Spark Notes (1/20/19) (Mark Vermeer)

Revival: What does it look like to lead someone to Christ? 

Mark began with a passaged from Matthew 9: " Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” (35-38).

Mark noted the two words that stuck out to him in this passage: compassion and ask (pray). 

He then explained 4 keys to leading someone towards Christ with those two key words in mind. 

1. I have to know Christ myself. 

"You can lead a steer to water, but you can't make him drink". We can lead someone to Christ, but we can't force them to choose Christ. It has to be our example (more in point 2) that is what leads them to choose Christ. We must know Christ more than "sort of". It must be an intimate knowledge of Christ - relationship - that is an example to others. 

2. I have to demonstrate that there is more. 

We must show compassion in our own hearts. Compassion is love called to action. No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care. What is born in the heart reaches the heart. It is out of the heart that we love. 

3. I need to be equipped with the proper tools. Scripture is the ultimate guide and play book. It's not something overly complicated - we just need to share the story we have and walk people through the scriptures. 

4. I need to seek out opportunities. Be asking the Lord for opportunities to give witness of His love. Mark led the congregation through an exercise. Each person was given a card and an envelope to write a name on. The name would be someone that each person would commit to praying over for 30 days. They then sealed the envelopes, addressed them with their own addresses and placed them a basket. Sealing the envelop was a symbol of our eternity sealed with Christ. Mark will mail the envelopes to each person in 30 days as a reminder to check in on that person. 

If you would like to participate, think of someone who is far from God that you want to commit to praying over for 30 days. Place their name somewhere that you will remember to pray for them. Pray that they would encounter Christ. Pray that you would be given an opportunity to witness to them. 

If you would like to watch the full service, click here.

To listen to the full service, click here.  

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Spark Notes (1/13/19) (Mark DeYounge)

Revival: How to Share the Gospel - Mark DeYounge

The 5 P's of Sharing the Gospel

Person of God

Proclaiming Christ

Posture of Christ

People to Love

Practical Steps

Person of God

Our inspiration to Proclaim Christ comes from the Person of God. 

Isaiah 6:1-8

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty,  the whole earth is full of his glory.”

At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.

⁷ With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

The Lord first touched Isaiah, then Isaiah said "Here am I. Send me!". 

It starts with a clear picture of Who God is for Who He Is. Not Who God is for who we want Him to be. 

Jesus continues this notion of who God is. Jesus told many parables about who God is. Luke 15:4-7 Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

God is the kind of God who radically runs after one lost sheep. Jesus is so missional. Isaiah shows us how holy God is, the Jesus embodies who missional He is. 

Our inspiration to share the gospel starts with understanding that God reached out and touched Isaiah. And Jesus ran after the sheep. God is in the business of being a missionary. The mission of God preexisted the Church. 

The gospel of Matthew ends with this: then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

We sometimes get stuck thinking we are then sent FROM the presence of God, but we need to remind ourselves that the commission is a great invitation for us to JOIN him. He is already before us and he is inviting us to join him in his redeeming work. 

Proclaiming Christ is not just a means to an end - Jesus isn't just this "golden ticket" that gets us to heaven. Francis Chan puts it this way - "What if you could have all the glories of heaven, but God wasn't there. Would you still want it?" Heaven is so glorious because the person of God resides there! We want to proclaim Christ because we want others to know the person of God. 

Proclaiming Christ 

Romans 10:13-15 says  ^" for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

Christ doesn't wait for us to measure up or clean up, but he meets us in our brokenness and gives us his righteousness. 

In Acts 1:8, Jesus tells the disciples that the Holy Spirit will come upon them giving them power and they will be His witnesses. Jesus is telling them to go to their every day places, the places they travel, and to even their enemies and tell them the gospel! 

How do we witness? 

Eye witness: Do we testify to what God is doing in our every day life?

Character witness: Do we testify regularly to the various dimensions of God's character? 

Expert witness: Do we testify to what God says in scripture? 

We are called to be faithful with what God has given us. We may not see fruit instantly, but we are called to be faithful in walking in the manner the Lord has called us to! 

