ILBB - God Works

ILBB Wk 5

But God Works

1 Cor 15:3-11

SERIES SLIDE

Good morning and welcome to worship! What a glorious day the Lord has made for us to rejoice and be glad in it! I am personally still on a spiritual high from our Annual Awakening last weekend. It is so good to be a part of what God is doing in this new movement we call the Global Methodist Church, but more than that, it is so wonderful see God working in such an amazing way through you, the Body of Christ who are called according to His purpose.

Before we get in the message, I wanted to share with you a couple of things coming up. First, Ash Wednesday is this week. I hope you will all be here to begin the season of Lent, the 40 days leading up to Easter. This week, we will again have Ash Wednesday in the Christan Life Center (or Common Ground space).

Then, next Sunday, I will begin a new series looking at Jesus statements where he uses the phrase, “I Am.” We’ve looked at these before, but this time we will look at them in the context of this season of Lent.

Finally, during this season of Lent, we will begin with prayer. The first 10 minutes before the time for the service to start, we will open the Altar for you to come and pray, or you can pray in your seats. Yes, someone might come by and interrupt your prayer as we come and go, but I want us to wrap this season in prayer as we live into Easter and beyond.

But that is all next week, Today, we are in the final weeks of our Big But series where we are looking at the passages throughout scripture where we see the words …But God… Most everywhere we see this, the author has explained what life WAS like, before God intervened and blessed us. Like the passage we started with from Ephesians,

Ephesians 2:3-5

All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else.

But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)

Or when we looked at the fact that Noah was floating around after the flood

Genesis 8:1

But God Remembered Noah and the animals… It didn’t mean that God had forgotten, in fact, it reminds us that God has not forgotten us

Or think about last week’s message,

Genesis 50:20

The brothers had sold Joseph into slavery not knowing that God was using their evil to bring about God’s blessing… But God intended it for Good… meaning God used it for good!

So today, we continue with that thought from last week as we come to this week’s Big But passage. Turn with me in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 15.

SERMON SLIDE

Paul is wrapping up his first treaties to the Corinthians about living as the Body of Christ and he takes time, after all his teaching, admonishing, and encouraging to remind the believers in Corinth of the Good News… that Jesus Christ is raised from the Dead and in the power of that resurrection, we are offered salvation. We will pick up at verse 3

1 Corinthians 15:3-11

I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. He was seen by Peter and then by the Twelve. After that, he was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles. Last of all, as though I had been born at the wrong time, I also saw him. For I am the least of all the apostles. In fact, I’m not even worthy to be called an apostle after the way I persecuted God’s church.

But whatever I am now, it is all because God poured out his special favor on me—and not without results. For I have worked harder than any of the other apostles; yet it was not I but God who was working through me by his grace. So it makes no difference whether I preach or they preach, for we all preach the same message you have already believed.

<Prayer>

Who are you? What I mean is, how do you self-identify? Sociologists and anthropologists and all kinds of other social scientists have done all these studies to tell us what we have known our entire lives. When you are at some type of a social event meeting new people… when you ask a man to talk about themselves, they start with their careers. “Hi, I am the COO of SuchandSuch Co. We make widgets and transport them all over the world.” Or, “Well, I’m a mechanic at the Ford Dealership.” Or “I am a professor”… you get the point. They lead with their career, then move to family and finally hobbies.

But when you ask a woman, she will often respond with something about her relationship, whether it is about the children, her family, or a community she is a part of. She will usually begin with a relationship, then move on to talking about a career, and finally hobbies.

This is how we most often self-identify when given the chance. Who we are is wrapped up in what we do. Anyone else relate to that? I know I do. Depending on the setting, I am the pastor at FMC, or I am the SCUBA Instructor. But, that isn’t who I am, that is what I do… yet, when I introduce myself to others I usually try to work both descriptions of what I do into the description of who I am. In other word, I focus on MY WORK… what I DO…

Ladies and gentlemen… we are not what we do. I am not a Pastor – it’s what I do, it is my work…maybe my calling as well, but it is my work…. I am not a SCUBA instructor, that is what I do as a part of my hobby.

My identity should not be tied to what I do.

Your Identity Should Be Tied to WHOSE You Are, not What You Do.

My identity… your identity should be tied to whose we are. It is my prayer that you are a beloved child of God and follower of King Jesus! That should be our primary identity. THEN, what we do should be a reflection of who, and whose, we are.

When I started thinking about this idea of But God Works, I began to think of what it is that God does. Did you know there is an entire section of systematic theology that deals with the work of God? That’s a rabbit hole that you can spend hours a day in… trust me.

Sermon Slide

I also started looking for other passages that talk about how God works. Here’s a few I found

Romans 8:28 (NIV)

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Like we talked about last week, that doesn’t mean that God causes all the bad things that happen in the world, but God can and God will use them. In fact,

Philippians 2:13 (NIV) reminds us

for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

God is working in you… you don’t have to do the work. Isn’t that good news? I could look out at all that needs to be done as a pastor, as a parent, as leader and be quickly overwhelmed. But isn’t it good to know that it is God at work in me that will fulfill God’s good purpose?

