Transcript:
Hello, welcome to Walking in Step with God. I am Steve McDonald. Today we explore the topic “Find God in Community” as the last message in our series “God’s Invitation to You”. In this series, we have explored many of the ways God reveals Himself to us and extends His light and His hand to us as a loving father does with his child. We have discussed foundational aspects of getting to know God for the first time. The importance of posturing our hearts to receive God’s invitation was discussed. We have even discussed the importance of finding guidance and counsel during our walk with God to ensure we are equipped with the wisdom and direction we need to remain aligned with God’s will and plans for us and our lives. Today, let’s wrap up the series by discovering how we can find God in community.
Let’s explore how we can receive from God in our social circles, and how we can serve God in those same environments.
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Welcome back. Let’s continue in our discussion of ways to find God in community.
Worship
The first topic I would like to cover is the importance of worship. What is worship? It is when we express our joy, admiration, and thanks to God. It is how we express to God how grateful we are to have Him in our lives. We find God in worship, because when we worship, His presence is with us in the room.
Yes, worship can be a solo activity, but it can be an incredibly powerful force when it is done in a community setting. Worship can take place in a formal setting, such as a place of worship as part of a service, or it can be in informal settings – such as a study or prayer group.
God truly deserves our worship and is delighted when we praise Him for His goodness, His love, His healing, His protection, and so much more.
Worship God in your heart and in your mind, but I encourage you to actively seek opportunities to worship God in a community setting, so that you can share your praise with others.
Pray
I have often spoken about the importance of prayer. Prayer is how we can share our thoughts, our desires and our praise – 24/7. Yes, it is very important to pray 1 on 1 with God at any time for any reason. We can pray in our minds, we can pray out loud, and we can even pray in journaling and writing.
It is also a powerful thing to pray in community. When many are gathered together in prayer, there is a unified voice coming together before God as one. We find God in prayer, because He has promised to hear our prayers. A community of prayer is one of the most powerful ways to convey the collective desires of our hearts to God.
Serve
Another powerful way of finding God in community is by seeking ways to serve. We can serve in ways that allow God to use us to bring His love, compassion, and generosity into His kingdom. We can serve in our places of worship, such as being part of a welcome team. We can serve in our actual communities by donating our resources and our time. We can serve one person at a time or we can serve many.
Regardless of how we serve, we find God in serving because if we ask Him to use us as a vessel, He will direct us to opportunities in which we can serve. As we serve, we can keep an open heart and mind to allow God to place thoughts and words on our spirit. God can and will use you to convey messages of wisdom to others in need, or simply be in the right place at the right time for someone in need.
Serving God is one of the most rewarding aspects of my walk with Him. I never know how it will show up, but when it does, I can sense in my spirit that God has directed me to that opportunity to serve.
Wrap Up
In today’s message, we wrapped up our series ‘God’s Invitation to You’ by discussing several ways to find God in community. We explored the importance of worship. Worship is how we express to God our thanks and our gratitude. We can definitely worship alone, but it is a powerful experience when we can make time to worship with others. God loves to hear and see our praise, so let us worship Him together! We discussed the importance of prayer. Prayer, like worship, is another activity that can be done alone, but it is an even more powerful force when it can be multiplied by praying with others. When 2 or more come together in agreement in prayer, God has promised that His presence is near. God sees all our prayers, but when we pray together, not only are we drawing God even closer to us, we are aligning our hearts and minds before Him. Last, we discussed the importance of service. We find God in serving, because God can use us as a vessel to share information or provide support or help to someone in need. We can serve in our places of worship and we can serve in our communities. We can even serve in our families and social circles. We can always ask God to use us as He sees fit. If we ask, He will!
Finding God in community is a vital part of our daily walk with God. Our faith is not meant to be a solo journey. Yes, God wants an intimate relationship with us, one on one, but He also seeks to use us to be instruments to benefit and grow His kingdom.
As you walk with God, seek God in community as part of your journey of faith. He will allow you to experience Him in ways you could not do alone.
Are you interested in discovering more about the guidance offered in this message? Learn more in the companion article Going Deeper with the Word: Find Guidance on Your Journey With God
