were you holding back or not giving to God, that you were essentially all in. What would your life look like? What would your marriage look like? What would your family look like? What would your relationships, your job, your attitude, your thoughts, your actions...what would it look like? What could God do with, for, and through your life if you really, truly were holding nothing back from Him, if you were going all in?
I’m so glad that you’ve joined us for the kickoff of this brand new series starting today. The series is called All In...Holding Nothing Back. For the next four weeks, we’re going to take a look at what it means and what it looks like to be all in for God. At the risk of being “Captain Obvious,” we live in a time of great uncertainty. In fact, it’s probably more uncertain for most of us than it’s ever been in the history of our lives. We live in a time where there’s lots of challenges all around us. Probably most of us feel like we’re living uncomfortably outside of our comfort zone one way or another with all that we have to deal with, as we walk through this unique and challenging season.
I want you to know, though, right now in these first few minutes of this first message of the four-week series is my goal and what I want to do is to challenge you. That’s what we’re going to be doing. In fact, growth does not occur when we’re in the comfort zone. I know that some of us who are watching have been faithfully walking with Jesus for a number of years. Some of us who are watching have more recently decided to follow Jesus and are really learning what it means to walk with Him. What is this Christian life all about? Perhaps some of us are watching, and we think maybe we have committed our lives to Jesus but are not really sure. Others of us watching know for certain that we are not followers of Jesus Christ at this moment. In fact, we’re somewhere on the spectrum from curious to skeptical, but we’re watching anyway.
With this series, my prayer, my goal, my hope for you is that wherever you’re at on your spiritual journey is that you would, first and foremost if you haven’t done it yet, that you would make a commitment to follow Jesus. Then, you would make a commitment to go all in with your life for God and that you would spend the rest of your life being all in and helping to build and expand Christ’s kingdom in the time that you have left on this planet. I want to challenge you to hold nothing back and to be used for the purposes that God created you to be used for, to join Him in the work that He has created you to be a part of. In doing so, you get to really, truly experience the joy that He intends for you to experience. I want to challenge you to not just be a casual Christian. Don’t just be someone who has made Jesus your Savior. You’ve accepted the free gift of forgiveness for your sins, and now you’re trying to not get into trouble and to be as best as you can. I want to challenge you. Don’t be that casual Christian, but be all in in your commitment to Christ. One hundred percent—be all in.
Today as we launch this series, this is a special day for us here at Hope Church. Hope Church was started on January 15, 1978. That’s roughly 42 and a half years ago. About a decade ago, we moved our anniversary celebration from January to the first weekend in August, and we did that for two primary reasons. Number one, I don’t think in the history of Texas weather recording there’s ever been an ice storm in the first week of August. But more importantly, this is really a great time for us to prepare for the new program year that starts during the month of August. It’s a time to celebrate who we are as a church and where we’re going. Over the last eight to ten years, our community-at-large (the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex) has experienced exponential growth. We’ve had all kinds of people move into the Metroplex from other places.
As people move into our city and into our community, they’re looking for churches. They’re looking for a community of people to be a part of, and we’ve found that a lot of those moves happen over the summer, and this is a great time to talk about who we are and what we’re all about. So if you have more recently started attending with us, attending Hope Church online, or maybe this is even your very first Sunday, this is going to give you an inside look at what we’re all about as a church. If you’ve been a part of us for awhile, this is going to give you a reminder of who we are and what we’re all about. The things that we’re going to look at today, the things that we’re going to talk about, we don’t talk about it this way every week. This gives us a unique opportunity.
Today as we begin this series, All In…, we’re going to talk about being all in as a church. As I challenge you personally to go all in, I want you to know that we, as a church, as Hope Church, we are committed to going all in. To, sort of, navigate our discussion today, I want to look at three questions and answer those three questions for you. They’re simple questions, and the questions are these. Where have we been? Where are we now? Where are we going?
Where have we been? If you are newer around here Hope, maybe you started attending online church with us just this summer or maybe today is your very first time to tune in and check out church online.I want you to know that today, August 2nd, is my 77th day as lead pastor of Hope Church. I’ve been a part of Hope Church since 2002. I’ve been a pastor on staff since 2006, but as we celebrate our 42nd anniversary today, I want you to know that I know that I can’t take credit for who we are and what we are all about. I have been given the great privilege and responsibility to steward and lead into the future the work that is Hope Church that was started over 42 years ago by Harold and Debra Bullock.
