More Than A Motto

Introduction: When Julie and I first came to Community, I was working for a company called FranklinCovey. They’re famous for their Franklin Day Planner. If you walked into any office during the 80’s and into the 90’s you’d see, in addition lots of “big hair”, a Franklin Planner in on just about every desk. Eventually, they adapted their system to work on a variety of popular electronic organizers including Microsoft Outlook and their system continued to be a standard business tool into the 2000’s.

FranklinCovey was also famous for their world renowned training workshops like The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and The 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management. In these workshops they would try to teach people how to identify what was really important to them and then lay out a strategy about how they would bring their day-to-day behavior in line with these values they had identified. All pretty helpful stuff, particularly if you took it home and then actually began to change your behavior based on strategy you had laid out; and assuming you identified values that were really worth the effort.

A problem many people experienced after attending FranklinCovey training was that they would often go back to their offices and their homes and fail to change in the ways they set out to. Their “personal mission statement” became nothing more than this glowing motto they carried around on the back page of their Franklin Planner.

Many companies experience the same problem. The company mission statement hangs on the wall for all to see, it’s visible in the halls and offices, and it’s displayed prominently on the company website. But it doesn’t really affect the way things are done on a day to day basis. The effects of this inconsistency, saying certain things are important but then failing to individually and collectively treat them as valuable in our daily living, can be devastating to any organization and demoralizing to its members.

I think we would find the opposite true as well. The organizations that stand out and accomplish lofty goals tend to know exactly why they exist and keep very tight alignment between their daily activities and their stated mission. Think of some examples with me:

McDonalds (2009)

We deliver simple, easy and enjoyable restaurant experiences for customers and create superior value for shareholders.

Chipotle

We are devoted to seeking out the very best ingredients we can--raised with respect for animals, farmers, and the environment. Our mission is to ensure that better food is accessible to everyone.

Nordstrom

Fashion changes. Shopping changes. Our commitment to happy customers doesn't. (stock values: 3/1/80-$0.61, 1/1/90-$3.05, 1/1/00-$6.07, 1/1/10-$24.94, 1/1/20-$40.11)

Amazon.com

To be Earth's most customer-centric company where people can find and discover anything they want to buy online.

Google

Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

All of these companies have set themselves apart in their areas of business. They have managed to keep large numbers of people working together to move in the same direction, the direction of their mission. As a result, they are well known enough that you were probably able to guess who they were as I read you their mission statement.

I want to challenge us today, to challenge you today, to consider the mission of Community Bible Church and what is necessary for us to move together to accomplish our mission. On our website, our mission statement reads:

The mission of Community Bible Church is to help people LEARN about God, LOVE Him and others, and LIVE for His purpose.

Will we be content to let our mission remain there written on our website but not really affect the way we live from day to day? Or will we take it up and allow it to shape our thinking and set our direction? Inserted in your program is an outline in which I have listed 3 steps we must take in order to make our Mission Statement more than just a motto. Please forgive the triteness of the way I’ve phrased them but it’s my hope that it will make these principles memorable. As you see in your outline, the first step is to Step Back and Re-calibrate How We Think.

Step Back and Re-calibrate How We Think

Explanation: The Bible frequently describes the close relationship between how we think and how we live. As you page through the NT, you read about the change that faith in Christ brings about in the life of a believer. I remember Pastor Ken teaching a series in his Discovering God class through the book of James. He called the series The Behavior of Belief. We learned that when we believe what God says, it affects the way we live.

We read things like Romans 12:1-2 which says:

Romans 12:1–2 NIV

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 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.

So God’s word says that a key component to not getting pressed into the mold of the culture around us is the transforming power of a renewed mind. This theme is repeated again and again:

2 Corinthians 5:15–17 NIV

And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

Colossians 3:1 NIV

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

Colossians 3:9–10 NIV

Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.

1 Peter 1:13–15 NIV

Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do;

When God saves a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, he begins to change that person from the inside out. God says he wants us to be different, He is making us different than we were and that change has a great deal to do with the way we think. And so we need to Step Back and Re-calibrate How We Think.

These next three points really flow one out of the other. As our thinking changes in the first area, it affects our thinking in the next area and so on. As we take the direction from our mission statement to learn about God, our thinking about ourselves and about “our” stuff is forced to change as well. Our former way of thinking about these things is incompatible with our new re-calibrated thinking about God.

We must re-calibrate our thinking about God.

We acknowledge that God is important. So we give Him a box.

Our problem, most of us, is not that we think God unimportant. We recognize that having God as a part of your life is important. Especially when we have children, we realize that we need God. We feel helpless, we need answers, we need guidance. And so we give God a box. You know, all the various components of our lives, the various little boxes. There’s the work box, the recreation box, the family box, the friends box, the political box, and then there’s God’s box. We include him because we know He’s important.

Colossians 1:15–18 NIV

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.

