We Are The Church

Cindy’s been mulling over a number of things that I think are just incredible. And I’ve asked her to take the majority of our time and share those things with you. I’ll jump in from time to time. That’s the way I am. I can’t just sit and be silent when I hear something. When an amen goes off on the inside of here, I usually open my mouth with something. And plus I’ve been talking on Tuesday night. If you’ve not been a part of that, we’ve got a new series, winner series on Tuesday night that we’re calling Living the Why, Every Believer a Minister. And it’s a teaching that revolutionized Cindy’s life and my life when it came to think church thinking and team thinking. And I think it’ll do the same for all of you who come and be a part of it.

And so just my point in saying that is that some of the things that I’ve been going over again and endeavoring to talk to the church about on Tuesday night are things that fit right in. They dovetail in with what Pastors David and Jordan have already begun to share with us. And so I invite you to be a part of that, but I invite you again to lean forward, really catch hold of what we’re going to talk about this morning. Any message, I think, concerning the church. Passed it on to their disciples, disciple to disciple. We’re a part of that all these centuries, some 20 centuries later. We’re now it’s been handed off to us, and we are carrying it. We’re working to steward it, which is the best we can do with it. But we need to do that knowing that the church, again, is not peripheral to everything else that’s happening in our world.

There’s plenty to manage, don’t misunderstand me. And Jesus knew that. And I think he respected that when he said, seek ye first the kingdom by using the terminology first. He understood that there were other important things that we would need to manage in life. There’s a ton of stuff that does matter, and it matters to God that we need to be looking after. It’s a big job. But at the top of it, and I love the way that one translation reads, it reads this way, Jesus speaking, seek first the worldwide expansion of the kingdom of God and his right way of doing things. And he said, all the other things that concern us will be taken care of, added to if we put him first.

We are the church, and this is our city

That’s the principle of first fruits at work in another area, and not just the area of our finance, but all just in life, when we put Jesus first, and we make our lives count for expanding the kingdom of God. And we do that city to city, and this is our city. We are the church. Come on, say it out loud. We are the church. We are the church, and this is our city. And this is our city. Say it again. We are the church, we are the church, and this is our city. And this is our city. And so we’re just again that we’re bringing that to the forefront. We’re bringing that back if we need to, to the center of our lives.

So we’ve got some spiritual information for you, but it’s got practical application. And so, Father, help us to communicate this in a way that’s God pleasing. Thank you that makes you smile, that satisfies your heart. We do it carefully. We do it, God, again, with the help of the Holy Spirit, as we talk about the beautiful church that you’re building, and as imperfect as she remains, we’re much more aware today of your deep love for her and your commitment to continue to work with her, the commitment you have to your relationship with her. We make ourselves aware of what’s happening right now and how we can ready ourselves and prepare ourselves to cooperate with what you’re doing right now in our day, with us in particular this morning, with certainly with the church, universal, but with us this morning, as we allow you to work through us, add to our knowledge, add to our wisdom, add to our understanding, give us clear direction today. Help us with the next step we need to take. In Jesus’ name we pray. Everybody said amen. Amen. Cindy, jump in here.

I’d like to say thank you, church, for the way that you have responded with joy and faith and expectation, walking with us through this transition of leadership. Marshall and I have always known that we pastored extraordinary people and an extraordinary group of people. Every time we’ve had the pleasure of being with other pastors, pastors tell stories of their congregation, and we always felt our stories were the best because you were the best. But we have also always believed that the word of God causes us to rise above the ordinary, and it causes all of us together to embrace God with joy and seek what He’s doing and then respond. And so when churches transition leadership, it does not always go well, but we believed that God had set this in motion and that you would respond with grace, with joy, and with full expectation of a very fruitful future. You have, you are, and we’ll just keep going. Amen. It means so much to Marshall, myself, and David and Jordan.

So I would like to start this morning. We could talk about the church for days and days and days. I’ve told you this forever. I’m a local church kid. I grew up in church, I love church, I don’t love everything that happens in church, and there are a few people always in church that are really hard to love, but it’s never stopped me from loving church. I’ve gotten life from it. And that’s because Jesus is the head and it’s Jesus’ idea. And when church goes off, it’s because men thought they had a better idea. And if you get that way, just come back to Jesus. Just get back to Jesus. Get Jesus in the center of your life. And we put Jesus in the center of church, and it comes back in to the place that God always ordained it.

