Sermon Audio, Calvary Community Church, Williams Bay, WI

Over the next 70 days, our homes, offices, classrooms, and even front yards will be decorated, inviting all of us - children and adults - into the festivities... Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year. What will happen these days in each of our lives? What difference might we make in our neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, and fun places if we walked these days as "God-Changed and Sent People?" What might Jesus want to accomplish if He walked these days among us?

We live in a world of diverse religions and ideas about truth.Into this diverse world of competing truth claims, Jesus tells us that we can know the truth.We also live in a world that is looking for freedom from oppression and war.Jesus declares that his truth will set us free.It is this message that we bring to a world looking for truth and freedom.

Jesus said that those who hold to his teaching are his disciples and that the truth will set them free. We will look at "from what we are set free" and "to what purpose are we set free" today. Calvary Community Church wants to have mission partners that are set free - and that help others to be freed - by Jesus' teachings.

From the refugee camps filled with two million fleeing Syrians, to the human-trafficking Asian back alleys, to the regions terrorized by ISIS and Boko Haram, to the starving in Africa and those caught in the drug wars of Central and South America, to the broken families and decaying inner cities of North America, come the appeals... who are those "God-sent people" who will hear our cries, care about our pain and help us in Jesus' name?

In our broken and confused world, what difference can one person, any person make? If that person is a "God-sent" person, they can make a "kingdom difference," which could change a life, a family, a community, even a nation! What would it take for each of us to see ourselves as "God-sent" people, living "God-sent" lives, making a "kingdom difference"?

We all live many "journeys" in life. What has been your "spiritual journey?" What has been your response to Jesus' invitation to "come and follow Me?" What can we learn from the disciples who walked with Jesus and how can their "journey" affect ours?

Each of us lives today in the shadow of those who have gone before us. Soon, those who follow us will live in our shadows. In the vineyard, on the eve of His history-changing death and resurrection, Jesus invited His friends to live their lives bearing "much fruit that will last." How can we do that today? How might it affect the future?

What could life be like for any of us if we lived it to the fullest of God's design for us? Too often we settle for much less and assume that's simply how life goes. But what if... ? John 15 holds some "vine secrets" that could change our lives going into fall 2014.

In the midst of choices and changes, the grace of the gospel of God will let you stand immovable. Are you standing firm?

As summer winds down, great change looms before many of us. Collegians leave home, families prepare for "back to school," the Walworth County Fair comes to town, Labor Day is around the corner and soon fall will begin. Reflect... what was summer 2014 all about? What if life for each of us moved from "survival" to "Visional Living?" What's your "vision" for living the rest of your life?