Preached by Chris Broom, 2/18/2007

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Maria Cortez (center) gets baptized and joins the adventure.

Join the Adventure, part 1: Coming Together - Outline

If you are feeling alone, bored, or that life has lost it’s meaning, this sermon has answers for you. It’s part one of a three part series where God is calling you not to a mediocre life, but to excitement… to an adventure.

John 3:8 Jesus is teaching Nicodemus about being born of water and the spirit. Those born of the Spirit are like the wind. Do you have the spirit of God in you? If so, this will describe your life.

- The wind is unexplainable. Life as a Christian is also unexplainable (moving for God, traveling long distances to church, etc.).

- The wind is unpredictable. Same with Christians, we don’t know what will happen next, what mission, what need.

- The wind is undeniable. When the gust hits you, it is undeniable. The same is true when a Christian shares. The conviction and passion for Jesus is undeniable.

Mark 1:14-15 Jesus started this adventure.

- John the Baptist is undeniable because he preached about sin. Then he was put in prison.

- Jesus said, “the time has come.” It is good news to repent and be forgiven.

Revelation 12:10 Jesus came into the world to call people out because the whole world has gone astray.

2 Corinthians 6:14-17 Come out and be separate. If you aren’t following Jesus’ plan, you are following the world and doing your own thing. That is Satan’s plan.

Mark 1:16-20 How Jesus got the adventure started
- “Come follow me.” God’s plan was to come together and fish men out of the world, giving them a true purpose.

- If you call yourself a Christian and are not involved in fishing people out of the world, you are not in God’s adventure. You aren’t dong God’s plans.

- People will not come together without being called out with authority.

John 7:16 Teaching alone does not make concepts clear. A foolproof challenge is to do what Jesus says. Then, you don’t have to take anyone else’s word for it.

Philippians 3:17 Bible studies aren’t from men, they’re from God.

- The pattern to live by is Jesus’ plan: Mark 3:13-14, Mark 6:6-7, Mark 12, Luke 10:1-3, Matthew 28:18-20. This is his plan: join with others, coming together.

Romans 6:17-23 We need to become slaves of righteousness.

- Remember the pattern you used to live by, obsessed with impurity, immorality, etc. Now, be obsessed with saving souls.

John 20:19-21 The disciples were together. They were afraid of the Jews, so they went behind locked doors. Jesus came to bring the peace, and to send them out. Just as Jesus was sent by God, he sent them out (Luke 10:3).

- Jesus was sent by God to preach and rescue the lost. He died for this.

- The disciples preached and were killed for it.

- How is our being sent today different from Jesus being sent by God?

1 John 2:6 Without authority, people easily don’t do what Jesus does.

John 20:22-23 You don’t have the power to forgive sins. We are forgiven if we accept and obey God’s teachings. If you are not proclaiming the gospel, how can you be forgiven?

Revelation 3: Jesus is still preaching. Jesus lays out conditions of truth. The religious world uses parts of this out of context to make becoming a Christian seem easy. But this was written to the Church, to baptized disciples who stopped living the adventure.

- There’s 3 temperatures of liquid: hot, cold, and lukewarm. If you order tea in Texas, it’s iced. In New York, it is hot tea. Never request lukewarm tea! Spit that out.

-If you are spiritually hot, you will be involved in the Bible, prayer, giving/getting discipling, seeking first the kingdom, fishing, and helping families.

- If you are cold spiritually (Hebrews 10), you will be in the habit of missing service, not reading or praying, not giving or receiving teachings, not wanting help, not fishing for the lost.

- You are lukewarm spiritually when neither the hot nor the cold applies, and you make it seem like there is an alternative way to be a Christian. This provides a false example that Jesus spits out.

Revelation 2:1-5 Jesus knows every one of our deeds. Jesus acknowledges what the churches are doing, but that isn’t his final point. Jesus tells them they have forgotten their first love, and that they are just going through the motions. Jesus form of teaching is if you are lukewarm, then repent. Remember what you did at first. Be real, and realized the height from which you have fallen. Repent.

- Repent and do what is true from God’s teachings.

- Continue to come together and help each other remember our first love, repent and do what you did at first.

- The challenge: to be closer to God than ever before. That is the adventure.
Part 2

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