Focus On Five Invest & Invite Series

LET’S PRAY

Father we ask for Your anointing on us today. Place Your anointing on me as Your messenger today. God move in our lives. Rip open the heavens and visit Your people today.

Open our eyes so that we may see Your Word. Open our ears so that we may hear Your Word. Open our minds so that we may understand Your Word. Open our hearts so that we may receive Your Word today. AMEN

Last week we unveiled our updated mission statement for our church and our plan to carry it out. The plan to carry it out is to focus on five areas; Invest and Invite, Word of God and Prayer, Meaningful Relationships, Serving Each Other, and Praise and Worship.

For the next five weeks we will be looking at each of those areas, concluding with Praise and Worship on Easter Sunday.

Why do we update mission statements and make plans such as these? Why do we put time and effort into them?

The reason is because time is running out. There is an urgency to this. We are running out of time to get the job done

The apostle Paul tells us this in Romans 13:11&12a.

Besides this you know what [a critical] hour this is, how it is high time now for you to wake up out of your sleep (rouse to reality). For salvation (final deliverance) is nearer to us now than when we first believed (adhered to, trusted in, and relied on Christ, the Messiah). The night is far-gone and the day is almost here. Romans 13:11

It is a critical hour, therefore we need to wake up and begin to live our lives the way God intended us to live.

How do we know it is such a critical hour? Jesus told us that there would signs when time would start running out.

“There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea.” Luke 21:25

The apostle Paul said there would be worldwide lawlessness: “There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God-having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.” 2 Timothy 3:1-5.

One does not need to look too far to see all that is happening in the world is the fulfillment of the Word of God. One does not need to look too far to understand that time is running out.

I am not trying to be a doomsayer. I am just pointing out the simple fact that God has a time table for events to happen and we are seeing things happen in the world that the Scriptures say will happen just before Jesus Christ returns for the church.

So there is an urgency in what we are doing and why we are doing it. We need to wake up to the realization that time is running out.

Once again, let’s look at our mission statement.

Winfield Open Bible exists as an instrument of God to bring transformation into the lives of men and women, young and old, to convert the sinner, bring healing to the sick, and equip people to change the world for God. This will be accomplished by focusing on five areas.

By investing our time and energy in reaching out to others and inviting them to Christ. By preaching and teaching the un-compromised Word of God and directing people to prayer which will lead to the demonstration and manifestation of the power of the Holy Spirit. By cultivating meaningful relationships with others in the church. By serving each other. By our praise and worship of an awesome Lord and Savior.

Today we are going to look at our first focus point. Focus on Investing and Inviting.

We will invest our time and our energy by reaching out past the four walls of the church to the people in our communities. We will invite them to know Christ and we will invite them to church.

This is the last commandment that Jesus gave to the church.

“He (Jesus) said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.” Mark 16:15-18