A building

Intro

Dec 4th is Baptism. Sign up now.

We have a device that a lot of people do that honestly we’ve learned to depend on a lot.

Alexa.

She will play your favorite song, turns our light on and off and answer almost any question you have.

But sometimes, no matter what, she can’t come up with the right answer.

Goes like this, Alexa how do I know what to believe in life??

Playing, Don’t Stop Believing by Journey.

She can’t come up with deep lingering, longing questions of humanity.

These are soul questions.

Jesus came to settle the soul level longings.

Jesus’ death and resurrection for our sin is the solution, but Jesus ascended to heaven.

He left the earth, still with broken people, broken hearts.

When he left, the world wasn’t left helpless and hopeless, he left behind his people, the church to be the answer.

The church is the hope of the world.

The church is the answer.

Why church, is it really a big deal....

What so many have seen as a supplement (an extra), God says is the answer.

Belonging Question, Not just a place to attend but a people to belong.

Lacking Question, No just a seat to fill but a place to be fulfilled.

There’s also another deep question we ask,

It’s the Lasting question.

Does anything really last. Any lasting impact or effect.

It can feel like all of my efforts fade as quick as my breathe on a cold morning. There and then gone.

And if my efforts don’t really last, do they matter.

Discouragement, depression, anxiety...

Can seem like I just do enough to keep going instead of something that is significant and lasting.

Story of window breaking, scared me!

Right now, my drivers window is help up with pieces of cardboard stuck.

As I drive I have to push the window back up as it falls.

I forgot my window wasn’t working and I went to a drive through...

Cardboard isn’t a lasting fix, but there is something that is!

Getting the right part, connecting it with the other parts...

In life its too easy to just be patched together with a quick fixes.

Only living for today. The tasks in front of me. Just making it though.

Next job, next relationship.

Trying to build something in life, but at best sometimes it feels like a straw house.

Ephesians 3:10-11

His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.

God’s eternal plan is that the church would be the answer to the world.

What God does is everlasting and eternal, he does it through the church.

The Church is the ANSWER to the lasting question.

My life really can make a lasting difference and impact.

But its doesn’t happen through building my name, but only through building HIS!

Ephesians 2:19-21

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.

The Church is a building.

Not not the one we meet in.

The church isn’t about coming to a building, but about what we’re building together!

A temple is what houses the presence of God.

us together make up his temple on the earth. Where his presence is made known to the world.

The church is about building his kingdom on this earth, so all would know!

It’s not about what I can do individually, but together what we can do eternally.

1 Corinthians 3:9-11

For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building. By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 3:16-17

Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.

1 Peter 2:4-5

As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house...

The Church is building on what Jesus began. and each of us is a stone, a part.

we’re building on the ones who have gone before, others will build on what we’ve done.

As the church i’m a part of something that reaches beyond me, will last past me,

I’m just a part of a bigger whole that is making a difference that’s lasting.

What we do together doesn’t just fade, it ripples into eternity.

This building isn’t made of straw, it stands firm, it lasts.

With your life, what are you building?

Often we live in a way that we want God to fit into what I’m building.

But God wants us to find our fit in what he’s building.

You’re not meant to build alone.

Isolated, disconnected, living is too limited for what our lives are created for.

Isolation creates small thinking which results in small living.

You are created for more.

The Answer is we are this building, together.

2 Ways the church connects you to LASTING living:

INVERTS YOUR EYES

Did you know that your eyes actually see everything upside down and in reverse.

That’s how it collects information. That would be a pretty difficult way to live!

The brain inverts the signals from your eyes into seeing the correct way, aren’t we created amazingly?!?

On our own, we don’t see life correctly.

The church helps flip the image, puts it into perspective.

Live in connection with others helps me realize it’s not all about me.

The world is bigger than what I’m going through.

My impact is greater than just me.

As I live really knowing others, praying for others, reaching into the lives of others, serving others...

It lifts my eyes up from looking at just my next step to what’s all around me.

When you you begin living for the eternal instead of the immediate, looking to Jesus, really connected to others, you begin to realize that now instead of nothing matters, now everything does.

What changes is how I see it.

1 Corinthians 10:31

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

Colossians 3:23

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters,

All for him!

My work isn’t worthless, home has purpose, etc

When I get eternally connected, my life gets eternally focused.

This is for his kingdom and his name!

INVESTS YOUR LIFE

i’m pretty good at spending.

I’m well acquainted with the amazon cart and the ups driver.

Sometimes packages come in and I can’t remember what they are.

Spending is about consuming. it’s gone, temporary.

Investing is different.

Investing builds.

Investing is giving out but in a way that actually has a return.

Too often I just spend my life.

The church gives us the opportunity to invest it.

To actually build something.

Matthew 6:19-20

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.

That’s eternal living.

As you serve, your serving builds.

As you give, your generosity builds.

Yours, with mine, and theirs building together. A heavenly investment into souls.

CONCLUSION

With your life, what are you building?

The church isn’t about coming to a building, but about what we’re building together!

There really is something that doesn’t fade and wither.

It’s the church building the kingdom of God.

someone brought a kid to church. Became Billy graham

Christopher Wren rebuilding St. Paul’s cathedral

Asked 3 Bricklayers what they were doing.

1. Laying bricks

2. Building a wall

3. I’m building a Cathedral!

You’re not a brick, you part of a building!

We’re building something lasting!!!

St Peters Cathedral was designed during one of Londons worst plagues.

Notre Dame was built during the bubonic plague.

Not easy times.

WE can weather even the hardest times and days when we know that what we build is something that lasts.

Have you been trying to build all alone?