B.L.E.S.S Sunday | Pastor Drew

Sunday.

Every year, the Sunday after Easter is our way of intentionally saying Jesus was resurrected.

Now what?

The purpose of our existence, once we come to know Jesus, now is to help others come to know Jesus through proclamation and demonstration of the good news of Jesus Christ.

And so what is blessed?

Blessed equips every covenanter or Christian to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with their neighbors, resourcing them with five missional practices to fulfill the Great Commission, demonstrates God's love and join God's restorative work in the world.

We begin with prayer, listen with care, eat together, serve with love, and share the story of God's love.

It's simple and it's powerful.

And so today, the next slide is a picture.

Every year, what we do is this Sunday we come together.

There'll be some time in a little while where we will talk about sharing our own stories.

We'll think about people.

Right now, I want you to kind of think about people in your own life: friends, relatives, acquaintances, your neighbors, co-workers, and for my brother CJ, even your enemy.

Think about some of these names now because at the end of this, we're gonna pass out these lists, and you're gonna keep a list for yourself, and you're gonna part of your act of surrender and worship is you're gonna bring the other list up forward and put it into the basket, and we're gonna pray for those names, and we'll continue to pray for them, and then we have some gatherings with our larger denominational body this spring and summer, where we'll pray for them again, and then pray for them again, and then you continue to pray.

And so we begin with prayer, but today uh is gonna be unique.

Next slide is because we're gonna start with Romans and we're going to look at, we're gonna focus today's time on the the second to last S in the word bless.

But I want to start open by reading the Word of God.

And so I'm gonna read, if you have your Bible, I would ask you to open it to Romans chapter 10, Romans chapter 10.

Romans 10 · chapter mention Romans 10 · chapter mention

And I'm going to read verses 5 through 17.

5 through 17.

Romans chapter 5, verses, Romans chapter 10, verses 5 through 17.

Romans 5 · chapter mention Romans 10:5–17

Early in the book of Genesis, God gives a promise to Abraham and he says, I will bless all nations through you.

And the promise of Abraham is not only that Abraham would be blessed, but that he would be a blessing to the nations.

And so for those of us who are in Christ Jesus, we live into that promise and that commitment to be a blessing to others, nations being ethnicities, other people groups, even.

And so with this, I will read Romans chapter 10, verses 5 through 17.

Romans 10:5–17

For Moses writes that the man which practices righteousness, which is based on law, shall live by that righteousness.

But the righteousness based on faith speaks as follows.

But what it does say, but what does it say?

The word is near you in your mouth, and in your heart, that is the word of faith, which we are preaching.

That if you confess with your mouth that Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

For with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

For the scripture says, whoever believes in him will not be disappointed.

For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on him.

For whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.

How then, church, how then, Paul says to the Romans, to the Roman Christians, how then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?

How will they believe in him whom they have not heard?

And how will they hear without a preacher, without someone proclaiming the good news?

And how will they preach unless they are sent?

Just as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things.

The gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ.

It's a good thing.

This is good.

It's not just advice, as I said last Sunday, but it's news you can use.

However, they did not at all heed the good news, for Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed a report?

So faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.

That is our text to help us to think about this, what it means to be people who share the good news.

And so this rhythm of bless, it begins with prayer, listen with care is the L.

Eat together.

It's about finding intimate spaces to eat together, serving with love, and then the last, I'm sorry, the last test is share your story.

Now, again, how you do it or if you do it in this order, this is not about results, this is not a program, but it is a framework to help us to think about what to do and how to do this.

And so for the next following weeks, today we're gonna start by beginning with prayer, and we're gonna spend some time in a moment in groups actually learning how to practice sharing our stories.

Now, don't get any, don't, don't get, I'm not trying to overwhelm anybody here.

I've got some ground rules I want for those people who are like, whoa, I might need to go to the bathroom for a long period of time.

Until next week.

Hold up, hold up, hold up.

I'll I'll I'll explain that in a minute.

But I want to pitch this from last week.

Go to the next slide.

What is the gospel?

There should be a slide on what is the gospel.

We talked about this last week.

What is the gospel?

According to what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15.

I preached on this last week.

Listen to it if you didn't listen to it.

It's on all the podcast places that we have, Spotify, whatever.

You can listen to it.

However, I can just tell you again right here, what is the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15?

Christ died for our sins, he was buried, he was raised on the third day, and he appeared to many witnesses.

Jesus died for our sins, was buried, dead, good and dead, buried, was raised on the third day, and then he was seen by many.

This is important.

Because the gospel also impacts our lives where we are today.

This is what happens in our lives because of Jesus.

Because we believe with our heart, with and when we talk about with our heart, the Bible talks about all of our being, the thing that drives us, not just like this thing that's doing this.

No, no, the Bible talks about heart, it's talking about all of our being and our desires, not just the thing that's doing this.

So sometimes people are like, if I believe Jesus in my heart, well, what's that look like when it's just in your heart?

But it's not what the gospel's not in the rest of your lives, your body, your mouth, your mind, your heart, your emotions.

It's not just this thing that's beating, it's the thing that drives our life.

Right?

And so, what is the gospel?

Now, last Sunday, if you all heard, and some of you who weren't here, many of you were here, we heard, and you can go listen to it on the Spotify.

We had a baptism with Sister Emily.

Emily shared her story.

It was Emily shared the gospel in her story.

I didn't talk to her and say, Emily, let me um let me explain to you all the ways to tell your story.

