Religious Relevancy
Notes
Transcript
Religious Relevancy
Religious Relevancy
12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Last week we began a series entitled: Under Attack...
this series will go on for several weeks and we will be looking at several areas where we as believers are “Under Attack”
We are in a spiritual warfare… a battle is raging where we can only see some of the carnage...
Hate, racism, murder, abuse...
Broken marriages, relationships...
Abuses - physically, sexually, emotionally
Injustices in our Government - at the state and federal level...
We are aware of and are to some degree or another experiencing the results of a broken and decaying society...
We have better technology
We have better medicine
We have better jobs, incomes...
We have - bigger and nicer homes
We have more possessions than any society before us...
Yet… we are failing as a society to come together...
Pastor… Why is this?
Spiritual Warfare...
Not only is the problem spiritual warfare, we who are on the right side of this battle are not doing such a hot job at communicating or carrying out our mission - our commission...
Religious Relevancy
Religious Relevancy
Relevancy… What a term -
This term is another “buzz word” of our current society
Dr. Ken Hamm - wrote a book entitled - Gospel Reset - in this book, he shared the premise that we currently live in a post christian culture and that the gospel has to be shared with the basis that our country is biblically illiterate...
We cannot use normal “christian” terms w/o explanations - because these are foreign to them...
We cannot “assume” that there is a basic knowledge of who Jesus is, and what He has done for us...
Why is this the case?
In a nation that will be 245 years old in a few months -
A nation whose motto is: “In God We Trust”
A nation whose founding fathers wove bible and biblical principal in the Declaration of Independence as well as in and throughout the foundational documents and principles of this great nation...
How can this be… that “One Nation Under God” is not One Nation… a nation united, but a nation divided...
A Nation of “In God we Trust” has become a pluralistic society that no longer embraces the Lord or Truth...
Spiritual Warfare… we are “Under Attack”
According to a Study this year by Barna;
60,000 churches… 20% of churches in the US could close in the next 18 months...
According to a Pew Research poll - 3/22/21
* Only 4 out of 10 regular church attenders (at least 2 services per month) went to church on Easter Sunday...
*Only 58% of regular church attenders attended a church service in the last month
What is happening?
Church is losing it’s relevancy in the life of the believer...
Why?
Spiritual Warfare
12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Religious Relevancy...
There is nothing new under the sun…
We - in America are experiencing the same thing that OT Israel had experienced in the book of Isaiah...
Is.59 gives us the details how Israel, the chosen people of God became the complacent people and the result of God’s judgment was that they were a conquered people...
King James Version Chapter 59
And judgment is turned away backward,
And justice standeth afar off:
For truth is fallen in the street,
And equity cannot enter.
15 Yea, truth faileth;
Religious Relevancy...
What can we do to regain the losses of the day?
What can we do to see revival and restoration of our country?
What can we do to make a difference?
Be Connected
Join the Church
Church is not a passive program that we attend -
It is a body to belong to - functioning, contributing -
mission and health of the whole body - 1 cor 12.21-26
church is a spiritual, corporate, living institution that the Lord Jesus
Started
Loves
Purchased with His own blood
In a post christian culture - church membership is one of the most “counter-cultural” things you can do...
It joins you to a family - loss of individual rights - and take on responsibilities and reproaches of the world - heb.11.24-26
It brings us under the umbrella of:
Church leadership - pastors / elders
Church discipline - mat 18; 1 cor 5
Attending doesn’t make you a member -
Coming & joining the church makes you a member -
Conscious decision to join - in agreement w/ the statement of faith
Be Compassionate
36 But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.
37 Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few;
38 Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.
The people were:
Faint
Scattered abroad
Wandering
Weak
Vulnerable
the people were lost - without God in this world
23 And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.
The passion and purpose of the Lord Jesus - as he proclaimed himself the Anointed One of Isaiah 61.1
18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
Though the ministry of the church is to equip the believer, the ministry of the believer is this lost world
Do they see our love
Do they see our compassion
Do they see our concern for their broken condition?
Sin is ugly
injury & damage of sin - impacts not just the one who commits it, but also the victims and the fallout of sin...
this world needs to see a loving and caring Christ - but they will see Him through a loving, caring and compassionate Christian...
Be Challenged
Be Real
34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
Be Relevant
Paul went to the skeptics on Mars Hill
22 Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.
23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
24 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
25 Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
Be a Reconciler
18 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;
The world is in darkness -
14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
8 For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:
9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:
The church - the believers need to be relevant to their needs -
If we stay within the walls of our church
If we stay within the safety and sanctity of our assembly… The world will go without light...