All Church Online 2019 | Empowerment of EDGE

Message

I love our City Beautiful. The first gathering of our church met in 1926, the year after George Merrick incorporated Coral Gables as a city. In fact, Merrick himself gave land to our church. Our church shares in the great heritage of our city.

Over the years, corporations have made their headquarters here. The power brokers of business have set their roots in the backyard of our mission field.

God gave this church a high calling to share his good news with the influencers and culture-makers of Miami.

The final E in EDGE calls us to live empowered lives by the Spirit of Christ living in us!

Living empowered means living with the full knowledge and proper confidence of your identity. You have been redeemed and forgiven of your sins; you are holy and blameless, without fault in your Father’s eyes. The same power that raised a man from the dead now lives in you!

Living empowered by the Holy Spirit lifts us above the level of our doubts and fears into the faith level of freedom and hope!

What living empowered by the Spirit doesn’t mean, however, is living in power, and let’s be honest, sometimes we confuse the two.

All of us possess some amount of power—influence and strength, but the question that we must ask ourselves as we live on the Empowerment EDGE is: “Who’s the beneficiary of our power?

Several years ago, a close friend of mine made a decision to profess Jesus as his Lord and Savior. He said to me, “Ryan, I feel a calling on my life to save the world.” To which I responded, “Jesus already did that, so who’s calling who?”

What my friend experienced was a new found sense of empowerment, but he was still too focused on himself to get it.

In the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, John the Baptist said, speaking of Jesus, “He must become greater; I must become less.” John 3:30

The upside down nature of God’s Kingdom is such that Christ’s empowerment of our lives becomes greater, not as we become greater, but as we make ourselves less.

The word for humility derives from the latin word: humus, which means ‘from the ground.’ In John 13, the Apostle wrote:

“It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” John 13:1

In his final hours, Jesus demonstrated the full ethic of his kingdom and the extent to which he loved his closest followers by taking off his robe, bending low to the ground, and washing the dirt from the ground off of his disciples’ feet.

The apostle Matthew recorded in his Gospel, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Matthew 20:28

To truly live empowered by our Savior means that we live on the EDGE of how our Savior lived: with humility, as a servant of all.

Friends, that’s true empowerment, that’s true freedom. Jesus calls us to nothing less. He asks us to follow him, as we love others with the same love that he showed us on the cross. He set aside his rights as the Son of God so that we may live into eternity with him.

I’m reminded of the Hillsong lyric, which sings, “I touch the sky when my knees hit the ground.”

If you want to touch God’s kingdom here on Earth and experience a kind of true empowerment that few experience in this world, then fall to your knees, touch the ground, serve others in love, just as Jesus showed his love for us: that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

What will your legacy be?

The greatest influencers in my life chose this higher calling. Perhaps our culture looked down upon them for doing so, but they lived an ‘out of this world’ kind of life that I want to live! These people have experienced a kind of contentment and peace that transcended all of my understanding.

They leveraged their power for God’s kingdom in order to show others Jesus’ eternal love. What greater return on investment could there be than helping someone find and follow their Savior?

When we stand before Jesus, one of us will say, your will be done. As a church, may our legacy be ones who chose ‘dirty knees’ over self-serving power.

There’s no better life than one lived on the EDGE. Together, we are called to share Jesus’ story, do life with others, say our best yes, and live fully on mission with Jesus. I’ll see you on the EDGE.