Vision: Jesus is Lord in 2024
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Big Idea:
Big Idea:
How we commit to Jesus as Lord in 2024 (and walk in His victory).
Intro:
Intro:
Good morning everyone!
[Thanks for braving the weather - you’re true New Englanders! I remember when I first moved here from San Diego and someone told me, “This is the birth place of American Independence. No one tells us what to do, not even the weather!” Those of you here today have proven this true!]
Today is a very special day. Each year, we dedicate a Sunday as Vision Sunday. And on this day, we share what we (and when I say “we,” I mean our pastors and directors) believe God wants us to focus on as a church.
Last year, our vision was “Moving on up.” We believed God was calling our church to grow up - to spiritually mature - in 2023. And praise God, I believe that happened in so many ways!
This year, there’s a new vision, which I will share in a moment. However, to be clear, God doesn’t want us to stop spiritually maturing in 2024 - so keep growing!
But this year, we believe the vision for our church involves victory! Last year, we spiritually matured. This year, it’s time to walk in victory…
Growing up, I hated my name. That being said, my name is important to my family (at least on my asian-side).
My grandpa (or papa’s) name was Gertrudo George Lim. But he always went by George. He grew up in the Philippines, but joined the US Navy, got stationed in Japan, met my Grandma (or Obasan), and then ended up a chief on a submarine based out of San Diego. He was a good man and is probably the most honored man on that side of the family.
My dad’s name is George Lim (no middle name). And he named me George Lim (no middle name), which makes me a junior.
And I named my son George Lim, but his middle name is Nehemiah, so technically he’s not a junior.
George is an important name in the Lim family. And while it’s not expected, I wouldn’t mind (I hope) it continues to be a name that is passed down through the generations.
But… growing up… I hated that name. Growing up, it made me an easy target for bullying…
Curious George…
Georgie-Porgy puddin pie. Kiss the girls and made the cry. However (as the kids say) I had no “rizz” (no charisma) so I never kissed any girls.
Then… there was George McFly! Back to the Future. “Hello, hello, anybody home? Think McFly, think!”
My name put THIS already introverted kid through a lot of misery. Thankfully, George Lim Sr (my dad) was a Hawaiian Kenpo black belt and taught my brother and I how to fight. So, the bullying only went so far…
Speaking of Back to the Future, in the second one, Biff the bully comes up with a plan to make himself rich. Future Biff travels back in time with a Sports Almanac from 1950 to 2000. And he tells young Biff, “All you need to do is bet on the winner and you’ll never lose.”
And that changes everything Biff. Knowing who wins changes his life. And he becomes rich. And strangely, this connects to our 2024 Vision.
For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.
The 2024 Vision is “Jesus is Lord in 2024.” On the cross, Jesus defeated both sin and death. And by the resurrection, he showed all of creation that He is the victorious King. He is Lord.
And knowing this should change our lives… in a few ways:
We should actually live as if Jesus is our Lord. Many Christians love Jesus the Savior. “Thanks Lord for saving me from that bad situation. Thanks for saving me from hell.” But then they don’t want Jesus as Lord. “Thanks for saving me but leave alone with everything else!” In 2024, we’ll be seeking to change that!
If we follow the Lord Jesus and He has won, then that should change how we live. Like Biff, if we already know the winner, we can’t lose! That should give us more boldness, more faith, to bet on Jesus! Yet, how often do we as Christians live out our faith in secret. Scared. Or worse… defeated. In Jesus name, that’s also gonna change in 2024!
And let me add this. It’s time - it’s time for change! What I’m about to say is not meant to sound arrogant or prideful. I hope you hear it as confidence in the victory of Jesus. My friends, God is moving in Glastonbury.
We are living in exciting times. I think the season of New England being spiritually dead is ending. I believe REVIVAL is coming.
I believe people in New England are hungry for God. And God is pouring out His Spirit on our community! And people are starting to experience the victory of Christ!
And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
You know, I used to use this verse to make myself feel better about how small our church plant was. I’d read the first part of it and say…
We’re faithfully scattering seed (spreading the Word of God).
We have no control over growth - that’s God’s job.
