You Belong - Year 4

Move quickly

Reclaim Your Identity In Jesus

Bear the Torch of Christ’s Justice and Love

Our vision is within the next 10 years to see our church expand the light of what Christ is doing through each one of you.

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Zephaniah 3:17 (NIV)

The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”

The Vision is the song, the part in the harmony that God is singing over Westland, Livonia, Canton, Ypsilanti, Dearborn, Plymouth. Over all of Detroit.

How do we get there? Everything we do must be focused on the vision that God has called us too.

We need a strategy

Strategy is essential, and I love strategy! But! culture eats strategy for breakfast. Peter Drucker - in the business realm we know that if our culture is one of cutting corners, not being a team player, or passivity, the strategy will not be able to overcome it.

What does that mean? Who we are and what we base our collective identity on matters more than what we do, for if what we "do" does not flow out of our identity, the result will not harmonize with Song of Salvation God is singing but will be a discordant note.

What is Culture?

A culture is a way of life of a group of people - the behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next

Life Canton has a culture and it is guided by the word of God. These guiding principles, we have developed over the years is called the Code

Codes - A declaration that gives meaning to who we were, purpose to what we do, and drives us to who we are becoming

The Codes are on the wall, define our yearly goals, are measured, and are elevated. Our Partners are champions of the Code not just in thought but in action, as our commitments are focused on the Code. Together they set the culture and keep us focused on the vision of Reclaiming your identity in Jesus and bearing the torch of Christ’s Justice and Love.

Every Code is found in and rooted in scripture. Written in the same story of God, and today, we refocus again on the truth of God.

Isaiah 55 will serve the focus this year of our codes.

Isaiah 55:1 NIV

“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.

Water Vendor - Korean markets

HO! not youse a HOE

Isaiah 55:1 (NIV)

“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.

The one speaking is the suffering servant.

This is a servant with concern for the souls of men and an awareness of their desperate condition if they do not obtain the blessings that the servant has obtained.

HE IS PLEADING

Isaiah 55:1 (NIV)

“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.

The Servant is Jesus; he describes himself as the living water, one that satisfies in a way that no one can. His gifts are not only necessary but abundant.

He is calling out among all the vendors. He has already paid his price for the goods, the joy only grows as he gives it out.

He is Pleading

This is where the tone changes

Isaiah 55:1 (NIV)

“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.

Come buy? without any money?…what is that about? Says it twice.

It is all, Undeserved Grace

Enter our Code…the basis of all our other codes…all focused on this reality undeserved grace, undeserved belonging.

You Belong

Belonging is a deep desire of the human heart, we are desperate for that community with God and each other

Our world is unsafe (Culture is defined most often by rules and barriers)

Believe - think the same way we do.

Behave - act or look or have the same way we do.

Belong - ONE OF US…as long as you behave…is the undertone.

Students we understand this in school. Sometimes being yourself doesn’t feel safe

All of us went through this…and in response we have set our whole lives up to make sure we belong.

Michigan…if I say Go Blue or Go Green…many of you react.

Culture is often defined through lens of the BOUNnded set.

BOUNded Set - in bounds, out of bounds

IN AND OUT....If you look this way act this way

“I have done so much wrong, I couldn’t possibly go in there”

In this passage, If you don’t have money to buy the water, you don’t belong in the market.

Jesus however has already purchased what you need, and he offers it to you.

You Belong with Jesus

Belong - to be rightly placed with. That book belongs on that shelf

It is right, it is good, it makes sense. IT FITS You belong with JESUS

You do not have to behave, to belong with Jesus.

We are the body of Christ. This is not an ivory tower for the self-righteous but a hospital for the truly broken.

If YOU BELONG with Jesus then YOU BELONG with us

As a code, You Belong means YOU BELONG before you believe and and before you behave.

You Belong, Before you Believe

You don’t have to believe what we believe

Before you Behave a certain way You BELONG.

Belonging is for Becoming

Reclaiming your identity in Christ

Centered Set - Our Culture is defined not by rules but by Jesus Christ It is about the journey.

moving towards the living water of Jesus Christ. We are defined by where our source of joy, peace, power can be found

Instead of fences on a farm, keeping animals in, we drawn deep of the well of Jesus Christ.

If you are thirsty, it is time to drink deep.

You Belong means knowing you are safe here

You Belong means making room for community

Join a Life Group

The prophet turns his attention now from those who are dying of thirst…to a different group

Isaiah 55:2 NASB95

“Why do you spend money for what is not bread, And your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, And delight yourself in abundance.

Jumping to the NASB version for a second

“they have been in Babylon for many years—some for the whole of their life. They have grown roots, acquired property, commercial interests, were prosperous and secure. The prophet does not plead or argue with them, but throws into the quiet pool of their complacency a disturbing pebble, as he asks: "Does all this really satisfy you? Is this what you are for?

Looking for belonging in money, in status, in work, living in the right house, driving the right car, having the correct political opinions (that is not working out to make anyone feel safe is it). How about your children being successful or take the right kind of work.

Does all the things you pursue for belonging really satisfy you? Hows that working out for you?

“God comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable.”

Isaiah 44:20 NIV

Such a person feeds on ashes; a deluded heart misleads him; he cannot save himself, or say, “Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?”

lack of discernment, mental delusion, and pointless labour

Isaiah 55:2 (NASB95)

“Why do you spend money for what is not bread, And your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, And delight yourself in abundance.

Listenly Listen....

Come Listen a BEGGING a Pleading

For the vendors around the vendor do not simply a lesser alternative to the water of the vender. It is not simply that the wares around them are more expensive, of lesser quality, or poor alternatives of the water....

THEY are saltwater. They are poison. They fill the belly but dehydrate the soul.

For those who feel satisfied with all they have bought, all they have found worth in, these false wells will be your undoing…going comfortably catatonic consuming.

Isaiah 55:2 (NASB95)

“Why do you spend money for what is not bread, And your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, And delight yourself in abundance.

In verse 1 he doesn’t offer just water but milk and wine to those dying of thirst.

Many of us set an expectation of what we want our lives to look like and miss the abundance of the feast of the Servant, Jesus Christ.

You Belong is about feasting in abundance together. We are not bound by rules about what should look a certain way, we are centered on our journey towards Jesus. A journey we walk together.

I don’t belong because you aren’t doing what I want you to do…that is a bounded set thinking. Instead we must realize that whether or not we feel belonging on the basis of behaviors and rules but on the reality of the grace we have in Jesus Christ.

You Belong, We Belong to experience Jesus together.

Sign up for Life Journey

Students are signing up for their own small groups, they are signing up for Life Journey.

Life Groups help us journey towards a common center: Jesus Christ. To find safety in the fact that Jesus Christ has purchased us and WE BELONG to him. We need belonging, or we will find it somewhere else and slowly the poison of this world will infect our very souls. When we are groups we are actively returning to the well.

Sign up for Life Groups