Jesus is magnificent

So can we read from Hebrews chapter one, verses one through three, and I’m we’re gonna read. I’m gonna read from Amplified Bible. Pastor David’s gonna read from NIV. What that means is David’s verses have the fewest words possible. My verses have the most words possible. Because I want to understand all of it it’s saying, and he does too. He’ll just do it differently. But Hebrews chapter one, it’s gonna come up on the screen, verses one through three. It says,

In many separate revelations, each of which set forth a portion of the truth, and in different ways, God spoke of old to our forefathers in and by the prophets. But in the last of these days, he has spoken to us in the person of a son, whom he appointed heir and lawful owner of all things, also by and through whom he created the worlds and the reaches of space and the ages of time. He made, produced, built, operated, and arranged them in order. He is the soul, he, Jesus, is the sole expression of the glory of God, the light being, the outraying or radiance of the divine. And he is the perfect imprint and the very image of God’s nature, upholding and maintaining and guiding and propelling the universe by his mighty word of power. When he had by offering himself accomplished our cleansing of sins and riddance of guilt, he sat down at the right hand of the divine majesty on high.

Magnificent. Jesus is magnificent. God is magnificent. Do you understand in those verses? It includes God included absolutely every atom of the universe under Jesus. And he’s telling us this throughout our Bibles. From creation, you can read it, that it was always the heart of God, that the humans that He created, mankind, male and female, Genesis 1 says, were for the purpose of God working through these humans to expand his glory throughout the earth. And he, when that was lost, and it was lost very quickly by man, not God, by man’s choices. And God made up his mind before it ever happened that he would send Jesus to buy us back at the highest, most expensive price that could ever be paid so that we, all of humanity, would have the opportunity to be reconciled, to be brought back into right relationship with God, and begin to fulfill God’s purposes that he had from the beginning for all of humanity.

It’s a magnificent story. The story of God, the story of mankind, the story of Jesus. It starts in Genesis, it goes all the way through our Bibles, it’s on every single page. It’s God’s love for humanity. And we need to remind ourselves of that over and over that God loves humanity. And he wants humans to flourish. In fact, God created earth just for that purpose, that humans would flourish on the earth.

Yeah, again, you know, he had an original plan. That he passed on to Adam and Eve. Yes. And they abandoned. When they abandoned the primary relationship they had in their lives, it wasn’t to be one with another as important as that is. Talking about that in February, among other things. They were tricked. Yeah, they were. They were tricked. And we we get tricked, don’t we? Get tricked. We get offered something that looks good, sounds good. It’s really true if it’s too good to be true, it probably is, except for God. But we we still fall for what they fell for. Yeah, it starts with distraction, but then it can end with abandonment. In their case, it ended up in high treason against God. And so, of course, they plunge their lives were plunged into sin, darkness, all that comes with that, all its cousins, all of its uncles and aunts, that whole family of darkness. And so it has had opportunity to develop all these centuries.

God’s intention was that they take the glory

And we what we got away from as much as anything was God’s will for us to flourish and to be fruitful in life. To actually, they were commissioned, Adam and Eve were commissioned, as we are in the church, they were commissioned to take the glory of God, and to not only live in it themselves, grow in it, steward that within themselves, but that to to take that wherever they went into the earth, so that the earth then would be filled by their ministry, their obedience to the Spirit of God, actually living to their purpose, which was again to flourish, not as just people and as a family, but in the work of God. We’re gonna see that really clear before we’re done. But God’s intention was that they take the glory that they were carrying, and then to take it into the streets, to take it across the world, that the planet that God created also would then be filled with it. And so, among other things, that was abandoned.

And we do see this, it’s so clear in Genesis, and it’s repeated again throughout scripture, and Jesus repeats it for us. God likes increase. He does. He likes fruitfulness. He likes multiplication. God created the garden, and when he created that, he put the seed in everything that he created so that it would reproduce after its own kind. He just planted a garden. It was beautiful, it was perfect, it was wonderful. And the scripture tells us that Adam and Eve would walk and talk with God in the garden. What could be better than that? But they got tricked, and we can trick. Do you? And they didn’t like it either.

