Vision 2020

REFLECTION QUOTES

“It is not a question of whether we worship, but what we worship.”

~James K.A. Smith, contemporary Canadian-American philosopher

“When I seriously pray for people, I develop a concern for what concerns them. It’s convenient to flippantly toss some information God’s way and call it intercession but when you actually sit with God for somebody and ask the Lord to change their situation, it changes you.”

~Jackie Hill Perry, poet, writer and hip-hop artist

“I am as certain as I am standing here, that the secret of much mischief to our own souls, and to the souls of others, lies in the way that we stint, and starve, and scamp our prayers, by hurrying over them.”

~Alexander Whyte (1836-1921), Scottish theologian

“Those who know God the best are the richest and most powerful in prayer. Little acquaintance with God, and strangeness and coldness to Him, make prayer a rare and feeble thing.”

~E. M. Bounds (1835-1913), author, attorney and clergyman

“I shall see no hope until the individual members of the church are praying for revival, perhaps meeting in one another’s homes, meeting in groups amongst friends, meeting together in churches, meeting anywhere you like, and praying with urgency and concentration for a shedding forth of the power of God…. There is no hope until we do.”

“Always respond to every impulse to pray…. I would make an absolute law of this – always obey such an impulse.”

~D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981), London preacher

“…Our prayers are heard, not because we are in earnest, not because we suffer, but because Jesus suffered.”

~Oswald Chambers (1847-1917) Scottish minister

SERMON PASSAGE

Matthew 28:18-20, Luke 24:44-49, Acts 1:1-8 (NASB)

Matthew 28

18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Luke 24

44 Now He said to them, “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and He said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, 47 and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 And behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

Acts 1

1 The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach, 2 until the day when He was taken up to heaven, after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen. 3 To these He also presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God. 4 Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, “Which,” He said, “you heard of from Me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

6 So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; 8 but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”