Endeavor 2: A Generational Endeavor

Good morning! I’m Bill Connors, senior pastor here with Eastern Hills, and I’m glad that we get to celebrate and worship together this morning. Thank you for being here for Family Worship, whether you’re in the room or online right now. We’re in the second week of our ENDEAVOR series and this phase of our discipleship and generosity campaign. If you’re visiting with the Eastern Hills family this morning, we’d love to know that you’re here whether you are in person or online. If you’re in the room, please grab the WELCOME card that should be in the back of the pew in front of you, and fill that out during the service. Then, you can drop it in the plates as you leave at the close of service, or you can bring it to me down front at the close of service, because I would really like to meet you and give you a gift to thank you for being here today. If you’re online, or you’d just rather communicate online, you can text the word WELCOME to 5053392004, and you’ll receive a text back that will contain a link to our digital communication card. If you’re here in the room and you choose that option, I’d still like to meet you and give you a gift at the close of service.

Announcements

Endeavor to Worship was a great night on Thursday, as many in our church family came together to praise and pray and worship our Lord. Thank you Worship 4:24 and the youth praise band for leading us on Thursday, and thanks AV crew and security for being here. If you weren’t able to be here, you can go and see it on our YouTube or Facebook pages. As we continue to move toward our commitment Sunday on November 13, we still have several ways that we’re striving to prepare our fellowship to know and obey the plans that God has for us during this time and into the future:

40 Days of Prayer info - week 2 of devos available today, rack card for reference day by day available on the Get Connected table in the foyer.

On our social media feeds every morning #ehbcabq

Most of our Sunday morning Bible study classes are doing the Endeavor companion study that we’ve created from the book of Nehemiah. If you haven’t been involved in a Sunday morning Bible study class, this would be a great time to get plugged into one.

Weekly extra prayer time 12-1 Wednesdays

Extra Sweet Hour of Prayer 5:30 pm on 11/6

Proposed budgets for 2023 available today, grab one after service from the stand in the foyer.

Budget discussion on 10/30, 5:30 pm. This will be the only time the budget is discussed fully. At the business meeting in November, we will only discuss changes made as a result of the 10/30 meeting.

Mission New Mexico ($13,456)

Opening

Last week, we started our look at the life of Joseph by considering the God-sized ENDEAVOR that God had for him, and we saw that God prepares God-sized endeavors for His people and prepares His people for God-sized endeavors, but that ultimately, it is God who completes the God-sized things that He calls us to. Just like He did with Joseph, God calls us to a trusting obedience as we join Him in the work that He’s doing. For Joseph, the Lord sent him ahead into Egypt to prepare for the preservation of Israel during a coming famine. For us, the Lord prepared a God-sized endeavor for Eastern Hills Baptist Church when He planted us here in the northeast heights nearly 60 years ago—an endeavor that hasn’t changed or ended since then: to be a lighthouse of the truth and hope of the Gospel in this part of the city.

For this week, our focal passage on Joseph is found in Hebrews chapter 11, verses 17-22. As we are able, let’s stand in honor of the reading of the Word of God:

Hebrews 11:17–22 CSB

17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. He received the promises and yet he was offering his one and only son, 18 the one to whom it had been said, Your offspring will be traced through Isaac. 19 He considered God to be able even to raise someone from the dead; therefore, he received him back, figuratively speaking. 20 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. 21 By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and he worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff. 22 By faith Joseph, as he was nearing the end of his life, mentioned the exodus of the Israelites and gave instructions concerning his bones.

PRAYER (FBC Los Chavez, Co-Pastors Boyd Morerod and Cory Griffith)

One of the aspects that I love about getting to pastor Eastern Hills is the fact that this is my home church. I came to the Lord through the ministry of Eastern Hills. I was baptized here at Eastern Hills. I was discipled here at Eastern Hills. I was called to the ministry here at Eastern Hills. I started in ministry here at Eastern Hills, and I’ve served my entire ministry here at Eastern Hills.

I’ve been a member of this church since I was baptized in November of 1989, and this is the only church that I’ve ever been a member of. I’ve been here for more than half of this church’s life to this point. Being a part of Eastern Hills for all of this time has been an incredible blessing to me and to my family!

One part of that longevity that I really appreciate is the flow of the relationships that I’ve experienced as a part of the family life of Eastern Hills.

