Faithfulness--20 yr anniversary

Good morning everyone, it is so great to see you all here this morning. I love getting to get together every week and having this little family reunion every single Sunday. Hey, those of you online this morning, I want to make sure you know that you are welcome to join us anytime and we would love to see you in person so that we can enjoy each others company. I am certain that we will enjoy your company and so please consider coming next Sunday as we look forward to an amazing April. Look, last week was a great kick off of April for us. We had Easter and we had so many people here, it was just fantastic. Then this week we are celebrating our 20th anniversary in this facility and getting excited about what God is going to do here. Next week we are looking forward to having our kids worship back up and running, and then on the 24th we will be having all of our Bible Studies back and in full force. It will be so great to have these classes for all different age groups, from nursery up to the adults we have special things prepared for you…it is going to be amazing! Also, let me just say that we are still looking for some teachers, so we want to invite you to join our teaching team here at LRBC. If you are interested in that just get ahold of me or Raina in the office and we will make that happen.

So a man was reading his paper early one morning at the breakfast table. His wife came over to him, gave him a hug, smiled, and said, “I bet you don’t know what today is, do you?” He looked at her and said, “Of course I know what day it is!” and went back to reading his paper. The reality was that he didn't have a clue. He was afraid that he would make his wife upset - she was really sensitive about special occasions. He thought to himself, “Is it her birthday? That must be it.” So after he got to work he called the florist and had a bouquet of white roses sent to his wife. Then as the day went on, he began worrying that flowers may not be enough for such an important day. “What if it’s our anniversary?” So he went to the jewelry store down from his office, picked out a beautiful gold necklace and had it special delivered to his wife.

As he started home from work he decided that maybe he should also stop and buy an expensive box of chocolates to bring to her - just in case. He pulls into the driveway and his wife runs out to greet him. As he gets out of the car and presents her with the box of chocolates, she throws her arms around him and says, “Oh, honey, this is the best ground hog day I've ever had!”

Well, today is not groundhog day, but it is a very special day for LRBC. If you remember what I said a few minutes ago, today we celebrate 20 years of God’s faithfulness to us as a church in this amazing facility. However we didn’t get here by accident. We didn’t just fall into this place. God used something awful and made it into something awesome...

So this week as we celebrate this 20th anniversary of this building and I thought it would be great to hear a little bit in person about some of the history of what happened 21 years ago and what that process looked like. So, I have invited Steve to come up and share a little about what God did 20 years ago and how God has continued to work here at LRBC. Please Welcome Steve Wells up and let’s pay attention to what God did back then. For those of you that don’t know Steve, he is an Elder and a deacon here at LRBC and has been a part of those teams for many many years. Here’s Steve.

Steve

Wow…that was really great to hear about all of that. I mean God has done some great things here. Let me ask you, do you think that it is a coincidence that God placed LRBC in this place? (no), Ok, do you think it’s a coincidence that God cave us this building that is shaped the way that it is? (no). No, I don’t think so either. As a matter of fact, if you will remember last year I talked about how God placed us here on a little hill overlooking Leaf River and we have a cupola and how that really looks like a light house, and how I truly believe that God has called us as a church to be a light into the darkness of this region. Remember, something like 80% of people in this area don’t go to church anywhere, and God has given us a purpose right here in Northern Illinois. The question is are we going to do what God has called us to, or are we going to just exist in this place? I personally am excited about doing what God has called us to do…how about you?

So, as I was thinking about this particular week I was trying to think through what this week means, what the significance is of 20 years in this building, and what would be a good passage to talk about this week. Well, after thought, prayer, and even research I landed on Philippians 3:12-14. This is a great passage that talks about pushing ahead to t the future, and so that is why I landed here. I think it’s good to look forward to the hope we have in Christ as our focus, individually, and as a church as well. So this morning as we look at this passage I want to encourage you to think about how this applies to LRBC as a church, but also how this passage applies to your life personally. So let’s turn over and take a look at this passage becuase I believe what we will find is a bit of a roadmap for us to continue on our own walk with the Lord, and our direction as a church.