But look at look at God. He’s so kind, expansive. He put the seed in everything that he created. There was the seed for it to reproduce, but he just planted it in the garden. And then he gave mankind the responsibility to tend and keep the garden and see that it kept reproducing so that it did expand and fill the whole earth with the glory of God. And that’s not just some wispy cloud. That’s all the things that we need for life and godliness. That’s what God provided. In the amplified verse 28 in Genesis 1, it says that God sent them out and he said, Be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth, using all its vast resources in the service of God and man. Do you hear that? Use all the vast resources. So God hid stuff. He hid it, not from us, for us. Because we are designed as curious and creative creatures in the image and likeness of God. So He we have people, we enjoy things. Right? God hid all of that. And there’s stuff still hidden. There’s stuff still hidden in the earth for his people that walk with him to discover, pull out of the earth, invent new things, do new things that will benefit and bless all of humanity. All of humanity.

A part of. It is. But part of that was that it impoverished man in every aspect of his life. Spirit, he became alienated from the life of God. Soul, you know, he began to worry. He began to be afraid. He began to be confused. His mind began to wander aimlessly or to aimless causes. His mind began to be filled with vain imagination. Here’s the thing about vanity is that it’s defined as something that’s empty, but you got to know it still takes up space. So even when we’re entertaining vain imaginations and vain thoughts, it’s still taking up space in our minds and urging us to the wrong things when we need the thoughts of God in our minds. But our lives became impoverished, spirit, soul, and body. Sickness and disease didn’t come from the hand of God. It came on the wings of sin again in man’s rebellion against God.

And with that, again, our thinking about purpose became also became impoverished. We don’t nearly begin to think in God’s terms or aligned with God’s will for our life. Even if we do in areas that we do, we don’t normally think big enough about it. That’s why Paul would come along urging us in prayer that to remember that God does exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. We’re still reaching up to the heights of God’s love and the provision that God’s love has made for us. So there’s a lot of climbing up to do for us to reach again to who we are now and our purpose now, because what God ended up doing was sending Jesus to gather a family from the four corners of the earth, that we be discipled, not only in who he is and helped, not only in our relationship with him again, but that we again find purpose and that we be schooled and trained in our purpose. And we take that purpose seriously, we make it again primary in our pursuit in life.

Because think about it, I mean, we’ve had 20 centuries to change our thinking about the church since the first century. Things really began to take off in a poor direction by the third century. If you know anything about, I mean anything about church history. You don’t have to be a church historian. But if you know anything about church history, you know by about the third century, a lot of things were being forsaken and abandoned that were a part of the first century church, the second century church, and the third century church, and how they how they did church and things that were important to them. So all that just to say again, we’ve got God has done wonderful things, it was abandoned, and now God has restored it in Christ Jesus, and he has never given up pursuit of having that family. That’s what he wanted from Adam and Eve, and he wants, and he has not forgotten his purpose. And we’ve been handed this off in our day, our generation, and we want it to be sacred and we want it to be important to us, and we want us, we want to be a real big part of that.

God really did create us for growing and flourishing and expanding Genesis 128 says that yeah among other things, and in christ, God has said, okay, here’s what I have for my church that i am building it had a start it will have a finish it has a starting place the day of pentecost it will have a finished place as well and we’re somewhere in that um time and again it’s our time and we want to be really good stewards of it and even if Jesus chooses to tarry we want to hand off to the next group something they can really run with can I have an amen something that yes they’re really empowered with and doesn’t have a big have to have a big redo before they jump jump into this they’re already a part of it we see that happening and they’re just going to become a greater part of it as we keep moving forward

Only Jesus can do that

so it’s only because of Jesus yeah that anybody can be restored back into that right relationship with God we were created for that and that honestly is why all of us that have come to Jesus remember back that no matter whether your life was going in a good way or not there was still something missing and there always will be the people that you and I come in contact with every single day there’s something missing if they haven’t been reconciled back to God and the only way for reconciliation to God is through Jesus and listen family that’s not bad news that is good news that is the best news ever that that it can’t we can’t mess it up. We don’t get the opportunity again to try to reframe it because that’s what we do when we’re separated from God. There’s no way for any human to flourish to the fullest extent in life that God intended, unless we come and be reconciled back to God, reconciled, put in right relationship with God, and only Jesus can do that. So if you don’t know Him, we would love to introduce you to Him because that puts you back into a right relationship with Him.

