Jesus at the Centre of It All

Introduction

Our vision as a church is: Lives being changed by the power of Jesus one person at a time

And I really like this.

It’s about being changed … We’re not static, we’re moving … Our lives are being changed.

How are we moving? = We’re moving by the power of Jesus - Christ is at work in our lives through the Holy Spirit drawing us to himself and making us more like him.

I’m reminded of verses like:

Romans 12:2 “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

2 Corinthians 3:18 “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”

We’re not static, we’re moving - we’re being transformed by the renewing of our minds, into the image of Christ, going from one degree of glory to the next.

And our vision is: Lives being changed by the power of Jesus one person at a time.

One person at a time means that everyone is important, it’s not about how many people - we’re not about the number of bottoms on seats - but God is interested in every single one of us - we all matter, we all have great importance to God because we are all fearfully and wonderfully made in his image and likeness.

So our vision remains: Lives being changed by the power of Jesus one person at a time

What I want to speak about today is: How do we work this out?

I want to talk about the framework for working out our vision - we’ve often talked about our framework as being in three dimensions - UP, IN and OUT.

UP = our devotional life

IN = fellowship

OUT = mission

And all of them together are about discipleship - this is the framework for a disciple, a follower, a learner, an apprentice of Jesus - and so consequently, it is the framework for the church.

Someone said, I think it might be Bishop Mark Tanner, that ‘church is the collective noun of disciple’ … so we are to be a church of disciples.

A danger of just using the terms UP, IN and OUT is that they become just tasks - goals that we measure ourselves against as a church community - and in some ways that’s correct, but in others it’s really not.

So, today, I want to reframe the UP, IN and OUT by putting Jesus at the centre of it all.

And I didn’t make this up myself, I got it from John Mark Comer and Bridgetown Church, Portland, Oregon. So you may well have heard it before, and you have possibly heard me saying it before.

I want to suggest that UP is all about Being with Jesus - spending time with him, individually and corporately, giving him worship and praise, reading Scripture, listening for his voice.

IN is all about Becoming like Jesus - being shaped to become more like him, it’s that transformation that we see in our vision statement, and it often happens through fellowship with our sisters and brothers. God puts us in community as his followers to shape us.

OUT is about Doing what Jesus Did - this is about mission, being sent out - going to the people we see Jesus going to.

The importance of putting Jesus at the centre of it all is that it needs to be all about him - and it all needs to be done in him and through him - in fact it doesn’t work if we just try to do it on our own. We want to depend on Jesus. We want to pursue him as a church, we want more and more to reflect his likeness in our lives and in this community, and we want to do life and ministry the same way that he did, going to those in need of the kingdom of God.

Mark - UP & IN

So, the first of the two passages that we are looking at today is Mark 12:28-34 , and, it’s possibly my favourite passage in Scripture. It’s Mark’s version of Jesus teaching what the Greatest Commandment is, and it highlights Jesus’ teaching on the upward and inward dimensions of the framework for working out our vision that I mentioned.

This is not a radical teaching from Jesus, it is nothing new, but rather it is very Jewish, which is why the teacher of the law who asks the question praises Jesus’ response. Jesus is asked what the greatest commandment is - referring to the 10 Commandments of Exodus and Deuteronomy - and he quotes Deuteronomy 6:4-5. This part is called the Shema, from the first word in the Hebrew ‘hear’, and it was and is still said by Jews three times a day - morning, noon and night.

We often state that Jesus’ first commandment is ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ But Jesus starts one sentence earlier:

‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.’

Before talking about the more important thing people need to do, he talks about who God is. It’s like he is saying, before I even get to what the main commandment is, above that - first and foremost, we need to acknowledge the existence of God, that he is the LORD, the one and only God, and that he is present with us.

I once went to a CofE primary school to help with an assembly, and they started off by saying ‘the Lord is here, his Spirit is with us,’ and as they did it, the headteacher lit a candle. And it reminded me … oh yeah, he’s here, he’s here with us right now. The lit candle wasn’t making God turn up, the lit candle was alerting us to the fact that God was there.