Some of the original, underlying concepts that helped Hope become who we are today, some of those original concepts were these—comfortable, casual worship services; small group life where people would strengthen, encourage, and care for one another as they seek to follow Jesus Christ. The fact that the Bible is God’s Word to us; it is the Source of Truth. It gives us a picture of who God is and how life really works. Basically, if you were to sum it up, what were the original group of 13 people who started Hope in January of 1978, what was it all about? It was this. It was to walk with God and to help others do the same.
Pastor Harold’s vision in starting Hope Church was for Hope to be a life-changing church, for Hope to provide an environment where a couple of things could happen. Number one is where unchurched people, that is, people who are not used to going to church, to come and where they would feel welcome and have a safe place to explore what it means to follow Jesus. While at the same time, people who are walking with Jesus already could come and learn how to grow in their walk with God and how to share the gospel with others. Then, people could learn and be trained how to start new churches and ministries. In fact since 1978, people have trained at Hope and been sent out and have helped start over 200 churches and now serve in over 38 countries around the world.
We didn’t always have this property, this building that I’m in. If you’re joining us online for the first time and that’s the method you were introduced to us, you can’t fully appreciate what I’m about to talk about. But, I want to give you a picture of the fact that we didn't’ always meet in this building. In fact for the first 20 years of our church, we were a mobile church. That means that we met in hotels and other meeting sites around town for the first 20 years of our church life. This building that I’m standing in right now that we’re making this recording in where a group of us will be meeting on Sunday as you’re watching this even perhaps. This building was originally one of the largest bowling centers in North Texas. Back in 1995, there was a major storm that came through Fort Worth, and giant hailstones destroyed the roof. Then this was a total loss for that bowling center.
A little while later, we as a church were able to purchase this property. We had some major renovations to do, and we did that in two phases. The first phase was completed, and we had a grand opening in 1998. We completed our second phase in the summer of 2007, and we’ve now been meeting in this entire building for 13 years. Shortly after our 40th anniversary that happened in 2018, the staff began to work with a consultant to try and better understand how to articulate our identity and our direction to talk about with people who we are as a church and what we’re all about. We did that as we were looking forward and looking ahead to our 50th anniversary, which is coming up in 2028. We wrapped up that whole process last year in 2019, and that greatly helped us as we prepared for the leadership transition that took place and concluded in May of this year.
That’s a very quick summary of where we have been, and I want to move now to that second question of “Where are we now?” That’s a question of the present. Presently, again being “Captain Obvious,” we’re living in some strange and uncertain and challenging days. In the middle of all this uncertainty, there are all these things that we cannot know, things that we wish we could know, but we simply can’t. But...and I’m really glad for the “but”... The “but” is that in the middle of that are some things that we can know for certain. There are some things that are not changing as the world around us changes. Those unchanging things are the things that really anchor us and propel us forward into the future. In a world that appears to be so rapidly changing and filled with uncertainty, what’s not changing?
Here are a couple of things that aren’t changing. First, God’s not changing. Who He is, what He does, and how He works is not, has not, and will not change. In fact, a couple of verses that are very encouraging to me personally that I want to share with you are these. Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” James 1:17 tells us that “Every good and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” Then, Psalm 119:90 says, “Your faithfulness endures to all generations; you have established the earth, and it stands fast.” One of the things that’s not changing is God.
He’s not changing, nor is His will for His people. God’s will for us as a people is not changing even though we live in a time of uncertainty and things are changing all around us. There’s basically three components to God’s will for us. Those are basically these. God’s will for His people is that they are to honor Him in the mundane, which is what we commonly refer to as the Great Mandate. We find it in Genesis 1:8. Another component of God’s will for us is that we are to love God and people, which is the Great Commandment found in Matthew 22:37-39. Finally, the third component of God’s will for us is that we are to advance His kingdom, which is the Great Commission, and we find that in Matthew 28:18-20. God is not changing, and His will for His people is not changing.
A third thing that is not changing in the middle of this time is our identity as a church. When the staff worked with the consultant I mentioned a moment ago on articulating our identity and our direction, we used some tools to help us express better who we are. The primary tool that we used was something called the vision frame. Each and every one of us can apply this to many different areas of life that we have a picture of where we’re going, of where we want to go. That picture is the future; that picture is the direction that we’re heading. You take a picture, and you put it inside a frame. That frame sort of gives the boundaries on what the picture can look like. The same is for us as a church. We have directions that we’re heading, but we have some boundaries to that direction that where we go must happen within a certain context.
