2020: A Year of Celebration!

Image Bearers Steward their Relationship with Jesus!

(John 21:15-22; Luke 22:31-34 & Romans 12:1-8)

Memorial Day Weekend

What is most important to you?

Let’s take a moment to ask God to tell each of us the truth. I invite you to a conversation with Jesus that God is initiating through me to you. As we go to prayer right now, with each person entering into a space of grace, hear Jesus ask you: “Do you love Me more than these?” 

Time of Silence

From John 21:15-22, listen to a dramatic exchange between Peter and Jesus with Jesus starting the conversation with Peter the same way God just started the conversation with each of us:

So when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?”

[Peter] said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.”

[Jesus] said to [Peter], “Tend My lambs.” [Jesus] said to him again a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?”

[Peter] said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.”

[Jesus] said to [Peter], “Shepherd My sheep.” [Jesus] said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?”

Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?” And [Peter] said to [Jesus], “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.”

Jesus said to him, “Tend My sheep. Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to gird yourself and walk wherever you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do not wish to go.”

Now this He said, signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He said to him, “Follow Me!”

We usually cut this story short, in verse 17 with Jesus’ third “tend my sheep” and talk about how Jesus is forgiving Peter for his three denials after his boastful declaration that he would never forsake Jesus. From Luke 22:31-34, we hear this earlier exchange between Jesus and Peter:

“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”

But [Peter] said to Him, “Lord, with You I am ready to go both to prison and to death!”

And [Jesus] said, “I say to you, Peter, the rooster will not crow today until you have denied three times that you know Me.”

While this conversation and Peter’s actions are the context for the exchange between the resurrected Jesus and the demoralized and discouraged Peter in John 21, we must keep reading to the end, verse 22.

“If I want [John] to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me!”

Jesus doesn’t give you a job to do or a comparison to make with someone else’s life, but a relationship to have with Him!

This is what is first and foremost in the heart of God for all of His Children. So, I say to you, repent and return to your first love. Steward your relationship with God as your most precious possession and most important choice! Everything else flows out of what is on the throne of you heart. What is most important to you?

“Tend My Sheep” and forget that Jesus’ first and last words to all His disciples are “Follow Me” (Mark 1:17 & John 21:22).

Christians, especially those diligent serious ones, became like Martha—worried and bothered about so many things! And they forsake the one thing that actually makes them a Christian—though they do plenty in the name of Jesus, are the spending time seeking the face of Jesus?

“Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”

I have heard people, church goers and great volunteers, even comment that if we were all like Mary then who would get the work done… My answer is: God through us instead of us for Him. I wonder if we’ve tried to co-opt the Christian life that is for a Kingdom not of this world into making our lives work out better for us in the here and now.

We are worried and bothered about so many things because we have forgotten that we are human beings, not human doings! Our primary job is to follow Jesus by getting in His yoke and learning from Him how to be “gentle and humble heart”, then we no longer be “weary and heavy-burdened” by all that presses upon us, but we will find “rest for our souls” in the finished work of Jesus, the sovereign grace of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, today, I am calling you to back to the biblical priority of your life as Image Bearers of God—your relationship with God through the only mediator Jesus Christ.

Hear this invitation from Paul’s words in Romans 12:1-8.

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”

Every member of God’s Family is invited to be absolutely dependent on God (“a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God”). This is the only way for His body—the Church—to function under one rightful authority—the headship of Jesus Christ (emphasized in 1 Corinthians 12:12-30).

This is a posture of your heart and a priority of your life. As Pastor Andrew Murray wrote in his 1897 classic Absolute Surrender,

Oh, become nothing in deep reality, and, as a worker, study only one thing—to become poorer and lower and more helpless, that Christ may work all in you. Workers, here is your first lesson: learn to be nothing, learn to be helpless. The  man who has got something is not absolutely dependent; but the man who has got nothing is absolutely dependent. Absolute dependence upon God is the secret of all power in work. The branch has nothing but what it gets from the vine, and you and I can have nothing but what we get from Jesus.[1] 

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Paul calls us to eliminate false worship and competing distractions from your life (seeing messages #2 & #5). Apart from this, members of God’s Family are chasing after the desires of their own hearts, which God wants to give you, but only after you seek Him first (Matthew 6:33).

It’s like I often teach you, your relationships (marriage, family, etc.) are for your holiness before your happiness, your sanctification before your satisfaction, your godliness before your goals. If you try to use people to make yourself happy you will neither be holy nor happy, but if you seek first godliness in your relationships, you will find you are both happy and holy.

Idolatry with people, work, hobbies, etc. is a subtle shift. You can enjoy the best this world has to offer, God has created it for us to enjoy, but let us not be like those in Romans 1:25-32:

For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.

Jesus has established it that the world will know those who are following Him and Him alone. Those who follow Jesus will walk in oneness with Him, just like Jesus walked in oneness with His Father (John 17:11 & 22). Paul knew this and called every follower of Jesus to respond to the grace of God. From Romans 12:3-8,

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

We are absolutely dependent on God and mutually dependent on one another as fellow members! Humbly seeing oneself by the measure of faith given to us by God allows for God’s Family to be at its best and most reflective of God’s glory. We are the one body of Christ being built up in love for the glory of God (Ephesians 4:11-16). This is the work of the Holy Spirit—the faith and the gifts all coming together so that we are seen as one mature body with Jesus Christ as our head.

When the world sees you, they see what you reflect and what you reflect is your god. That’s the way God designed you as His Image Bearer. What are you reflecting? That’s what tells you who or what your god is! And your god is always what is most important to you.

That’s why it is important to realize that Jesus’ conversation with Peter ends with these words, because they are the words that the Gospel of John ends for every believer: “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me!”

Listen to the Message here:

To watch the video click HERE

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Andrew Murray, Absolute Surrender, 76.

Image Bearers Steward the Body of Christ!

Key Verses:  Romans 8:14-16 & Ephesians 4:11-16)

Written and delivered by Pastor Jerry Ingalls to the First Baptist Church of New Castle, Indiana.

