People with His Presence (series 2/4)
Notes
Transcript
What is the church?
What is the church?
A people
who are called out, set apart for God
have a specific purpose of going to and discipling the nations
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Discipleship - starts with a teacher/trainer/guide worth following.
We are not into the conversion business. Neither are we into creating better people by association. Join our club and feel better about yourself....
The church is at the messy intersection of people being yanked out of their sin and brought into a covenant family where other messes are being cleaned out at varying rates. There is not a point, without the present work of Jesus christ that the church can be regarded as a place sanitized of sin. The notion that the church is a place for the pure or “holy” It is definitely a place where wholeness is received and the savior is welcomed constantly for continual saving.
In today’s religious climate, we have alot of options of people and ministries to follow, and many do. After a while the charm wears off or there is cause for trust to be broken and the whole house of cards comes crashing down.
The church was never intended to be a group of people with a pastor worth following. The church was meant to be a people with a God worth following. The culture we set in churches will determine who we follow.
Darkness to Light
Darkness to Light
1 Peter 2:9 ESVBut you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
God ties the mysteries of God’s Kingdom - His Person, His Will, His Ways to knowing Him personally - separate from the earthy ways of knowing and understanding.
1 jn 1:5-7
This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.
2 Cor 6
14 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 What accord has Christ with Belial?[b] Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,
“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
17 Therefore go out from their midst,
and be separate from them, says the Lord,
and touch no unclean thing;
then I will welcome you,
18 and I will be a father to you,
and you shall be sons and daughters to me,
says the Lord Almighty.”
LIGHT OF THE WORLD
“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.
Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.
In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all.
And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;
that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
the point of the gospel isn’t that people are simply forgiven. It is that they might be welcomed into God’s presence to know Him personally and corporately.
BROUGHT TO GOD
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,
WALK WITH ME
And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people.
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.