I want to introduce you to or refresh your memory, depending on if you’ve heard this or not, of the four sides of the vision frame. In doing so, what we’re going to look at here for a few moments is what’s our mission. What are the values we have organizationally as a church? What’s the strategy, and ultimately, what are the kind of people that we want to develop here? Those who participate and are a part of Hope Church… So, our mission, which describes to the world what we’re doing, and the mission is this, that we want to invite people to discover and experience God’s ways. That’s what we’re doing as a church.
Breaking that down just a little bit further, the word “discover,” we want to invite people to discover something. That something is God’s ways, and to discover means you realize something that is maybe perhaps unknown. You gain clarity on maybe what was unclear, and maybe you move from unaware to aware. So, there are people who don’t know Jesus right now, who don’t know God’s ways, and we want to help them discover it. Then, experience—experience is a big part of our ministry, as well as our mission. Experience is to directly observe and participate in. It’s to have a personal encounter with. What we’ve seen in the history of our church is that people, as they have experiences, move from “true” to “real.” They move from seeing God’s Word from being true, but it’s also real and applicable to their own lives.
That moves us to the third part of our mission, and that’s God’s ways. We want people to discover and experience God’s ways—His love, His kindness, His mercy, His gift of forgiveness and the new life that we can have and experience through Christ Jesus. Then, God’s power to change our lives from the inside out, so as a church, that’s our mission to invite people to discover and experience God’s ways. We’re also guided by three primary values as a church. These values describe why we’re doing the mission that we’re doing and why we make the organizational decisions we do. I want to share these values with you and help you understand them.
The first value that we have as a church is that we want to please God fully. Whatever we do, we strive to please God fully. We define that as we consider God’s desires first and seek to please Him with our thoughts, attitudes, decisions, and actions. One of the ways that we demonstrate this as a church is that we recognize the Bible as God’s Word and the fact that it is foundational for our own lives individually. But, it’s foundational for our church life and our ministry, so that first value is to please God fully.
Our second value is to love people wisely. We define it as this. We treat people with their God-given value in a way that is right before Him. A couple of ways that we demonstrate this is we accept people where they are, and we help them take next steps as they’re motivated. We also work with leadership that’s proven, valid, and clearly defined. If you’re newer around Hope, I want you to understand two things about this value of loving people wisely. One, you’re going to hear us talk a lot about next steps. We want people to take next steps that they’re motivated to take. What do we mean by a next step? A next step can simply be a step from wherever you are right now in this moment, one step forward in the direction that God is calling you as He’s changing you and growing you and calling you to follow Him in new ways.
Secondly, we work really hard to identify and train the leaders who work in the different areas of ministry. We really do truly work with leaders who have qualified themselves for the role that they’re in. Everyone in leadership across the church is not just my personal friend. These are people who have been trained and qualified themselves to lead at the level that they’re leading at, so they can help you in your own walk with Jesus.
Our third organizational value is to steward opportunity faithfully. How do we do that? That means that we act with intentionality, integrity, excellence, and effectiveness. We want to please God fully, love people wisely, and steward opportunity faithfully. We’ve got our mission that’s what we’re doing; our values are why we are doing them, and strategy is how we are doing it. At this present time, we live in an interesting day and age, and it’s really interesting to talk about strategy. Since things started to change for us as a country when we were first introduced to the Covid crisis back earlier this spring, our mission hasn’t changed at all. In fact, it’s our mission and our values that we’ve really been using and relying on as we make decisions for us as a church during this whole time. But when it comes to strategy, our strategy overall hasn’t really changed. In order to keep moving toward our mission in line with our values, we’ve had to make some pivots with our strategy.
The overall strategy, which has five components, looks a little different in some areas today as we begin this new program year than it did back in January and February. So, let’s take a look at our strategy as a church. Again, there are five components. Those five components involve this. One is the mission that we want to invite people to discover and experience God’s ways. Again, we already looked at that, but our strategy is an invitation to discover and experience through these five components. One of those five components is attending a weekly worship service. Most people are introduced to Hope Church primarily through attendance in some form of a worship service. Since March, we really started meeting online in a season where we were only meeting online, and right now, we’re both meeting online. You’re joining us on our online service right now, and we also have a group that has been meeting at the building. We meet on Sunday mornings. Right now we’ve been meeting at 10am for an in-person worship service.