Philippians 3:12–14 ESV

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. 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, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

So let’s dive in and take a look at this passage and see what God has for us this morning. (prayer)

So I have divided up this passage for us this morning into three sections that I feel are pretty solid and timely section. You see the first thing we have to do it...

1. ASSESS (vs. 12,13a)

“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. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own...”—Paul

Paul is pretty honest about his own condition here. Paul says here that he has not arrived yet. To me, that's an incredible statement. Paul is an older man now. He was something like 59-60 years old. He wrote this while in prison in Rome near the end of his life. He was executed around 65 years old. If anybody, I mean anybody other that Jesus had the right to claim he had arrived it would be Paul. I mean started out by persecuting Christians, then he wrote most of the New Testament. He helped spread Christianity throughout the Roman Empire. He started countless churches. Was present as countless people commited their lives to Christ. He made an incredible impact on the world. Yet Paul, at the end of his life, says "I don't have it all together. I haven't arrived. I'm not perfect. I'm still growing." Do you know what that means? That means that this church that is 36 years old hasn’t yet arrived. That means that you, at whatever age you are, haven’t yet arrived.

That’s incredibly important for us to realize. You see, if we believe that we have it all figured out and we have arrived, well then there is no need to continue to grow into who God wants you to be. Something else is true…when you stop growing, you start dying...That’s true in education, business and in farm work. However, more importantly, thats true in church, that’s true in life, and that true in your spiritual relationship with the Heavenly Father.

God has done some wonderful things through this building in the last 20 years. You know, part of celebration is evaluation, it’s assessing what has happened before. Anniversaries are great moments to look back but we need to be careful with nostalgia. Someone once said that “nostalgia is the sand paper that smooth’s the edges of the good old days”. Over time we tend to forget the hardships and remember only the blessings, right.

You see, Paul could have taken great pride in what he had already been able to accomplish. Instead we see that he was not content and was still striving for more. You see, for Paul…Good enough was never good enough. I think it is important to remember that. We have been so blessed as a church in the last 20 years, but we still have a long way to go. God is not done with us yet. We have not arrived. We are still growing. However, as we assess the reality that we have not yet arrived, we also need to learn what to...

2. AVOID (vs. 13b)

“...But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind...” —Paul

This is our anniversary. We have spent time this morning remembering. So why am I now using a scripture that talks about forgetting what is behind? In other words forgetting the past…Well, in order to answer that question, I really need to let you know what forget really means.

For us in English forget is a pretty easy term to understand. To forget literally means: fail to remember. However, we have to remember that this letter to the church in Philippi was not written in English. Therefore we really need to see and understand what was actually written to full grasp what Paul was communicating. The word for forgetting is ἐπιλανθάνομαι (epilanthanomai), and that means: disregard or put out of mind. So what Paul is really saying isn’t that you need to literally forget about the past and never remember it, but to put it out of your mind and disregard it. In other words, don’t make the past your focus.  

You see, while it is important to learn from the past you cannot live there. There are 2 things that you must do in order to move forward and put the past out of your mind;

a. Forget your Failures

Don’t think about the things in your heart that God has long since forgiven and forgotten. Satan's favorite desire is to paralyze us with the past, to manipulate us with the memories. Paul says "I learn to forget the past." Do not sit around beating yourself up for mistakes. Everybody here has blown it, Amen…or is that just me. Ok, good…You know what, we as a church, have messed up in the past. There are things we are not proud of. I sincerely apologize if you were ever hurt, or upset by a decision that this church or her leadership has ever made. Whether I was a part of that decision or not.