And it’s only in right relationship with God that we start to have a right relationship with ourselves. Right? It’s only then, and that’s a process. The right relationship with God is an instant. Right relationship with ourselves, process. Right relationship with each other, challenge. But can happen. Because you’re up here. Okay. And we’re supposed to have a right relationship with the with the earth. And all we we see people trying to jockey these things in all kinds of places. Put put earth number one, put myself number one, put other people, put my kids number one. Never works, never will work. The first relationship is the relationship that you and I personally have with God. That’s the only way for human flourishing. And thank you, Jesus, that we have a way. We have the way. We are not out here lost and left out on our own.

When we are on our own, you notice this, we start to redefine everything. Everything. Everything. I mean, we’re living in a world that for the past, I’m gonna say 50 to 100 years has been marching, particularly in our nation, has been marching further and further away from God, taking God even out of the public square. As we do that, we feel the necessity to redefine everything. We redefine our own identity, we redefine what marriage looks like, we we begin to isolate ourselves, we live in so far below what God intended us to live in, thinking that we can do it better without God. We’ll never do it better without God because we weren’t designed to do that, and so coming back to our original design brings us back into this right relationship with God, and I personally I believe when Jesus gives us this mandate as He’s ascending back into heaven, Jesus came to earth as a human to show us how to be humans, not how to be God, He showed us how to live in the middle of earth with all of its problems, He showed us how to live in earth as God intended humans to live. He is always forever our greatest example. We can always go back to Jesus.

Then he carried sin in his own body on the tree, all the sin of all humanity, offered us reconciliation back to God by shedding his own blood. Yeah. And then he ascended back to the Father. And he left us this mandate in Matthew chapter 28. Be on the screen, you want to read that one, Matthew 28. I I just when I read that with Genesis, I think it’s Jesus restoring the mandate to us. He says,

Go then and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything that I’ve commanded you. And behold, I am with you all the days, perpetually, uniformly, and on every occasion to the very close and consummation of the age.

Amen. And so let it be. Sort of not done that the way we could have done that over time. Natural, human, yeah. And don’t think for a minute that Satan has not gotten involved in confusing us about that life, the quality of life that Jesus wants for us. Because when Jesus said, I’ve come that you might have life, just saying that inferred that clearly we didn’t have life as defined by God. He said, I’ve come that you might have it. Well, we must not have had it. We’re breathing, our hearts beating, but the quality of life was not what God came to give us. Again, that was lost, and we got death passed on to us instead of life. We’ve live we lived in death, but we called it life. Okay.

So Jesus comes and he exemplifies life. This beautiful, beautiful, precious, unique, sinless life. And he lives it before men, and he reminds all of mankind, anybody who was paying attention, how rich of a life God wanted for men. And then by putting himself on the cross and dying as a substitute for mankind, then he made it possible for us to be born again and change positions from being in Adam, Satan as our father, to now being in Christ and having God as our Father. You have to accept the sacrifice that Jesus made for mankind. He made it for you personally, but he made it for all mankind. And in doing so, you are immediately and miraculously gifted with the life of God. And God Himself comes to live on the inside of you, the Holy Spirit as proof. You are sealed sealed, the Bible uses that terminology, as proof. The Holy Spirit coming to live on the inside of you is one proof that you have been born of the Spirit and born of God, and now you are a child of God.

And there is nobody that gets more excited about that than God. The angels of heaven rejoice. They party, they do cartwheels, heaven shouts, but they’re not shouting louder than the Father. And they’re not rejoicing more than Jesus or the Holy Ghost. God loves you so much and you need to love yourself. God accepted you and you need to accept yourself. How can God do that? Because he has dealt with your sin. Doesn’t mean he’s pleased with everything we say and do, but God being God and loving the way only He loves, that’s called agape love. He can take your sin in stride and never miss a beat, loving you, caring for you, forgiving you, and moving you on in this new life that He has given to you. We need to live, come on, somebody. We need to live in the reality of that.