We’re just a small blade poking out of the soil. That’s normal. It’s the stage we’re out.
And that was true. But guess what? In New England - in Glastonbury, it’s changing! We’re not a small blade of grass anymore. God is allowing us to move into the second part of that passage - into the harvest! Into the season of spiritual victory! Again, my friends, we’re living in exciting times!
Therefore, this year, our vision is for our church to become a family that lives as if Jesus is Lord in 2024!
And for the remainder of our time together, I want to give you a preview of what that looks like - what that involves - by processing this year’s vision through our church’s vision.
That might sound confusing, so let me explain the difference:
The 2024 Vision is what God is calling our church to focus for THE YEAR.
The TRC Vision is what God is calling our church to BE - it’s our IDENTITY as a church!
And just in case you don’t know our church’s vision, let me share that and also encourage you - if you consider TRC your home church - to memorize this statement:
“Loving Jesus as we build community and bring joy.”
Let’s look at how we are going to live out the 2024 Vision through the 3 components of this vision! In other words, how can we live with Jesus as Lord according to who we are as a church.
Alright, as a church, we are committed to…
Loving Jesus:
Loving Jesus:
As Jesus is teaching on the Sermon on the Mount, He says…
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
This verse seems pretty simple. I like that. God is God. He should be the Master. But we know how attractive money is to our hearts! And if we’re honest, money easily becomes our master. And so Jesus seems to be making a simple comparison: Love God over money!
And that’s not wrong! I agree with that. But it’s missing an important element because it does not consider ancient writing styles. You see… our modern writing is very linear. And when we read the passage today, it seems obvious that the main point is the last sentence: Serve God over money!
But Jesus is actually using a chaism, where the main point is NOT at the end, but in the MIDDLE. It looks like this:
No one can serve two masters
You will hate one
and love the other
or he will be devoted to one
and despise the other
You cannot serve God and money
Notice matching statements on the outside (two masters). Then, move inward - hate and despise match. And in the middle: Love and be devoted.
Again, in a chaism, the main point is in the middle. So, what’s Jesus’s main point? Love and be devoted to God!
Is saying pick God over money wrong? Of course not! But what Jesus is really teaching is the first part of our vision statement: Be a church that loves Jesus! Be devoted to Him.
And considering our 2024 Vision - Be devoted to Jesus as Lord!
Who are you devoted to?
Who do you love?
Who is your Lord (surrender/committed)
Those are questions we are going to be asking and answering all year. And as we answer them, here’s what we will find. The solution to loving Jesus more is often connected to how much we are in His Word.
I mentioned a moment ago about how I like simple. I’m also a by-product of this modern culture. While the Scriptures are not always simply literal or linear, that doesn’t mean logic or simple common sense isn’t helpful for understanding God’s word.
I once heard that British missionary CT Studd would open his Bible in the morning, read it, and say, “Okay, got my marching orders for the day!” He would simply obey what he read. That might seem overly-simplistic to you, but I like that!
And many times, I like what Pastor Jon and I call “spiritual equations.” These aren’t complex math equations, but simple ways to breakdown, understand, connect, and obey God’s word. For example:
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
Here’s how the spiritual equation works:
Jesus said “If you want to love me, obey my word.”
And it follows to say, “We can’t obey God’s word, if we don’t know God’s word.”
Therefore, “If you want to love Jesus, you must learn and love God’s word.”
Spiritual Equation: If you do these things, this will be the result! If you learn God’s word, you will obey God’s word, and it will result in you loving Jesus as Lord.
This year, the way we are going to make Jesus Lord of our lives is by spending time in His Word. That’s gonna happen…
On Sundays, here at church. Where we preach and teach God’s word. We’re going to start the year off by going verse-by-verse through the book of Daniel. (series in the Word). Then, we’re going to teach through basic and foundational truths in a series titled “Paul said what?!?” And later in the year, we’re going to teach through the the book of 1 Peter and James!
But it can’t just be one day. Can’t just be Sunday. You also learn to love Jesus by spending time with Him every day in personal devotions. And our church loves to encourage using tools: like the Youversion Bible App, the One-Year Bible, and RightNow Media - a video based Bible study app. And if you have questions about how to get or use any of those tools, come talk to us after service [reach out].
