Living Amongst The Dead With The Message Of Life

Intro: There is a very familiar saying, I am not sure who said it first, but I have heard it many times.

“If you aim at nothing you will always hit it.”

What this means if you do not set goals to aim for, a mission to live for or values to live by, you will not accomplish much.

A young boy, selling Coke’s in the summer of 1929 looked across the street and seen his neighbor drinking a coke and she didn’t buy from him. One day the lady told him “you would sell more cokes if you would ice them down. So he chipped ice from his mom’s ice box and started to sell iced cokes the young boy experienced the joy on people’s faces when they would get home from a long, hot day and drink a cool refreshment.

When this boy was a teen, he delivered the paper. His mission was to deliver every paper as if he was delivering the paper to the governor. His customers appreciated the young mans work ethic, hard work and customer service. In 1946 this young man and his brother opened up a restaurant and their goal was to build a business and make friends at the same time, so he worked 12 hours and his brother worked 12 hours. They would often take food to the families of customers who landed in the hospital or lost a loved one.

All these experiences has led to one of the most successful franchises today. A franchise where customer service is a value because every customer should be served as if he/she were the president. At this franchise, when you say thank you, they respond with “My Pleasure” from the owner operator to the drive thru attendant who hands you your food. All of this because Truett Cathy, founder of Chick Fil A valued serving the customer.

We know that Chick-Fil-A values customer service because we experience it when we go to eat at their restaurants.

Here is my question about us? What is our mission here at Fellowship Espanol?

What are our core values as Fellowship Espanol?

When visitors walk through the doors of Fellowship Espanol can they see our values and mission on display?

We want to take the next 3 weeks to discuss our values. At Fellowship our values are;

Connection

Transformation

Multiplication

Today we are going to talk about Connection. At Fellowship we value connection and believe we were created to be connected to God and connected to others. When God created Adam and Eve in Genesis he created to have a relationship with God. God would walk with them in the Garden. Yet at the same time before God created Eve and he looked at Adam, God said it was not good that man should be alone because God created is to be connected to others. If you can open your Bibles to Ephesians 2:1-10 which teaches us Our Problem, teaches us The Solution and Gives Us A Mission. Let’s dive in.

I. The Problem

Our problem is that when we come into this world, we are disconnected, separated from God because of sin. Have you ever noticed you do not have to teach young children to do bad things. They just do them on their own, why?

Unfortunately we are born with the inclination to sin. When we hear no, don’t do that, our sinful heart says yes I am going to do that. Listen to what Paul tells us Eph 2:1-3

Ephesians 2:1–3 (ESV)

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Listen to how Paul describes people who do not know God;

Dead in sin - When we come into this world we are born but we are dead. We are alive physically but we are dead spiritually. This is why Jesus tells Nicademus in John 3, “you must be born again” because we are dead in sin.

following the course of this world - You lived life like everyone else, following the patterns, systems and teachings of the world. You see everyone is a follower, the question is who are you following?

following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience - The Bible is very clear, black and white, there is no neutral ground. You are either following Jesus or you following the prince of power of the air, which is describing the devil. When Jesus was talking to the Pharisees in John 8, the Pharisees were questioning him and trying to get him to say something wrong so they can get rid of him. Jesus tells them John 8:44

John 8:44 (ESV)

You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

We all once lived in the passions of our flesh - all of us at one point or another were in this same boat, we all lived this way, carrting out our own sinful desires. A heart without Christ is a factory of idolatry and sinful desires, we keeping sinning and inventing new ways to sin.

This is our problem, when we are born into this world, we are born disconnected form God and when we are left to ourselves we are children of wrath and there is nothing you can do, in your own strength or power to get you out of this disconnected state.

II. The Solution - But God

Ephesians 2:4–9 (ESV)

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

But God - two of the greatest words in all of the Bible.

Because we are so far gone, because we are dead in sin, we need God. God is the only one who can move from disconnected to connected, from death to life, from unholy to saint, from condemned to forgiven, from slavery to freedom, from bound to redeemed from doomed to saved.

Romans 5:8 (ESV)

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

While we were his enemies Jesus came and died for us. This is God’s love, this is God’s mercy, even while we were dead, he chosen to reach down to earth and make us alive in Christ. This is the riches of God’s Grace described in Ephesians 1;

In Christ we are

Chosen

Holy

Blameless

predestined for adoption as sons/daughters through Jesus Christ

We are purchased by his blood

forgiven

His grace is lavished upon us

In him we have an inheriatance

we re given the Spirit who is our guarnatee of our inheiratance

This is God’s mercy, love and grace lavished upon us.

We are raised up with Jesus, seated with Jesus

All of this is God’s grace, we cannot save ourselves. There is no amount of good works you can do to move you from death to life, from disconnected to connected. We needed someone to come to earth to obey God perfectly and die in our place. In Jesus’ death God’s holiness and God’s wrath, God’s love and mercy cross at the cross of Christ. At the cross God’s wrath and holiness is being poured out on Jesus because of your sin and yet at the very same time at the cross God’s mercy, love and grace is flowing from the cross for you. Inviting you to come, inviting you to choose life.

Paul tells us this is though faith, I cannot emphasize this enough. Faith is not just belief, faith is a whole hearted trust in Jesus. Faith says I trust you and your word to get me through this life and into the next, therefore I will follow you, live for you, I will trust you even though it doesn’t make sense to me sometimes, when the times get hard, when the times are good. I will trust in you.

The Spirit’s call is come to the cross, repent of your sin and trust in Jesus and you will move from death to life, disconnected to connected with God.

III. The Mission

Ephesians 2:10 ESV

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Paul is very clear, no amount of good works will save you, but good works should flow out of you because you are connected to God.

Workmanship - comes from the greek word “poiema” this is where our word for poem stems from. This greek word means work or created and gives the image of an artist sculpting or creating a masterpiece, a work of art. God is telling believers, you are my handiwork, you are my creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before hand so walk in them.

Now that we are connected to Jesus, we become members of the family of God. We are connected to God and connected to each other in what is called the church. As we live our lives we are to live our lives doing good for the cause of Christ and connecting with others and pointing them to Jesus. Connecting to others to Christ as well.

When you visit Chick Fil A, you know they value customer service because of your experience when you walk through the doors and order from them. The question is, at Fellowship Espanol, how do people see that we value connection. How do people see that we value connecting people to God and connecting with others?

Preach the Gospel to everyone who walks through those doors or those we come in contact with. We are walking in this world amongst people who are dead with the message of life. What are you going to do with it? Our call is to share th gospel and make disciples of every tribe nation and tongue. We have the message of life and we need to share it with the those who are dead.

Show the love of God to the people that walk into our church and homes. We have a group of volunteers who are part of ushers team, the care team and a connections team. The members of these teams help people who walk into this building get connected. I am glad for them, if it were not for Pachi and Yuli welcoming us to Fellowship Espanol almost 4 years ago now, we probably would not have come back. The ministry they do is vital, it’s important. But at the same time, they shouldn’t be the only was connecting people with God and others. We need for everyone who is a believer and a part of FE to connect people to God and others. We need to show that we value connections by welcoming the visitor, by sharing the Gospel with people, by inviting people to be a part of our church and D-Groups.

Disciple those who receive the Gospel