There are people in this room who were at my baptism, who were here the day I married Melanie, who visited us in the hospital following the births of both of our daughters, who were a part of the vote to call me as Youth Pastor and then as Senior Pastor, and who were at Maggie & Nathan’s wedding.

These are the people whose shoulders I stand on. They are those who were carrying on the endeavor of this church family before I even knew the Lord, and they are people who have taught me and led me by their godly example and prayed for me and encouraged me through all of these years. God has used them in my life and in the life of this church to bring us to today, and He will continue to use them in the years ahead. I have such a deep respect for those in that generation.

Then there are people in this room who I’ve walked with side-by-side for years, who I know I can celebrate and worship the Lord with when I’m walking well, and those who will pray for me, correct me, and cry with me when I’m not. These people are some of my closest friends, and they love me even when I’m unlovable.

These are the ones of my generation, my peers. While we stand on the shoulders of those we follow after, we stand shoulder to shoulder with one another in the work of the Gospel, and God will use many of us to lead Eastern Hills into the future that God has planned for us. And following the example of those who came before us, we have a calling and a responsibility to be the kinds of people who have shoulders for others to stand on.

And then, there are people in this room who I have baptized, who I taught as students in the student ministry, whose wedding ceremonies I had the honor and privilege of performing, whose babies I’ve gotten to hold, and some of whom now work and serve in the ministry of Eastern Hills. There are babies and children and students who are coming up behind us, not as the church of tomorrow, because we are all the church of today, right now. But they are those who will step into the endeavor that we are preparing for them and will leave completely in their hands one day. They stand on our shoulders, learning and growing through the faithful ministry this church, and one day, Lord willing, others will stand on their shoulders.

None of these groups are any more or any less important than any other. Know why? Because, God willing, none of them is the last, as far as we know. Certainly, there will be a last generation, when Jesus returns to judge the world and to take those who belong to Him home, but until then, we can assume that generation will follow generation.

We see in the life of the church, and we see in our focal passage in Hebrews this morning, that God’s endeavors for His people are often generational. Sometimes they take a long time to finish, and as a result, require multiple generations to be in on the work. While our focus is on Joseph for this series, we also see that Joseph is a link in a much greater chain—a generational chain that stretched for hundreds, even thousands of years.

The reality of our ENDEAVOR today is that it is also generational. Maybe not hundreds or thousands of years… but it doesn’t merely belong to who is here right now, because this ENDEAVOR is more than a building campaign. It’s a reminder to this church that we don’t stand alone in this time. We have those who went before us, and those who will come behind us, but the work will continue. This is because each generation inherits an endeavor.

1: Each generation inherits an endeavor.

I shared last week that Eastern Hills’ reason for being is something that isn’t just for us. It goes all the way back to the beginning of the church (and in fact, much further back than that). Likewise, we see in Scripture that the endeavor that God gave to Joseph wasn’t for Joseph alone. Certainly Joseph’s part was pretty important at the time. But Joseph didn’t just accidentally land in the middle of God’s plan to provide for and to protect His people.

We won’t re-read our focal passage, but I want to illuminate it from Genesis. God’s plan for His people went all the way back to Abraham:

Genesis 12:1–3 CSB

1 The Lord said to Abram: Go from your land, your relatives, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

God had a plan to make Abraham, through Isaac (who wasn’t even born at the time this promise was given), into a great nation. Then God confirmed the promise to Isaac:

Genesis 26:2–5 CSB

2 The Lord appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt. Live in the land that I tell you about; 3 stay in this land as an alien, and I will be with you and bless you. For I will give all these lands to you and your offspring, and I will confirm the oath that I swore to your father Abraham. 4 I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky, I will give your offspring all these lands, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed by your offspring, 5 because Abraham listened to me and kept my mandate, my commands, my statutes, and my instructions.”

And that promise was then given to Jacob:

Genesis 28:13–14 CSB

13 The Lord was standing there beside him, saying, “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your offspring the land on which you are lying. 14 Your offspring will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out toward the west, the east, the north, and the south. All the peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.