Finally, there are Life Groups. At The River Church, Life Groups is where discipleship happens. And discipleship is the process of learning to become more like Jesus. Where a leader invests their lives into a learner, which involves teaching them God’s word. And relational discipleship is important because God’s word clearly teaches us… we can’t flourish (we can’t live in victory) ALONE.
In fact, that brings me to the next part of our vision statement that says…
Build Community:
Build Community:
In the Kingdom of God, victory does not happen in isolation, but in relationship. The Lord Jesus isn’t calling us to be spiritual lone-rangers, but a safe, loving family.
Some of the tools I mentioned a moment ago are things I personally use. I love using the One-Year Bible because:
It’s easy. It organizes my daily Bible readings for me. All I need to do is be consistent.
It’s a book instead of a display. Although I absolutely love the YouVersion Bible App, it’s hard for me to read for a long time on a screen. I prefer paper.
And this week, in my One-Year Bible, I read this in the book of Genesis (first book of the Bible)…
When Enoch was 65 years old, he became the father of Methuselah. After the birth of Methuselah, Enoch lived in close fellowship with God for another 300 years, and he had other sons and daughters. Enoch lived 365 years, walking in close fellowship with God. Then one day he disappeared, because God took him.
I love this. Enoch lived in CLOSE FELLOWSHIP with God for 300 years. How GOOD was their relationship? Obviously it must’ve been really GOOD because it says that one day God was like, “I’m just bringing you to heaven now. Our relationship is SO good that I got to have you with Me now!”
Talk about winning. Enoch was winning. And it wasn’t easy. Having a deep relationship with God was not common at that time. He was surrounded by people who had no interest in God or actively rebelling against Him. Sound familiar?
In the next chapter, God is so grieved by the wickedness in the world that He decides to send a worldwide flood. Yet, it’s in this evil society that Enoch lived a spiritual victorious life! And that’s because He BUILT COMMUNITY with God.
But look what else is said…
Enoch has close fellowship with God.
God takes him to Heaven (raptures).
God decides to judge the evil earth by a flood.
But He also decides to save some of Enoch’s relatives! He saves Noah and his family.
And look what the Bible says about Noah…
This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, the only blameless person living on earth at the time, and he walked in close fellowship with God.
Just like Enoch, Noah lived in close fellowship with God. Noah had a deep relationship with God. And I don’t believe this was two independent family members learning to love God in isolation, rather, I think Enoch’s family legacy impacted Noah’s life. Enoch was raptured 134 years before Noah was born, but the 300 years that Enoch walked with God still influenced the family generations to follow.
And it makes me think about this… if we are going to experience victory like Enoch and Noah, we need to build community with God and each other too.
And doesn’t this fit what the Lord Jesus commands? When He was asked, “What’s the important commandment?” Jesus replied…
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Biblical community (deep relationship with God and one another) cultivates victory!
Do we believe this? I hope so! In Life Groups, many of us are going through a study by Louie Giglio titled, “Don’t give the enemy a seat at your table.” And in this series, he says this, “One of the greatest things we can do is agree with God.”
I love that. It’s one of those statements where the more you think about it, the more powerful it becomes. And God says this…
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
Do you agree with God? Your answer says a lot about:
Whether or not Jesus is Lord in your life .
And whether or not you experience victory.
Before we move on to the final part of our TRC Vision, I wanted to mention this while we’re talking about generations and community. Our church family is growing! And this impacts us in two significant ways:
If you haven’t heard already, we are moving to 2 services! We anticipate our first official 2-service weekend will be on March 10th. [Although we will be doing two services at the Boathouse next week, but that’s different]. There are more details coming in the near future. But be excited - we’re in a harvest season!
However, we also have very important decisions to make. We are still building our RiverKids team to support this growth. And we aren’t quite ready to offer RiverKids for both services. So, we need your help in making some decisions, specifically which service should offer RiverKids. So, if you have children/grandchildren who go RiverKids, please be on the look out for a survey from Jackie, our RiverKids Director. And when you get it, please fill it out asap, so we can decide how to best serve our church family!
