A Dream for Iron City

Introduction

Church family, can you believe that we’re in our fifth year together? We’ve seen God do some incredible things, and we’ve experienced some hardships together, too. We’ve buried people that we love and baptized people that we love, and people who were just new faces and names have now become close friends and family. Anyone who knows me well would tell you that Iron City Baptist Church is my life’s work. Somehow, I always knew, since I was a teenager, that I was engineered by God to be the pastor of this great church. I’ve told you the story before of the day after my predecessor announced his departure how I woke up at 5 am that next morning, and drove to the Iron City parking lot and began to pray. At the time, I was a 26 year old youth pastor, and as badly as I wanted to be the pastor here, and as much fire as I had in my bones for the job, and as much passion as I had in my soul for the people here, I knew that it was an impossible dream. In fact, in many ways, I believed driving to the parking lot that day that the dream that I had to pastor Iron City had died, as my assumption was that the new pastor would come and stay and that the timing would never be right for me to return. But, brothers and sisters, can I tell you that our God specializes in the impossible?

Last year was a year of intense reflection for me personally. We started off the year with a bang, and then for really the first time in my entire ministry, we began to experience a decline. And as much as I work to not be a numbers guy, it had me questioning everything and even wandering if I was an obstacle to Iron City becoming who God had for her to become. But, God would not let that thought settle in my mind, and as often as I thought about whether or not I was the right man for the honor of this pastorate, I would see your faces and think of your children and think of this dream that I have and that I share with each of our pastors and our elders. And, I left even more convinced, more resolved that God has called me to be a generational pastor at Iron City. I love you, and I don’t think I can love anyone like I love you. God-willing, I believe that you deserve someone at your funeral who knew you and loved you and wept with you. I believe that you need pastors to marry your children to their spouses that watched them grow up and baptized them and discipled them. But, you know, in that I still have to face my two greatest fears as your pastor. My greatest fear is that I would be responsible for leading ICBC into unfaithfulness. And, we work very, very hard to that end to prevent. In fact, I would defend our work ferociously to anyone who insinuated differently. My second greatest fear is to lead you toward decades of mediocrity, being a nominal church filled complacent Christians and led by a complacent pastor and elders. And, it’s out of this fear that I come to you this morning.

It’s out of a fear of just going through the motions for forty years that I come to you today. Because I think it’s time for us to go for it. It’s time for us to make ourselves uncomfortable for the sake of our community and for the sake of God’s glory. It’s time for us to reject mediocrity, and it’s time for us to fully embrace the Gospel call that God has given to us with Gospel power.

God’s Word

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Christians Need the Gospel

Paul writes the book of Romans as a letter to the church in Rome, and it is written essentially so that Paul can tell all of the Romans the things that he wants to come and preach to them some day. It is the most theologically rich book of your NT, laced with deep thoughts about God and singing constantly of the supremacy of Christ in all things. And, our verse this morning is the crux of the whole thing. What was it most simply and most profoundly that Paul wanted to preach to these Roman Christians? He wanted to preach the power of the Gospel! He wanted to tell them of Christ’s glory and of their hope and of their future and of their adoption. Brothers and sisters, Christians still need the gospel. We don’t get to a place in our faith in which we move on from the simplicity of the gospel to deeper things. No, the type of preaching and the type of studying and the type of reading we need is that which points back, again and again, to the Gospel and how it shapes our lives and thinking and living. Christians need the Gospel like everyone else; they just realize it. And so, let’s just look at this one verse together.

We have God’s power.

“for it is the power of God” As Paul, begins to talk with these Christians about the only subject that he really had — the Gospel — he starts by telling them that the Gospel is the power of God. It is God’s power. In fact, the Greek word for power is the word from which we get our word ‘dynamite.’ It compelled Greek scholar A.T. Robertson to call the Gospel ‘God’s dynamite.’ Every inch of it, every word of it, every syllable of the Gospel is fully saturated with the incomparable, indescribable might of God himself.

