Cell Group: Fighting for Your Joy, Love, and Christ-Likeness

The talk this evening has two parts which are suggested in the title:

1. Cell Group: This is the structure, design and activity.

2. Fighting for Joy, Love, and Christ- Likeness: This is the purpose and goal that determined the way Cell Group is designed.

Tonight, we will begin with the goal and aim of Cell Group and move to the structure and design.

Our Goal: Fighting for Joy, Love, and Christ- Likeness

Fighting for Joy

Each one of us is looking for joy. Joy is that sense of delight and pleasure experienced when we are satisfied by the taste of something pleasant. We are pleasure seekers. We long to find delight and satisfaction. We desire to have our hearts lifted to new heights of joy!

It is to this end Cell Group has been designed. The reason we have worked on this notebook and the reason we have sat aside time for this lecture is your joy. We as pastors long for your joy; it is why we labor and toil.

This was Paul's aim in his work: Read

And, it was also the aim of Christ: Road Joh is: 11

Before we consider what we are leading you to do, you need to know why we are doing it. We want your joy. We are concerned with Your eternal happiness.

Fighting for Love

In addition to joy, we are after your love. Was this not what Jesus aimed at during His three year ministry with the twelve disciples? Consider His words: Reed .

Jesus said, "I instructed; I have commanded you with this ain so that you may love one another!" Do you see that? Jesus desired the disciples to know love. between one another.

What is this love?

It is not sacrificial service.

I am afraid in our culture we have reduced love down to action, deeds, or service. We say, "Love is not a feeling; It is a choice. It is an action." If we are not careful, we will read into Jesus' words our understanding of love and miss the point. If we are not careful we will hear Jesus saying,

"I have commanded you so you may serve each other sacrificially."

Do not misunderstand me. We should sacrificially serve one another. But sacrificial service that does not

issue from a genuine love is empty. Read .

The act itself is not love; instead, it is the demonstration of love. It is the work of love. Sacrificial service is the vessel which carries the love of the lover to the recipient so it might be experienced and enjoyed. Sacrificial service is the cop, Love is Starbuck's dark, earthy, and herbal roast of coffee. The cop-as nice and even as costly as it might be-has no value unless it carries delightful, pleasing brew to the taste buds. In the same way acts of service are worthless unless they carry genuine love with them.

Because of this, we the pastors-like Jesus- air at something much greater than sacrificial acts of service. We aim at love.

Love is joy that yoilds willing service.

Fighting for Christ-Likeness

Along with joy and love, we also pursue your Christ-likeness. The theological term for your continual transformation into the image of Christ is "sanctification? In , we learn that Jesus both prayed for our sanctification and that Ho cane from God to live and die for our sanctification. Our sanctification is the end God has predestined for all who are his. It is our sanctification that is our good for which God works all things together.

Read

Romans 8:28–29 ESV

28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

As a missionary Pad adopted this sane goal/aim as Christ. He says it so plainly in . This goal of his was not chosen at random. Instead, he aligned his goal in ministry with the goal of Christ in the church. We see this in a few verses choose.

As a missionary Pad adopted this sane goal/aim as Christ. He says it so plainly in . This goal of his was not chosen at random. Instead, he aligned his goal in ministry with the goal of Christ in the church. We see this in a few verses choose.

Read

Colossians 1:21–23 ESV

21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.

Do you see, God has reconciled each of us-if we believe- to Himself and He has brought us into one loody/ One church so that we might be holy and blameless as He is! That is the aim of God, that was the aim of Paul, ad that is our aim as pastors. We desire to present you nature in Christ. This is why we toil and this is why work.

Do you see, God has reconciled each of us-if we believe- to Himself and He has brought us into one body/ one church so that we might be holy and blameless as He is! That is the aim of God, that was the aim of Paul, and that is our aim as pastors. We desire to present you mature in Christ. This is why we toil and this is why work.

One Goal: Joy, Love, and Christ likeness

Be fore we move on to consider how it is we will strive for your joy, love, and Christ-Likeness, I must point out that these three are united in one. These are not three separate aims. They are one. They are achieved by they sane mens and they are never at odds with each other. To pursue one is to pursue the other. To neglect the one is to neglect the others. We will experience increased levels of joy and love as we grow in Christ-Likeness.

We must recognize this before we talk about our strategy so that we are not misled. We tend to think about the church and what it calls us to do as good and right. We agree that we should be "doing life together" in Missional Community. We agree we should be studying our Ditches and praying. We agree we should be lovingly serving our neighbors. We agree that we should be making disciples. After all, that is our mission statement. We know these things are good and right and we should do then.

The difficulty arises when what we say and hear what we should do stands in conflict to what we love and enjoy. Often what we all agree is good and right seems to threaten our joy, delight, and pleasure rather than achieve it. So often it appears we must choose between doing what we all agree is right and good and what we think will bring us happiness.

In the Scriptures we find the opposite. We learn that those things which offer us joy and happiness which compote with what is right and good are lies. Sure there might be a momentary thrill to be had. There might be some taste of happiness to be experienced, but they will fade and we kill left miserable and empty.

This is the space in which faith operates. God says join me in what I am doing. Align yourself with my ends according to my ways and trust me. There your joy will be full and your love will doound. Yes, sometimes the work God calls us to do seas to call us away from our joy and pleasure, but if we will trust and obey we will in time know His joy and His love which far surpasses anything we lost in the journey. Consider Paul's words as he summed up his relationship with Jesus.

Read

Philippians 3:8–16 ESV

8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. 16 Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

So then, as we think about our strategy as a church in caring out our mission, I pray that you see our aim. We aim for your joy, love and Christ-likeness.

So then, as we think about our strategy as a church in caring out our mission, I pray that you see our aim. We win for your joy, love and Christ-likeness.

Our Strategy: Cell Group