Episode 5: Values: Extravagantly Blessing
Episode 5: Values: Extravagantly Blessing
Getting Started
Getting Started
We are a church that is Constantly Seeking, Mutually Honouring, and Extravagantly Blessing.
When it comes to the final one of those values, Extravagantly Blessing, it is based on the great commission that Jesus gave to His disciples.
Matthew 28:19-20
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
In Acts 1:8, Jesus tells his disciples that after they received the Holy Spirit they would be his witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
To the disciples, this meant, their local area, across cultural barriers and across national barriers until all the earth was reached.
In Genesis 12:3 God told Abraham all that the earth would be _____________ through His descendants.
In the New Testament, Galatians 3, we are told that the promise came true through one of Abraham’s descendants, his seed, as it puts it. That is Jesus.
In many ways, when Jesus gave the command to the disciples to go and be his witnesses, it was like a runner passing on the baton. He had done his part and now he was handing it to us to carry on the race.
We are to be the__________________ to the nations that God promised to Abraham.
Episode 5: Values: Extravagantly Blessing
Our Turn Now
Luke 4:16-21
16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
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“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
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to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”
20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Jesus’ mission included proclaiming the good news, bringing freedom, demonstrating kingdom power, challenging injustice and generosity. This was his mission and so it must be ours also.