And then, in Genesis chapter 48, we see Jacob pass that promise on to Joseph by giving him a double portion of blessing: saying that both of Joseph’s sons would inherit just as any of Jacob’s sons would, and that the family of Israel would indeed return to the promised land:

Genesis 48:3–5 CSB

3 Jacob said to Joseph, “God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me. 4 He said to me, ‘I will make you fruitful and numerous; I will make many nations come from you, and I will give this land as a permanent possession to your future descendants.’ 5 Your two sons born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt are now mine. Ephraim and Manasseh belong to me just as Reuben and Simeon do.

Genesis 48:21–22 CSB

21 Israel said to Joseph, “Look, I am about to die, but God will be with you and will bring you back to the land of your fathers. 22 Over and above what I am giving your brothers, I am giving you the one mountain slope that I took from the Amorites with my sword and bow.”

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Ephraim & Manasseh… Each of these was a part of God’s plan for the deliverance of Israel and ultimately for the redemption of mankind through the promised Messiah, Jesus (while Jesus was from the line of Judah, Ephraim and Manasseh played important roles in the history of Israel). Each promise built upon the life of the one before, and each life was a part of what God would do in the future. Especially in Joseph’s life, we saw last week that his existence wasn’t about him (it may have started that way, but didn’t end that way). Joseph knew that he had been placed where he was as the fulfillment of a promise, and that his life had a purpose: the preservation and preparation of the next stage in the life of God’s people.

The ministry of the Gospel is also an inherited endeavor. Think about it: If you’re in Christ, someone told you about Jesus. They helped you to realize that you had been separated from our loving God because of your sin, that there was no way you could fix that broken relationship, and so God sent His Son, Jesus the Christ, to take the punishment of death that you deserve because of that sin. He did this because He loves you and wants to be in a relationship with you that will last forever. So Jesus beat death on your behalf, so you have eternal life if you belong to Christ by faith.

When you surrendered your life to Christ, you inherited an endeavor: the endeavor of telling others about the love of God in Christ. Paul said it this way:

1 Corinthians 15:3–11 CSB

3 For I passed on to you as most important what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. 6 Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers and sisters at one time; most of them are still alive, but some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one born at the wrong time, he also appeared to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11 Whether, then, it is I or they, so we proclaim and so you have believed.

We are all the product of an inherited Gospel endeavor through the last 2000 years.

Do you all know where Eastern Hills Baptist Church comes from? I have a drawing from 1977 that shows how Eastern Hills Baptist Church came to be. This is part of the “family tree” if you will, of Albuquerque’s First Baptist Church, which was founded in 1887. We see that FBC is the trunk, and if I’m not mistaken (and I very well may be), FBC planted Fruit Avenue Baptist Church, which planted Parkview Baptist Church, which planted Heights Baptist Church, which planted Hermosa Baptist Church, which started Hermosa Baptist Mission in 1964, which became Eastern Hills Baptist Church in that same year.

Yes, God gave us an endeavor when He planted us here in the northeast heights, but that endeavor was one that we inherited from Hermosa Baptist Church, which inherited it from Heights, which inherited it from Parkview… And that endeavor has always been the same: to carry on the ministry of the Gospel in Albuquerque and beyond.

And a part of that endeavor that we’ve inherited includes this building, because this building supports the church. Remember that the church isn’t the building itself—it’s the people of God who gather here. But the building is our church family’s “home base,” where we come together to tell the stories of our efforts, triumphs, and failures. It’s where we come to be taught, encouraged, and corrected with the rest of the body. It’s where we connect with God’s family in the most tangible way. It’s where we can bring those that we strive to connect to Jesus so that they can experience the community of faith and that community’s worship of God together. We’ve inherited a great gift in this facility.

So each generation inherits an endeavor. We have inherited ours. And of course, if an endeavor is inherited, that also means that it is passed from one generation to the next.

2: Each generation passes on an endeavor.

While the Gospel reveals the promise of eternal life with God through faith in Christ, none of us is a permanent fixture here. There will come a day when God is going to finish up His work of taking history to where He wants it to go, and then the heavens and the earth will be made new, and this plane that we live on now will be wrapped up and put away.

Since that’s the case, we all need to remember something: We’re all interim. Someone is going to come after us. So as long as the Lord tarries, we are not the end of this endeavor… not by a long shot. The question that we need to ask then is: “What will we pass on?”

