Church is God's precious gift to His people. God allotted certain space for believers to come together to be "fitted together" and grow together in being the tangible representation of His love. Today, we explore what it means to be an impactful church by asking two simple questions: "what is God doing in my church?" / "how can I join God at work?" Imagine what kind of church we would be if everyone cared, loved and served to their full capacity; and we do that with joy and gratitude. Do you love your church?

What is work? Why do we work? How should we work? In today’s sermon, we explore God’s intention of creating work for the mankind. As we understand His heart, we can set the right expectations and attitude in the way we approach work. Making an impact in the workplace is not just sharing the Gospel with someone but that we convey Christ and His heart in how we work. Work, then, becomes not just duty or means to an end, but a proper vehicle for worship.

We continue on the theme of impact in our current series. Last week, we learned that family

is our primary ministry—as we humble ourselves, in preferring others, we serve and love our

families. Today, we hone in our focus to marriage. We explore deeper into the secret of

marriage—there is power not within ourselves but in the Holy Spirit who enables us to love

and submit in the same way Christ modeled for us.

Family is our primary ministry. We cannot be effective ministers of the Gospel without serving and leading the family first. What our family members say about us is the true indicator of who we are. We want to understand the importance of family ministry as well as receive practical tools of becoming better spouses and better parents. At the heart of impacting your family in the Gospel is humility and selflessness.

Continuing on with our mini-series on "Impact" we'll be looking at a church in Scripture that made an impact in their world. The church doesn't have a name; but it's best known as the "first church". Many churches, if not all, try to model after this first church. When we read in Acts 2:42-47, we see a vibrant church that is on fire for God making an impact in their community. But, the church didn't just become vibrant out of the blue. The church didn't make an impact because they were so well organized and experienced. Rather, something happened in the beginning of chapter two- Pentecost. The disciples were baptized/filled with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost which caused them to become a church that was enabled and empowered to make an impact. But, a question we need to be asking is: how were the disciples filled with the Holy Spirit? To answer this question, chapter 1 of Acts depicts what the disciples were doing right before they were filled. And this is what we'll be focusing on today.

What is the purpose of blessedness? What is the purpose of richly experiencing God? What should ALL of our encounters with God lead to? The common call for every believer is to live the life that makes an impact. It’s to bring about change; it’s to bring about hope and faith that have been lost. You are called to make an impact to the world that is in need of flavor and life.

What is the key to a blessed life? As many Christians pray for God’s blessing in their lives, we love that such promise is made available in God. In follow up to the sermon on the prayer of Jabez, today, we learn the secret of unlocking God’s favor. In this miniseries of the theme “IMPACT”, we explore the ways of being a blessing to those in/around our lives. I pray for all to experience the joy of enhancing the quality of other’s lives.

Adversity introduces a man to himself. What we do I when facing a crisis conveys more about

our faith than anything. Jabez distinguished himself from the rest of his family and his

countrymen; he prospered at the time of great suffering and pain. It was his prayer that

launched him to such place as God granted him all that he requested. We focus not only the

end result of his prayers, but on his attitude and approach through prayer. May we experience

God’s provision in this season of praying and seeking.

In this world there are a lot of things people are anxious about. Anxious about our job and financial security. Anxious about our personal relationships or even our own children. People may be anxious about there phone running out of battery too. We have all had moments of anxiety. Through this passage we learn that God teaches us "to be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer". The Lord teaches us how we can and should respond to moments when we are anxious.

If we were to take a spiritual thermometer to measure our love for Christ today, what would it say? Would it indicate our love for God is still hot or that it went cold? Have we become comfortable and complacent with doing routine and religion while leaving out our love for Christ? Jesus commends the Ephesus church for all the right things they are doing, but He confronts them with the one important thing they left out- their first love. As scripture states, without love everything is meaningless and pointless. Without love for Christ our service and our labor is meaningless. We may need to return to our first love. We may need our passion for Jesus to be reignited. If this is the case, let us return to the first love and reignite our passion for Him.