Enlarging Your Vision Of The World #2
ENLARGING YOUR VISION OF THE WORLD #2
John 3:16
16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
17 "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
2 Corinthians 5 (TCNT)
18 But all this is the work of God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and gave us the Ministry of Reconciliation--
19 To proclaim that God, in Christ, was reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning men's offenses against them, and that he had entrusted us with the Message of this reconciliation.
Review:
We talked about America and God’s place in America’s past and future. Then we talked last week about the world and our view of it. Do we see the world from a Christian perspective as God does or do we see it from a purely American perspective? In order to operate in Biblical balance we have see things from God’s vantage point.
Acts 1:8
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
JERUSALEM:
YOUR IMMEDIATE AREA/EAST CENTRAL MISSOURI
JUDEA:
YOUR NEAR AREA OR REGION/THIS IS AMERICA FOR US
SAMARIA:
A DIFFERENT BUT CLOSE CULTURE/THIS IS EUROPE AND JAMAICA
THE UTTERMOST PARTS OF THE EARTH:
THIS IS A CULTURAL LEAP. THIS IS PAUL IN ATHENS ETC.
Part of the last one is the unreached people groups. There are many groups of people who have never been exposed to the gospel in any form. We have to do all four of these simultaneously. This isn’t a stair-step process.
Acts 10
9 ¶ About noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray.
10 He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance.
11 He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners.
12 It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles of the earth and birds of the air.
13 Then a voice told him, "Get up, Peter. Kill and eat."
14 "Surely not, Lord!" Peter replied. "I have never eaten anything impure or unclean."
15 The voice spoke to him a second time, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean."
16 This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven.
-We must value others like Jesus does….remember RED YELLOW BLACK AND WHITE, ALL ARE PRECIOUS IN HIS SIGHT?
Then we talked about:
WHO IS JESUUS?
From Matthew 16-“Who do you say I am”?
Your perspective of Jesus will determine your vision of the world and your purpose in the world.
If Jesus died for the whole world….what does that mean to you?
C.T. Studd – “If Christ be God and gave himself for me, then no sacrifice that I can make for him is too great”?
1 John 4
1 ¶ Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
2 This is how you can recognise the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,
3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
4 ¶ You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
5 They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them.
-Notice that they have the viewpoint of the world or the world’s viewpoint.
-Your perspective of Jesus determines how you react to the world.
-Do you see the nations as in need of a savior? If Jesus is real and who He says He is……. the world is dying apart from eternal life without Him.
-What motivated the early church to give up everything to follow Jesus and tell the world? They didn’t add Jesus to their lives…they became radical Christians.
-I’m taking a class and it was mentioned that the gospels weren’t recorded until many years later because they were expecting this to all be over…why write a history for another generation?
-Who Jesus is changes the way you live.
Revelation 5
6 ¶ Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the centre of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. He had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.
7 He came and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne.
8 And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
9 And they sang a new song: "You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.
10 You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth."
2. DO YOU BELIEVE IN HEAVEN?
John 14 (KJV)
1 ¶ Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
2 In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
4 ¶ And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.
-Sometimes we don’t want to talk about heaven and eternity because we really like where we are now.
-I’ve personally never been happier…. but there is a place that God has prepared for me…..I know it is better than anything I’ve ever imagine.
-Someone said when you are poor you sing, “This world is not my home…I’m just passing through” then when you prosper you sing “This is My Father’s World”.
-John Maxwell said in San Diego the people didn’t want to go to heaven. They just want to stay in San Diego!
-Is heaven a real place? Is there something beyond planet earth.
Hebrews 11
6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
7 By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.
9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.
10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
11 By faith Abraham, even though he was past age--and Sarah herself was barren--was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise.
12 And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.
13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.
14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.
15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.
16 Instead, they were longing for a better country--a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
-I get goose bumps when I read that. God has prepared an eternal city for those who follow Jesus there!
-What does that mean to those who have never been told that there is such a place? What about those who have never been told that there is a God? What about those who are shut out from God’s presence?
3. DO YOU BELIEVE IN HELL?
Paul Borthwick said, “ If we ignore the biblical teaching about the eternal fate of those outside of Christ, we can live quietly, complacently, surrounded with nice people whom we never ruffle with discussions about judgment or the penalty of sin.”
