Sermon Audio – Page 90

The Church’s Mission Has Not Changed

July 5th, 2015
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The Church’s Mission Has Not Changed

On one of the saddest and most troubling days of our nation’s existence, on June 26 the Supreme Court of the United States in a 5-4 decision ruled in favor to legalize Same Sex Unions. As of that day, what some people have called “settled law” on the issue was declared, that homosexuals and lesbians have the legal right to marry in the USA.

Banners declared on that day, “Love Wins”, when in fact, on that day, perversion won and holiness lost.

There are many ways we can look at this and respond to it. We can be fearful, angry, or simple resign ourselves to “settled law” and shrug our shoulders with the attitude that’s there’s nothing we can do.

But let’s be reminded today that, in spite of any decision or law or event that may take place in our world, the Church’s mission remains the same. We can and must still make a difference, one soul at a time, one opportunity at a time, planting and watering as God brings the increase.

We must keep our perspective!

When Roe v. Wade passed, approving the murder of unborn babies in 1972, the Churches didn’t roll over and die. Life continued. Churches remained vibrant and effective. The Mission of the Church remained.

Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said this in regards to the Supreme Court ruling, “We are called to be the people of the truth, even when the truth is not popular and even when the truth is denied by the culture around us. Christians have found themselves in this position before, and we will again. God’s truth has not changed. The Holy Scriptures have not changed. The gospel of Jesus Christ has not changed. The church’s mission has not changed. Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever.”

The Church’s mission has NOT changed. But what is our mission? What is it, in spite of any law, ruling, election, event, or catastrophe upon which we must remain focused?

First, our mission to proclaim the Gospel throughout the world. Mark 16:15, “And He said to them, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature”.

This is known as the Great Commission. It’s proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ, bringing men’s souls into fellowship with God. It’s a continuation of Christ’s earthly ministry that we are privileged to continue on His behalf.

Second, our mission to be a vibrant community of worship and fellowship to manifest the presence and love of Jesus. Jesus said in Matt. 18:20, “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them”.

A part of the Lord’s purpose of the church, besides bringing people to God, is to gather His people together and facilitate a corporate environment of worship, to express our love toward Him and one another. Jesus described these as the two highest ideals of Christianity. Mark 12:30-31, “And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these”.

Third, our mission to mature believers and prepare them to perform works of ministry. Eph. 4:11-12 says, “And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ…”

The church must continue to be an atmosphere of spiritual edification, where God’s Word is taught, where believers are grounded, discipled and led toward maturity. This not only serves to anchor their faith in Christ, but prepares them for service for the kingdom.

And fourth, the mission to represent God’s Kingdom and influence our society for Him. Matt. 5:13-14 says, “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden”.

Jesus used salt and light as metaphors of the influential characteristics of His church in the world. The presence of the church in the world is Christ’s seasoning and preservation, just as salt is in the natural. And His church has been called to let its light shine to the world — to love, to care for, and to meet needs of humanity, while upholding the redemptive truths and righteousness of Jesus Christ.

Our mission, our focus, our purpose for being, is what it always has been: to preach the Gospel to a lost and dying world, be a place of worship and fellowship to encourage the saints, to disciple Believers into maturity and effectiveness for His Kingdom, and to be salt and light to a dark and dying world.

No Supreme Court ruling will ever change that. In fact, it only brings it into greater clarity as we see the world waxing worse in sin, and helps sharpen our perspective of our mission.

Let’s be a church that connects to God, connects to others, and connects to the lost. That’s our mission.

That’s our focus. Period.

That will never change.

God’s Provision

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Who is God…to me?

That’s the question we’ve been asking the last several weeks. Today, let’s look at God our Provider.

Nehemiah 9:15-25 speaks of God providing for His people’s physical, spiritual, and emotional needs. Now, for every authentic provision God has for us satan always has a counterfeit.

In the physical realm satan offers extremes as deserving, junk dressed up as quality, perversions cloaked as freedoms, and distractions conveyed as worthy causes.

But all these activities provide in the end are an emptiness greater than we had before.

Isaiah 55 says, “Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?”

Only Jesus satisfies completely all of our physical needs.