So, to begin with, we acknowledge the existence, the Lordship, the oneness and the presence of God in our lives and amongst us here.

Then, having done that, Jesus moves on to: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’

This sentence basically says that we are to love the Lord our God with the whole of our being: the whole of our heart, the whole of our soul (these two overlap a lot and are about our feelings, emotions and desires), the whole of our mind (our understanding and intelligence), and the whole of our strength (our abilities and power to act). The sense is that we are to love the Lord our God with all that we are … with everything … with all of ourselves.

And we are to do this, not because we have been told to, not because we should do, but because we want to. Having acknowledged that God is our Lord, the one who spoke creation into being, who sustains it, and who re-creates it through Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection … because of all that he has done and continues to do for us, our response is worship and devotion.

And then, although he is only asked for one commandment by the teacher of the law, he adds in another, which is part of a commandment in Leviticus 19:18 - love you neighbour as yourself.

For Jesus, this summarises the outward focus of the law - to love our neighbours in the same way that we love ourselves.

But this can be quite a challenge I think.

If we have quite a low view of our own importance, we can tend towards the self-sacrificial end of the scale where we think that we need to love our neighbours so sacrifically that we are trying to live in emotional and physical poverty while we give out to others in such generous ways. But that is not what Jesus says.

On the other hand, we can swing the other way and have a higher view of ourselves and so we go to the other extreme and give a tiny amount away but basically make ourselves and our own lives hugely comfy. But again that is not what Jesus says.

And it might be that we find that we swing different ways with different aspects of our lives - we could be money generous but time greedy, or we could be generous with gifts but not want to actually say nice things about others.

This is not saying that we all need to be the same, we are all different in the ways in which we show love, but what Jesus is getting at is that we are to love our neighbours in the same way that we love ourselves … to show people the same care and respect that we show ourselves.

This passage in Mark highlights the upward and inward dimensions of our framework. We are called to Be with Jesus and Become like him.

Mark 12:29–31 “‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ … and … ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’”

Matthew - OUT

The second passage that we are looking at today is sometimes called the Great Commission, and this directs us outward in our framework.

As Jesus is about to ascend into heaven, he commissions his disciples … he sends them out with the following mission:

Matthew 28:18–20 “Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.””

The Father has given Jesus all authority in heaven and on earth.

If we think of Philippians 2:8–11 “And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Because of Jesus’ obedience to the Father - even to death, death on a cross - God exalts him to the highest place. This is why he has been given all authority in heaven and earth.

And then what does he do with that authority … he sends out his disciples … and he sends out us too.

And so what we notice in Acts is that the disciples go about praying and ministering ‘in the name of Jesus’ - because that is their authority.

If you think of that encounter that Peter and John have with the beggar at the gate called Beautiful, Peter says:

Acts 3:6 “Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.””

Jesus, with all of his authority, commissions and sends out his disciples, who carry his authority as they go and make disciples.

And the mission that we are called to as Jesus’ followers, is helpfully summarised by the 5 Marks of Mission:

Tell - To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom

Teach - To teach, baptise and nurture new believers

Tend - To respond to human need by loving service

Transform - To transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind and pursue peace and reconciliation

Treasure - To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth

So, this is the outward dimension of our framework. It is the same mission that Jesus had whilst he was on earth, and it is his mission that we continue. We are commissioned and sent out by him, and we carry Jesus’ authority and name and power.

Conclusion

My heart behind drawing us to focus on this at the start of this year was to come back to our vision as a church and our framework for that.

Obviously we want to grow in all of these areas, but

Ask God, which one of these would you like me to particularly grow in this year? How is he asking you to do that?

Is it - spending more time being with Jesus - particularly one-to-one - growing in your devotional life this year

Is it - becoming more like Jesus - particulalry spending more time with your church community, growing together, and being sharpened by one another

Is it - doing what Jesus did - are you being called outwards to those in your local community, to share your faith, to see new believers growing in theirs, to serve others, to seek to challenge injustice, or to safeguard creation?

Pray.