Bold In Witness Series

SELFLESS

WK. 1 - BOLD IN WITNESS

PASTOR TIMOTHY PORTER

TEXT: MATTHEW 16:24

INTRODUCTION:

I love this weekend because it's the first weekend of a new year.

How many of you have New Year's resolutions, you have goals, you want something to be different this year?

I hope that you do.

It's interesting to me when you think about it, most of the time when we make New Year's resolutions, most of them are more self centered in nature.

Not an entirely bad thing, just an observation. In other words some of you might say

I want to lose weight this year

I want to eat better this year

I want to keep my house cleaner this year

I want to get rid of our cats this year

I want to stop smoking this year

I want to save more money this year

I don't know what it might be for you but a lotta times our goals, they are more about us than anything else.

The tragedy is when it's so much of our life when it comes to God, is more about us than it is about him.

For example, so many people today when it comes to God, they are trying to get God to do what they want rather than trying to figure out what God wants for their life. Sometimes it's a very self centered thing.

God bless me, God help me be richer, God help me be happier, God give me what I want. And whenever life doesn't go as we want, there's some people who end up blaming God.

Here is what they might say.

Well you know I tried to go to church or I read my Bible one time or I did whatever. And I didn't get a better job and I didn't get a better parking space and the girl I wanted to date ended up dating somebody else. I tried God, it didn't work.

Because God didn't do what I wanted him to do.

What's interesting is that people think God exists for us when in reality, WE EXIST to SERVE and to honor Him.

In fact, when Jesus invited people to follow him, this is what Jesus said, Jesus said "Whoever wants to be my disciple must" do what?

Life's not going to be more about them, but that person must do what they "must deny themselves and take up their cross "and follow me." (“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Matt 16:24 )

If we wanna be a disciple of Jesus, it's less about us and it's more about him.

That's why as we walk into a 2021, in the culture that we live in, a very self centered, selfish culture, I wanna teach four messages that'll help us become selfless and more obedient to following Jesus.

Because if we want to follow him, it's gonna be less about us and more about him.

So let me give you our big four themes so you'll know where we're going in the coming weeks.

Bold Witness—Faithful Service—Extravagant Gen—Grateful Grind.

Today what I wanna do is I wanna talk about being bold in witness, bold in sharing our faith in Christ.

I also wanna talk about being faithful in service, using our gifts to minister to other people.

We'll also talk about being extravagant in generosity. And we'll talk about being grateful in the grind. In other words, instead of God, just do what I want, God bless me, make my life better,

What if we said this, God use me to reach more people, even if I'm laughed at or ridiculed. Bold in witness.

God use me to use the gifts I have to serve others, to show your love even if it makes me uncomfortable, Faithful in service.

God help me to use what I have to be a blessing to others even if I have to change the way that I live, Extravagant in generosity

And help me God, every single day, to wake up and do what even may seem mundane, but to do it all for your glory, grateful in the grind.

Instead of being self centered and selfish, what if we, as followers of Jesus, would strive to live a selfless life, starting Selfless off by denying ourselves and saying Jesus, we want what you want, we wanna follow your will.

So today, we're gonna start with the big idea, one that I believe will spur many of you on to share the love of Jesus. And we're gonna talk about being Bold In Wtness.

? Let me give you the context of what we're gonna talk about in scripture today.

If you can imagine there were some disciples, some men that Jesus had been training and investing in for about three years.