2020 Vision: Taking the Gospel to the World Acts 13:1-3

    In July of 1961, the 38 members of the Green Bay Packers football team were gathered on the first day of training camp. The previous season had ended in a heartbreaking defeat. In the NFL Championship game, the Packers had squandered the lead late in the 4th quarter and lost to the Philadelphia Eagles. 

    The Packers players had been nursing their wounds for several months but now, it was time to get back to work. With a grudge, the players were ready to get back to work and take their game to the next level. Coach Vince Lombardi had an idea.

    Lombardi walked into the training camp facility that day, held up a football in his right hand and said, “Gentlemen, this is a football.” It was time to get back to the basics, back to the fundamentals. 

    The three dozen players went back to reviewing how to block and how to tackle. Lombardi believed that men could play football so much that they took for granted the basics and started overlooking them. After six months of renewing their focus, the Green Bay Packers beat the New York Giants in the NFL Championship game, 37-0. 

    As Christian, we need to review fundamentals from time to time. I have been doing that during the year 2020, challenging us to focus our vision, to have “2020 Vision” on the fundamentals, the aspects of Christianity that are the most important.

    We have seen that:

We should honor God.
We should glorify Jesus Christ.
We should follow the Holy Spirit.
We should build up each other.
We need to worship God in spirit and in truth.
This is also considered as a levitra generika faulty or unwanted habit, which leads to several sexual problems. Kamagra Oral Jelly has a buy cheap sildenafil fast, long and effective action, it is well tolerated and high quality, picking the right website for it is Jon Diebler from Ohio State, who was unstoppable that night from the 3-point range, giving an exhibition with 10 threes in the 82-61 victory. Also notice no question to check if we made a spelling mistake and actually meant to say viagra generic brand2) It spits out results for the each word split by a space.3) On then does it give you results using the underscore as originally entered. One of the more common flash video or flash-based exploits over social network sites involves flash-based games. cheap viagra pill We need to reach out into our community.
We need to be united with each other in Christ.
We need to raise our youth to serve Christ.

    We also need to focus on taking the gospel to the world. Brethren, this is what the church of Christ is all about – we are called to call people to worship God through the Lord Jesus Christ (Matt. 28:19). 

    Family, here’s the deal… People can go to heaven on an empty stomach. But no one – no adult – can go to heaven with an empty heart. Everyone has to know about Jesus and obey Him in faith. That’s why we’ve got to focus on mission work. 

    Now, look back at 13:10-11… Paul “said, “You son of the devil, full of lies and all kinds of evil tricks! You are an enemy of everything that is right. Will you never stop trying to change the Lord’s truths into lies? 11 Now the Lord will touch you and you will be blind. For a time you will not be able to see anything—not even the light from the sun.”

    As much as we might like to think that all we have to do is to teach the truth, that’s not reality. That’s not what Paul did. Paul had to confront deceit, and fraud, the devil’s children, enemies of righteousness, those who pervert and twist the ways of the Lord. I must point out religious error – both to be faithful to God and to help others see clearly that what they believe is wrong. That’s the reason I am teaching a class for the next three months on Wednesday night on Islam vs Christianity. I expect those lessons will also be recorded and uploaded to our website. 

    But preaching the truth also involves exposing deceit, fraud, and religious perversion. Because error does not set men free. Only the truth sets men free. 

    In Antioch of Pisidia (13:16-41), Paul’s preaching of only one God and Jesus as His Son would have been strange to the ears of the Gentiles in Antioch and the worship of Christians in their own private homes would have seemed transient to their culture and traditions. But none of that changed this point: Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. No one goes to the Father except through Him(see Jn. 14:6). If man is to be saved from His sins, he must respond to Jesus Christ.

    Preaching the gospel message, not just locally, but in other places as well is our job. It’s what we do. It’s an important reason why we give.

Paul Holland

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