She came with this.

I gave her a framework because she hadn't done this before to share her testimony, but it was amazing to listen.

Did you all hear a story?

I mean, praise God for that.

Let's just praise God for the story, right?

She shared her story that included the good news of Jesus.

Next slide.

She was baptized, buried, she was raised to new life.

Next slide.

And then she's committed her life to following Jesus.

She shared how she's going to grow in the scriptures, right?

Discipleship is the ongoing journey of following Jesus.

Baptism is the entry.

That's just that's just signing up and saying I'm getting myself into something that I don't fully understand yet, but I'm all in, and so I'm not all in, and then I'm all in again, right?

It's just the gospel.

It's it's it's grace.

And so this is it.

So here's what she said.

This is what the gospel was, according to Emily.

This is what she said.

These are her words, not mine.

I was raised atheist.

I struggled with mental health and family.

Now let me say this.

When we talk about mental health, all of us, I think, have some form, I believe, this is just personal.

I think we all have some form of mental health going on.

I got ADHD and some old stuff going on.

I'm just saying, I just and I think we become more and more aware of now.

Generations before me, sometimes like, I ain't nothing wrong with you, boy.

You know, okay, all right.

Okay.

You just keep thinking that way.

You know, and the more and more information we understand about mental health, we'll become more and more aware and educated on it, and we actually can do something about it.

Now, my grandmother, grandfather, well, I got some mental health for you.

That chair right there.

If you don't sit down, I got some mental health for you, right?

But I don't ever want to stigmatize anybody for mental health.

Um, it does impact us in different ways.

And so, this is what she said.

I was raised atheist, I struggled with mental health and family, some family dynamics that she shared.

Then she said, Today I choose to be baptized to leave everything behind.

These are her words, not mine.

And then she says that she chooses Jesus because Jesus' life is worth living.

That the old life that she was living wasn't worth living for anymore in that way.

But there's something that happened with Jesus a few years ago.

Matter of fact, she believed in Jesus several years ago, about five years ago.

And then she came to a place where she said, I'm ready to surrender.

So then she was baptized, raised up, and we witnessed it.

We saw it.

It ain't pie in the sky, we witnessed it.

And we will continue to see her and to watch her transformation.

This is the good news.

And so, with that, church, I got something for us now.

What is your gospel story?

How often do you share it?

When is the last time you shared it?

For believers, for people who have said, I believe in Jesus, I don't ever want to assume that everybody in the church has said yes to Jesus.

I hope that there's some people here that are still trying to figure out what they believe, but there's something attractive about what we're doing or what we're preaching that says, I keep, I want to keep hanging out.

So I don't ever want to assume that everybody here is a believer.

And even some people who might think they're believers, you might need to ask yourself some questions again.

I'm just saying, I'm a I'm a new believer every Sunday, by the way.

Let me just tell you, I've been I'm a new believer every Sunday.

How did you encounter Jesus?

Who were you before encountering Jesus?

Who were you?

How did you encounter Jesus?

What did you leave behind?

And who are you now as a result of this?

We all of us should have something to offer this story because this is the good news.

This is the gospel in our lives.

The gospel intersects with our lives.

Now, if you just tell me that you believed in Jesus and nothing changed, maybe we need to talk about the gospel again.

Maybe, maybe there's something else, right?

Right?

Now that doesn't mean that you get, you know, you give your life to Jesus and everything goes away because some of us are realizing, all right, I thought I left some things behind and daggone it.

There's still some things I've been holding on to, right?

That's part of the discipleship.

That's the ongoing journey of what it means to follow Jesus.

We're always continually confronted with the old nature and our old habits and hangups and patterns that keep showing up that we got to keep renouncing because we're like, that's dead.

Jesus actually died for that.

Why are we keep raising up dead stuff?

Right?

We keep raising up death.

That stuff actually Jesus already took care of, but the becoming aware of the reality of this is the work of discipleship.

So, what is your gospel story for believers?

Now, for other people, here are some questions you might want to think about.

What is your story for others still searching?

Where are you right now in your life?

What are you searching for?

Or in a moment when we get into groups, you can just listen.

It's okay, there's no judgment.

We are glad that you are here.

And there's people who might get in these groups in a moment.

I'm this is what I'm gonna ask in a moment, and I'm gonna I'm gonna show the gospel one back up while you're talking.

But in a moment, what I'm gonna ask for is I'm going to ask for groups to form of three to four people.

And maybe you need to sit with somebody you didn't come with.

Or if you if you have to, sit with somebody you came with.

Because some some of y'all might need to hear each other's story.

I've been friends or family members for a long time, don't you know each other's story, right?

I'm just saying this is part of it sometimes too.

So, three to four people per group is what I'm asking.

Three to four minutes each.

This does not have to be super detailed at all.

Keep it simple.

We don't have to go into all the details, but this is important because if we encourage the church to do this out there, this is an opportunity for us to practice it right here, right now, with our sisters and brothers and even some people we're just getting to know today.

Practice sharing your story.

There's no pressure if you're not ready.

I just ask that you remain present and engaged and feel free to tell the group, I'm not ready for this, but I'm going to listen.

That's okay too.

There is no condemnation here.

So, with that, I'm going to ask for you now to begin to form groups of three to four wherever you're at, and think about who you're sitting with or who you need to sit with.

And at least somebody in each group be somebody comfortable enough to share.

And so, some of you all who have done this, who are used to this kind of stuff, keep your eyes out.

Be aware.