I am praying for our congregation. We are God’s family because He has adopted us as His children. The heart of God is for His children to be fully alive in Christ and reflecting His love, care, and stewardship of the world so that the world can see His glory in and through His family. Because God uses all things for His glory and the good of those who love Him and are called according to His glory, God is using this time to bring about a great awakening in His Family. He wants us to see ourselves the way God sees us: as His dearly beloved children!

Last week we learned that Image Bearers of God steward their families to the glory of God! It always starts at home—your family is your first ministry because the family is God’s building block of not only the church, but of the New Heaven and New Earth that we are invited to proclaim with our love, care, and stewardship of creation, beginning around our kitchen tables. God reminded us of His plan and where and with whom it starts.

I share that with you again because while God has ordained the family as the place where biblical discipline and instruction primarily happens (Deuteronomy 6:4-9 & Ephesians 6:1-4), the church as God’s adoptive family has an essential part to play in keeping family members on plan for their lives. We are each easily distracted. As we have talked about numerous times recently, the reason for our gathering is found in Hebrews 10:23-25,

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

Many churches have had to relearn this during the COVID-19 pandemic because we have made the Sunday gathering the main event of the church instead of the supporting event of the people of God being the Church of Jesus Christ. We forgot that we are the Temple of the Holy Spirit and made our buildings into holy places, though they are made of brick and mortar and we are made in the Image of God. We forgot that Jesus tore the veil and filled us with His Holy Spirit, making us the holy of holies of God’s presence in the world. Listen to this amazing quote that summarizes our sacred status as taught in the New Testament,

We don’t need a tabernacle or temple to mark sacred space. Our bodies are sacred space. Paul calls our earthly bodies a “tent” (2 Cor. 5:4) because we are indwelt by the same divine presence that filled the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle and the temple (Rom. 8:9–11). Eventually our body, the earthly home of our spirit, will die, only to be replaced by a “house not made with hands” (2 Cor. 5:1–3), a heavenly dwelling—the new Eden, heaven returned to earth (Rev. 22:1–3). Since God indwells believers today through his Spirit, each church​—​each gathering of believers​—​is holy ground. This is why Paul, when sadly telling the Corinthians to expel an unrepentant Christian who was living in sin, instructed them to “deliver this man to Satan” (1 Cor. 5:5). The church was holy ground. Outside the fellowship of believers was the domain of Satan. That was where sin and its self-destruction belonged. It’s time we looked at ourselves through supernatural eyes. You are a child of God, fit for sacred space, not because of what you do or don’t do, but because you are in Christ, adopted by God (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:5). You’ve been extracted from the realm of darkness and “transferred … to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Col. 1:13). We must never, not for a moment, forget who we are in Christ—and what that means to the world.”[1] [emphasis added]

The Church, before we are anything, we are the adopted family of God—we are sons and daughters of God. We are the body of Christ. And if you ask families with adopted children, they will wholeheartedly tell you that “these are my children.” Listen to Paul describe us in Romans 8:14-16,

For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.

You see—we are children of God called to mature in Christ to reflect the glory of God in how we love, care, and steward what God has entrusted to us (our talents). For us to live this way, we must see ourselves this way.

Listen to a historical example of what happens when the family of God forgets who they are or gets distracted from doing the work of God’s agents.

Decades before the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana of Wales occurred, the country had experienced a tremendous spiritual revival in 1904. Wales soon became a launching pad for missionaries who preached to every land of the globe. One missionary ended up in Argentina where he converted a young boy named Luis Palau, who became known as the “Billy Graham” of Latin America. Mr. Palau was so inspired by the spiritual outreach from Wales that he decided to visit the country in the early 1970s. He was saddened by what he found. Less than [“one half of one percent”] of the Wales population faithfully attended church services. The divorce rate had jumped dramatically to an all-time high. The police force now had to take their weapons with them as crime had increased. The sport rugby was now the national religion with families driving miles to faithfully attend tournaments while skipping out on the worship of God. Disappointed by what he saw, Mr. Palau created a documentary called “God Has No Grandchildren”.[2]

Howard Dayton concluded about Luis Palau’s documentary, “In Wales, despite tremendous spiritual vitality, the impact of Christianity had all but disappeared in 70 years. Parents had failed to pass their faith to their children. Each generation is responsible for passing on to its children the gospel and the truths of Scripture.”

What a sobering story from recent church history. The truth is that God has no grandchildren, but every generation must rise up and take on the mantle of spiritual leadership for the sake of the next generation. Great awakening need to happen in every generation because society can shift that quickly, within 70 years! We have seen the same in the United States of America—from the WWII generation massively building the church in America upon their return from the war and into the 1950s as the Baby Boomers were born and raised, and then passed it on to the third and fourth generations (Generation X and the Millennials), and here we are with churches closing all around communities in our country and organizations like Barna Research Group doing massive research to understand the state of the church in 2020, literally 70 years later.[3]

What can American churches learn from the historical lesson of the 70-year spiritual decline of Wales?

Here is a learning point: The FAMILY OF GOD exists to empower and equip OTHER FAMILY MEMBERS to transform the world by being THE FAMILY OF GOD on mission for OUR FATHER as HIS ADOPTED CHILDREN. We are not an institution or civic organization—we are God’s Plan A because we are His family. We are agents of God’s Kingdom—on a rescue mission to seek and to save that which is lost (Luke 19:10). Not to bring them into conformity with us, but with Christ! As someone who was not raised in the subculture of the church, but was chosen by God to receive faith while serving in the US Army, here is what I know many a church goer needs to learn and is often blind to because of their own church experience: The church does not exist to meet the needs of its members, but to empower and equip the members to transform the world by being God’s restored Image Bearers, the stewards of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Have we simply lost focus and are distracted, or have we forgotten who we are and what we are supposed to be doing? It’s one or the other, because the historical witness of Wales is right here staring at us in America.

Maybe the problem is that we are having a hard time accepting one another as real brothers and real sisters. We have forgotten Jesus’s words from Matthew 12:50, “For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (cf. Luke 8:21).