Joseph didn’t have all the details about what was coming in the future. All he had was trust in what his father Jacob had passed on about what the future would bring. But that was enough for Joseph. He knew that God’s promise would be fulfilled. Notice how the book of Genesis ends:

Genesis 50:24–26 CSB

24 Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will certainly come to your aid and bring you up from this land to the land he swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” 25 So Joseph made the sons of Israel take an oath: “When God comes to your aid, you are to carry my bones up from here.” 26 Joseph died at the age of 110. They embalmed him and placed him in a coffin in Egypt.

He had great confidence that God was going to do what He had promised, so he gave the people instructions about his burial before he died. He passed on the endeavor of faith that he had received from his father.

The passing on of the faith was central to the Hebrew identity, and was seen as a critical task for Jewish parents to engage in:

Deuteronomy 6:4–9 CSB

4 “Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. 6 These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart. 7 Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol on your forehead. 9 Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your city gates.

This passage, called the shema, is about loving God, and the importance of teaching your children to love God as well. It’s generational.

The psalms are filled with references to the importance of passing on our faith to the next generation:

Psalm 22:30–31 CSB

30 Their descendants will serve him; the next generation will be told about the Lord. 31 They will come and declare his righteousness; to a people yet to be born they will declare what he has done.

Psalm 71:17–18 CSB

17 God, you have taught me from my youth, and I still proclaim your wondrous works. 18 Even while I am old and gray, God, do not abandon me, while I proclaim your power to another generation, your strength to all who are to come.

Psalm 78:1–7 CSB

1 My people, hear my instruction; listen to the words from my mouth. 2 I will declare wise sayings; I will speak mysteries from the past— 3 things we have heard and known and that our ancestors have passed down to us. 4 We will not hide them from their children, but will tell a future generation the praiseworthy acts of the Lord, his might, and the wondrous works he has performed. 5 He established a testimony in Jacob and set up a law in Israel, which he commanded our ancestors to teach to their children 6 so that a future generation— children yet to be born—might know. They were to rise and tell their children 7 so that they might put their confidence in God and not forget God’s works, but keep his commands.

Psalm 102:18–22 CSB

18 This will be written for a later generation, and a people who have not yet been created will praise the Lord: 19 He looked down from his holy heights— the Lord gazed out from heaven to earth— 20 to hear a prisoner’s groaning, to set free those condemned to die, 21 so that they might declare the name of the Lord in Zion and his praise in Jerusalem 22 when peoples and kingdoms are assembled to serve the Lord.

Psalm 145:3–4 CSB

3 The Lord is great and is highly praised; his greatness is unsearchable. 4 One generation will declare your works to the next and will proclaim your mighty acts.

Paul wrote about the importance of passing our faith on when he wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:

2 Timothy 2:1–2 CSB

1 You, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. 2 What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

So back to the question: “What will we pass on?” Will we pass on a passion for the lost; a desire to see believers grow to be more like Christ; a heart for meaningful, God-centered relationships within the body of Christ; and useful ministry outside the walls of the building, so that those who come behind us would inherit not just the task, but the desire to see it fulfilled? Will we pass on a spiritually mature church family focused on the things of God, sharing and living out the Gospel in real, visible, practical ways?

This is to be a constant desire, church: to pass on our faith to the next generation—to prepare the next generation to be us… no, to be better than us. To train them up, set examples for them, show them the confidence that we have in Christ because of all He has done for us.

But there is also the question of the building: Will we pass on a building that will support the next generation of Eastern Hills Baptist Church, helping the church to continue to minister to this community, to be a lighthouse in the darkness all around us?

We want to do both. And this is an endeavor that each of us is responsible for in our time.

3: Each generation is responsible for the endeavor during their time.

One of the common things that we had when I was in student ministry was a rule about when we went out into the world, whether it was camp or a restaurant or activity place… whatever. That rule was “leave it better than you found it.” Why? Because of stewardship—we had a responsibility to appropriately use or maintain a resource while it was in our care, because that bore witness to who we were, how we saw others, and what we believed.

And even though we have inherited our endeavor from those who came before us, and even though we’re going to be passing on the endeavor to those who come after us, this moment is the time for us to faithfully listen to God, obey His commands, and prepare for what He has planned for the future.

