Sermon Tone Analysis

Can anyone identify this individual?

(show picture) If I say the name Truett Cathy what comes to your mind?

Truett Cathy was the founder of Chik-Fil-A, A Believer, Someone who Got it Right!

Chick-fil-A is the largest quick-service chicken restaurant chain in the country, gives all employees Sunday off to spend with family, to relax and to express their faith if they choose to do so.

Chick -fil-A Purpose Statement:

“To Glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us and to have a positive impact on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A.

In my time as a Director with a specific Chick-fil-A restaurant in Ohio, that was our mission also…I don’t know how it works at the other restaurants, but where I was, we taught this to all our team members and managers and constantly reviewed and renewed this mission statement…we even took it the next step and frequently asked everyone to provide examples of how they or others were doing that.

The Chick-fil-A mission is so important to them that each franchise is to hold to that same mission.

Also important to them are their guiding principles...I want to share with you just two of the basic guiding principles upon which Truett Cathy successfully built the Chick-fil-A chain.

PUT PRINCIPLES AND PEOPLE AHEAD OF PROFITS

“I’d like to be remembered as one who kept my priorities in the right order.

We live in a changing world, but we need to be reminded that the important things have not changed.”

CLOSED ON SUNDAY

“I was not so committed to financial success that I was willing to abandon my principles and priorities.

One of the most visible examples of this is our decision to close on Sunday.

Our decision to close on Sunday was our way of honoring God and of directing our attention to things that mattered more than our business.”

Chick-fil-A is the only major fast-food restaurant chain to be closed on Sundays, one of the busiest days of the week in the restaurant business.

Chick-fil-A continues to lead the industry with individual stores generating more revenue in 6 days than others do in seven.

Would you agree with me that Truett Cathy “got it”?

What is the “it”?

“Getting It” is knowing what is important and allowing that to make a difference in what you do.

How would you complete this phrase “What matters most to me is…

Now before you answer that let me challenge you with this question…how important is it for us to get that right?

See how you complete that phrase of what matters most will determine the trajectory of your life and future…

Your solution to what matters most identifies your priorities and pursuits…your priorities are easily identifiable by where you spend your time, your energies, your resources.

Is landing a great job and making a boat-load of money the most important thing to you?

What if that pursuit cost you your marriage or family?

Is it worth it?

What do your children see as the most important pursuit of life?

What are the priorities of your home?

Is it sports?

Money?

Entertainment?

Education?

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with those pursuits but let’s consider what Jesus said about them for just a moment…

Matthew 16:26 (NASB95)

“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?

Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

In other words, if those pursuits caused you to sacrifice a relationship with God, are they worth it?

Other important questions to challenge our thinking here this morning…

How do you decide what should matter most?

What principles do you use to determine what priorities you should have?

How do we as a church decide what should matter most?

What principles are we going to use to determine the priorities we share as a corporate body?

We are pausing our study of 1 Peter for a few weeks to lay out for you a vision for Open Door Bible Church…the elders have spent much time praying over this, searching the Scriptures, and believe this is God’s Vision for us.

Purpose for this series:

To communicate who we are as a church and where we believe God wants us to go.

To encourage you to be an active participant in what God is going to do in us, through us, with us, and for us.

To equip you with the confidence that you belong here!

I want to call your attention to the brochure you should all have received…explain graphic!

From this point forward we want to encourage you to memorize our mission…we are going to talk about that here this morning… you are going to hear me say it over and over and over again…then I want to encourage you to get to know our Key Principles…these are what guide us to do what we do…they are represented in the graphic…we will be sharing these in the following weeks...

Glorify God

Proclaim Christ

Biblically Obedient

Relationship Focused

Our key steps are what we believe will propel us toward maturity in Christ, build up the church, and give us a testimony to the world.

We want to encourage you to identify where you are in the process, we will walk through them together throughout this series...

Love - God and others.

Gather - faithfully for worship, fellowship, and mutual encouragement.

Grow - by learning and applying the Word of God, centered in the Good News of Jesus Christ, and by serving one another faithfully and selflessly.

Go - make disciples by intentionally reaching out to others.