Our message is one of reconciliation

There’s a good reason, many, that this is called the gospel, the good news. It’s our message. Our message is not what everybody else is doing wrong. Our message is one of reconciliation. It’s to tell the world, and especially those who are don’t have that relationship with God yet through Christ, faith in Christ, to tell them that message that God has made a way. And that way is a person, Jesus, and the sacrifice that He made. And that’s our message. And man, if we get focused on that, and if we can live that before men, if somebody ever says to you, man, you you live different. You know, and they say that even knowing you’re imperfect, they still say, You live different. How do you do that? Man, I hope you’re quick to say it’s because the greater one lives on the inside of me. Jesus who overcame sin and death and fear and anxiety, and he overcame that. He lives in me, and I let him live through me. Yes. If you see, in fact, I wish we could all say with confidence and say it more often, if you see anything that’s admirable in me, I want you to know it’s because of Jesus, and not because somehow I worked it up or I manufactured it or I was that before I met Jesus. You know, I’ll take credit for the failings. I do those things. But Jesus, if you see anything good in me, it’s because of what Jesus did.

To be a part of the church, and that’s where we’re, among other things, we’re leading to in this part of this morning, is you need that right relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ. It is a simple message, and we don’t need to make it more complicated than that. It is not worrying about have I been good enough? Again, you’ll never be good enough. Thank God for the changes. Thank God that He’s He’s helped all of us to live the Christ’s life in so many areas of our life, but you you are still not perfect. I am still not perfect. Let’s stop making the Christian message about that. Let’s remember what Pastor David and Jordan have both taught us. Pastor David talked about how we’re imperfect people and we imperfectly follow a perfect God. Only God is perfect. But he has opened his arms to us a right relationship with him. And we we’re gonna take full advantage of that.

And guess what? We’re also gonna help one another do the very same thing. That’s right. We’re not gonna be there to condemn Satan is there to do that. We’re not gonna be there just to be critical. We’re there to teach, we’re there to instruct, we’re there to help. Correction comes by the word of God, but it also comes in the right spirit of God. Anytime God challenges us or corrects us, it’s to restore something, not to make what we just did what our failure that much worse. Amen. And I’m not easy on sin because God’s not. You shouldn’t be easy on sin because God’s not, but God did something about sin. And that’s our message. And so we take that message of right relationship with God through Jesus Christ to our city. And there’s so much of our city yet. Come on. We can’t presume that they’ve all heard, they apparently haven’t. And God has just said, Church, you’re my church. The gates of hell won’t prevail against you. So don’t be afraid to take the message, the gospel, which is the only message you’ve been given and assigned. Take it in word, take it in deed, and share it with those that you come in contact with.

And we can all do that because we’ve all got a story. Some people say, Well, let David do it. He’s so much better at it than I am. He’s got a big smile. You know, he can let Jordan do it. She’s got this wonderful little gentle spirit. There’s another part of Jordan, I hope you see too, that she can. I grew up with that. She’s a great mix of that, as David is, honestly. We’ve truly been blessed with lead pastors who are beautifully gifted of God, not just with gifts to lead the church, but wonderful temperaments to build bridges with people. You know, but it’s not just them doing it. We have a story. There’s somebody out there that won’t listen to either one of them. But they will listen to you. And so that’s part in part of what you’ve been given to. I’m sorry, I’m going on. I know.

We are only the church when we are together

Hebrews 10. This this is vitally important because we’re living in a day where Satan is lying, yeah, as always. But many people that are born of the Spirit have fallen for this lie that they are the church on their own. David has laid this out perfectly, Jordan has laid this out perfectly. We I’m not the church. You’re not the church. We are only the church of Jesus when we are together. It’s what we do together. Listen, my little finger is not my whole body. But when my little finger tries to go in an opposite direction of the rest of my body, I have pain. God put us together to be his body, and when we’re born of the spirit, He puts us in His church. He puts us in His body. He never intended that we would flourish in isolation, church. The only thing in creation that God said was not good was when man tried to live alone. And he was, yes, he was speaking of marriage, but not only marriage. He’s putting man and woman together to create a family, and that family will raise more families, and those families will populate the earth. And the earth is intended for us to live in harmony together.