In the spiritual realm the world offers many counterfeit things, but only the Holy Spirit is the authentic spirit of Christ. In Him we can be assured of trustworthy and true guidance for all of life’s decisions.

In the emotional realm the world offers parties and celebrations on a continual basis. The world is one big party!

But the Church has a real reason to celebrate! It’s time for us to revel, delight, rejoice, thrive, PARTY for the cause of Christ! Partying by its very nature is not done quietly in a corner, but loudly for the world to see!

God’s greatest provision for us goes beyond our life here on earth, though. He has provided for us eternal life in Heaven with Him!

God is our Jehovah Jireh, our Provider. In Christ we will truly find all we need to satisfy every area of our lives here on earth and for all of eternity!

You Can Count On God’s Word

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This past week we looked at the part of the prayer in Nehemiah 9:13 that talks about how God gave His people His commands, laws, and regulations that were “good and just and right”.

There were three things God showed us from that verse and 2 Timothy 3:16 that helped us see why His Word is something upon which we can depend. I’d like to share with you the third one in this Faith Notes. If you’d like to hear the entire podcast, click on the link below and go to the “media” tab. You can also download our App on your smart phone by going to your App Store and searching “connect at faith” and stay on top of all the events and activities of Faith Assembly.

The third reason we can depend upon God’s Word is the EFFECT.

2 Timothy 3:16 says,, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”

What does all of this teaching and rebuking and correcting and training produce?

Righteousness.

What is righteousness? Defined, it means the state of moral perfection that God requires in order for us to see Him.

So, based on that definition, how many are in our own strength and ability righteous?

Just as I thought. None of us.

Well, if that’s the case we are all in a big heap of trouble. None of us will ever get to see God! But wait! There’s a solution!

The Bible says Jesus took our unrighteousness and became sin for us that we might become His righteousness. How can that be? Because Jesus was, and is, perfect, sinless, “morally pure”. He is righteous.

2 Corinthians 5:21, “God made Him who had no sin (was morally pure/righteous) to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”

In other words, our righteousness is not our own, but CHRIST in us is our hope of glory. CHRIST in us is our righteousness.

Coming back to our verse in 2 Timothy, the result of God’s Word teaching us, rebuking us, correcting us, and training us, is that we might be more like Christ.

Embracing God’s Word as true and infallible, and allowing it to work in us, challenges the flesh, calls out the rebellion, and confronts the “go for it!” attitude in our heart.

God’s Word demands a response. It doesn’t beat around the bush. It isn’t watered down. It’s not vague. It’s clear, it precise (cuts like a knife to the none and marrow), and it calls us to a higher place than where any of us are today, no matter how far along and advanced you may think you are in your journey.

God’s Word constantly says to us in no uncertain terms, “Choose you this day who you will serve.”

The easy 3×5 card beckons. But listen to what a Jesus warned about that. Matthew 7:13-14, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

The people in Nehemiah’s day reflected with gratitude on God’s giving His Word to them. We must do the same by allowing His Word to transform our lives into the image of Christ.

Who is God to me? He is my Father God who has given me His Word, and His Word can be trusted because of It’s AUTHOR, because of It’s CONTENT, and because of It’s EFFECT.

But only if we allow It to.

The Pillar

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Who is God?

That’s what we’ve been asking the last couple of weeks. And the answer isn’t, “He created everything”, or “He’s omnipotent” or any other such general, overarching descriptive, as true as those statements may be.

What we want to know is, “Who is God…to me?” What is it of this wonderful and awesome Creator & Being that I can grab hold of and make personal to my life, my situations, my destiny? Who is God…to me?

As we look at Nehemiah, we come to verse 12 of Chapter 9 and read the part of the prayer where the people reflected on God’s showing up in a grand, yet very personal way. It says, “By day You led them with a pillar of cloud, and by night with a pillar of fire to give them light on the way they were to take.”

There are 4 very personal things we can take from this and apply to our lives in answering “Who is God…to me?”

I’d like to share with you just the first one in this Faith Notes, and that is “He is the God who guides us”.

Psalm 37:23-24 says, “The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in Him. Though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with His hand.”

