#166 – WE HAVE BEEN SERVED (10/8/20)

If you missed Sunday's broadcast, please catch up by following the link below. (For the foreseeable future, we will be running our Sunday morning services digitally. Please go to our website on Sundays at 10:30 to join in)

Certain experiences transform us. Powerful good and bad events and ideas can turn our lives upside down.

If we are Christians, we have been loved and served by God in the most sublime fashion. The way that God has worked in our lives is to dominate our thinking and become our new mindset, revolutionising our identity and how we relate to others.

Paul exhorts us, ‘if you have any encouragement from…’ In other words, be encouraged and mindful of how God has served you so as to live lives that are worthy of Jesus. Paul gives a short list of some of the amazing things that God has done in us:

United with Christ - Once we were distant from God and now He, through the cross, has united us to Jesus.

Comfort from His love - Once we didn’t know the love of God, now He has demonstrated His unbreakable love for us.

Sharing in the Spirit - Once we were in good and bad relationships with people for various reasons; now we are united to other Christians as the same Holy Spirit lives in each of us.

Tenderness and compassion - Knowing Jesus is to have experienced tenderness and compassion. He has not treated us as our sins deserved, but He has died for us to reconcile us to God.

RESPONSE

Are we filled with encouragement from the truths of God’s tenderness and compassion? What we fill our minds and hearts with will have a great effect on how we feel and how we live. Take a moment to meditate, pray and worship out of each of the expressions of God’s goodness toward us in today’s passage.

This week, I'm also encouraging you to memorise Philippians 2:5-11.

COMMUNITY GROUP STUDY

Some groups are not meeting in August. However, if you do meet, please use one of the daily studies and the questions below as the basis of your study together.

Discussion questions:

1. What is the Holy Spirit speaking to you about (maybe from Sunday's message or your bible reading this week)?

2. What will you do in response?

3. How can we pray for you?