Posture of Christ

Christ didn't come to this world to be served, he came to serve. As we share the gospel, are we so inspired by this missionary God, are we willing to give up our rights? Jesus commands us to love one another the way that he has loved us. Are we willing to wash the feet of those around us? The Word (Jesus, the eternal God) became flesh and lived among us. Do we, like Jesus, step towards those who need the gospel? 

People to Love

Sharing the gospel isn't about "winning people to Christ" in the sense that we merely want numbers and see it as a tally mark. It is about truly loving the person so that you have a desire for them to know the person of God.  1 Thessalonians 2:8, "Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well." We should delight in who they are as image bearers of God.

Practical Steps

1. Write down the name(s) of 1 or 2 or 3 people that the Lord puts on your heart to share the gospel with in the next week. 

2. With those names in mind, how can you bear witness to those people? What is a characteristic of God that you can share with them? (Character witness)

3. What is a verse from the Bible that you can share with that person? (Expert witness)

4. What is something going on in your own life or that you've seen God do in someone close to you's life that you can share with this person? (eyewitness)

5. Take your personal story and consider sharing your own testimony in these four pieces: creation, fall, redemption, restoration.

To watch the full service, click here. 

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Spark Notes (1/6/19)

Preparing for Revival: The Father Heart of God - Lyle Schut

What is revival? Resurrection, renewal, recover, resurgence, restoration, regeneration.

Mark 6: 53-56: ⁵³ When they had crossed over, they landed at Gennesaret and anchored there. ⁵⁴ As soon as they got out of the boat, people recognized Jesus. ⁵⁵ They ran throughout that whole region and carried the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. ⁵⁶ And wherever he went—into villages, towns or countryside—they placed the sick in the marketplaces. They begged him to let them touch even the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.

Acts 5:12-16: ¹² The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade. ¹³ No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. ¹⁴ Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number. ¹⁵ As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. ¹⁶ Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by impure spirits, and all of them were healed.

These things happened here in Acts and there are so many stories of these things happening in the present day, but do you know what has to happen for a body to be raised from the dead? You have to pray over a dead body.

Revival will come - In Acts 2, God makes a promise that in the last days, He WILL pour out His Spirit on all flesh. 

The Father Heart of God
It is the Father's heart that all would know him. John 17:3 - "Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent."

Jesus prayed this to the Father - eternal life is knowing the Father. Jesus is the exact representation of the Father. Jesus says "if you've seen me, you've seen the Father". (John 14:9)

Lyle shared his recent revelations from meditating on the Father. 

1. The word "Father" is written 49 times in John 14-17. In those three chapters, Jesus talks about the Holy Spirit and the Father. Jesus wants us to know the Father - he prayed that we would know the Father.

2. What makes a father? Children. Before someone is a parent, there is a desire to have a child. The Father had a desire for His children. He desires relationship with us.

3. The word "Abba" is the most intimate name for the Father - it translates as "Daddy". When you call someone by their name, you are addressing a person. But addressing God as "Abba"/"Daddy", you're addressing the relationship.

4. Jesus went to the cross to reveal the Father. In the temple, there was a veil that separated people from the Holy of Holies. The veil was torn when Jesus died, giving us direct access to the Father. We can go boldly right to the Father.

5. What does a Father do? What does a Father look like? Some people may have had earthly Fathers who do or don't show us the heavenly Father. Our heavenly Father is the perfect Father.

6. The arms of the Father - they hold, support, protect, provide for, and hug us. Sometimes they even wrestle us - to get our attention and beckon us to chase Him.

7. We see the Father through Jesus. When we see Jesus do something throughout the gospels, we can translate that to "Father does/is..."

 - Father is a worker - his work is salvation, healing, deliverance, multiplying food, raising the dead, etc.
 - Father gets his hands dirty - he touches the lepers and the unclean
 - Jesus isn't ashamed to call us brother and sister - we are heirs with Christ.
 - Father goes to the worst cases - to those others gave up one
 - Father cares about the small things
 - No problem is too great for Father
 - Father loves those who hate him
 - Father is incredibly patient and compassionate, gracious, and slow to anger
 - Father gives us more than enough

Galatians 4:4-7:  But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, ⁵ to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. ⁶ Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” ⁷ So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.

John 17:20-24: ²⁰ “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, ²¹ that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²² I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— ²³ I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. ²⁴ “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

To watch the full service, click here.

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