We’re trying to live in isolation. The lie that so much of the church has believed. And honestly, the whole thing with COVID, just put this in it on the express road down the freeway in the fast HOV lane that I don’t need to go to church. Lie, lie, lie, lie. Don’t fall for the lie. Listen, it’s easy for us to believe a lie when it fits with what we would be more comfortable with, but it doesn’t make it any less of a lie. Let’s look at Hebrews chapter 10, verses 24 and 25. It says,

Let us consider and give attention and continuous care to watching over one another, studying how we may stir up strife. Oh. Oh. No, that was how we may stir up. Hmm. Stir up. What are we stirring up? And stimulating and inciting to love and helpful deeds and noble activities, not forsaking or neglecting to assemble together as believers, as is the habit of some people. Oh, it’s not new. Same old lie. As is the habit of some people, but admonishing, warning, urging, and encouraging one another, and all the more faithfully as you see the day approaching.

So he’s encouraging us. Don’t give up on this. Yes, there’s awkwardness. Yes, there’s people that you think are crazy, and they think you’re crazy. But let us let us stir up how we may encourage one another to live in this new life that God has created for us as new creatures. Quit saying that’s just the way I am. No, that’s just the way you were. But who are you in God? Come on. Who are you in God? You’re on a grand adventure through your whole life to find that out and to grow into God and to grow into who you really are, not what the experiences of life have shaped you in.

That takes us all the way back into Romans chapter 12. Romans chapter 12. I love the 12, one and two from uh the pat um no message. The message reads this way

So here’s what I want you to do. God helping you again, we’re not independent of God don’t don’t declare your independence from God declare your dependence upon God so here’s what I want you to do God helping you take your everyday ordinary life your sleeping eating going to work and walking around life and place that before God as an offering embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him don’t become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking instead fix your attention on God you’ll be changed from the inside out readily recognize what he wants from you and quickly respond to it unlike the culture around you always dragging you down to its level of immaturity God brings the best out of you develops well formed maturity within you

we see this happen we see the early church which Marshall was talking about from the beginning 2000 years ago they took those words of Jesus to the heart when he said go out into all the world tell them what I’ve told you repeat to them my messages to you we have what we’ve titled the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5 six, and seven. What’s Jesus doing? He’s laying out how the kingdom of God operates. And how it’s so, he contrasts, how it’s so different. In fact, often it’s the exact opposite of the way the kingdom of this world operates. But we’re of the kingdom of God. And he said, of his kingdom, of the increase of his kingdom, there will be no end. No end. We’re living in a day where we know that darkness is increasing. But did you know that the kingdom of God is increasing also? You and I, we were built for increase. So what is my increase adding to? Am I adding to the darkness of the world? Or am I adding to the light? The life of the world, how we live every day is increasing something. And I want my contribution in this life to increase the kingdom of God, the light of God, the life of God.

Ordinary people turning the world upside down

And the early church got it. They started going out. We see it in the book of Acts. You start reading about ordinary people that became followers of God. God redeemed them from all kinds of different lives. It’s the same story in this room. Pastor just said it, you all have a story. God delivered all of us from something and continues to deliver us. Thank you, Jesus. And puts his life within us. If you go to the book of Acts and you just start reading, and don’t read it like you read your newspaper. Read it with the help of the Spirit of God. Because he was there. In Acts 9:31, this is the last verse, and then we’ll talk about these wonderful people. He says, it says,

So the church throughout the whole of Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was edified, growing in wisdom, virtue, and piety, and walking in the respect and reverential fear of the Lord. And they were walking in the consolation and exhortation of the Holy Spirit, continued to increase and was multiplied.

And from that verse of scripture, he begins to tell us about a woman named Dorcas. She was a seamstress, and she had made beautiful garments for women in her city, and she got sick and she died. And the women heard that Peter was in the town next over, and they said, Send somebody to get Peter, so Peter can pray for Dorcas, and Dorcas will be raised from the dead. Peter came, they all showed him all the beautiful garments that Dorcas had made. He said, Let me, you go out, I’m praying for her. He prayed for her, raised her up, and then she began to go out. You read person after person.

