Vision Sunday
Speaker: Pastors Pierre & Marlize duPlessis
Read: Genesis 1-3; Mark 3:13-15; John 6:28-29, 14:18
The mission of The Father’s House is to build a house of faith that empowers people to live out the mission of Jesus. To do so, we gather (be with Jesus), contribute (do what Jesus did), and Grow (become like Jesus). God’s mission is to get His family back and to restore that which was lost in the Garden of Eden. As a household of faith, our mission is tied to God’s mission and is far more than coming to church to hear a speaker or engage in a program. To be in partnership with His mission requires that we be with Him, for without His presence, human life is bottomless emptiness and a soup of nothingness. From the beginning of time, the presence of God has been the key to restoration. His presence is a power that brings beauty, wholeness, peace and has the ability to make the impossible possible. His presence does not leave us, but sin will cause us to hide and leave his presence, as Adam and Eve did. As God sought after them, so he continues to seek after man, not to judge him, but to tie him to His presence and to restore him.
As believers we are to engage in personal practices or disciples such as prayer and Scripture reading so God’s presence can do a deep work in us, thereby making us disciples that have the audacity to live what we believe. When we gather for church, we are more than a collection of individuals participating in the communal, but instead we form a new family walking out life together in community with the underpinning of love expressed towards God, one another and our neighbors. Wherever we go, we are to be on a mission with Jesus which includes the presence of God and the presence of others, such that our lives become a sermon to those we encounter both within and outside the walls of the church.
Discussion Questions:
1. What resonated with you as listened to this sermon and reviewed it?
2. How is our mission as a household of faith tied to God’s mission? What are ways we can fulfil the mission?
3. It was said that our doing for God should be preceded by being with Him. What does this mean to you?
4. What are some things that happen in a natural family that could happen in a church family? How should those things be responded to?
5. It was said that Christianity without the presence of God is a paradox. What does this mean to you?
6. Read John 15:1-17. How does this Scripture speak to one having the presence of God?
7. It was said that we may be the only Jesus that some people will ever see. What does this mean to you?