The church is a multigenerational family built on individual members and their families. The purpose of the church is to respond to the plan of God in such a way that we reflect God as one united family with God as our adopting Father. Paul visualizes this united family using body imagery as all of us being one mature body (“man”), as opposed to many independent children. Listen to Paul’s teaching in Ephesians 4:11-16,

And he gave the [leaders of the church] to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ [italics added], so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Every multigenerational family has infants, toddlers, pre-teens, teenagers, twenty somethings, middle agers, seniors. Everyone has room to grow, and we all don’t need to be in the same place growth-wise … but we DO need to be growing regardless of our age because in the Kingdom of God your church experience and your age don’t determine maturity in Christ. We are to never stop equipping our fellow family members on who they are as adopted sons and daughters, and how they are to be as a member of God’s adopted family.

This is one of the reasons why we see the church dying in America, following the same death cycle as the church in Wales: we forgot that the family is only as healthy as the individual members. We sold our family birthright for larger and more efficient organizations and we hired professionals to the do the work for us, all in the name of Jesus, but we forgot who we are in Jesus along the way and we started managing what we had built instead of stewarding the gospel He gave us to share with the world God created.

What a severe mercy for God to use this time to remind us that He is not about our buildings, our programs, and our notability. It is a sad thing to watch pastors and churches vying for visibility in today’s marketplace-driven culture and lose favor with God. May Jesus once again be preeminent in the church! May we cast down our idols and return to God. God is bringing revival to His people—to awaken us for His glory! The church in America has been consumed by the economic-driven cultural progress of the second half of the 20^th century. Now, we look and act more like a corporation with stake holders than a movement of disciples united on mission for Jesus. Why do we still wonder why the surrounding culture is not attracted nor interested in joining us?[4]

As Jesus said in Matthew 5:13,

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.”

We must remember, once again, that revival of the members of the family is what makes the family healthy and effective. This happens at a personal and household level and those individual members who make up families living in neighborhoods are the ones who change their neighborhoods and then together, those neighborhoods transform communities… cities… states… nations… to the ends of the earth! This is the plan of God and you are Plan A because you are a son or daughter of God!

The COVID-19 pandemic has become an opportunity for the revival of the members of the church; or it is the death knell for many a church that has lost its way over the last 70 years in America.

Now therefore fear the LORD and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

Listen to the Message here:

To watch the video click HERE

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Michael Heiser, Supernatural: What the Bible Teaches about the Unseen World—And Why It Matters (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015), 83-85.

[2] I first learned of this story from Howard Dayton, but I grabbed a synopsis of it from a newspaper article: https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/porter/portage/does-god-have-grandchildren-in-your-family/article_8cf164a9-0399-5e1f-87d5-a10cc2205a89.html. Accessed May 11, 2020. Dayton’s quote, immediately following, is from the Stewardship Study Bible.

[3] A friend of mine reminded me of this famous Ronald Reagan quote, which speaks to the geopolitical realm of life, but the principle is strikingly the same. “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

[4] A friend wrote to me, “Yes. We may no longer be selling indulgences for absolution of sin on the front steps of the church, but there are too many ways the church in America as a whole tends to run like a Ponzi scheme. “Put in this much effort/money/time, and then we’ll start to take care of you.” No one wants to be part of that.”

2020: A Year of Celebration!

Image Bearers Steward Family to Reflect God’s Glory!

Key Verses:  Deuteronomy 6:4-9; Genesis 12:1-3; and Ephesians 5:25—6:4)

Written and delivered by Pastor Jerry Ingalls from the building of the First Baptist Church of New Castle, Indiana through an on-line service to the Church of Jesus Christ.

The family is the primary small group of the church. The Plan of God begins in the home and then goes with us wherever we go. The mission of God has always started in the household. No matter your current life season or what your household looks like, please know that this message is for each of us as restored Image Bearers of God. The ultimate purpose of our lives is not determined by how any of us feel about our own lives—we are here to reflect God’s glory by loving, caring, and stewarding for His creation as agents of God’s Kingdom!

Listen to one of the oldest books in the Bible. The fifth book of Moses, Deuteronomy 6:4-9,

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

The Word of God is the primer by which we teach children to read and write and that which we hide in our hearts so that we do not sin against God. How can households with children start integrating Bible memory work, reading from the scriptures, cursive writing with the Psalms? How can we work a biblical worldview into how we search on Google and read news stories and engage social media? You don’t need kids to do this… This is an opportunity for each of us.

As a congregation, we invite people to be in groups together for Bible study and fellowship, but those were never meant to substitute God’s original design for spiritual growth as a priority of the home. God’s plan for your holiness, maturity in Christ, and social needs was intentionally designed and instructed for your family. The family is God’s first small group, but when we don’t have that, what a blessing it is that there are small groups for singles, widows and widowers, and people who do not experience spiritual unity in their family units.

That is God’s grace by being a part of a congregation, because whether at home or in an congregational small group, God’s purpose for your home or small group is the same.

How is your small group helping you mature in Christ? How is your home prioritizing spiritual growth?

We were designed to live in community, in relationship, because God has always and will always exist in perfect community within Himself—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.[1] There never was a time that God was or will be lonely. He is perfect within Himself. God didn’t create humanity because He was lonely or somehow incomplete without us. God created His creation out of His great love and capacity to love, to delight in us and for us to delight in Him, to know and to be known.

Humans are designed and commanded to steward the world that God created. We are to reflect His Image and to respond to His plan by loving, caring for, and stewarding God’s creation. That important job began with Adam and Eve, of course, but we can’t forget that the family has been, from the very beginning, God’s primary plan! The church came much later and when it did come, it did not replace the family; rather, it brought families together with a common vision of the resurrection from the dead and the coming of Jesus Christ to make all things new—to cultivate the soil of this dying world and to plant seeds in human hearts for that which is to come.

It was through the family that God designed us to bless all the families of the earth! Listen to Genesis 12:3c in God’s great commission to Abraham and Sarah,

“And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

Families gather together and make communities and then communities coalesce together to make societies. The larger the group, the more diverse and difficult it gets, but at the heart of every society is the family unit and at the heart of the family is the need for spiritual leadership.