The Gospel is God’s Power Aimed

“for salvation to everyone who believes” But, the gospel is not just God’s power. The gospel is God’s power aimed. The Gospel is God’s power concentrated and focused on a singular outcome, a singular end. That is, it took the universe’s greatest power aimed intently to accomplish the universe’s greatest feat: to deliver you from your sin. This is how great your sin is. You are that close to destruction. Literally, if the greatest force in all of the universe doesn’t intervene on your behalf you are destroyed forever without even knowing better until you are in eternal torment. You’re that close! Oh, how sweet, how mighty, how powerful the Gospel is!

Your Salvation Proves the Gospel’s Power

Paul is writing these words based on his own experience. He has called himself the chief of all sinners. He was a murderer who had declared war on Jesus and his followers. He was guilty of cosmic treason and warring with God. But, God! But, God intervened one day on the road to Damascus and Paul was transformed from murderer to preacher, from persecutor to the persecuted. He went from killing Christians to being willing to die for Christ because the power of the Gospel had fully descended upon him and transformed him. Everyone who believes can be saved, and Paul knew this because it saved him! And, this is how you can know the power that is in the Gospel. You

Paul is writing these words based on his own experience. He has called himself the chief of all sinners. He was a murderer who had declared war on Jesus and his followers. He was guilty of cosmic treason and warring with God. But, God! But, God intervened one day on the road to Damascus and Paul was transformed from murderer to preacher, from persecutor to the persecuted. He went from killing Christians to being willing to die for Christ because the power of the Gospel had fully descended upon him and transformed him. Everyone who believes can be saved, and Paul knew this because it saved him! And, this is how you can know the power that is in the Gospel. You know the Gospel’s power because it was even able to save you. As wicked as you are, as much as you love yourself more than others, as much as you think evil thoughts, as rotten as you are to your core, the Gospel was able to save you and transform you, even you!

Will you live like you have God’s power?

And, that brings me to my question for you this morning: Church family, will you live and pray and speak and think like you have God’s power? If we want to just be another mediocre gathering of people who go through the motions and sing pretty songs and listen to sermons, we can do that without much help from God. If we want to stay nestled in our security blankets without much Kingdom risk, we can do that well on our own. But, brothers and sisters, if we are going to shake the nations, if we are going to awaken a community, if we are going to change a generation, it’s going to take the power of God flowing through us! We are the Church, and we have the Gospel. That is, we have the power of God at our disposal that can save anyone from every sin. And, it’s time for us to live like it!

And, that brings me to my question for you this morning:

“It Probably (Will) Happen”

“I pray all the time

A few weeks ago, a brother in our church called me with an urgent need for prayer. Doctors had found a tumor on his wife on Friday, and they were to know whether or not it was malignant or not on Tuesday. The doctors believed that it was. And so, we prayed and prayed. On Tuesday, I got the call from him, and I had braced myself to comfort him in light of terrible news. But as he began to talk, he said, “It wasn’t there! There was nothing there! They held the two scans side-by-side and asked me if I believed in miracles. Then, he said something that stuck in my mind because it rang so true for me, too. He said, “Cody, I pray all the time for miraculous things with ‘but it probably won’t happen’ in the back of my mind. But, not this time! I believed on the Lord and asked in faith, fully convinced of the Lord’s power.

God Cannot Be Exaggerated

Brothers and sisters, this is how we ought to live in light of the Gospel’s power. We ought to live with optimism and full hope in the power of God. We ought to pray as though ‘it probably will happen.’ Our God cannot be exaggerated! As good as you think He is, He’s better. As mighty as you believe He is, He’s mightier. As gracious as you believe He is, He’s more. And Church, we dream together in light of this reality. If our dreams accord with the will of God, then we can have certainty that they will be met with the power of God.