Paul, of all people, had many regrets that could have haunted him. He was a persecutor of the church. He hounded people who were believers and had them locked up and stoned. Nothing you ever do will change your past. It is gone, over, dead. Since you can’t change it let it go. Learn from it but then let it go. There is a great book from a friend named Steve Viars called “Putting your past in its place” I highly recommend that book if you are personally struggling with the past. But you know, thats not the only thing we have to forget. No we also need to...

b. Forget your Successes

OK, that sounds insane. Why in the world would you want to forget your successes? Well, just like failure, you can learn from success but you can’t live there. It is too easy to dwell on the success of the past. Sometimes we try to live in the past and base our identity on past performance, you know....”the good old days”. Well, the “good old days” are gone. Let them go. Success tends to make you complacent and fills you with pride. Then you stop growing and learning and then you're going to fail. Look, I say this as your pastor, but also as a person that has personally experienced exactly what I am talking about. I can remember early on in ministry I was serving in the church my father was the pastor of. I feel like things went well there, so naturally when we moved back to the states I pretty much informed the pastor of the church we attended that he was blessed to have me around as the youth leader. No, I didn’t say it in those terms, but I definitely had that mentality. I assumed that I would be involved in all future church decisions and direction, and you know what. I wasn’t. I had lived in the past of what I was involved with in Puerto Rico and assumed that I would be a part of those same things in Indiana. I remember having the mindset of “Im the expert, just let me do what I do”. Well, God took me on a journey of pride removal and I finally realized that I really am not an expert at anything. So you see, the past success can be a good memory, but we have to realize that we cannot live in the success of the past. We also cannot define who we are based on the success of the past.

So I read about a guy this week that I want to share with about with you. About 2,000 years ago a young Greek artist named Timanthes studied under a respected tutor. After several years the teacher’s efforts seemed to have paid off when Timanthes painted an exquisite work of art. Unfortunately, he became so enraptured with the painting that he spent days gazing at it. One morning when he arrived to admire his work, he was shocked to find it blotted out with paint. Angry, Timanthes ran to his teacher, who admitted he had destroyed the painting. ‘I did it for your own good. That painting was preventing your progress. Start again and see if you can do better.’ Timanthes took his teacher’s advice and produced Sacrifice of Iphigenia, which is regarded as one of the finest paintings of antiquity.

You see, it is really easy to setup camp and live in the past amazing times. We can do that as individuals, and we can do that as a church. Maybe you always did things a certain way at home and now you are beginning to find that it is harder to continue doing things that way. Maybe there are some things that were incredible ministries of the church 20 years ago, but they just don’t quite fit the same in today’s culture. The thing is we have to separate the methods from the message. The message of the Gospel has never and will never change, or adjust to the culture around us. However, the way we reach people, the way we connect with people and share that Gospel can and definitely does change.

So, today we celebrate our past but we cannot and will not live in our past. Look, you can't run a race looking backwards. You've got to focus ahead. As you focus ahead, if you are going to make it, you also have to have...

3. DETERMINATION (vs. 13c,14)

“...straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”—Paul

This is amazing stuff right here. I mean we see that Paul is saying that he forgets the past and pushes forward into the future. That is a great way to think about Paul’s life. It also is a great plan for us to have personally as we think about our own life. Paul isn’t just looking forward to the future as in some new job, or a new way of doing things. No, Paul is talking about pressing forward towards the prize that lies ahead. Folks, thats huge…it means that Paul knows what lies ahead and he is pressing forward to reach that. That is exciting to think about, right? Like, Paul was focused on the prize of Christ…not his next personal accomplishment.

Paul is pressing forward in a passionate way also. As a matter of fact, I want to share with you how Paul is actually pressing on. The word “press on” is the Greek word διώξω (dioko) which means to move rapidly and decisively toward an objective. It is actually the same word we see in Acts as we read about Paul persecuting Christians. You see, before Jesus Paul would persecute or dioko the church – he would chase after them with all his might. Now Paul is chasing after Christ with all his might. The intensity was the same, the direction was different.

As we look to the future I pray that we would have the same determination that those who went before us had. I pray we have the same determination that you had back in 1984 when LRBC was started. The same determination that LRBC had 20 years ago when this building was built…The same determination that you had 2 years ago when you were searching for your next pastor, and the same determination that we have had over this last year as we have grown through various Covid challenges. We need to be ready to try new things and get used to different, and let old things go. We need to be ready to celebrate what God has done in the past, without living in the past. We need to continue pressing forward toward the prize that is the upward call of God in Christ Jesus…So this morning, let’s join together and pray together and ask Nathanael to come up and lead us in a celebration of the past as we look forward to some amazing food in my very near future.

—Prayer—