We are local congregations made up of family units, whether it is one individual or a five-generation group of people. And local congregations together make up the larger Church, who is called by God to look like Jesus—the body of Christ! As Paul says in Romans 12:5, “so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”

Local churches are only as healthy as the individuals and families who covenant together to be a congregation. The Church is only as healthy as the congregations of each community, county, state, nation, and world. We are the only Jesus the world sees…

If your family is a church, how healthy are your members? And what do they think about you as a person who is responsible for the spiritual growth of the other family members? How do you and your family affect the health of our congregation? What does the world see through us?

Image Bearers are called to steward their own families first because that is where we are transformed into Christ’s image the most. Guess who God is using to cause you to be more gentle and humble, kind and generous, loving and patient? Yes, your parents or your children, your aunts and uncles, your cousins, nieces and nephews, your grandparents…your spouse!

As Paul said in Romans 8:29,

“For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren.”

The family is where that begins and continues. The family only grows up as each family member matures. So if a parent never matures, but remains focused on themselves (the epitome of immaturity), they are hindering their child’s ability to mature into adulthood. An easy example is when you watch a parent deal with their child’s temper tantrum at a restaurant. We expect that,  but it is an altogether different matter to watch a parent throw a temper tantrum at a basketball game and everyone, but them, knows it and is looking around for the grandparents (the parent’s parents) to bring the adult child back into conformity with the family expectations of attitudes and behaviors. Ultimately, this is why we have police and the department of corrections. When this can’t be done in families, local churches and community organizations such as schools, society has created mechanisms to deal with it—the police and department of corrections.

When I always get my way, I’m not forced to grow or change or sacrifice or be obedient or anything. In fact, it is dangerous for any of us to always get our way! When I have to put someone before me by holding my tongue or suspending my opinions, I have to grow in my Christlikeness. Whether it is my immediate family, my extended family, or my church family, those people are sanding off my rough spots, removing the selfishness of my heart, breaking my pride and arrogance, if I choose to let them. I can, if I want to, pull myself out of God’s plan for my life, but it is usually to my detriment personally and to the detriment of the family and church. Christians are formed in the crucible of relationships—at home and at church! Don’t bail before the blessing!

Are you maturing because you are willing to remain as a member of a family or church?  

The church is a multigenerational family built on individual members and their families. The purpose of the Church is to respond to the plan of God in such as way that we reflect God as one mature body and not act like children. This is what Paul is teaching us in Ephesians 4:11-16,

And he gave the [leaders of the church] to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love [italics added].

We are to speak the truth in love! Two sides of the same coin—never to be separated. But our culture has lost this skill and unfortunately with it so have many in our families and churches.

Church membership has fallen into the same dysfunctionality as the modern family—we have become deceived that church and family are about our personal happiness and fulfillment, to meet our needs. What a dangerous situation it is when your personal well-being is dependent on another person always doing what you want them to do—making you happy and feeling self-fulfilled. That is not real family, nor biblical church, that is self-centered consumerism.

When you read about developmental lifecycles of the human, infants and toddlers are cute as a button, which keeps us from eating our own, because they are also some of the most narcissistic and manipulative human beings you will ever meet. They use their smiles, giggles, and those big beautiful eyes to get exactly what they want out of us, their parents and grandparents. And we love to give it all to them, until we don’t! Then, when cute doesn’t work, hang on to your sanity because here comes their sin nature and we call it the “terrible twos”.

We cannot be a church full of disgruntled toddlers and expect to function well. The terrible twos is supposed to be a phase, not a lifestyle choice! Maybe that’s a prophetic word for America…

Family is designed by God for His glory! Before your family is about your satisfaction, it is about your sanctification. Before it is about your happiness it is about your holiness. God is forming you into His image and He will use members of your family and church to do so.

Learning how to serve in love starts at home. Listen to this passage from 1 Timothy 5:1-8,

Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity. Honor widows who are truly widows. But if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God. She who is truly a widow, left all alone, has set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day, but she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives. Command these things as well, so that they may be without reproach. But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

Powerful! To not steward your family is to deny your faith and to be worse than an unbeliever.

In conclusion, listen to the famous household scripture from Ephesians 5:25-6:4,

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), ‘that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.’ Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.[2]

Are you serving your family in love? Is your home the primary place of your spiritual growth or have you abdicated your responsibilities to someone else in order to have time to pursue other plans for your life?

Trust me when I tell you, a couple hours a week of church activities will never get you the results you are looking for, for yourself, your kids or grandkids. We are not enough to get anyone where they need to be, so here is the way Jesus has invited you to become what God commands: you are invited to make Him the center of your life: your ambition, your personal identity, and all your planning—family & finances, career and retirement. Because He owns everything that you are called to steward!

I’m calling you to respond to God’s plan! How will you respond?

Image Bearers of God steward their families to the glory of God! It always starts at home—your family is your first ministry because the family is God’s building block of not only the church, but of the New Heaven and New Earth that we are invited to proclaim with our love, care, and stewardship of creation, beginning around our kitchen tables. That can be in the season or circumstance of it being just you and Jesus over a cup of coffee and a bran muffin, or it can be the season of chaos where the cereal is flying and the dog is barking, but that is where God designed it to begin.

There is always grace for today and hope for tomorrow. So no matter what has happened in your life and in your family, today is the day of salvation. Start with what you do have and don’t focus on the past. Be a good household manager of what you do have for the glory of God!

Listen to the Message here:

To watch the video click HERE

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In Genesis 2:20-25, there is something in the Garden of Eden that was incomplete. We were made in the Image of God (Gen 1:27), but not yet able to experience community as God does within the Trinity.

[2] This is so important to God that He makes our success at this as a requirement to be a leader in His Church (1 Timothy 3:1-5).

2020: A Year of Celebration!

Stewarding the Image of God!

Key Verses:  Matthew 25:14-30

At the heart of so much anxiety and unhappiness is comparison. Comparing oneself with what others have—their abilities, their resources or possessions, their jobs or service to the community… Comparison can just as easily lead to a false sense of accomplishment and the sin of pride (that I am better than someone else by whatever measurement you choose to make), just like comparison can lead to a loss of you living up to your God-given potential because of disappointment and anxiety.

Let me be direct with you: to compare yourself to another person is to miss the whole point! It is a distraction from the real purpose of your life, which is to be an Image Bearer of God.