In the in Acts chapter 10, he tells us about Cornelius, a Gentile who was really a career military soldier. And he led his entire family. God used this career military soldier to change the whole trajectory of how the gospel was spread to include Gentiles. You read through those verses, you read through that book, and you read about Dorcas. You read about Cornelius, you read about Lydia, a businesswoman who was uh she sold the famous purple dye that royalty and the wealthy favored. She was a believer, and believers met in the church in her house. You remember you read about Zenus the lawyer, Luke the physician, Simon the Tanner, Erastus the city treasurer, ordinary people that are coming to life with God, going back out into the world, working vocationally, and being salt and light in their cities, and things begin to change. And before very long, the testimony was that these people and the apostles of Jesus turned the whole world upside down. So powerful. Yeah. In this early.

How God does the work of the ministry

Okay, I’ll zip in. It’s you know, it’s something we see throughout the scripture. This the last point, of course, is how that God does the work of the ministry. He has laid out for us a certain quality of life from the very beginning. It was abandoned, now it restored in Christ. It’s done by the building of the church, coming into right relationship with God, and then we’re all given, all of us, without exception, assignment. And we are we have we all experience in Christ. Again, whether we feel like it or not, have discovered it or not, we have experienced divine placement. Scripture is clear that God sets us in the body, his body, as it pleases him. And so when we’re praying, that’s what we want to know. That’s God, reveal that to me, my place, my part in the body of Christ, knowing confidently that He’s already given you, He’s graced you with it.

And so again, it’s not a new idea. I just wanted to read something from Exodus 31. You don’t, we don’t have this on the screen for you. But verse 3 from Exodus chapter 31, the tabernacle of old, the tent was actually they were making ready to build that so that God would dwell with them. And this is the way the verse reads, God is talking to Moses about this, and he’s talking about the people, and he says,

I have filled them with the Spirit of God in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship workmanship.

Say that word with me, workmanship. Workmanship. So we got see God doing something here. He’s filled people with what’s going to be necessary in the way of, I just say vocation. One of the things we’re going to talk about at some point on Tuesday night is vocational excellence. Because you are a preacher in your pulpit. Yes. The pulpit God has given you. You’re a storyteller from the place God has set you. That place may change from time to time, but your calling doesn’t change from time to time from that place.

Here’s the beautiful thing about that Hebrew word, or some of what it means. It’s the Hebrew word malachah. And first it means to deputize. When we deputize somebody in our our day, we are authorizing them. We are empowering them. We have either trained them or allowed someone else to train them for the work that they’re about to be released to. That speaks of our work in Christ. We’re not going out on our own, and we shouldn’t take that attitude. We’re not going out just to tell them what we think. We’re going out with a message God has given us, and we’re going out with the power and the authority to use what He’s given us for the building of the church, which includes their salvation, and introducing them to what God has always wanted for them, what he has dreamed for them. The second part of that word, malakha, has to do with ministry. The actual meaning of the word, Cindy. The secondary meaning is ministry. Depu being deputized to do the ministry.

So there it is again. You have been given a place, gifted a place. Certain graces operate on the inside of you. Try to be like anybody else or to do it exactly like they do it. Be inspired, but don’t try to don’t become a someone said it this way, don’t become a copy, a cheap copy when you can be the masterpiece. Ephesians chapter 2 says you’ve been made. Be the masterpiece God has made you. Amen. Knowing that you’re authorized and knowing that you’re empowered by the Holy Ghost, you’ve been graced to do this. If we believe this, we’re going to become different in the way we approach life and ministry. But you’ve been granted ministry. And yeah, we have experienced that over, we’re into our 45th year. Wow. And the best is still coming. Yes. Still coming. And we have had four decades plus of seeing people like you’ve read a list from Acts, but we’ve seen the list too. We’ve got our own lists. We could just go through, just go through the congregation now.

I and adding to just what Pastor said, you’re also those giftings, those graces, those skills, skills that God deposits within you. They’re there for the benefit of human flourishing. So expect God to give you knowledge of witty inventions, better ways to organize things, better ways to do things, and the opportunity to set that in place for the flourishing of all of humanity. You all, wherever you serve vocationally, your salt and light. Even if you never get to say all that you want to say, your presence. In there is salt. It’s preserving it the presence of God in that environment will not allow the full degradation that the enemy would like to bring. The very fact that you’re there is preserving. Preserving the earth.