Listen to this excerpt from a book called, “Silent Giants” –
“Two days after arriving, I departed St. John’s. A low overcast covered the city. As I climbed through the clouds, the ground and sky dissolved into a white glow. All sense of motion, of up and down, were lost. My senses told me I am suspended in an immense milk bottle.

My world shrinks to the single square foot of the control panel as I fly by instruments. The artificial horizon confirms my wings are level. The airspeed indicator is steady at 100 miles per hour. The altimeter shows I have reached 1,000 feet and am climbing. Good.

I pay particularly close attention to the artificial horizon in the middle of the panel. Inside, a tiny gyroscope spins four hundred revolutions a second. Just as a child’s toy gyroscope returns to its original position when nudged, the gyroscope inside this instrument never moves regardless of what the plane around it does. Attached to the gyroscope is the instrument’s face, a symbolic representation of the invisible horizon outside the windows.

As I start a climbing turn to the left, the instrument horizon falls away and drops to the right, just as the real horizon is doing somewhere outside. This tiny instrument has given me a three-inch window into the world outside the clouds.

As I level the wings, my body says the gyroscope is wrong. That it has somehow malfunctioned. I am not level, I am diving to the right. The physical sensation is almost overwhelming. But I believe the instrument, which says all is well. This is vertigo and almost every pilot experiences it at some time.

No pilot can fly by the “seat of the pants” in clouds. Here, your normal senses of feel and balance are useless—and deadly—if believed. You must fly the instruments, not what you feel.”

Our emotional and mental vertigo will tell us that we need to make a correction, adjust course, surely the gyroscope of God’s Word, which never changes and is never impacted by outside circumstances, is off somehow.

But even when things don’t make sense, even when it doesn’t feel right, even when all around us seems like a giant white milk bottle and we’re right in the middle of it, we must rely on the instrument of God’s Word, on the gauge of the Holy Spirit telling us to hold steady, that all is well. Instead of flying by the seat of our pants and taking matters into our own hands which leads to a deadly outcome, we put our faith in God who will lead us along the path of life He has for us, without fail, and with pinpoint accuracy.

We must “fly the instruments”.

If you’d like to hear the rest of this message entitled “The Pillar”, click on the link below and go to the media tab. There you’ll find This and all the messages from Faith by which to be strengthened.

Have a blessed week in Christ and remember to “fly the instruments”. His Word will never fail to guide you with pinpoint accuracy all the days of your life.

Who Is God? Nehemiah 9:9

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I want to share with you an excerpt from this past Sunday’s message, “Who Is God?” We’re looking at the prayer the Isrealites prayed to God in Nehemiah Chapter 9, the longest recorded prayer in the Bible, as they reflect on the nature and character of God. There is an ebb and flow to the history recorded in this prayer. It documents God’s steady and continual faithfulness in spite of the people’s vacillating commitment to God.

As part of my message, I made the following suggestion that I’d like to pass on to you –

“Too often we ask God why. “Why am I going through this? What am I struggling? Why am I lonely? Why am I sick? Why am I unhappy? Why?”
But maybe we shouldn’t ask “why”, but “what”, as in, “What are you trying to show me, Lord, about myself? What are You trying to show me, Lord, about You?” “What do You want me to learn from this?” “What area of my life is this revealing that is not yielded to You, not crucified to You, not submitted to You?” “What can I do in this to trust You more?” “What can I do in this to be more like Christ, to allow His Spirit to govern me and not my flesh?”

Suddenly, our struggles take on a different light, don’t they? Think about it. They go from being a victim who is absorbed in self pity and can’t see the forest for the trees to being someone who sees the spiritual significance in things, where we can grow and learn and mature and be victorious and be more like Christ and through our struggles die more to the flesh and live more in the Spirit.

So don’t ask “why”, but “what”. It’ll change everything in how you look at struggles. And be ready to be blown away by the perspective shift it brings when the Holy Spirit reveals the powerful truths He’ll reveal.”

If you’d like to hear the entirety of this message, click on the link below. The podcast can be quickly and easily downloaded. Or, go to your App Store and search for “Connect At Faith”. You’ll see our Faith logo. Download the App and stay connected to all that is going on at Faith, including hearing the podcasts, getting daily encouraging scriptures, and reading past Faith Notes.

Ask this week “what” When facing a struggle. See what happens.