Image Bearers of God were not meant to be a regular mirror, like someone would use when they are combing their hair, reflecting their own image back to them. We are not designed to reflect ourselves. That would lead to distraction and destruction, which we see all around us because that’s the human bent, called sin. A similar danger is how sometimes people reflect the people they associate, the people that influence their character. Trying to be like someone else is not being God’s Image Bearers… Remember, we reflect the god we serve.

Last week, we learned that as Image Bearers we are like angled or rounded mirrors. God has put humans into His Creation as an angled mirror so that He can reflect His love and care and stewardship of the world through us humans and get this, so that the rest of the creation can see God’s glory through us humans and praise God. We reflect God and His glory through our love, care, and stewardship of the world! Our lives point to the God who created us and then rescued us (freed us!) through Jesus Christ!

It was God’s plan to put humans in the world as His Image Bearers. We distorted His Image through sin! Jesus Christ came to restore us as His image bearers through forgiveness of sin, and to call us into mission with Him as agents of God’s Kingdom. Our response is to reflect God’s love, care, and stewardship of the world! The church is God’s Plan A for putting His glory on display through our love and good works, as restored Image Bearers. That leads us to the big point in today’s teaching: We are not owners of our lives, we are stewards! We are stewards of the Image of God! We reflect God to people when we steward His image in us…

Our scripture lesson for this week is found in Matthew 25:14-30 and it is famously called, “The Parable of the Talents.” Please listen to Jesus teach about the kingdom of Heaven in Matthew 25:14-30,

For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money. Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here, I have made five talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here, I have made two talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

A primary lesson of Jesus’ Parable of the Talents is that we are not owners of our lives, but stewards—household managers of what God has given us! You may have a five-talent life, two-talent life or a one-talent life, but that is not the point, so don’t it make it the point! 

The point is to use the life God has given you for His glory! That’s what He designed you to do from the beginning! So, don’t try to own your own life for yourself because that goes against God’s design for your life. We are stewards of the life that God has given us, not owners! As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6;19-20, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”

God has given us “talents” and primarily, that points to the entirety of our lives as Image Bearers of God. Yes, there are specific ways He has called each of us uniquely to reflect Him, like the moon reflects the sun, but the point isn’t whether you are a new moon or a full moon or somewhere in between. What matters is that you were designed to reflect the Son and not reflect yourself.

The moon can work it’s entire life on figuring out how to make itself the best moon it can be, but it’s all vanity if it inhibits its created design to reflect the sun![1] As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:41, “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.” The point of every talent you have is how you develop and use it to glorify God. That’s the plan!

God created humans to uniquely be His Image Bearers to reflect His glory to this created realm (Genesis 1:1) through our love, care, and stewardship of it as His people. God gave us a sacred status as humans from the very beginning. Listen to Genesis 1:27-30,

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.

This is who we are; being an Image Bearer is about your status with God and having your identity in Him. It’s not about what we can or cannot specifically do, but what we have been created to do from the beginning.  

The Image of God is not about any capabilities we have, at all, because it is from the moment of our conception that each of us is an Image Bearer of God! God formed us from the dirt and then He breathed His breath into us and declared us His image. If you remember from last’s week sermon, that is why God forbade humanity from making any other image of God (called idols), because He has already given the world His image—in humans!

We are the Image Bearers—we are the ones who are called to reflect God’s love, care, and stewardship to His creation so that His creation would then see God’s glory!

“Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life.”

How are you stewarding what God has entrusted to you? How are you reflecting the light of the Son?

We are to shine like the moon shines at night. The moon does not compare itself with others, it simply reflects the light and glory of the sun as it was designed to—it doesn’t compare itself to Saturn’s 82 moons, feel socially distanced because earth only has 1 moon, or desire to be a star instead of a moon. It doesn’t get distracted by seasons—new moon to full moon. Nor does it focus on what has been or what will be—it simply reflects the light of the sun! And the light from the sun is so perfectly assimilated with the “face” of the moon that the two are inseparable in the mind’s eye. This is our potential as God’s Image Bearers—to reflect God’s glory so that the light of the Son is so perfectly assimilated with our lives that the two are inseparable to people.

Like with Jesus. Listen to Jesus’s prayer to His Father for us, His disciples, in John 17:22-26,

The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

It’s our being that matters, but our doings are what demonstrate our being! You are redeemed and restored to be an Image Bearer and as an Image Bearer to make HIM known.

We are not defined by the temporary things of this life, but we are to steward them well to shine God’s light. As evangelical theologian Wayne Grudem states, “When we are responsible stewards, whether taking care of our toys at the age of four or managing the entire factory at the age of forty, if we do this work ‘as unto the Lord,’ God looks at our imitations of his sovereignty and his other attributes, and he is pleased. In this way we are his image-bearers, people who are like God and who represent God on the earth.”

We are to steward all that we have been given to reflect His glory:

Stewardship is the call of our lives, now and always, to become like God and represent God on the earth in order to fulfill His original mandate to us from Genesis. That is the foundation of Jesus’ Great Commission to His restored Image Bearers in Mark 16:15, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.” What is the gospel? It is the Good News that the Son has come to make all things right in God’s creation and to bring God’s children Home to the Father. He has made the way and He is the way! And we are now invited to respond to the plan of God by becoming a part of the rescue effort.

Seize the moment and steward the gift of your life well by growing in your relationship with Jesus! Learn from Him how to be generous with what God has given you. Don’t compare yourself to others, but rather invest what you have into others. Christians steward their talents to rescue people and bring them Home to the Father through our love, care, and stewardship of the gospel!

The world teaches us to use people to get things, but we are called by God to steward all that we have to win people. We are invited to invest all that we have been given and watch the multiplication happen… along with our own peace and happiness, which are byproducts of right stewardship.

What are you doing with the gifts God has given you?

We are not owners of our lives, we are stewards! We are stewards of the Image of God for the glory of God!

Listen to the Message here:

To watch the video click HERE

FOOTNOTES:

[1] As one early reader reflected to me, “Such an interesting thought. I think many Christ followers, probably myself included, will often indulge in self-improvement and self-preservation measures and believe that becoming a “better” person is the next step in following closer to Jesus. But, in reality, unless that self-improvement is focused on and prompted by Holy Spirit transformation, the efforts may be more motivated by comparison and pride, as you mentioned at the beginning of the message.