Then for the next few Sunday evenings, beginning tonight from 5 to 7…we will be gathering around the table in a fellowship meal as well as talking about the practical ways we believe we can live out God’s mission for us…will you join us at the TABLES?

So for today we want to make sure we understand our mission...

Building Lives To Know and Live for Jesus Christ!

Say it with me! Get to know that…we want to Love it, learn it, live it!

So what we want to do here is break down this statement biblically to show us just what we are supposed to be doing...

Building...

The word “building” is often used figuratively in Scripture to refer to creating a spiritual community…it is also used to conceptualize the process of spiritual growth as building a structure.

We Cannot Build Unless Jesus Builds First…Matthew 16:18

Turn with me to Matthew 16:18 ““I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.”

“I will build My church”

The word for church here is the word “ekklesia”…it springs from the word meaning called out assembly…it was often used to simply describe an assembly of people…it is used 114 times in the NT and 90 of those are a reference to a local assembly (church)…but here Jesus uses it in a universal sense…Jesus was not only going to build a local assembly but a universal church composed of all who make the same confession as Peter did…Jesus is the Messiah.

What makes this assembly unique is it belongs to Jesus…MY church...

Jesus breaks down all the barriers to unite people from every ethnic group, socio-economic groups, male & female, every nation…both locally and universally.

It is his church, not ours…ODBC belongs to Jesus…he has the right to do whatever he desires to do with us…it is only by God’s grace that ODBC has the history that it does, and it is only by God’s grace that ODBC continues to exist!

Jesus is the Master Builder…I will build...he is the one who begins and ends the process of building the church…we’ve already learned from our study of 1 Peter that we are living stones in that building…a spiritual house…and it is only Jesus who makes us “living stones.”

That means we cannot manufacture genuine faith…genuine believers only become genuine believers because Jesus Christ alone has saved them…it is not up to us to “save them”… only Jesus can do that...

Our job is to speak truth to them regarding who God is, who Jesus is and who man is compared to God…we are to show them that the separation that exits between them and God can only be bridged with the shed blood of Christ…we are to tell them of sin and judgment and forgiveness and redemption…we are to speak and live the gospel in vivid colors…

Even with all our efforts to walk in obedience to the Scripture to win them over, Jesus is the only one who can bring them across the line into His kingdom!

Jesus implies that He is going to be the one who calls out a group of people who will be a gathered community of his followers and He will help them grow.

So what this means for us is that there must be a dependence upon Jesus for all that we do…

Prayer ought to be imbedded in every thing we do

Scripture is the final authority on all matters of faith and practice.

Jesus receives all the praise for any blessing he chooses to bestow upon us!

Any numerical growth we experience will be credited to Jesus bringing them to us.

That doesn’t negate our responsibility to reach as many people as we can…it simply means we will do our part and entrust the results to His plan and pleasure!

We Must Be Careful to Build Upon the Foundation of Jesus…1 Corinthians 3:10-11

Turn with me…1 Cor 3:10-11 “According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it.

But each man must be careful how he builds on it.

For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”

Not going to spend a whole lot of time here but I wanted you to see this text...

As an apostle, Paul was a foundational pillar of Jesus’ program to build the church…that’s what he said in “I laid a foundation”… he clearly taught salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone…no other foundation can be laid than Jesus Christ…it is that same foundation that we build on now and will continue to build upon.

Churches today want to build on a celebrity preacher, a special method, their musicality and style of worship, a specific doctrine they feel is important…any foundation other than Christ is weak and invites God’s removal of them!

The foundation of the building is the most important part…if by our own efforts we attempt to build on anything other than Christ and him crucified we risk God’s judgment upon us and being disqualified for His service.

You can rest assured that the leadership of ODBC is committed to Christ and the message of the gospel…we are committed to teaching His word without compromise!

Summary Statement — We are constantly “under construction” and all “our” plans are subject to Jesus as Our Master Builder.

Building Lives…Matthew 28:18-20

Turn with me to Matthew 28:18-20…READ

Because Jesus has all the authority…He has the right to give us our mission…it is on his authority that we speak truth to the world.

Our mission is to be a disciple making church!