Part of our strategy is inviting people to attend a weekly worship service. Another part of that strategy is attending our START HERE experience. START HERE is an experience to give people who are new to Hope really a taste of who we are and what we’re all about. This part of our strategy has been on “pause” since March. Since we began meeting online, we’ve had this part of our strategy on pause, and we’re looking for ways to bring this part of our strategy back later this fall as we have more people who are joking us in person. Part of our strategy is to really let people understand who we are, what we’re all about, how they can get plugged in through a guided experience that they’re a part of early on as they begin joining us.
The third component is really connecting with others through groups and events. We want to be really intentional to invite our neighbors and attenders to participate in our groups and the different events we have as a church. In groups, we’re able to make deeper friendships with others and encourage people in their walk with Christ. We’re also able to have an experience and a taste of what community of God’s people is really all about. So again, we’ve had to pivot and change that part of the strategy a little bit. We had exclusively online groups in the spring. We’ve had a combination of online and in-person groups this summer, and as we look towards the fall, we’ll be having new groups start early to mid-September. Again, our plan is to have a combination of online and in-person, so that we can have community based on where people are at right now and their level of comfort in coming back together.
Another component is serving regularly on a team at Hope and in our community. We really believe that it’s as we serve one another and as we serve others that that’s really where we grow. This is another experience that we have to live out Biblical values, and we invite our members and attenders to serve on teams and to serve in our community. Again, serving opportunities have looked a little bit different over the last several months, but one of the things that I have been very encouraged about as I hear reports is that we don’t have all of the teams able to serve in all of the ways that they were pre-Covid. But, I’ve heard so many stories of people serving one another, people looking for opportunities to bless and serve others who are in need, both within our congregation of Hope Church, as well as the community. It looks a little bit different, but it is still very much an important part of our strategy. It continues to happen even in the middle of all of the uncertainty.
The final piece of our strategy has to do with plugging into learning environments. We believe that we need to continue to learn and grow as we seek to follow Jesus, and we offer a variety of different learning environments because we want to equip our members and our attenders depending on where they are with the needs that they have and their different levels of spiritual maturity. So, we offer a variety of classes, seminars, workshops, opportunities throughout the year. Again, many of these opportunities were postponed, or we’ve had to go to a virtual format. But, what we really want to do is equip you to be able to Biblically think about the challenges you face in life and then have some practical skills and abilities to be able to work through those challenges.
That’s kind of a snapshot of our strategy and what we are trying to do. One of the big questions that you might have is “What’s the goal of all of this?” What’s the goal? Why are we ultimately doing all of this? What do we want to see? The answer is life transformation, spiritual transformation. What we’ve found over the last 42 years is that in a sense a person’s level of spiritual maturity can really be measured by what they prioritize. That’s ultimately what they value most, so we want to help grow people to value and prioritize the things that are most important to God, the things that are reflected in Scripture. We want to build a church and a community that is set on God’s values and God’s priorities, and we want to see those in the lives of people.
To grow spiritually a person must ultimately implement the things that they are learning, and we start to see some changes, some transformation in their lives. We say it like this here at Hope Church. We say spiritual transformation is demonstrated in the way that we… There’s a couple of components to that. One of them is the way that we relate to others. The way that we relate to others will look different than the way the world relates to others. Also, we demonstrate spiritual transformation in the way that we team together. Another way is the way that we live life. Just the manner in which we choose to live our life will look closer to God’s values and priorities. Again, none of us are perfect, but it will look closer to what God says in His Word.
Another, and the last part of it, is spiritual transformation is demonstrated in the way that we share the gospel. We’ve kind of got a three-part way that we think about sharing the gospel. It’s three words: pray, invest, and invite. We want to pray for individuals and families in our sphere of influence. We want to invest our personal resources into building the relationships for the purpose of sharing Christ, and then we want to look for opportunities to invite people into our homes and into our church and ultimately invite them into our lives so that we can show them the gospel and share the gospel with them. Our identity sort of frames out where we are going into the future. That’s why I just wanted you to either be quickly informed or reminded of our identity as a church. We look at our mission, our values, our strategy, and then the kind of people that we want to develop.