2020: A Year of Celebration!

Freed to Be Agents of God!

Key Verses:  John 8:31-39

We are in the second message of a new seven-sermon series called, “Responding to the PLAN of God!”

When I was growing up there was a 1980 musical comedy that became a classic in our household. It was called “The Blues Brothers” and there is a famous one-liner in that movie, “I’m on a mission from God!” I’m pretty sure that was my first introduction to God’s calling… 40 years later, all kidding aside, I can say, “I’m on a mission from God!” That is no longer a one-liner from an 80s movie, it is the truth of my life, my identity.

I have been freed by Jesus Christ to be an agent of God! That is the title of today’s sermon: “Freed to be Agents of God!” based on John 8:31-39.

I preached the big picture of this series last Sunday, and then we premiered it again on Wednesday night. We walked through both the Old Testament and New Testament to show you the thread through God’s Word that we are made in the image of God for a purpose. Listen to a quote from last week’s teaching,

As disciples of Jesus Christ, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, you are restored as God’s Image Bearers to join God’s plan to bless the peoples of all nations, to bring them Home to the Father. You have been blessed to be a blessing! Saying that another way: We have been brought back into God’s family to help gather the rest of the family for the biggest family reunion ever! God has made a way for people to come Home because God is a good Father and His love never lets go of His children! It is important for us to know who we are as Jesus’ Church: We are restored to be the Image Bearers of God! We are sons and daughters, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s treasured possession! And to know what it is we are supposed to be all about: Blessing the people of all nations to bring them Home to the Father. To be about our Father’s business! This is our response to the Plan of God: being the Church is all about our life purposes as the representatives of God on earth to all the people. You are a restored image bearer of God! You are an ambassador for Jesus Christ!

In this lesson, I am applying this big picture through Jesus’ teaching in John 8:31-39 Here is today’s big point: I have been freed by Jesus Christ to be an agent of God!

Today’s teaching is essential to our lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. As people created to be Image Bearers, we, by design, reflect the image of the god we serve… God has established it this way, as you will see in today’s teaching. Allow me to give you an image to help you understand what it means to be an Image Bearer. We are like a rounded or angled mirror, one where you can see in both directions. God has put humans into His Creation as an angled mirror so that He can reflect His love and care and stewardship of the world through us humans and get this, so that the rest of the creation can see God’s glory through us humans and praise God. We reflect the God we serve to the world! Our lives point to the God who created us and then rescued us (freed us!) through Jesus Christ!

Listen to John 8:31-39,

So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father.” They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did.”

There are three things we must be freed from in order to reflect God as Image Bearers, as agents of God’s Kingdom: 1) Freed from slavery to sin, so that we are free to love God (restored back into relationship); 2) Freed from slavery to the world, so that we are free to love those in the world (healthy relationships); and 3) Freed from slavery to false worship (“idols/idolatry”), so that we are free to reflect God as Image Bearers, to be an agent of God’s Kingdom.

The Apostle John taught in 1 John 3:7-8, “Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.”

John teaches us what we rarely discuss when it comes to the work of the Cross—the victory over the devil that is ours in Jesus Christ. Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. Jesus came to usher in the Kingdom of Heaven—the rule of God over all the nations, all of which had gone astray to false worship to idols/false gods, which the Apostle Paul described as slavery to the “elemental things/principles of this world”, a technical term used by the Apostle Paul in a few specific texts to speak of spiritually-animated forces in the world (the koine Greek word stoicheia is in italics in the next 2 verses).

Paul said in Galatians 4:1-9,

Now I say, as long as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave although he is owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by the father. So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world [italics added]. But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God. However at that time, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things [italics added], to which you desire to be enslaved all over again?

The Law was a guardian meant to protect Israel from the corruption of powers and principalities… But now that the Spirit of God has come, we can receive adoption as sons, [we are] no longer slaves to sin, [nor need] to be guarded by the Law, but free to act as agents of God! While the Law was meant to protect us from the corruption of powers and principalities, opening the door to worshiping those powers also opens us up to their corrupting influence.

Paul emphasized this same teaching to the early churches in Colossians 2:8-10,

See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world [italics added], rather than according to Christ. For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority [including that of the elementary principles of the world that seeks to draw humanity away from reflecting God’s love of creation]…

Jesus said to the religious leaders of His day, in verse 38, “I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father [italics added].” Jesus is saying to those who are not free in Him that their father is the devil, referencing not only the devil, but also the structures and systems of evil that he animates in the world (the “elementary principles”). They were serving the wrong head and their works reflected that to the world! The works of these religious leaders were leading people astray because who you serve determines who you reflect! That is why our works are so important—they reflect (point to) who our true faith is in! We are saved by faith, and the God we put our faith in is put on display by our works! I believe that if you can understand that, then all the controversy around faith and works should fall away…

Jesus further explained His accusation in v. 38 in verses 44-45, “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me.”

In order to free people to be on mission from God, His Father, Jesus actively worked (He did many miracles) and taught with great authority against the grip of the devil on people, the one Jesus said animated the work of the Pharisees; not the Law of God itself, but the “works of the Law” which were legalistic/religious “heavy burdens” that were crushing the people and keeping them in a heavy yoke of slavery to false worship.

This spiritual worldview of the Bible is significant and runs throughout the entire story of the Bible. God created humans to be His Image Bearers to that which He created in Genesis 1:1—to reflect His glory to all of Creation through our love, care, and stewardship of it as His children. We have a sacred status as humans.

Critically, it’s not about what we can or cannot do (it’s not about any attribute we have) because it is from the moment of our conception that each of us is an Image Bearer of God! God formed us from the dirt and then He breathed His breath into us and declared us His image. Later God forbade us from making any other image in His image, because He already gave the world His image—in us, humanity! Remember the angled mirror?!?

It’s our being that matters, but our doings are what demonstrate our being! That is why these issues are so deeply intertwined and to unnecessarily separate them is to miss the whole reason why we are saved by faith alone. You are redeemed and restored to be an image bearer and as an image bearer to make HIM known to all who stand in rebellion to His rightful and sovereign rule over every aspect of His created realm!

