What if?

SHOW CASTING CROWNS VIDEO

Prayer- God let it start right here, let it start right now. Father forgive us for being dead with an appearance of godliness but denying it power. Lord we are called by your name, Hear from heaven and forgive us of our sin, heal our land

What if?

I have been asking myself this question all week? What if I stuck to my roots in ministry. What if I stayed true to the vision that God has given me for this local body of Christ, what could he do. Over the years I have allowed other people come in and change and alter my vision, allowed other churches and what they have going on, the amount of people the showiness, what seems to be working for them to alter my vision. And without vision the people perish, churches perish, lives that we are supposed to reach perish.

Before I tell you what structural changes we are about to make I want to address something crucial. Because if you don’t agree with the teaching today, I will just tell you, you are probably at the wrong church.

Let me make a statement and I will bring this all together towards the end. We are talking about Vision, we are talking about what if we just did what God said?

The Church is the Body of Christ, and if it is the body, that means the Lord is the head. The head instructs the body, not the other way around? Would you agree with that. Never have i awakened from sleep and my hand begins to give me instructions. My head tells the body what to do, and where to go. Are you with me? I tell my body when its time to rise and when its time to rest. I tell my body where to go and what to do. My body is my servant, my body s my slave, it is bound to me to do what I want to do, in fact the idea of anything other is a little strange. My body is not only my servant, its not only my slave. It is a part of who I am, i and my body are one.

Now it is normal for my body to only want to enjoy pleasure, and to never endure work. It desires to be lazy, it desires to sit at home all day instead of living. Now to be honest with you my body would much rather sit around and draw unemployment, but I make my body get up and do what i will for it.

Ephesians 1:22–23 ESV

22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

And one of God’s favorite ways of describing the Church is describing this community of believers as the hands and feet of Jesus. Hands and feet are not meant to be idle. Hands and feet sure don’t give out the orders to the head. That would just be weird. if somebody ever tells me that their foots speaks to them, I am going to switch he subject.

No its a normal thing for the body to be in line with the head.

But can i tell you that is what we have today. We have the body trying to tell the head what we want to do and how we want things. We have transitioned to just paying a preacher to do the work of the body, when the Bible tells us that it the pastor and others with certain offices that equip the body for the work of the ministry.

Ephesians 4:11–13 ESV

11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,

Now I want you to pay close attention to Verse 12

Ephesians 4:12 ESV

12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,

The saints, that is you, if you are born again the Bible calls you a saint,,, and to you he requires the work of ministry.... everyday that you get up, he is at work around you, he has divine appointments throughout your busy day that he wants you to meet.... and then he says for building up the Body of Christ. Building it numerically, building it with service, building it with discipleship- the goal is unity of the faith of of the Knowledge of the Son of God. You are somebody in his body.

Now then if we are the Body of Christ, and the Lord jesus is the head, and we have already established that its just weird for a body to speak to the head, to order or direct the head.... Don’t you find it strange that today that is exactly what bodies are doing. They think that their part in the body is coming to a place that we have named church. I don’t want to minimize the importance of being here. It is here that you will hear the instruction, the admonition, the correction, the encouragement, the preaching of the word. But don’t confuse this with Jesus being absolute Lord of your life.

May I submit also to you that maybe the church isn’t experiencing more of God, they are not seeing more victories, they are seeing more lives delivered and set free, because the body simply isn’t willing to go where the Head wants them to go?

And maybe that is the reason they have settled for slick productions on Sunday morning because the Power of God isn’t showing. Maybe just maybe its because the body isn’t going where jesus wants to go.

I want you to put this down,

Jesus will make you uncomfortable

Jesus has sent me into crack houses before, I once a man to the Lord

he has sent me in the the most dangerous slums of Dallas before.

jesus Sent me to the House of the Owner of one of the Strip clubs here in Tyler and made me have a very uncomfortable conversation with him, about his line of work, the lives that he is destroying, and the reality of hell.

Jesus has sent me to walk the streets of downtown Dallas with hundreds of homeless people.

He has sent me to a homeless shelter to stay the weekend, and then to bring people I didn’t even know to come back to my house and stay

Jesus has sent me into very dangerous situations, to speak with very dangerous people about their eternal destinies.

And can I tell you in those places is where my faith went from theoretical to experiential. In that kind of obedience my relationship with God, and the power of my prayers, and the abundant life of being filled to the brim with the holy Spirit

Can I tell you, there has been a noticeable difference in my life when I am just talking about living out the gospel and when i am living out the gospel///

If there is a literal sense to you being the hands and feet of Christ, you must be going where he is going. And let me tell you that is what is missing from most peoples faith. They are not experiencing Christ because they are not walking by faith.

Yes they may be abstaining from drinking, drugs, pornography, the bars, and things like this, but there is no joy, no power, no stories to tell of God faithfulness and miracles because they are simply not following Jesus..

Matthew 4:19 ESV

19 And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

Guess what, he said to follow me. he did not say, keep up with your church attendance. He did not say go home, seclude yourself from sinners and become a monk. He said follow me.....

