One Focus, Part 1 Sunday,
August 4, 2013
“It All Begins with One”
By this all men will know that you are My
disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:35 (NASB)
Keep
it SIMPLE
We do life together…
LOVE
GOD
LOVE
EACH OTHER
LOVE
THE WORLD
Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great
plainness of speech:
II Corinthians 3:12 (KJV)
We always tend to make things
complicated.
Story about Luke Wallace.
But I fear, lest
somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be
corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. II Corinthians 11:3 (NKJV)
16 For God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish
but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but
that the world through Him might be saved. 18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe
is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only
begotten Son of God. John
3:16-18 (NKJV)
Therefore, just as sin entered the world
through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all
people, because all sinned— Romans
5:12 (NIV)
But the gift is not like the trespass. For
if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace
and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to
the many! Romans 5:15 (NIV)
17 For if, by the trespass
of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those
who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness
reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ! 18 Consequently,
just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one
righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. 19 For just as through the disobedience of the one
man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man
the many will be made righteous. Romans 5:17-19 (NIV)
14 For Christ’s love compels
us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he
died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for
him who died for them and was raised again. II Corinthians 5:13-14 (NIV)
16 So
from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once
regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,
the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to
himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in
Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the
message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors,
as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s
behalf: Be reconciled to God. II Corinthians 5:13-20 (NIV)
It all begins with one.
The population of Ouachita Parish in 2012: 155,363.
Of that total, it is estimated that any given Sunday between 18,000 and 25,000 people are in church.
That leaves perhaps 125,000 to 30,000 people who are with lost or unchurched.
How do we change that? One person at a time.
The incredible significance of ONE.
A little bit goes a long way:
3 multiplied by itself 5 times is 729
4 multiplied by itself 5 times is 4,096
Illustration: Lifesavers
THREE QUESTIONS:
WHY?
Because
of the simple TRUTH.
God is real. There is such a place as heaven and
hell. The Gospel works. People need the Lord.
You need to be aware of two things: WHAT YOU HAVE and WHAT THE WORLD DOESN’T
HAVE.
WHO?
Illustration #1: Jocelyn Rojas
This
is five-year old Jocelyn Rojas.
On
July 11, a little over two weeks ago, she was playing in her front yard of her
home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania when a she vanished – couldn’t be found. This is the ultimate fear of any parent of a
young child. As it turns out, she had
been lured into a car by a man offering her ice cream. When she couldn’t immediately be found, her
parents called the police. For the next
two hours, police and neighbors scoured the neighborhood. That’s when a 15 year old named Temar Boggs
got on his bicycle and along with a friend took off in a wider circle looking
for Jocelyn. He spotted her in a car
about a half-mile from her house. Then
for 15 intense minutes, he chased the car through the twists and turns of the
streets of Lancaster. The driver
realized that he was being followed and finally stopped at the bottom of a
hill, the door came open and he released little Jocelyn. She ran to her rescuer saying she wanted her
mommy.
Illustration #2: Joseph Hodges
Chris
Hodges tells of the time he and his family were on vacation and walking down
the streets of a resort town in Colorado.
They were going in and out of shops and stopped in the Starbucks. Chris’s youngest son is Joseph and he has a
form of autism in which he does not communicate easily. Somehow, Joseph wandered off. He evidently walked out of the Starbucks and
took a wrong turn. Suddenly, where’s
Joseph. The Hodges have four other children,
and so, counting Chris and his wife, immediately six people fan out in a
frantic search to find Joseph. Nothing
else matters. Chris tells how he
approached a police officer asking, “Have you seen a boy …” and he described
Joseph. The police officer sarcastically
asked, “Well, have you looked where you last saw him.” It was obvious the officer didn’t want to be bothered
by the problem. That added anger to the
desperation Chris felt. The finally
found Joseph, but until they did, nothing else mattered. God Himself echoes this in Isaiah 43:6
People
who God LOVES.
HOW?
First
step is to PRAY.
Prayer and Fasting for the next 21 days.
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