You are freed to be agents of God!

To submit to any other authority than the authority of the God who made us in His image is to forsake our sacred birthright as Image Bearers. That is why sin is such a big deal because it is rebellion against the rightful authority of God and the bowing down to elementary principles of this world. That is why we cannot cherry pick loyalties with the world. We are the “church” and by that name Jesus gave us (the “ekklesia”), we are those who have been called out of the world and gathered together as a sacred assembly of God’s family to legislate (bind and loosen) on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 16:17-19). As Jesus says in John 17:13-18,

But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves. I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.

Jesus is praying for His followers (disciples) to carry on the mission for which He came to the world in the first place. When God sent His unique and only Son into the world to rescue us, He took on the form of that which He had created in His image—a human. John 1:9-14 explains,

There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Philippians 2:6-11 further explains of Jesus Christ’s purpose in taking on the form of His image,

Who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

False worship is the outward expression of an inward reality: slavery to the worship of idols, false gods. This is a major issue because it means we are NOT reflecting God, but lesser things. This is the issue in the big story of the Bible. In Exodus 20:1-6 the first two of the Ten Commandments express the critical importance of this to God, 

Then God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before Me. “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

This is critical to the church’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic because the greatest hindrance to our ability to work for God is when we work for a god other than the one true God! When we reflect the wrong image and give ourselves to lesser forces… The world needs God right now, not a lesser force, even if a well-intentioned one that is really trying to help alleviate suffering! The only hope is God’s presence!

John’s ever practical first letter ends with these words in 1 John 5:19-21,

We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. Little children, guard yourselves from idols.

Chapter after chapter of practical teaching on how to love God and love your neighbor ends with words about the evil one and idols. While John’s final comment (v. 21) seems out of place because it’s the first place where John overtly mentions idolatry in this letter, but actually the whole letter is about being freed from idolatry so that you can be free to love God and love people through freedom in Jesus Christ! The Old Testament makes it so clear that you become like that which you worship. For those who make or worship idols, listen to the prognosis of Psalm 115:8, “Those who make them will become like them, Everyone who trusts in them.”

But God foreknew our arrogance and self-sufficient pride, and sent His Son Jesus Christ to deal with idolatry in a way that would strike fear into the hearts of every power and principality to free humanity from its bondage to false worship! Jesus’ life and teaching should strike godly fear into every red-blooded American. Jesus said in Mark 10:21, “Looking at [the rich young man], Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, ‘One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.’”

Jesus pierced the heart of what kept this man in slavery—He had kept all of the external “works of the Law,” but he lacked this one thing: he was an idol worshipper! He had put His trust in something other than God! He was not free to love God even though He kept all visible practices—He was worshipping the security he thought money gave Him. Jesus saw through to his true heart condition and went after his false worship!

This man was in bondage as surely as he was worshipping an idol made with his own hands. As I have heard said so many times in our culture, “I’m a self-made man.” God sees the true heart condition of America!

You may be asking yourself: “Pastor, why are you teaching me this in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic? This doesn’t seem practical or very helpful to my relevant needs.”

Because God is going after the root issue to free you to reflect His image and His image alone! Because there is no true freedom when your building your life on any other rock than Jesus! And the lie that we Americans have believed, that we are secure in our 1^st world health care, our comprehensive insurance policies, money and retirements, and possessions has never been so severely exposed in my lifetime. What a severe mercy of God to expose to us our false worship as a culture, and of the church’s compromises from the mission of God!

I pray that God would bring good out of this horrible situation of the COVID-19 situation; that He would seize this moment to once again call His Church to true freedom through the narrow way of Jesus Christ—who is the Way and the Truth and the Life (John 14:6). It is only through the confession of our sin and repentance from false worship that we are free from all other gods. Then, and only then, are we truly free to love God, free to love our neighbors as ourselves, and free to be agents of God’s Kingdom!

Until you are in the yoke of Jesus Christ, you are still bound up with lesser gods and in their yoke of slavery. I cry out to you today with Paul’s words from Galatians 5:1, “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.”

I’m on a mission from God! I guess the question for each of us to answer: Which god are you serving? Because you will reflect the image of the god you serve…

Listen to the Message here:

To watch the video click HERE

2020: A Year of Celebration!

The Church is Restored Image Bearers!

Key Verses:  Matthew 16:13-19

This new seven-sermon series is focusing on the PLAN of God through His Church!

This week, I listened to a podcast where a couple of big names in church missions said that churches in America are learning a lot about themselves right now. To save you an hour of your life and some unnecessary speaker-induced depression, their bottom-line message was that the church is more than a Sunday gathering and many churches are lost without that gathering. These mission experts are saying that many American churches are having an identity crisis because we don’t know who we are or what we are all about, other than meeting for church services.

Is that true of us, the people of First Baptist Church of New Castle, Indiana? How about you? Do you know who you are and what you’re all about?

Allow me to quote one of our church leaders who shared her thoughts with me about this point:

This is important. I think our church has been working very intentionally under the leading of the Spirit to stay connected. And I am hearing a lot of encouraging stories about how our congregation is doing this well! But the point here is well-taken: While we are commanded to gather as part of the abundant life Christ promised us, it is still arguably one of the more “selfish” things we do, for a lack of a better term. Sunday morning gatherings are largely for those who already belong to the body. And they are good! But they are rarely the thing about a church that has a direct impact on sharing Christ with the community. The church can equip us through Sunday morning service, Sunday school classes, small groups, and special programs, but without our own volition to BE the church outside of that building, our gatherings could really only be termed as “self-serving.” Our content is not self-serving. The music, testimonies, and messages point to Christ, but I’m referencing our own personal heart attitude here. If we are not willing to demonstrate and apply the good news we are sharing among ourselves on Sunday morning outside the four walls of the church, then our participation in worship is self-serving.

Great insights! I have been studying and praying about what it means to be the Church of Jesus Christ. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused us to have to think differently about a lot more than just how we handle our Sunday services. We have learned that while meeting together is a big part of what the church does, it is not what it means to be the Church!

