Vision Sunday – Theme for 2017
Bible Text: Colossians 2:2 | Preacher: Pastor Steve
Our Abundant Life Church Focus For 2017
#1: Reaching Out Into The Kitsap Peninsula And Beyond!
#2: Building Up Through Worship, Word And Ministry
#3: Healthy Marriages And Families
#4: Stewardship Of Our Resources
#5: Connections And Communications
Our 2017 Abundant Life Church Top Ten Key Values
Worship: raising up people who worship the Living God
Word: maintaining an atmosphere that honors, loves and lives the truth by teaching and proclaiming the Word of God
Ministry: facilitating our people into service and works
Evangelism: loving and serving those around us in our local community and worldwide through relationships
Prayer: maintaining the practice and an understanding of individual and corporate ministry of prayer
Community: strengthening and developing our bonds of love and friendships with one another
Stewardship: responsibly utilizing all of our resources of time, talent and treasures
Teaching and Training: providing teaching and training for the ongoing development of ministry and service
Integrity: conducting ourselves with honesty and honor in all matters financial, moral, ethical and spiritual
Discipleship: reproducing ourselves in new believers and in the next generation
Our Mission Theme
That They May Know… Jesus Christ!
Colossians 2:1-6 …My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ…
Prepare For War!
Joel 3:9-13 Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare for war! Wake up the mighty men, Let all the men of war draw near, Let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears; Let the weak say, I am strong.
We Are At War!
It Is An All Out Battle By Our Enemy!
John 10:10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
Ephesians 6:10-12 …For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
In War We Need To Do Whatever It Takes!
Philippians 3:10-12 Now I have given up everything else-I have found it to be the only way to really know Christ and to experience the mighty power that brought him back to life again, and to find out what it means to suffer and to die with him. So, whatever it takes…
Our BIG Fight In 2017 Is Against The Spirit Of Error
1 John 4:4-6 You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them. We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
The Spirit Of Truth Battles the Spirit Of Error
John 14:16-19 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever- the Spirit of truth.
John 15:26-27 When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me.
We Are In A Battle Over Our Worldview
There are forces that oppose authentic biblical spirituality
Romans 12:1-2…And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Colossians 2:8 Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ…
We Battle Humanitarism
What makes us Christians isn’t that we love people or do good things for others because there are many who love and do good things and are not christians.
Remember: What makes us Christian is our personal relationship with Jesus Christ!
Colossians 2:6-8 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.
We Are Battling The Spirit Of ERROR:
Spiritual Pluralism/Diversity
Spiritual Sincerity/Deism
Spiritual Independence/Self-Centeredness
Spiritual Relativism/Postmodernism
Matthew 7:21‑23 Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles? Then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!