Our name | Mission | Vision | Leaders Ministries | Schedule | Directions | Contact Home   Gateway Church gathers for worship Sundays at 10:30 a.m. Location: 6425 Jefferson Rd. (Hwy. 129) in Athens, Georgia. For directions, click here. Ministry of the Word: Recent sermons Our quarterly e-magazine Gateway Today For the Gateway family Pastor Jerry's Weekly E-Mail A GATEWAY SERMON SUMMARY AUDIO The first step (Second in the series, The Life of Noah) Jerry Varnado, pastor Gateway Church, Athens GA June 10, 2007 Main Scripture text: Genesis 6:5-8. God invites us to join Him in doing God-sized things -- things that are impossible from a human perspective. Even mature believers never outgrow the experience of being scared half-to-death at the assignments God gives them. There are reasons why God gives us impossible tasks: 1) So we learn to trust Him. If all we ever do is what we can do with the resources we have, what do we need God for? 2) To demonstrate His power and glory. Apart from supernatural activity how would people ever know that God is alive and is able to act in this world? 3) To draw us closer to Him. As God demonstrates to us that He is trustworthy, we learn to rely on Him more and more -- and that deepens our relationship and draws us closer to God. Throughout Scripture, God gives big jobs to ordinary people: Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Gideon. All were told to do things that seemed impossible. In the New Testament, Jesus gave the Church what is known as the Great Commission -- to take the gospel to all the world. We might translate that to our time and circumstances something like this: "Go into all of Athens, Georgia and make disciples of all its people; thereby transforming the community, making your city God's city." It's not just the size of the task that makes it so formidable but the nature of it. Godlessness and evil are entrenched in our culture. Pastors and churches are so involved in dealing with their own ministries, issues, and problems, there's neither time nor energy left to give to community transformation. Some churches have abandoned the commission of Jesus. They will fight poverty, but balk at any effort to win people to faith in Jesus Christ. I'm well aware of the odds against Community Transformation; I've been involved in the process for 15 years and we don't seem much closer now than when we started. This is why we need "faith reminders": 1) Abraham's son. It was 25 years from promise to fulfillment. 2) A great nation. It was hundreds of years before Abraham's descendants became a great nation as God had promised. 3) The great flood. Noah spent more than 50 years building the ark before the rains came. 4) The coming of Messiah. It was prophesied hundreds of years before Jesus came -- and between the Old and New Testaments, there was 400 years of silence from God. 5) The Second Coming. It's been two thousand years and Jesus hasn't come back yet. Our job is to do as Noah did. We're to follow a seemingly impossible plan. We're to take the first steps. We're to do what we've been told -- and listen to God for any further instructions. That means we love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind -- and love our neighbor as ourselves. We pray regularly for the community. We engage in the biblical pattern for witnessing to the world. Community transformation is a big job and we are just regular folks. But if we follow the plan and keep working at it, God will use ordinary people to do extraordinary things -- in His time. Supporting texts: Genesis 12 | Exodus 3-4 | Joshua 6 | Judges 6-8 | Matthew 28:19-20 | 2 Peter 3:8 A mp3 audio file of this sermon is not yet available. An audio CD of the sermon summarized above is available free of charge (U.S. requests only). Request a CD by calling or writing the Gateway Church office. Please specify number 070610a: The First Step. © 2007 Gerald R. Varnado To the Gateway Church home page How to contact us