This is exactly what Joseph did:

Genesis 45:4–8 CSB

4 Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Please, come near me,” and they came near. “I am Joseph, your brother,” he said, “the one you sold into Egypt. 5 And now don’t be grieved or angry with yourselves for selling me here, because God sent me ahead of you to preserve life. 6 For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there will be five more years without plowing or harvesting. 7 God sent me ahead of you to establish you as a remnant within the land and to keep you alive by a great deliverance. 8 Therefore it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household, and ruler over all the land of Egypt.

Joseph saw his life through the lens of God’s purposes. It wasn’t about him: it was about God’s plans and desires. And he was responsible with the task that God had set before him. Imagine with me for just a moment:

“What would have happened if Joseph had not been responsible in his part of the endeavor?”

I know that we can’t actually give an answer to this question, because it’s not what happened, and we praise God for that work in Joseph’s life, because when Joseph started out his life really did seem to be about himself. And God is sovereign: had Joseph failed to be responsible in his part of the endeavor God had prepared for him, God would have delivered the people of Israel another way. But Joseph was responsible in the moment that he had with the resources that he had in the faith that he had, so that God’s purposes were his purposes.

We have a responsibility to live out the task before us, because we are to see our lives as Joseph did: as completely in the hands of God, submitting to His direction and leadership, because we belong to Him, not to ourselves. Paul would wrote this in Romans 14:

Romans 14:7–8 CSB

7 For none of us lives for himself, and no one dies for himself. 8 If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.

This responsibility isn’t about our capability to do great things for God. It’s not. Joseph in his own power could not have done the things that he did in Egypt to prepare the way for the preservation of Israel. All he brought to the table was an obedience to God, an ownership of his place in the plan of God, and a faithfulness to the task before him.

We, like Joseph, need to lay down ourselves and walk in a faithful focus on the purposes of God, taking on the perspective that Paul had in Galatians 2:20:

Galatians 2:20 CSB

20 I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

If we are in Christ, then He is our life. We are faced with a call to obedience, responsibility, and faithfulness. We must, church family, take hold of God’s desires for Eastern Hills and live in them, because God has chosen to use this church family as it stands right now for His purposes in this community in this time. He calls us to join Him in that work.

Let’s join Him in this great ENDEAVOR to impact this city with the Gospel, and make this building a place that is identified with that impact! Our time is right now.

Closing

We stand on the shoulders of those who have come before us, shoulder-to-shoulder with those around us, and others now stand and will continue stand on our shoulders. What we do with the time that we have now is critical: will we seek the face of the Lord, understand His will for us in this time, and then obey, passing on the blessing of that obedience to the generations that follow? What are we going to do with what we’ve inherited, and what we will pass on?

The Gospel is central to who we are as a church family. I believe that there are those hearing this this morning who have never believed the Gospel, never trusted in the work of Jesus for their salvation, never experienced the saving work of the grace of God. You’ve heard this morning the truth of the Gospel message: that because of the love of God, Jesus died for you to set you free from the punishment that you deserve because of your sin, and that He rose again so that you can live forever with Him. He calls you to give up going your own way, and surrender to Him as Savior and as Lord. Will you stop running from Jesus today? I don’t believe that you’re hearing this by accident, but that God is doing a work in your life. Surrender to that work, and start a new endeavor of faith. If this is you today, we would love to talk with you about salvation. If you’re in the room, come and tell one of us while the band is playing in a few moments. If you’re online, send me an email.

If you’ve been visiting, and you believe that Eastern Hills is the church family that you need to join in formal membership, committing to this body as we go on this endeavor together, please let us know. We’ll set an appointment to get together, share our testimonies, go over our Statement of Belief, and answer any question that you have about the church.

If you need prayer, you can come and pray with us, or you can come and pray at the steps if you would like.

You can also use this time to give online through the website or our mobile app, or you can give in person if you’d rather by using the plates by the doors as we leave at the end of service.

PRAYER

Closing Remarks

Bible reading plan (Ps. 112)

Pastor’s Study tonight

Prayer meeting Wednesday

Invite folks to choir, just for Christmas (Christmas performance on 12/11) Wednesdays at 6:30 in the choir room. Really, we’re just asking for six more practices. If you have choral experience, please come and check out the choir for Christmas.

Endeavor giveaway: magnets and bracelets

Instructions for guests

Benediction

1 Timothy 4:10 CSB

10 For this reason we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.