So, Let’s Dream Big

APPLICATION: So, let’s dream big together, Church! Let’s dream together with the kind of optimism that God’s power brings. Baptism every, single Sunday. Our church becoming the ‘go-to’ place for people in our community who are in crisis. Children leading us on mission trips. God raising up preachers and sending out missionaries to live on every corner of the globe. God breaking family cycles. Having a church where the young and the old will sit in the same group together and treasure every second. Let’s dream big, brothers and sisters, for we have the power of God!

We have God’s power, and we should be proud of it.

“For I am not ashamed of the Gospel” Paul leads out with words that are penetrating for most of us. He leads out with, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel.” And, it’s interesting to me that he phrases it that way. He phrases it not in the positive, but in the negative. He doesn’t say, “I am proud of the Gospel or I am bold with the gospel.” Instead, He says, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel.” And, the only reason that a person would say that they ‘aren’t ashamed’ is that they are tempted to be ashamed. It’s really remarkable when you think of how often God’s people are ashamed of him. Literally, Jesus is on the cross dying for the sins of his disciples, pledging his ultimate allegiance to them, and in the meantime, they are disowning him and disavowing any association with him.

And, you know that feeling too, don’t you? You meet your neighbor at the mailbox, and he tells you what’s going on in his life and you know the answer is “Jesus”, but you’re too embarrassed to bring him up. You hear all of the guys in the locker room or around the water cooler behaving in a way that shames God, and yet you are too embarrassed by Jesus and your faith to excuse yourself from the conversation. Oh, how tempted we are to be embarrassed of Jesus, and Paul was tempted as we are.

Pondering the Gospel Builds Gospel Pride

But, Paul is making the declaration that he has overcome his embarrassment of Jesus. He will not be ashamed of the gospel, regardless of how foolish it may appear to the world. Why? Because the Gospel has made him new! Paul destroys all of the feelings of embarrassment and shame by pondering what the Gospel has done. It has saved him! And, it can save anybody! Pondering the Gospel builds up Gospel pride.

As Paul continues to flesh out the gospel in Romans, He will use adoption to drive home the point. He will say in that ‘we have received the spirit of adoption as son by whom we cry ‘Abba Father.’ And, we have a number of families in our church that have adopted and others who are in the process of adopting right now. We have teenagers and adults and children in our church right now that are here because their parents loved them so much that they went in and chose to be their parents and chose to love them and chose to care for them as their son or daughter. And, you know what, I’m yet to meet the adopted child that isn’t proud of his parents. Adoption makes you proud of your parents, not ashamed. Brothers and sisters, who has recieved a better adoption that we have? Who has been rescued from a greater poverty than us? Who has been delivered from greater hopelessness than us? Let us be proud of Jesus and proud of the Gospel.

Our Community Needs a Church with Gospel Pride

The greatest need in our community is for a powerful church who is proud of God. Our community is desperate for a church who knows God and walks with God and experiences God who is willing to actually talk about it and live like it. The painful truth is that most Christians today are content to live with a silent, privatized faith that they believe allows them to go heaven when they die and to live without controversy with their neighbors on earth. And, entire communities are being condemned by their silence.

Live Like You Have the Key!

APPLICATION: Brothers and sisters, the Church hold the key to the world’s problems, and we should act like it! We are stewards of the gospel key. We are stewards of the Gospel that is filled with God’s power and which is able to save everyone who will believe. Live like you have the key! Live like you have Good News for your community! Live like you have Good News for your high school! Live like you have Good News for your family!

Dream About Someone Else’s Future

APPLICATION: I want you to dream with me for a second. But, I don’t want you to dream about your future, but someone else’s. I am often struck by the question of, “Who would I have become had Iron City not loved me?” And, you know, we think so much of people rejecting the gospel that we typically give very little thought to what if they actually accepted it. So, I want you to dream with me about who your neighbor or your friend might become if you live proud of the gospel in front of them. Saved and free.. Joyful instead of miserable. A member of your connection group. A teacher of your class. A deacon. An elder.. A preacher. A missionary. A family cycle breaker. A legacy definer. A faithful husband. A devoted father. A 50th wedding anniversary. A life that mattered. A grave that will be empty

And, you have the key! You have the Gospel! You have the power of God! Be proud of God in front of your neighbors! Be proud of the hope that is found in him! Be proud of your adoption as his son or daughter. Be proud, and live like it!

