Embracing Our New Vision: Love How He Loves

1. "This church's vision statement. Okay? So Pastor Dan started this church. And again, if I remember or heard it correctly, the vision statement that Pastor had when he started this church was loving God and loving people. Amen. Which is an awesome, awesome vision statement. Now, for those of you who have been around. And Pastor John took over. He modified or changed the vision statement a little bit. And would anybody even know, besides the staff, what it is or was? So I hear things like train up the saints for the work of the ministry. But actually, the vision statement was building relationships through discipleship." [41:25] (50 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "Jesus highlighted three or arguably four different areas. One was Jerusalem, one was Judea, then Samaria, and all the ends of the earth. And for you guys who are familiar with your Bible, I mean, Jerusalem was their hometown. That was their hometown. Judea was the surrounding region. And Samaria was actually the place that they hated. If you recall the story. I think it was John and James, the sons of Zebedee going through, they were heading towards Jerusalem and there was Samaria and they didn't accept Jesus and they said, Jesus, you want us to call down fire to destroy them all and Jesus said, rebuke them and said, you don't know what kind of spirit you have in you, but that just shows, I think it just gives a little insight of how they really felt about Sumerians in the region." [43:34] (63 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "So essentially Jesus is saying, go preach the gospel in your Jerusalem, in your hometown, in your Judea, in the surrounding areas, and then in the places where you don't want to go. And if you're familiar with this church and, and all of the done in the past, they actually, the reason why I'm standing here today, they have, I guess you can say it's some areas there's this church of Samaria is basically Eastern Europe. I mean, actually that's a Samaria for a lot of people, but it's the, the, the ministry that this church has done in Eastern Europe, where, uh, to the older gypsies and, uh, the people where nobody really wants to go there. It's just not a fun place to be. Um, that's, you could say this church has a vision for Eastern Europe." [45:19] (48 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "If we, if we walk out this vision statement as a, as a body, uh, you know, we carry, that's how we accomplish the great commission, right? Like you ask what people very churchy thing, like, what's the great commission? What are we supposed to do? Why are we here? Well, we're supposed to go preach the gospel. We're supposed to make disciples. We're supposed to baptize people. I don't, those are the things that are thrown out there. And those are true. But the question is how, see, I think a lot of churches actually get it wrong on the, how was Jesus gave us the, how it's, it's right up there. If you love how he loves, that's how people will be drawn to the gospel message." [53:26] (47 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "Did you know that the, the word gospel means good news? Most of you, I'm assuming know that, but if you do a word study on that word, you know, it actually means like only. Almost too good to be true news. Like, I don't understand like why there's so many Christians who walk around and it's like, they don't have good news on the inside. It's like, they're trying to invite you to a religion maybe and say like, well, you gotta repent, you gotta do this and this and, and come to church. But, but, but, but the, in the manner they delivering the message, it's like, it has no good news in it." [55:17] (43 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6. "I challenge you. I challenge you in any situation that comes across in life. If you ask, we can throw the vision statement back behind me. If you, if you, let's just take a scenario. If somebody, the worst thing that can happen to you in life. Which is somebody attacks you on Facebook for your political views. So let's say a scenario like that. And, and it's, it's when you're, when you're emotionally worked up, it's really hard to hear God's voice. But if you ask yourself that question, Lord, how can I love this person the way you love them? I guarantee you there will be an answer. It just may not be the one that you like or the one that you want to do, but I guarantee you that this. We'll. We'll help you hear God's voice." [01:00:47] (51 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7. "I don't know, but the Lord knows. And I guarantee you, if you ask him not, Lord, I just want you to give me a prophetic word or this, just ask him, Lord, how do I love this person the way you love them? There's going to be an answer there. There's going to be an answer there. Again, you may not like it, but there's going to be an answer there. Amen. Amen. Okay. So if here's the thing, if we walk out this vision statement, this is what I believe will happen. Did you know that it will actually? It will actually equip us for the ministry better. I can prove that to you scripturally as well." [01:06:44] (41 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8. "Here's the thing. Here's what I learned. A lot of Christians, including myself, we focus so much on the gifts. We focus, we put so much emphasis on the gifts of the Spirit specifically. But did you know that Jesus said by the fruits, you will know, right? The bad, the false prophets, the wolves. It says by the fruits, you will know. So that even just that alone tells me I should put the emphasis more on the fruit than on the gift. On the fruit of the Spirit versus the gifts of the Spirit. Because here's the thing. All of the gifts of the Spirit actually flow out of love. Paul said that. I didn't say that." [01:10:11] (44 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


9. "I mean, Pastor John was preaching it weeks and weeks in a row. That says, if I do all these things, it's nothing if I don't have love. So you want to walk better in the gifts of the Spirit. I do. Then let's focus on the fruit, on the love. And I believe all of those gifts will flow out of God's love. Because I know that's where those gifts flow out from. Right? Like the prayer that I used to have is like, Lord, if I can just get more gifts, right? I would be so much better at ministry. If I can just walk in the gifts more powerfully, the congregation would be blessed. But that's the wrong prayer. I believe it's the wrong prayer. I should say, Lord, if I can walk more in the fruit, if I can bear more fruit of the Spirit, which number one is love, that's when I believe the ministry will be blessed even more." [01:11:01] (52 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


10. "If we walk this vision statement out as a body, I, I believe that it will empower you to deal with the most difficult situation, even the most difficult situations in life. How many of you have ever heard of this book? Tortured for Christ by Richard Warmbrand. Few of you. I strongly recommend reading it. This is, this is a Romanian pastor. And it was, he lived during the communist regime era in, in Romania, where the communists took over. And when they took over the KGB, whole nine yards. But they, they, the communists realized that Christianity is a threat. Actually, some of them said it's the number one threat against communism. So they did by any means to, they, they knew they couldn't allow it. They wanted to eliminate Christianity out of the culture." [01:15:57] (56 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)