Over the last month I have said multiple times, “you can close a church building, but you cannot close the Church, because WE ARE THE CHURCH!” Near the beginning of this time of social distancing and self-quarantining due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I read to you from Matthew 16:13-19. We are going to return to that scripture now as we start this new series of messages called, “Responding to the Plan of God!” Please turn with me to Matthew 16:13-19:

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it [italics added]. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Let’s look at the context of this passage. I am enlisting the support of a fellow Bible teacher, who provides material for Logos Bible Software. Dr. Heiser teaches of this passage,

The rock which Jesus referred to in this passage was neither Peter nor Himself; it was the rock on which they were standing—the foot of Mount Hermon, the demonic headquarters of the Old Testament and the Greek world. We often presume that the phrase “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” describes a Church taking on the onslaught of evil. But the word “against” is not present in the Greek. Translating the phrase without it gives it a completely different connotation: “the gates of hell will not withstand it.” It is the Church that Jesus sees as the aggressor. He was declaring war on evil and death. Jesus would build His Church atop the gates of hell—He would bury them [italics added].[1]

And that is the heartbeat of this whole sermon series: For you to fully know what it means that you have been redeemed by God, bought at the price of Jesus’ shed blood on the Cross of Calvary and restored into God’s plan—you are now on a mission from God! You are Plan A!

And if Jesus had to pay such a high cost for our salvation, then what cost is His body willing to pay to carry on the work of God in the world?

Personally and as a church: at what cost are we willing to carry on the work of God in the world and do we know what that work is and why we are to do it?

These are critical questions, always, but especially at a time when we are grappling with what it means to be the church apart from our ability to gather in a church building. This sermon series will culminate on May 31, which is Pentecost Sunday—the birth of the Church! The Church has been given God’s power and presence, not just to seal us for Heaven as individuals, but to empower us to fulfill God’s PLAN as His body! This is a call to action, to be a part of something—to align your life with what matters eternally. I am raising your view of the church to higher ground, the priority for which God intended it. You have been saved to be on mission!

So, before I call you to an action point today, let’s understand God’s Plan: As disciples of Jesus Christ, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, you are restored as God’s Image Bearers to join God’s plan to bless the peoples of all nations, to bring them Home to the Father. You have been blessed to be a blessing!

Saying that another way: We have been brought back into God’s family to help gather the rest of the family for the biggest family reunion Ever! God has made a way for people to come Home because God is a good Father and His love never lets go of His children!

I am going to take you through a quick overview of this topic that we are made by God, from the beginning, to be His representatives on earth, a.k.a. Image Bearers. I’ll start with a brief overview of the Old Testament that develops this idea from Adam and Eve, through the Flood, to the Call of Abram and then with the choosing of Israel. And then we will look at the New Testament, at how Jesus has restored us and called us to be conformed to His image, individually, but to also collectively, as restored Image Bearers of God to His Creation.

After I read through these scriptures, I am going to show you a five minute video to help you understand and then conclude with an application. Listen to the Old Testament foundations:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen 1:26-28).

This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth (Gen 5:1-3).

And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image. And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it” (Gen 9:1-7).

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen 12:1-3).

‘Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel (Ex 19:5-6).

And the Lord has declared today that you are a people for his treasured possession, as he has promised you, and that you are to keep all his commandments, and that he will set you in praise and in fame and in honor high above all nations that he has made, and that you shall be a people holy to the Lord your God, as he promised (Deut 26:18-19).

Listen to the New Testament foundations, after Jesus’ earthly ministry:

Have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all (Col 3:10-11).

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers (Rom 8:29).

Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness (Eph 4:22-24).

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18).

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God (2 Cor 5:17-20).

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy (1 Pt 2:9-12).

To summarize all this scripture and help make our next steps very clear, please watch this video.

It is important for us to know who we are, as Jesus’ Church: We are restored to be the Image Bearers of God! We are sons and daughters, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s treasured possession! And to know what it is we are supposed to be all about: Blessing the people of all nations to bring them Home to the Father.[2] To be about our Father’s business!

Let’s close with application: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused us to think differently about a lot more than just how we handle our Sunday services. We have learned that while meeting together is a big part of what the church does, it is not what it means to be the Church!

Listen to Hebrews 10:24-25, “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

Our gathering is not an end onto itself, it never was supposed to be! We are to gather together to: 1) encourage one another; and 2) stir one another up to love and good works.

The danger of not meeting is not that we are being disloyal to what it means to be the Church, but we are missing out on the opportunity to remind each other of what it means to really be the Church! This is our response to the Plan of God: being the Church is all about your life purpose as the representative of God on earth to all the people. You are a restored image bearer of God! You are an ambassador for Jesus Christ!

But, that can be misleading too. The church is not all about you! We are the Church! As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:27, “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”

WE are the BODY OF CHRIST—WE are HIS walking and talking IMAGE BEARER!

As disciples of Jesus Christ, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we are restored as God’s Image Bearers to join God’s Plan to bless the peoples of all nations to bring them Home to the Father. God is planning a big old homecoming and wants all of His kids home!

That’s going to take a great rescue effort—an invading force that the gates of hell cannot withstand! Good thing Jesus started that effort and He commands us to respond in Mark 16:15, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.”

It is my great hope that by the end of this 7-week sermon series that we are back to meeting together, but not to business as it once was, but that we will be gathering in ways that stir us up to love and good works. We will be meeting to encourage one another to get back out there and be the Church. I guess it is my biggest hope that over the time of this COVID-19 pandemic that we will learn the sacred both-and of the church: we do exist to gather and we should not forsake that, but the real reason for our gathering is to scatter us back into our everyday lives to bless all the people. We are blessed to be a blessing!

Listen to the Message here:

To watch the video click HERE

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Michael Heiser, “What did Jesus mean by ‘Gates of Hell’?” https://blog.logos.com/2018/04/jesus-mean-gates-hell/ [accessed April 15, 2020].

[2] One of my early readers wrote, “This might need expanded on in future messages. I didn’t understand the significance of “the nations” in scripture. I was only thinking of the geo-political entities, not the nations that were created at Babel – the nations that God intended to redeem from the day that he disowned them.”