Okay, the third part of our vision statement is …
Bring Joy:
Bring Joy:
You guys know this part. It’s all over our merch. I like the phrase “Bring joy.” It’s catchy. But sometimes I have to explain how EXACTLY it fits into our identity as a church.
Look… “bring joy” isn’t about making people happy. If that happens, praise God! But ultimately, it’s evangelistic. It’s furthering of God’s Kingdom. As a church, we believe the greatest JOY is the gospel. And we believe God is calling us to be a church who brings the good news of Jesus Christ to our community!
Again…
For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.
This year, we BRING JOY by proclaiming Jesus as Lord! This is going to happen in multiple ways, but one primary way is by learning to tell our story.
Being equipped to tell people about what God is doing in your life.
But also, developing the courage to tell people about King Jesus!
And here’s something we need to understand… I mean… I get it. It’s intimidating to publicly follow Jesus in this world. It’s even scarier to tell people about Jesus. But if we want VICTORY this year, we’re going to have to share our story!
How do I know that?
And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.
In his vision, the apostle John describes the church having VICTORY over Satan (and his forces of darkness) by…
Trusting in what the Lamb (what the Lord Jesus) did for us on the cross.
But also, by sharing our story (testimony). By asking people, “Can I tell you what Jesus is doing in my life?” And then doing it!
That brings VICTORY!
Maybe you’re thinking, I don’t really want to share what God is doing in my life… it’s not that exciting anyways…
If that’s true (while there are always exceptions), something is wrong and it ain’t Jesus!
A couple of weeks ago, Pastor Jon read during our Thursday morning Zoom prayer meeting…
When the Lord brought back his exiles to Jerusalem,
it was like a dream!
We were filled with laughter,
and we sang for joy.
And the other nations said,
“What amazing things the Lord has done for them.”
Yes, the Lord has done amazing things for us!
What joy!
When God gives victory, we have abundant joy. We experience God doing more than we can ask or think!
During the last year’s Youth Summer Camp, a couple of the boys kept saying, “Chat is this real?”
Look, I have no idea what that means, but I think it is a way of saying, “Can you believe this?” It’s similar to what the Psalmist writes, “The victory God gave us was so GOOD that it didn’t even seem REAL - it was like a DREAM!”
And when the Israelites started sharing their stories of victory, the world were blown away and gave God glory!
Btw - if you liked what Psalm 126 says, in the summer, we’re going to do a series called “It was all a dream…” out of that Psalm!
But guys - THIS should be happening in Glastonbury. In our lives! We should experiencing victory and joy. Not having a boring, dead faith that we’re embarassed of!
It should be as if we living the DREAM! So mush so that we can’t help but share our story!
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we won’t ever face difficult times. Jesus Himself said…
I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
We will face trials. We will suffer. But the banner over our lives is victory, which is why Paul writes…
No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.
But maybe you’re not there yet. If so, let me give you a good simple “next-step prayer” that can move you down the path of victory.
The father instantly cried out, “I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!”
The father in this story had a sick child. He needed Jesus to heal him. Jesus was willing and ready, but the father lacked faith. So he prayed, “I believe but help my unbelief!” And in that moment, Jesus brought joyful victory.
If you need victory today, but are struggling, make that your personal prayer. “God, I believe but help my unbelief!” And keep praying that until King Jesus brings joy into your life!
Response:
Response:
As we close, [and the worship team comes up] I hope you guys are excited about 2024. I believe God is going to allow us to experience a special measure of victory. But that’s also going to depend on whether or not we will receive Jesus as Lord, and not just Savior.
I wonder… who has better faith? You or Biff (from back to the future). Young Biff believed old Biff and his life changed. If Biff came to you with an almanac from the future, would you believe him?
Now let me ask this: Is Biff more victorious than the Lord Jesus? Jesus doesn’t give us a sports almanac, but He has given us the Bible… and it says, “In the future, we win!” Do you believe Him?
Our 2024 Vision is that by the end of this year, our entire church would emphatically answer that question, “YES! JESUS IS LORD AND WE WILL WALK IN VICTORY!”
Let’s pray…