Today's Sermon:
"Homeward Bound"

I. Imitate .....- Vs. 17

Biographies:
Hudson Taylor
John G. Paton
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Jim Elliot
Darlene Rose
Adoniram Judson
Eric Metaxas

II. Motivations to Imitate the Godly

A. The Pull of the ..... - Vs. 18-19

“I started with almost everything in life that a young man would want. I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless and sensual ease. I became the spendthrift of my own genius, and to waste an eternal youth gave me curious joy. Tired of being on the heights, I deliberately went to the depths in search of a new sensation. What paradox was to me in the sphere of thought, perversity became to me in the sphere of passion. Desire at the end was a malady, a madness, or both. I grew careless of the lives of others. I took pleasure where it pleased me and passed on. I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character…I ceased to be Lord over myself. I was no longer the captain of my soul and did not know it. I allowed pleasure to dominate me. I ended in horrible disgrace.”
-Oscar Wilde, in Ravi Zacharias, Recapture the Wonder

The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie. It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is not the X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality we drink in every night. For all the ill that Satan can do, when God describes what keeps us from the banquet table of his love, it is a piece of land, a yoke of oxen, and a wife (Luke 14:18–20)…the most deadly appetites are not for the poison of evil, but for the simple pleasures of earth. For when these replace an appetite for God himself, the idolatry is scarcely recognizable, and almost incurable.-John Piper, Hunger for God

Family Devotions:

Jesus Freaks
I am N
Extreme Devotion
Foxes Book of Martyrs

B. This World is Not Our Home- Vs. 20-21