With God’s power and by God’s grace, our church must not fail.

Church family, on July 28, 2013, I preached my candidating sermon to become your pastor. I went back and read that sermon this week. I preached it from from Jesus’ letter to the church at Ephesus. And, I said this, “God is happy to let powerless, complacent, dispassionate churches die.” Church family, it’s time for us to go for it. It’s time for us to reject the temptation toward complacency and rut-riding. The stakes are too high! If we want to have a church to hand to the next generation, we must go for it. If we want our neighbors and friends to join us in heaven, we must go for it. If we want our schools and our neighborhoods to experience an awakening, we must go for it.

And, that will be uncomfortable. There’s going to be changes in the days ahead, no doubt. We’re going to go for it. We have to. You can look at the five year goals in your bulletin and see that changes are coming. And, you might be tempted to be frustrated or critical or even divisive when changes come, but I’m going to ask something of you. I’m going to ask you to remember our dream together. Remember that we’re aiming at something. Remember that if we ask you to do something that seems extreme or even silly, that you’d give us the benefit of the doubt that we’re only doing that because we love you and believe that it’s best for you. Remember the dream, brothers and sisters. Let’s embrace discomfort for the dream!

Landing

Our dream is big because our God is big. Our dream is not exaggerated because our God cannot be exaggerated. Our dream is possible because with our God nothing is impossible.

We dream of seeing every lost soul being found — that people of every age and every generation and every race would experience the perfect love of our Heavenly Father and the abundant life that is found in Christ.  We dream of the baptismal waters stirring every week with the testimony of a sinner who has been washed clean and a church family that loves and disciples them for the rest of their lives.

We dream of becoming a refuge for those who have been wounded, damaged, and discarded. We want to show them the same perfect love, patience, and understanding that our Heavenly Father has shown us. We want to connect them to a true family of believers that will pray for them, live life with them, and bear their burdens. Our dream sees wounded lives being healed, dead hearts being made new, and helping every person uncover God’s image in them.

We dream of equipping all believers to enjoy an abiding relationship with Jesus Christ. We want to enable each believer to discover God’s personal design for them and provide environments and avenues for them to express, develop, and multiply those gifts for the kingdom of God. We dream of them delighting in spiritual disciplines and thriving accountable relationships so that each person will grow in maturity and godliness.

We dream of raising up a generation of worshippers who worship both in spirit and in truth. They will not worship God with their lips and ignore him with their lives.  They will not condemn their generation or shame their God with silence.  They will be living sacrifices, giving themselves, in word and action, as an offering of worship to the slain Lamb who is worthy.

We dream of investing the word of God into the hearts of all peoples and seeing them reinvest that Truth into the lives of everyone they know. We dream of seeing all schools, work places, and homes becoming teaching centers for the word of God and temples of praise by the courageous witness of God’s people.

We dream of parents discipling their children, fathers leading their homes and churches, and families reaching other families. We dream of an intergenerational church family that demonstrates the Gospel’s obstacle-obliterating power by the way each person loves and invests in one another.  We dream of influencing not just the current generation, but every generation that follows. We will take responsibility for our church and our community for such a time as this.

We dream of God, by his grace, raising up pastors, missionaries, and leaders from within our fellowship. We dream of being a church family that God uses to shake the nations from every corner of Calhoun and Cleburne Counties to the very edges of creation. We dream of sending out reckless disciples who live as willing martyrs and work as joyful slaves to the calling of God.

Our dream is our expected and hoped for reality. It is the focus of our prayers and the craving of our souls. Our dream is too big for us.  But, together with God, it can be realized.

May our dream be God’s will, and may God’s will be greater than our dream.