Now, the direction that we’re headed is sort of the way that we’re going. It answers the question, “Where are we going?” Think about the direction that we are going as the picture that’s in the middle of the frame. Actually, where we’re going as a church is along the same path that we started out in 1978. As a big picture, we’re continuing in the same direction that we’ve been going for 42 years. What that is that we want our church to be about reaching people in our community with the life-changing message of the gospel. While at the same time, we want to train leaders here at Hope Church who we can send out to go wherever God calls them to go.
I mentioned a few moments ago for us as a church as we begin this new program year, this year of 20-21, we’re going all in as a church. Now, there’s an interesting discussion that takes place in the New Testament book of John in chapter six between Jesus and His disciples. To understand and appreciate this conversation, we need to back up a little bit and understand that Jesus was sharing some truth, some hard truth, with His disciples and the larger group that was following Him around. He told them some things that they really needed to hear, but it wasn’t exactly, maybe, what they were expecting Him to say. And, it wasn’t exactly what they were wanting Him to say, but it was the Truth.
That’s what happened right before where we’re going to pick up in John chapter 6, starting in verse 66. It says, “After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve, ‘Do you want to go away as well?’ Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.’” This is where we are going as a church. We’re going all in because Jesus Himself was the One who came, died, and rose again so that we could have life and that we could have it abundantly.
As we get ready for this new program year, I wish that I had all of the plans that I could present to you on everything that we’re going to do and the ways that we’re going to go all in this year. For those of you who know me well know that it is really difficult for me to not have those plans to give you. But today, I’m going to share with you more of the broad outline, and we’re going to fill some of this in as we go throughout this fall and throughout this year. What are we going to do? How are we going to go all in as a church?
Here are a few ways. One is we’re going to relaunch our strategic initiative that we started back in January of this year, which is 4+2+6. At the beginning of this year, we set a goal, and it was a big goal that by the time that we get to December 31, 2020 (the end of this year) we wanted to have 1,000 people receive an invitation to discover and experience God’s ways through some type of an event or interaction. At the same time, we also set the goal that we wanted 500 people to hear how they could begin a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. So, 1,000 invitations to something and 500 gospel shares, and we had 4+2+6. The way that we came up with that is we were looking for 250 people to make that commitment—250 people to make the commitment to give 4 invitations and to share the gospel twice. The “6” part was as a church, in order to help with this effort, we’re going to plan at least 6 outreach-oriented events that you could invite people to.
Now all along, our plan at about the middle of the year, and we’re just past the middle of the year now at this time, was to relaunch this initiative and change up the numbers slightly. Because it’s mid-year, and this is a goal that we’ve had for the entire year of 2020. Today, right now, we’re relaunching with 2+1+3. So right now if you were not a part of this initiative and you want to be a part of our efforts to reach out to our community, the commitment that you’re making is to find two people to invite, find one person to share the life-changing message of the gospel, and invite them to three somethings. This is where it gets kind of interesting, because we’re still dealing with some of the uncertainty and realities of our present day. We don’t have a ton of events planned on the church calendar at this point. Once again, we want to live out our values, and we want to create things in a way such that we create the environment for people to truly be invited but in a way that makes sense to them.
Here’s how we’re relaunching it. The 2+1+3–I want to invite you to invite two people to something and that something might be to join you for an online service like you’re watching right now. It might be for you to invite them to join you for an online service and then have a discussion about it later. But the point is that we want to invite people to discover and experience God’s ways and do that in an intentional way. So, I want you to know that we’re relaunching our strategic initiative, and I’m inviting you to participate in that whether or not you were a part of it when we started in January. I want to invite you to be a part of it now.
Another one of the things that we’re doing right now is that we’re working on plans to reopen our kids’ ministry. We began meeting in person here in our building for the group that was ready back at the beginning of June as things opened up for us as a state. We have been meeting now for the last two months without our kids’ ministry in place. Through much prayer, consideration, and surveying the families, as well as those who would serve in the kids’ ministry, we feel like it’s time now to reopen our kids’ ministry. So, that’s something that we’re working on right now. Again, I don’t have all of the details or the plans for you, but I would ask for you to pray for us. Please pray that God would give us wisdom and insight and show us the best way that we can reopen kids’ ministry so that we will be able to move forward with the mission and do ministry to both parents, who have their kids in kids’ ministry, and continue to do ministry to the kids, who have not been a part of kids’ ministry for the last number of months.