We fail to recognize that He IS our life!!

What we fail to recognize is that God’s not important to our life, He IS our life! I mean that literally. The Bible says:

Colossians 3:1–4 NIV

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

When we make this critical error in how we think about God, it affects how we think about everything else. It affects how we think about our families. It affects how we think about our jobs. It affects how we think about our families. It affects how we think about our schedules, our time. It affects how we think about church. It affects how we think about everything else.

We looked a some verses from 2 Corinthians 5 earlier (verses 15-17). I want to re-read that to you but start one verse earlier. Starting in verse 14, we read...

As we saw earlier in 2 Corinthians 5:

2 Corinthians 5:14–15 NIV

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

Before you came to Christ, you were spiritually dead. When he saved you, he gave you life. Therefore, he doesn’t just deserve to be a part of our lives, not even just a prominent part of our lives. He IS our life.

So then, having adjusted/re-calibrated our thinking about God, we gain the context by which we may then re-calibrate our thinking about ourselves.

We must re-calibrate our thinking about ourselves.

We see ourselves as independent.

Explanation: This is the same basic sin that Adam committed in the Garden. He thought he would try to set out on his own and live independently of God. We need to recognize our utter dependence on God. If it is true as we said earlier, that God IS our life, then we are not independent. We are dependent.

Illustration: When you think of great figures from the Bible, people who stand out as significant, no doubt that Kind David is on the list; perhaps near the very top of the list. On a human level, that seems like it would be something to be really proud of, right? But one of the significant things for which David is remembered, after slaying the giant Goliath and becoming King David, is that he was one of Israel’s most prominent songwriters. The Book in the Old Testament called Psalms is full of songs, many of which were written by this man, David. Here’s a portion of one of those songs,

Psalm 62:5–8 NIV

Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him. Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge. Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.

This Man, David, who slew the giant as a youth while the men of Israel’s army stood by in fear; this man who became Israel’s great King David writes that the key principle in his life is not independence but rather dependence on God. Just a surface reading of the account in which David defeated Goliath reveals David’s deep dependence on God.

In the passage, he repeatedly asks why no one is willing to do anything about this man Goliath who continuously defies God and his people Israel. His language is focussed on the affront to God that is being permitted and the fear and self-preservation that is paralyzing the men of the army. In the end, he recalls how his past dependence on God gives him confidence to trust in God for this endeavor. He finally gets an audience with the then King Saul and here’s how he makes his case that he should be allowed to fight the giant as a representative of Israel,

1 Samuel 17:36–37 NIV

Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.” Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you.”

If David had a view of himself as independent, do you think he would have accomplished these kinds of amazing things? I don’t think so. In fact, I would argue that David did have some instances where he allowed himself to slip into a mindset of independence, a mindset that saw himself as being qualified to call the shots and do things his own way. And this led to one of the darkest times in his life. He writes about this in another of his songs,

Psalm 32:3–4 NIV

When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.

Living independently of God and trying to hide his sin almost destroyed him. But then, when he decided to return to his utter dependence on God, he says,

Psalm 32:5 NIV

Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.” And you forgave the guilt of my sin.

Application: How do you think about yourself? As independent? Or as dependent on God? Does the fact that God IS your life factor prominently into your decision making? The obvious application here is that we shouldn’t just run off and independently do our own thing for reasons that don’t align with the mission God has given us. However, it is just as important that we realize that living as dependent on God should make us willing to do things we might otherwise be afraid to do if we were only relying on ourselves.

Transition: So as we re-calibrate our thinking about ourselves, we need to look at ourselves as dependent on God rather than independent. We also need to realize that we are not the central character in the story.

We see ourselves as central.

As we read through the Bible, key figures in the storyline change. People come and go throughout history but the Lord is the central figure. Peter, one of the authors in the New Testament quotes Isaiah 40 when he says,

1 Peter 1:24–25 NIV

For, “All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” And this is the word that was preached to you.

Further down in that part of Isaiah that Peter is quoting, we read, (bear with me as I read this extended quote)

Isaiah 40:21–26 NIV

Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in. He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground, than he blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff. “To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.

Do you get the picture? As those great theologians… Kansas... sang, “All we are is dust in the wind.” We’re here and then we’re gone. James in the New Testament says,

James 4:14 NIV

Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

We are definitely not the central players in the story. God is. The Bible says,

Colossians 1:15–16 NIV

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.

So when we re-calibrate our thinking about God we get a better perspective on ourselves. This in turn helps us to re-calibrate our thinking about our stewardship.

We must re-calibrate our thinking about our stewardship.

Illustration: The idea of stewardship may not be familiar to you. It’s not a word we use in everyday conversation. But perhaps you’ve heard it used in the context of finances. We sometimes talk about financial stewardship in reference to the business of managing someone else’s money. If you have investments, chances are that you’ve hired someone to act as your financial steward of those investments.

