Living is mission

John 1:6-8, 19-28

2008

• We work together with God– I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos

watered it, but it was God who made it grow. 1 Cor 3:6

2009

• Listen, discern, act– I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos

watered it, but it was God who made it grow. 1 Cor 3:6

2009 Listen, discern, act

• Listen– Romans 10:17 Consequently, faith comes from

hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.

2009 Listen, discern, act

• Discern– Romans 12:1-2 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in

view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

2009 Listen, discern, act

• Act– Mark 12:30 Love the Lord your God with all your

heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

Living • Living principle

– 16 Be joyful always• immovable joy

– 17 pray continually• elevation of the heart to God

– 18 give thanks in all circumstances• God is in all and above all

• Guiding principle– 19Do not put out the Spirit's fire

• obstruction to the work of Spirit– 20do not treat prophecies with contempt

• Thus said the Lord– 21Test everything. Hold on to the good– 22Avoid every kind of evil

• “The good” is one. But evils manifold• Searching principle (23-24)

Mission

• Calling– Isaiah 6:1 The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,

because the LORD has anointed me• Purpose– We are not building comfort for a few, but for God’s

kingdom.– The blessing, as much as spiritual, is meant to be temporal

as well – Discern: a face/name that goes with an action

• Fulfillment – as we live out the call righteous and praise will become us

Means and ends• There is calling– John 1:6There came a man who was sent from God; his

name was John. • There is a lifelong mission– John 1:7-8 He came as a witness to testify concerning that

light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 。

• Means meet the ends– John 1:19-20 Now this was John’s testimony when the

Jews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Christ.”