-Preaching the gospel includes the bad news as well as the good news.
1-Jesus taught about hell.
2-The Bible teaches about hell.
3-God’s love demands a hell.
C.S. Lewis said, People get the right to say to God “ Thy will be done” or to reject Jesus Christ whereon God says “Thy will be done”.
2 Thessalonians 1
6 God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you
7 and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels.
8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power
10 on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marvelled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.
-That affects the way I think and act.
-This week witnessing to a worker…are you a Christian?/tell story
4. IS CHRISTIANITY RELEVANT?
-Part of the reason for Christianity’s decline in Europe has been linked to the church’s failure to address the two major world wars that shook Europe and the world.
-There are forces in America that would like us to stop talking about reality and real life issues and focus on eschatological hermeneutical issues. We want to focus on the Hebrew and Greek and drop out of life.
-I go to school and it helps me. But it is so easy to get off course. I was walking through the bookstore and as I saw a sign I said to myself…WHERE I COME FROM DIVINITY MEANS FUDGE.
-I have written in papers that you shouldn’t use words that are only used in seminaries. Lukan theology sounds like Star Wars.
-We have to constantly look at what we are doing and saying.
-We have swallowed this PRIVATE FAITH thing that gives us the idea we can have a relationship with God and forget the people around us.
-I heard about a church situation where the wall come down in Germany and the cold war was over. Everywhere the discussion was going on now…except in this church. The man said basically that he and his family where told that Christianity doesn’t matter to the world around us.
-Christianity that is disjointed from reality is MAD CHRISTIANITY.
-We have a tendency to want to avoid life and have:
CHRISTIAN JOBS
CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS
CHRISTIAN FRIENDS
CHRISTIAN EVERYTHING
-We have Biblical examples of this in:
DANIEL-BABYLON
ESTHER-PERSIA
JOSEPH-EGYPT
-We need to have faith in the gospel.
Romans 1
14 I am bound both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish.
15 That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome.
16 ¶ I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.
17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."
Acts 17
22 ¶ Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.
23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.
24 "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.
25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.
-Paul was relating to the people who lived there in their world.
-He followed Jesus’ example and went to them in their world.
5. DO YOU BELIEVE THIS CHURCH AND YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE WITH GOD’S HELP?
Acts 13
36 "For when David had served God's purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his fathers and his body decayed.
John 17
4 I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.
-I believe God has a unique plan for this church.
-We are called to enjoy God and do our part.
-We can’t reach the whole world but we can’t ignore the world either.
James 5
1 ¶ Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. (NIV)
1 ¶ Come now, you men of wealth, give yourselves to weeping and crying because of the bitter troubles which are coming to you. (BBE)
2 Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. (NIV)
2 Your wealth is unclean and insects have made holes in your clothing. (BBE)
3 Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. (NIV)
3 Your gold and your silver are wasted and their waste will be a witness against you, burning into your flesh. You have put by your store in the last days. (BBE)
4 Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. (NIV)
4 See, the money which you falsely kept back from the workers cutting the grass in your field, is crying out against you; and the cries of those who took in your grain have come to the ears of the Lord of armies. (BBE)
5 You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. (NIV)
5 You have been living delicately on earth and have taken your pleasure; you have made your hearts fat for a day of destruction. (BBE)
6 You have condemned and murdered innocent men, who were not opposing you. (NIV)
6 You have given your decision against the upright man and have put him to death. He puts up no fight against you. (BBE)
7 Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord's coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains. (NIV)
7 Go on waiting calmly, my brothers, till the coming of the Lord, like the farmer waiting for the good fruit of the earth till the early and late rains have come. (BBE)
8 You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord's coming is near. (NIV)
8 Be as calm in your waiting; let your hearts be strong: because the coming of the Lord is near. (BBE)
9 Don't grumble against each other, brothers, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door! (NIV)
9 Say no hard things against one another, brothers, so that you will not be judged; see, the judge is waiting at the doors. (BBE)
-Example of the Scripture speaking to me.
-This really stuck out to me…. this is called “your fields”….the cries of the harvesters are the cries of those in the fields of the world.
-This is people like Lillards, Annetta and others who are crying out to God for help.
-When I saw that I said basically that I am going to adjust.
-I say YES GOD.
-I say yes to your world, your plan, your purpose…here and over there.