Unleash The Commitment Series

November 12 Unleash the Commitment (Acts 11:19-30)

4 min Song 1

4 min Intro to Commitment Sunday

Well, today is Commitment Sunday! I can hardly believe it’s here. Today is going to be a life-changing day in the life of our church, I thrilled that you’re here to be a part of it. If you are a guest today, you picked a great day to come because you are getting ready to witness a move of God in the lives of our people. It’s going to be powerful and historic, and we’re glad that you’re here.

We’re a church committed to become more like Jesus, because we desire to be and show the love of Jesus to the overwhelmed, under-resourced, and far away in this community and around the world. We’ve been praying that God would take our Surrender to the next level, our Faith to the next level, and our Generosity to the next level….and I believe God has done that in our lives, and I believe we’ll see the result of that this morning.

So everyone do me a favor, and grab the Unleashed commitment card that was on your chair when you came in. Put that card in your hand and hold it. If you’re here with your spouse, you may want to grab the same card and hold it together. I want us to PRAY over what God is going to do here today because this is the biggest thing God has done in our church and very possibly the biggest thing we’ve ever done in our generosity, as we partner with God in Unleashing the Gospel & pushing back the darkness.

(Prayer…passionate, bold prayer over the commitment card)

1 min Welcome/Fellowship (heads up about early offering)

4 min Song 2

2 min Offering

4 minutes Children/student Video as bumper

22 minutes Message

Wow! I love watching God work in the lives of our children and students! He is Unleashing His power and potential in each one of them, and this shows us that Unleashed has been about ALL of us, every age, everyone going on this journey with God and choosing to be Unleashed for His glory. I love it!!!

Someone asked why were spending all this time and energy on Unleashed. The why is everything. There are two huge reasons why we are in this generosity initiative. The first reason why is because As believers, we have the responsibility and privilege to join God in pushing back the darkness.

We saw in Acts 1 that Jesus commanded us, you and me, to take the light of the gospel into the four corners of the world. That’s not an option for you, for me, for any believer, for any church.

Let’s talk about the responsibility. We sometimes forget the what Jesus has done for us and what He expects of us. He created us, right? Why did God create us? To worship Him. To love Him. To obey Him. To bring Him glory and pleasure. Before the Fall, that was pure and untainted. Since the Fall, we have struggled to worship Him with a whole heart. We were created to worship, but sadly, we worship ourselves, our family, our money, our possessions, our comfort. Our security. Unleashed is an opportunity to reorient our worship to our Creator, not created things.

He created us, yes, AND He redeemed us, right? “I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore. Very deeply stained within, Sinking to rise no more; But the Master of the sea Heard my despairing cry, From the waters lifted me, Now safe am I.”

1 Peter 2:9 says, we “proclaim the praises of the One who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”

That touches on the privilege part of our calling. We have the privilege of carrying the gospel light into our community and into the darkest places on the globe and get a front row seat to watch God do amazing things as a result of our participation in the gospel, particularly with our generosity.

Lot of darkness in our world. In the Bible darkness is a metaphor to describe ignorance and lostness and separation from the Light. Lost in darkness: (build) 5.3 Billion people worldwide 260 Million in the U.S. 5-7,000 churches closing each year in U.S.

Read a few prayer requests…

I said at the beginning that there were two big reasons for Unleashed. The first one is the most important: As believers, we have the responsibility and privilege to join God in pushing back the darkness. This is why we are on this earth; why we are a church.

But the second reason we are in this generosity initiative is that Unleashed is an incredible opportunity for us to grow in our walk with Jesus and increase our joy and fulfillment. (leave up) Repeat.