Does that mean we don’t have anything to do? Absolutely not… we are called to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick and visit the prisoners… we are called to give a drink to the thirsty and so much more… but that isn’t what we do to be close to God, or to be who God wants us to be… that is putting our faith in the doing if we look at it that way… No, the “work” we do is the result of what God is doing in and through us.

In fact, Jesus told us in John’s Gospel that we have but one piece of work to do…

John 6:28-29

They replied, “We want to perform God’s works, too. What should we do?”

Jesus told them, “This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he has sent.”

Our work is to believe and let God be in the work, the business of the doing.

I want to spend the last few minutes today talking about what happens when we stop doing the work and we let God work in and through us…

First of all, when we let the power of God work within us and through us, we will find that our minds are opened more and more to God’s truth.

Open our mind to God’s truth

In Paul’s second letter to Corinth he writes

2 Corinthians 2:12

What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.

You and I have been given the Holy Spirit who works in us to understand God’s gifts to us. Unfortunately, so often we let the world around us drown out the voice of that still small voice… that whisper of a whisper we talked about – that nothingness between all the somethings of the world. We can find that power of God in us when we take the time to stop all the noise and listen to God… Then the Holy Spirit will open our minds to God’s good gifts for us and to be given through us.

Another point that the Power of God does as it works in us and through us is that it

Changes our Character.

I believe and I have taught that the closer we get in our relationship with God, the more we become like Christ. I mean, after all, we call ourselves Christians, which means “Little Christ” or “those who act like Christ”.

So, if I were to walk in to your home this afternoon while you are watching the SuperBowl, will I find someone who is like Christ? Or if I walk into a business meeting, or a family conversation, or some other place where tensions may get high, will I find a Christ like person?

Let me ask it a little different… If I compared your life today to your life a year ago, are you more like Jesus today than you were last year?

We believe that as we live in relationship with God and the community of faith, we should be working toward total sanctification… we should be becoming more and more like Jesus… we should be going on to perfection.

So, what is the character that we are developing as we become more and more like Jesus?

Galatians 5:22-23

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

Is this becoming who you are? Is this becoming your identity? Are the fruits of God’s Spirit being produced in you, or does your life more reflect Paul’s other list… the fruits of

Sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. (Gal. 5:19b-21a)

I know, most of us can look at this list and say, “I’m not going to wild parties… and I’m sexually moral…” but then… how are you doing on that issue of quarreling… and jealousy… is your anger in check? Are you ambitious in a way that could harm others?

My prayer is that your life is becoming more and more like the first list, not the second… because when we spend our time with Christ, when we read our scriptures, when we spend time in prayer, when we listen in the nothingness between all the somethings of the world, we will be on the way to perfection.

Here’s another thing that happens when we allow the power of God to work in and through us…

We begin to align our desires with God’s will.

We talked about this a couple of weeks ago. God does want to give us the desires of our heart, but more than that, God wants our desires to align with God’s will for our life and the lives around us.

We find in Paul’s letter to Philippi…

Philippians 2:13

For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.

When was the last time you prayed for God’s eyes to see your community?

Have you ever just drove around your neighborhood, asking the Holy Spirit to help you see what God sees?

Have you ever thought about driving around in “that part of town” whatever you consider “that part of town” and prayed for each of the homes you pass.

When we allow God to work in us and through us, we begin to see things differently, we begin to want new things, we begin to have new desires that fall within the will of God for us and others.

Finally, not only does God open our minds to His truths, transform our character into His character, and align our desires with the will and desire of our creator…

God Gives us the strength to go on to perfection

I want you to know something. Following Jesus isn’t easy. We have all these voices around us, all these distractions, all these temptations to go another way. It isn’t easy to live a life that produces the fruits of the Spirit. But God… can I say that again, But God gives us the strength we need.

We read in Paul’s second letter to Corinth:

2 Corinthians 3:4-6

We are confident of all this because of our great trust in God through Christ. It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God. He has enabled (strengthened) us to be ministers of his new covenant. This is a covenant not of written laws, but of the Spirit. The old written covenant ends in death; but under the new covenant, the Spirit gives life.

Sermon Slide

God wants to work through you by His grace. Your work is simply to believe!

So, in light of that, I ask…

Have you been letting God work in and through you? Or in Paul’s words, have you let God work through you by his grace?

It is time we stop trying to do church… It is time that we stop trying to do this work or that work… It is time for us to let God do the work…

It is time that we let God work within us to illuminate our minds that we may know the truth,

It is time that we let God do the work of transforming our character as we go on to perfection,

It is time that we let God work in and through us so that our will aligns with God’s will

It is time that begin relying on God’s strength, not our own.

And, when we do this, when we quit trying to rely on our own strength and wisdom and character and will… then God will fulfill His promise

Philippians 1:6

…He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.