Follow ME ILLUSTRATION

Do you know what it means to follow? Let me show you

Robbie- I want you to follow me

Ok Robbie stop

You see your not just following him into crack houses,

1. your following him into your work. Theres something he wants to do there. He wants you to quit seeing life as a mere human

Yes even with that boss that you cant stand

Yes with those foul mouthed, perverted guys that seems like their life just revolves around sex, clubs, food and drinks

2. you are following him into careers

You are tired of being broke

And it seems like the dream job has come

you are going to make a lot more money

But remember you are following Jesus, and you say Jesus this is what I want, this is what I have been praying about, but Jesus said no, this is not the answer to your prayer

But jesus I am going to be making a lot more money,

Jesus says remember my word about those that love riches

1 Timothy 6:9 ESV

9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.

But Lord I am going to be comfortable, he says yes and dead inside

You say Lord this is an open door, he says no it will be a dead end

But Lord this will lead to a greater quality of life, He says no trust me I have seen the future this will invite destructive spirits that will side line you, your kids will not see faith being lived out, they will see doublemindedness that will cause them to never follow me

HE WANTS YOU TO FOLLOW HIM INTO RELATIONSHIPS

Lord Im dating this person, and I know that He is not a Christian but I really think i can convert him

Jesus says He will lead you to a divided heart and a double mind. And a double minded person is unstable in all his ways

Yeah but Lord we have great chemistry and they make me laugh

The Lord says yes but their heart doesn’t belong to me therefore it can never truly belong to you

But Lord I have a lot of fun with this person

The Lord says but your unequally yoked, which means because my spirit does not live inside them, and when the fun, and the thrill of life dwindles away and Satan wages war on your heart and the darkness surrounds you, you will be left with a person who is spiritually ignorant and powerless against the enemy

He wants you to follow him feareslly into the fray. He wants to use you, yes you to rescue souls out of darkness.

to the down and outs, the ones without hope,

the ones that don't have anything else to offer, to those that society rejects and labels with all kinds of names, the druggy, the whore, the thief, the conman, the drunk, and the lazy

So that leads us back to all of us as a church. If we are his body, and the body does the bidding of the head, If we are the hands and the feet of Christ, well where would Jesus go? What Kind of people would he associate with?

Matthew 11:18–19 ESV

18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ 19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.”

Jesus had this title with the people- He was a friend of tax collectors and sinners. And though the religious crowd meant it as an insult, Jesus took it as a badge of honor.

Religious people always find something unholy about nearly everything.

And Jesus here gives two examples of him and John the Baptist.

John the Baptist lived a very ascetic lifestyle. Wore camel hair and a leather belt. Didn’t eat meat, fasted according to the Pharisees timetable, and abstained from alcohol. And they accused him of having a demon

Jesus came eating meats and drank alcohol, he didn’t fast when the pharisees said to fast, and they accused him of being an alcoholic and a glutton. And they hated the fact that he hung around people they thought he shouldnt be hanging around

Called him a friend of tax Collectors (hello the traitors) and sinners (the ungodly).

And they struggled with that they hated that, because the religion of the Pharisees was a religion based in self righteousness and pride, and they created this system that excepted some and rejected most.

And here you have the Son of God, God in human flesh who was constantly hanging out with ungodly people, people that had salty language, that told crude jokes, that probably even hated God because of the rejection they felt from the religious pharisees, and they would see Jesus laughing with these people, eating and having a drink with these people and for the life of them they could not understand it.

But when jesus broke the mold, do you know what happened to these people, these sinners and tax collectors, they recieved new life. Their life was radically changed

Luke 19:1–10 ESV

1 He entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. 3 And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. 4 So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. 5 And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. 7 And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” 8 And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” 9 And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

You know what separated jesus from the Pharisees, besides the whole Son of God thing?

It was love. You see he was able to see past what they were doing, how they were talking, how they were acting, the jokes they were telling, the wrongs they were guilty of, and Jesus got to their heart.

He said to them in another passage it is not the healthy that need a doctor but the sick.

And listen if your heart is hardened to others, if your only friends are people that are just as holy as you are, if your idea of Christianity is holing yourself up somewhere like a monk and creating a life of bubble wrap, listen you are missing it.

And if you don’t plan to repent of that smugness and pride, then you are probably at the wrong church.

Now let me tell you about some changes that we are going to be making in the next few months and how you can get involved.

I picked up a load of food last week and we packed out molly and Donalds freezer...

We have several hundred meat patties, and bags of frozen french fries and all kinds of other foods. We will be taking a group out next Saturday to give out food and meet people, pray and witness

2. Our building- we would like our own facility but right now its not in the Lords will. one of the reasons that I have not like this building is because of the lack of Children's facilities. Well I met with a pastor friend of mind last week and he reminded me of our original plan, but we wanted a lobby area… well I am about to make it a little more uncomfortable on you adults because we want to minister to our children more effectively.

We will need about five thousand dollars to by equipment and for the construction. We will make that entire area back there the new children’s facility.

And then we are going to buy a bus and get out into the highways and byways and start reaching families and kids that cannot get here any other way.

And when we bus them in, you will need to understand these kids are going to have attitudes, they are going to be misfits, and hard to control kids. And I don’t want to hear any complaining about them, because we are going to love until it hurts. We will offer hope, we will offer structure, we will offer correction but it will be all out of love

We will need more children's workers, people that have a love for kids. We will need people to be on the bus ministry and outreach groups.

We will need to raise about $5k for for the renovations, that is above and beyond your normal tithes. Our operational budget is about $8K a month

If we want to experience Jesus we have to go where jesus wants to go. And he doesn’t want to just go to church

may I submit to you this morning that we have not been

Let me ask you a very personal question.... Do you have any friends that are not believers?

What would it look like if the church, became the church again?

Fellowship

Loving one anther