INFLUENCE

Friendfluence #4

Pastor Dennis Clanton

Woodland Church

Sunday, October 22, 2023

(1 Thessalonians 1:2–8, NLT) “We always thank God for all of you and pray for you constantly. As we pray to our God and Father about you, we think of your faithful work, your loving deeds, and the enduring hope you have because of our Lord Jesus Christ. We know, dear brothers and sisters, that God loves you and has chosen you to be his own people. For when we brought you the Good News, it was not only with words but also with power, for the Holy Spirit gave you full assurance that what we said was true. And you know of our concern for you from the way we lived when we were with you. So you received the message with joy from the Holy Spirit in spite of the severe suffering it brought you. In this way, you imitated both us and the Lord. As a result, you have become an example to all the believers in Greece—throughout both Macedonia and Achaia. And now the word of the Lord is ringing out from you to people everywhere, even beyond Macedonia and Achaia, for wherever we go we find people telling us about your faith in God. We don’t need to tell them about it,”

PEOPLE OF INFLUENCE…

1. ARE COMPELLED BY A PASSION.

“We do not want, as the newspapers say, a church that will move with the world. We want a church that will move the world.”  –G. K. Chesterton

(2 Corinthians 11:2a, Message) “The thing that has me so upset is that I care about you so much—this is the passion of God burning inside me!”

“I’ve come to realize there are dimensions of the Spirit’s ministry I have never tapped and places in this study about which I know very little. I’m on a strong learning curve. I have witnessed a dynamic power in his presence that I long to know more of firsthand. I now have questions and a strong interest in many of the things of the Spirit I once felt were settled. To say it plainly, I am hungry for more of him. I long to know God more deeply and more intimately.”  –Chuck Swindoll, Embraced by the Spirit, pp 25-26

2. RESPECT

“Civility, which I take to be a strong virtue and not simply wimpishness, requires that we not try to cram our beliefs down anybody’s throats, whether we be Christian or non-Christian or even anti-Christian. But that we all try to articulate as persuasively as we can, what it is that we believe, of course in the hope that others will be persuaded.”  -Richard John Neuhaus, Rutherford magazine, February 1993

(1 Thessalonians 1:2, NLT) “We always thank God for all of you and pray for you constantly.”

(1 Thessalonians 1:3, NLT) “We think of your faithful work, your loving deeds, and the enduring hope you have because of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

3. DECIDE TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try spending the night in a closed room with a mosquito.”  –African proverb

(2 Corinthians 4:7–18, NLT) “We now have this light shining in our hearts, … our great power is from God, not from ourselves. We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. … But we continue to preach because we have the same kind of faith the psalmist had when he said, “I believed in God, so I spoke.” …  That is why we never give up. … we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.”

“The first thing in my life by far and the reason I do everything is my love for Jesus Christ. Number two is my family—being there for them and making sure I’m not missing time that I can’t get back. Number three is my work, speaking to corporations about teamwork, leadership, and cultural diversity and trying to help people come together. I don’t care where I’m at or what I’m doing, the thing I want to do now in my life is make a difference and serve with a capital S. Serve in my home. Serve in my relationship with my wife. And serve my fellow man…. For me, it’s a matter of “What am I doing to make a difference? What am I doing except making money.” There are a lot of people out there who are hurting.”  –Mike Singletary

GROWTHWORK

Who do you want to influence?

(1 Thessalonians 1:5, NLT) “You know of our concern for you from the way we lived when we were with you.”

1. Stay in the Scriptures.

“Nobody ever outgrows Scripture. The Book widens and deepens with our years.”  –Charles Spurgeon

(1 Peter 1:25, NLT) “But the word of the Lord remains forever.” And that word is the Good News that was preached to you.”

2. Stay Connected to Christ.

(1 Peter 2:4–5, CEV) “Come to Jesus Christ. … You are also a group of holy priests, and with the help of Jesus Christ you will offer sacrifices that please God.”

3. Be a Person of Integrity.

(1 Peter 2:12, NLT) “They will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when he judges the world.”