The Bridge Our Mission: Week 6

The Mission

At the Bridge we are Bold for Christ. We do life together and create REAL relationships. We act with INTEGRITY always. We are completely DEVOTED to God. We give in many ways through GENEROUS living. We are ENTHUSIASTIC to connect to you!

Bold

Real

Integrity

Devoted

Generous

Enthusiastic

Enthusiastic

I was facing a lot of challenges when it came to this sermon. I knew the whole time that this would be the message that would be the most challenging. The scriptures have moments of enthusiasm but the idea of being enthusiastic is not overly common in the Bible. I was thinking about this a lot and I kept asking the question “how are we enthusiastic” What is it that we do that is enthusiastic. It was in this moment of reflection that i realized i was asking the wrong question. It wasn’t how we are enthusiastic. Or even showing examples in the Bible of enthusiasm. I had to shift my approach and my question.

I needed to ask Why we are Enthusiastic

IT was in that moment i had an epiphany. We can look for all kinds of reasons of how we are enthusiastic to greet and meet those who are entering or connecting to our church, but it is the reason why we are enthusiastic that is the most important. It is the very definition of what makes us who we are. It is in the why that we identify the heart of our message that we long to share with the world.

1 Peter 3:15 NIV

But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,

This passage jumped to my mind because we at all times need to answer the question of why we have hope. Why we have joy. Why we are so passionate about our faith. It is in the Why that we see the reasons for our enthusiasm. It is in the Why that we find the Hope.

Hope: Why is it so important?

After i realized that i had to change the question i started thinking about Hope and what makes it so powerful. I feel like we talk about this a lot but the reality is that our current climate and culture it is easy to feel like there is no hope. Every other day some news comes out about some new terrible thing. I mean its like can we just get a break and have a day without some kind of tragedy. I thought though lets have some fun with this and found a couple meme’s that could help us have a little moment of light hearted joy though in our time of despair.

Princess Bride Slide

Tommy Boy Slide

Hope: Why is it so important?

We have to laugh a little because it reminds us that life doesn’t always have to be about despair. Actually this is one of the very reasons that hope is so essential to us. It is in hope that we find joy. It is in our hope that we find the reason we look to the future and not to the present pain. It is in this hope that we find strength and we are able to great others with Joy in our hearts.

The truth is that as Christians we believe that we serve a God who has saved us from our sins and that the brokenness in this world will be healed one day through him. That the creator of the universe desires to have a relationship with us and that brings joy to our hearts. So when we say we are enthusiastic to connect with you it is because we want to share this hope that we have in our hearts with you.

We believe that the wages of sin is death that we were all born into sin and we are separate from God and this keeps us from having a full relationship from him. We believe that it is in this darkness that we are being called out of the pit to Him. That salvation only comes through Jesus and faith in his death and Resurrection where he defeated sin once and for all. We believe that the life of a follower of Jesus is done in community and fellowship with other believers. We believe that we all have unique circumstances and will be challenged by the Spirit in different ways and at different time and that we want to come together to work together to be better than we once were. This isn’t just about feeling good about who we are or some moral standpoint this is a battle for the state of our eternity that we must realize that we can only come to God through one person. Jesus.

This is our hope. This is is what give us joy. The knowledge that Jesus has saved us from our sins.

This idea for many of us is why we come to church. We talk about everything that is going on in our world and we realize that the message of our Hope and enthusiasm is essential to our faith. The Pandemic has shed light on the fact that more of our lives can be done from home. We don’t have to gather together. Even right now we are sharing the word of God across a platform that doesn’t require you to leave your house. For some this is a good thing. There are many people in this world who physically can’t leave their homes. Because of technology they are now able to share with us and be in community with us from a distance. Yet, there are others who we are capable of being a part of a gathering of believers, and we stay home. We are shifting as a culture. we are shifting in other ways too. Some is good and some is bad.

Enthusiasm in connection

One of the hard truths we must face is that real connection does not happen in a virtual world.

We were not created to be alone and isolated form each other. We were not created to live in a world where we never leave our homes. I will be honest with you that is not a desirable existence.

Look at Adam before God gave him Eve. He needed that human contact. He needed that connection that partnership. God created for him a partner to share life with.

Look to the Early church. The disciples weren’t by themselves. No they were creating small communities in cities all over the territory. They lived life together and joined together to support one another.

I often think of the stories of the book of Acts where Peter was being arrested or confronted about his faith and when he was released the believers were gathered together and praying for him. They weren’t alone in each of their individual households. They weren’t off studying the bible by themselves, or praying by themselves. No they were together in prayer lifting up their fellow believer.

A while back I was hurt by the church. I am not going to go into the specifics because it does nothing to build us up, but just know i was personally hurt and struggling with the church. While i went through that struggle i realized that the one place i needed to be was the church. I knew that no matter how much pain i felt from the people who are a part of the church that the one place i would find healing was in the church. So i kept going. I wasn’t always engaged as i should be. I wasn’t always the most outgoing person. Yet, i knew that the church was were i was supposed to be.

I wasn’t very enthusiastic about church.

Yet, God worked and brought the right people into my life at the right time through the fellowship of believers and helped me find healing. He helped me see the Bible in new ways. He helped me grow as a man of God. This happened because of the enthusiasm and support of others in the church.

It was their hope that lifted me up out of the pit and helped me see that i never lost that hope but i just lost sight of that hope.

Lately i have seen this version or similar versions of why people should go to church and i think it helps us capture the enthusiasm of why we want people to come and connect with each other at church.

Church is a hospital for the broken, lost, empty, confused, desperate, and rejected. Every sinner has a future, and every Saint has a past. How do we break the chains of addiction and bondage? By prayer, prayer for you and prayer with you! There is not a single person in the four walls of the church that doesn’t have something they hate or regret about their past. We have all made mistakes, and will continue to, but his grace is enough. There are things that I’d never want to admit out loud about myself, but God knows. And he loves me none the less. So, whatever you’ve done, whatever you’re doing, whatever you will do…go to church anyway it might just change your life.

We have been changed by being together as a body of believers and want to help bring others to see that we desire to help others as well. This is why we are enthusiastic because we have hope that Jesus will help us do that.