Now lets say you go your your periodic meeting with your financial services provider and in that meeting they provide you with a report of how they managed the money you’ve entrusted to them. They hand you one of those nice photo-books you can get by uploading your photos to Apple or Walgreens or another similar service and you start to flip through the book. As you do, they describe to you how much they love their vacation home in Florida. It looks great in the pictures, located right there on that beautiful portion of the beach. They describe to you the great time they had on their European cruise. They name all the interesting people in the photos that they met while on the cruise which they used your investment to fund. Next you see images of their blowout Superbowl party. They treated 40 of their closest friends and celebrated the Superbowl in a private suite at the stadium and everyone really seemed to enjoy themselves. It was a great night.

As you sit through that meeting, how do you evaluate the performance of your financial steward? HE STINKS, right!? Why? Is it because those are stupid things to spend money on? I guess some might argue that but swap the items. Instead of a vacation home, a European cruise, and a lavish Superbowl party, imagine the pictures are of their modest downriver home, a practical used car, and a birthday party for their little girl.

The details of what specific personal purchases he made with your investment are really not the issue. The issue is that, as a steward, the money was not his to use for his own purposes. You entrusted it to him as a steward to manage for your interests, not his own.

Explanation: The Bible teaches us that everything is God’s and we are his stewards.

Psalm 24:1 NIV

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it;

Application:

This applies to the material resources God entrusts to us. It’s modeled for us by the early church. The Bible says,

1 Corinthians 16:2 NIV

On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made.

There were ministry objectives they were trying to accomplish and they recognized this as a priority of the Lord’s and so acted as good stewards by pooling the resources God had entrusted to them to accomplish their mission.

This applies to the abilities God has given us to use in service of our mission. We see this in the Bible’s warning to not be proud about the ways in which God gifts us to serve.

1 Corinthians 4:7 NIV

For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?

Elsewhere we’re told to make sure we don’t hoard the gifts God gives us for service but to use them for the good of our church family.

1 Peter 4:10 NIV

Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.

You see there the criterion on which success as a steward is judged, faithfulness. Faithfulness to what? We are to use what is entrusted to us in a way that is faithful to the interests of the owner, The LORD.

This applies to, as we saw earlier, how we generally choose to direct our lives and our plans.

James 4:13–15 NIV

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”

Over the years, I’ve come to describe this to the students I’ve taught in the Youth Group as...

We tend to see our resources as our toy box.

God entrusts us with resources as our toolbox.

Step Aside and Make Love Our Priority

Matthew 22:37–40 NIV

Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Love for God

We give God our first. (schedule, resources, affections, efforts)

We give God our best. (not the ones we didn’t want anyway, the left overs)

Love for Others

Philippians 2:3–4 NIV

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

We should consider others to be more important than ourselves.

We put the needs of others before our own.

Transition: This love for God and love for others naturally leads to the last step: Step Up and Do Things That Further Your Mission.

Step Up and Do Things That Further Our Mission

Explanation: When you love God, you will care about what He cares about. When you truly love others, you will be moved by seeing people in need of the salvation that they can only find in Christ. You will want to see them come to Christ and then grow in Him.

Illustration: In fact, you’ll want this so much that you’ll find yourself doing things you might not otherwise do, talking to your neighbor...about something other than sports, getting to know the parents of your children’s friends, going on a cross-country ministry trip to help a young church plant with an outreach project, spending Sunday evenings talking with fellow CBC’ers about ways to incorporate the message you heard last week into your life this week. The Bible records the words of a veteran church leader to his young protege in 1 Timothy 1:

2 Timothy 1:7–8 NIV

For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God.

I’m thankful that the Lord hasn’t called on us to really suffer for the good news like this man, Paul, describes (i.e. beatings in just about every town he visited to preach). Perhaps one day He might. Will we be able to thank him for that when he does grant us the privilege for suffering for the sake of His Name? Many of our brothers and sisters in Christ in other parts of the world do not enjoy the freedom from persecution you and I enjoy today. Yet we often shrink back from the mild discomforts we experience in our pursuit of the mission, allowing ourselves to be controlled by fear and self interest. So often, we fail to Step Up and Do Things That Further Our Mission.

Doing things that further our mission requires living intentionally.

Doing things that further our mission means getting in the game.

I remind you of what I asked you at the beginning of this message. On our website, our mission statement reads:

The mission of Community Baptist Church is to help people learn about God, love Him and others, and live for His purpose.

Will we be content to let our mission remain there written on our website but not really affect the way we live from day to day or will we take it up and allow it to shape our thinking and set our direction?

“Take Home” Truth: Our church’s mission statement should affect and reflect how we live.

Will we:

Step Back and Re-calibrate How We Think

About God

About Ourselves

About Our Stewardship

Step Aside and Make Love Our Priority

Love for God

Love for Others

Step Up and Do Things That Further Our Mission