Vision - 2022
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Intro
It is good to be together this morning. I never like cancelling service, as we did last week..
I am glad we are together this morning.
Today is special. Today we celebrate communion. We begin again with a fresh understanding of God’s grace. In the last year we have seen some incredible things in our family here. Big things. God things. And we have been through some hard things. Some world shattering things. Some - I just need to be at the feet of Jesus because everything else is chaos things. We are blessed to be able to be there.
There have been some gatherings of the body of Christ in the last year that have just blessed my socks off - I looked around this church and thought - oh my, these people are never going home! And there have been other times when I have thought… oh my… these people are never. going. home. There have been Sundays where there was ministry happening in this place that I had no part in, except to say - Hey, yall have keys, right? I’ll see you later. 2021 was hard, but it was good.
As we look into a new year - my mind is drawn to this passage in Philippians Chapter 3:12-14
Not that I have already reached the goal or am already perfect, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus.
Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead,
I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.
The Apostle Paul, having known who God was from the what we know as the old testament… having his own experience and appointment with Jesus the Christ on the Road to Damascus… having found company with the disciples that walked with Jesus, planted churches himself, shared the gospel countless times himself, worked himself over… that apostle Paul… wrote to this church in Philippi and said…
I don’t think I have all of this figured out.
I don’t think I am doing all of this perfectly.
I’m Not settling for who I have been, what I have done, where I have gone.
I don’t think - even after everything else, that I have taken hold of this.
There is a concept in Psycology called the dunning krueger affect.. and it works out basically like this - when you only know just a little bit about something, you tend to act and feel like you have a complete grasp on that concept. Then, as you do learn, grow, and mature, IF YOU ARE WILLING TO, you realize how little you know now - and how pathetically little you knew when you started.
That is exactly what Paul is describing, and warning against.
There was a season of my life - where I really enjoyed apologetics. That is, making arguments for our faith.
I enjoyed it, and I was good at it. I can give you all of the logical reasonings for following Jesus. And because of that, there were times that I thought, hey - I have this all figured out! To tell people about Jesus, I just have to lawyer with them for a while because I have all the answers.
And then God revealed some more of who he was, and who I was.
And then he goes on, in vs 15.
Therefore, let all of us who are mature think this way. And if you think differently about anything, God will reveal this also to you.
He said let those of us… who are mature, need to think that way about ourselves. We need to know - we aren’t finished yet. We can’t count ourselves out just because we know a little bit. Because we have known the lord for a while.
And so we look forward. Pushing towards the Goal - the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.
What does that look like?
We know as a church that we are called to three very specific things. As we look through scripture, we see these themes as the focal purpose of the body of Christ. These are the things we are called to.
We are called to Glorify God
We are called to equip saints
We are called to share the Gospel.
As we go over each of those callings, I have several scriptures to share for each. It may be difficult to keep up if you are trying to flip through your bibles - we will have the scripture on the screen.
Glorifying God
This should not be a news flash for anyone here… no breaking reports… but just so that we are all on the same page, I will say it out loud. This church, the body of Christ as a whole, and even your indiviual lives - aren’t about you.
Our focus as a congregation - is not on feel good, blessings for me, psuedo christian living.
Are there promises of blessings… yes. Provision? Yes.
Are there promises of peace coming from Jesus, are we told that we can have joy unspeakable? Absolutely.
But those things come from God as he desires.
God cares a great deal about how we respond to Him. And He has made our opportunity to respond to him an attractive one - but we have to know that God is God, and we exist to lift him up.
Our Lord and God, you are worthy to receive glory and honor and power, because you have created all things, and by your will they exist and were created.
We have to have an understanding of who God is.. out of that understanding, will come a desire to see Him recognized. Revelation says you have created all things… I like to get really intimate about that. God created everything. The sky - every beautiful sunrise. Every breathtaking sunset… because God decided to do so. to make it that way.
God created flowers and bees… to work together. And he created them in a way that was attractive enough that people are drawn to them and protect them.. because honey tastes good and flowers are beautiful. God created flavors, smells, colors, textures. Enjoyable things. Because he could.
God you are worthy to receive glory and honor and power because you have created. We have to know God deserves it. Right now.
We don’t get to keep a ledger and say, well GoD, as soon as you fix my financial problems, then, THEN.. Ill give you praise. Then I will say thank you. God sure is lucky that you are generous, huh?
no, the bible says that god is worthy right now. And he expects that we respond ton that.
How do we do that? The simple answer comes from the book of John. Jesus says this…
My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.
We glorify God - by following Jesus, and producing fruit.
For though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became worthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened.
Equipping the Saints
Now may the God of peace, who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus—the great Shepherd of the sheep—through the blood of the everlasting covenant,
equip you with everything good to do his will, working in us what is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers,
to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ,
God wanted to make known among the Gentiles the glorious wealth of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
We proclaim him, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ.
Sharing the Gospel
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf, “Be reconciled to God.”
HOW:
A Church that Loves
A Church that Gives
A Church that Prays
A church that Worships
A Church that grows