As we continue to move forward with this year, we’re going to be continuing with our 7:14 prayer initiative that I mentioned earlier this summer. That’s simply that, based on the verse from 2 Chronicles 7:14, we’re setting an alarm for 7:14 AM and 7:14 PM; that’s two times a day. I’m inviting you to join me in saying just a 60 second prayer for our nation. You’ll hear more about that in the weeks to come, but I want to invite you to re-engage in that if perhaps you started and may have fallen off. Or if you’re hearing this for the first time, please join us.
We’re also going to continue to offer both virtual and in-person groups this year. We’re also going to be doing a church-wide campaign; meaning all of our groups are going to be going through the same curriculum as we focus on something very specific as a church as we move into the future. We will talk a lot more about that in the future, but I wanted you to know that’s coming. Also, I wanted to invite you right now to pray and think about and consider being a part of a group, whether it’s virtual or in-person. Being a part of a group this fall, groups will probably start around the week of September 13th, but again, we’ll have a lot more information for you as we get closer to that time. Groups are going to be the primary method that we both care for and connect with one another as a church.
Two things that are new that I want to roll out to you today; one is that I want to introduce you to our tagline. It’s our mission statement that we want to invite people to discover and experience God’s ways, and we’re adding a tagline this fall. In fact, we sort of soft-rolled it out. You may have seen it in a few places, but the tagline is this: Real life. God’s way. We’re about inviting people to discover and experience God’s ways, which is what we want to do, but we’re also living a real life. We don’t want people to think that the life of the Christ-follower is somehow something so magical and unattainable and that we’re not living within reality. Because, the truth is that you and I, who are Christ-followers, and even if you are not yet a Christ-follower, you’re living a real life. What we want to do ultimately is we want to live real life, life grounded in reality, but live it God’s way. You’ll hear more about that. You’ll begin to see that in some of our different publications and different things, but I wanted you to know what that was all about.
Then, this year as I have spent a lot of time thinking and praying about this year and about this series and about starting this new year, I want us to have a theme verse this year. Now, I’m not starting a new tradition necessarily that every year we’re going to have a theme verse, but right now, for this season and for this time, I feel like this is the verse that we really need to lean into. The verse is this; it’s 2 Timothy 2:7-8. It says, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. So never be ashamed to tell others about our Lord.” We live in a time where there is so much uncertainty and so much fear all around us constantly, and I want us to be reminded that we do not have a spirit of fear. In fact, “greater is He who is in us that he who is in the world.” As we lean into the future to accomplish our mission, the great mission that we have to invite people to discover and experience God’s ways, we’re going to lean into that mission while using our values as guiding principles to move forward.
There’s two other verses that I think are going to be key and that fit right into 2 Timothy 2:7-8. They are Hebrews 10:39 and Romans 1:16. Now, my kids have been learning Hebrews 10:39, and they’ve been working on memorizing it with some hand motions. They wanted to share it with you to encourage you as we move forward in this time, so take a look at this video. (Kids on video) “Hebrews 10:39–But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.” You might be interested in learning or memorizing that verse with those same hand motions. They are a lot of fun.
The other verse that’s going to be key for us is Romans 1:16. It says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes; first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.” As we walk through this season, this season of uncertainty, this season of all the changing things around us, as we begin the new program year, I want to remind you of something. That something is this. God’s people have had an unchanging message for more than 2,000 years. That unchanging message is a message of love, a message of forgiveness, and a message of hope. We have the opportunity right now, those of us who are followers of Christ, to bring that same message of love and forgiveness and hope to a world that is drowning in fear and anxiety and uncertainty. We are boldly going to go all in as a church.
I want to invite you to join us. I want to invite you to consider how God would have you go all in as an individual. Let’s pray. Father, thank You for all that You have done for us. Your story is a story of love and redemption and forgiveness, and You have done for us what we could not do for ourselves. Jesus, You went all in for us when You hung on the cross, and it’s because of Your death and resurrection that we can have life and have it abundantly. Father, please show us over the course of this series how we can go all in, what next steps that You want us to take as a church, what next steps You want us to take as individuals, what next steps You want us to take as families. Show us what those steps are, and please give us the courage and the boldness to hold nothing back and to go all in for You. I pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
