HIS CHURCH, MY HOME
HIS HOUSE, MY HOME
God has called us, positioned us, and graced us all with a part we can play to build His Church!
Let’s be a church that align our perspective with God’s vision to reach people and play our part to outwork His plans.
REFLECT & DISCUSS
- What did God reveal to you from Sunday’s message ‘His House, My Home?’
- What does His House, My Home mean to you?
SCRIPTURE
“Rabbi, eat. Aren’t you going to eat?”
He told them, “I have food to eat you know nothing about.”
The disciples were puzzled. “Who could have brought him food?”
Jesus said, “The food that keeps me going is that I do the will of the One who sent me, finishing the work he started! John 4:31-34
Just before this passage of scripture, Jesus had been travelling to Samaria. Tired from the long journey, Jesus took a moment to rest by the local village well. Within moments, a women came to the well to draw water. Jesus took the opportunity to speak life, hope and salvation to her. When the disciples arrived back with food, they pressed him to eat. However, Jesus was neither tired nor hungry after the encounter, he was full from doing the Fathers work.
The lie of the enemy will tell us that we are too tired and too busy to do God’s work. But the opposite is true, it is doing God’s work that gives us energy to live our life to the full!
- Share a time when you have ‘done the Fathers work’ and felt completely satisfied.
DOING GODS WORK FOR HIS HOUSE
When we’re doing God’s work, He refreshes us!
We need a mindset change to know that we will not be left empty when we outwork what God has graced us for.
John 4:4 ‘Jesus, worn out by the trip, sat down at the well.’
Jesus was tired from the journey, and we can be tired from our life journey! Family, kids, studies, work, bills, relationships, news, friendships, emotional overwhelms etc… and we can get to a place where we think, ‘I’m tired form my weekly journey. And now the church wants me to serve as well?!’ We can think, ‘I’ve got nothing left to pour out!! I’ve just spent all week talking to people and now I need to greet people at the door for Welcome team?!!’
And there may be seasons that we need to rest, and we do need to be wise and take responsibility to manage ourselves and our time well, but Jesus shows us, that when we are operating in the gifts he’s given us, he will never leave us empty, he will fill us. We can trust that Jesus will refill us to be ready to outwork all He has entrusted us to do.
It is a lie to believe that we are not receiving when we are serving. When we are actioning out the things God has graced us for, we can feel at our best.
There are moments that we get tired, and we push through, like with all things we love, we can get tired of them, and prefer to do something else. But we can challenge our mindset to know that when we are doing God’s work, He fills us.
- Share something you love about where you serve.
- What’s our mindset towards serving in church?
- Is playing our part and serving a priority for us?
- Do you believe that Jesus will refill you when you are doing His work?
HOTEL, HOSPITAL OR MY HOUSE
We all love staying at hotels! Our rooms get cleaned, our food cooked, no dishes, we can call front desk and make request for whatever we feel like in the moment. Ahh, life’s good at hotels! But it’s not the reality of how we are called to live or can afford to live! We just can’t live in a hotel our entire life!
When we treat church as a hotel, we catch ourselves saying things like ‘I didn’t like this about todays service, this could have been done better, what can you do for me?!’ And that’s not saying there isn’t room for feedback on how we can continue to improve, but if it’s coming from a place of complaining, its a hotel mindset! A home mindset says, ‘I noticed this area needs help, how can I help bring a solution?’.
When it’s My Home, we take responsibility to play our part. Scripture teaches that we are a part of a family and that makes church our family home.
Just think about how popular you would be if you treated your family home as a hotel?! Leaving everything lying around, expecting everything to be done for you. It wouldn’t last long. Equally, we shouldn’t treat the church as a hotel. Expecting others to do the work and we just enjoy the comforts.
It takes us all to be willing, to say, God use me, to build your House and help me to create a space where others can feel at home.
At times, we can treat church as a hospital. And that’s ok, it is a hospital for the hurt and broken. Church can be a place for a time where you can rest, but once you have been cared for, it’s time to start moving again. If we don’t move, we will deteriorate and our mindset can become unhealthy, believing we will never fully recover.
- At LIFE we have a mission for people to Belong, Believe and Build Gods house. In what ways do you foster this in the part you play?
- Share your thoughts and experiences around the mindsets of Hotel, Hospital and Home. How can we make sure we are treating church as our home? How can we encourage or challenge each other if we are in Hotel or Hospital mindset?
ACTION
PLAY OUR PART!
Our heart at LIFE is that we would each play a part that fulfills us.
Playing our part is not a recruitment drive! We believe that each of us have a call and commission to build Gods Church.
We are all apart of Gods church, it doesn’t belong to a selected few, the leaders or those on staff. We each have a role, a gift and a grace to outwork Gods plan to reach people through the local church. When we serve, we are not just filling a team, but fulfilling a call that transforms us, and our walk with God.
Check out the Play My Part Resource together as a group. https://lifeau.org/playmypart/
As we prepare to cross over to the Promised land – Sims!
We need you! We need volunteers in all areas of church life.
- Which part can you play?!