July 21, 2024 • Trevor Harrison • Judges 2:7–10, Joshua 24:31
Most of us want to live a life of purpose. To make a lasting impression. To be able to leave behind some sort of legacy to future generations—to have a purpose in this world that’s greater than ourselves. As Christians, the hope isn’t that the focus of our legacy would point to us, but instead, that it would point to a life spent in service to God, pointing others to His love, mercy, and work in the world. In other words, we want our lives to have influence for His purpose. This week, we’ll look at the example of the Israelites, a group of God’s chosen people who, for better or for worse, certainly left a legacy for fellow Christians to learn from as we go. As we look back at their experience, we’ll see that when we’re not intentional to live our lives on purpose, we may end up influencing others not toward God, but further away. What we do with our influence today can have a direct impact on the faith of those around us in the future. We’ll see what it looks like to intentionally use the power of influence for the Kingdom of God.
Influencers Are Present
July 14, 2024 • Trevor Harrison • Matthew 28:18–20, John 13:34–35
In this day and age, it seems like influencers are everywhere. On every app and every platform, social media influencers
are leading their followers toward what they like, what they don’t like, and what they think is best. They’re leveraging their
influence to get things done, for better or for worse. But have you ever considered you have the same ability to influence
others? Maybe you don’t have thousands of online followers, but everyone has the potential to influence someone else. As
Christians, we’re called to use our influence to bring more people to God. Jesus challenged all believers to go and “make disciples of all nations.” In other words, Jesus called us to use our influence not for ourselves, but for God’s Kingdom. But where do we start? Well, as we’ll see this week, one of the best ways we can do this is to be present and engaged with the people around us. To continually show up in the lives of those we care about to show them they are not only loved by us, but loved by God. When we do that, we’re using the opportunities we have to influence the people around us for good and for God.