When you go out into that vocation, and we have people here, I see Ingrid sitting right there. Ingrid Ingrid, beautiful single lady. She’s an attorney. Single. Did we say single? Single. Stop. She’s an attorney. She’s just a beautiful single attorney. And don’t be hitting on her either. Her vocation is an attorney. She serves in family law. But she serves in the kingdom. And she serves in the kingdom when she’s helping people with fine with legal difficulty. But do you know what else she does? She serves her family. Her mom last year was diagnosed with cancer. And Ingrid walked with her through appointments in Houston and here and helped care for her mom. Her mom’s doing well. Ingrid, Ingrid also is an aunt, and she is a shining light to Bowen and Owen, her nephews. Oliver, Oliver and Bowen, her nephews. But she also serves here. She teaches our preschool kids. She’s awesome.

And we could go, we have so many people. I think about Dana and Carol Eifert. Dana is a master sheetrocker. He helped us so much in the early days. He prefers not to do that now with the knees he has right now. But that man could sheetrock a room faster than a machine and do it perfectly. Carol worked for many years in administration at Sandia and ended up doing things that she couldn’t talk to anybody about without having to kill us. As do we’ve had numerous people over the years and some now that work at Sandia Labs and they work, they work in high-level jobs, and they all they say to us is just keep praying. Just keep praying. But they serve here. They serve there and they serve here. And it really matters.

Preston and Caitlin, they’re both in the medical field. They help people that are suffering in their physical bodies. And they get to be salt and light in that field. When people feel terrible, they get to help them. And they serve here. Caitlin works in nursery. Preston’s working everywhere. Right. Right. Right? Right. The musicians you see leading us in worship Sunday after Sunday, they’re all volunteers. Mel has the Cape of Truth at her salon and helps people there and leads us in worship. Jesse, who wasn’t on drums this morning, Jonathan was on drums this morning. He engineers Rhodes. Dear Lord, we need him. Right? Pray for that man. Wisdom. We we need we need road engineering all over the world, but especially here. And then he comes in here and leads us in worship, or he’s running sound. Jesse McDermott is a police officer. He’s keeping the whole community safe all week long. And then he comes in here. He’s a master musician. Incredible. Leads us in worship. Dobb and Dana, Dobbs the head of our worship department, has a degree in music and all kinds of stuff that I will never understand. Helps in so many ways. And he and Dana are raising three incredible kids. What are they doing? They’re replenishing the earth with the next generation of God followers.

Do you see? Whatever you set your hand to, God said he would bless it. And he included you as a part of what he is building in the church. Today, when we leave this room in just a few moments, you’re gonna have the opportunity to look for ways that you could serve here, no matter how you’re serving out there. Do you know what? I told you I was a church kid my whole life. My family from the time I was born until I was 12 years old. I we moved five to five different cities in Texas. And every city we moved to, there was a church there. And when I was born, there were grandmothers in the church nursery that held me, apparently the baby that cried all through service. They I don’t know who they were, but God does. And they didn’t know they were rocking a kid that would someday become a pastor. But they were the first people outside of my parents that loved me because Jesus did. It’s amazing the opportunities that God entrusted us humans with. We just need to make the most of every opportunity that He’s put before us.

What’s on the inside of you, the world needs

We’ll be dismissed, but not before we offer an invitation for those today who, if they’re not in this room, they’re hopefully they’re watching online with us. They’ve worshipped with us online today. It’s important to God even when we feel like we’re not very good at it. Sharpen our skills. He helps us to gain courage. The righteous shall be bold as a lion, the scripture says. He ended up doing it. And he got really good at it. That’s not something you want to get good at. But he’d come home drunk, and I would wake up and I would ask him about his experience. He would make it sound so wonderful and good, and even say, You ought to try this. So I began to try it, and I fought I fell into that lifestyle for a short period. It was very short in my life. I was 17, 16, 17, 18 when it began to take hold of my life. And so at one point he realized it was a failure, a failing way to live life and something he wasn’t made for. And he gave his life to Jesus.

He came home one night, late night again, and I said, So how’d it go tonight? He said, He was sober. And he said, Marshal, let me tell you this. He said, I didn’t get drunk tonight. I said, But what do you mean? You look happy, you look like, wow, what happened to you? Literally, if I could say glowing, I wouldn’t say that to another man, but he was glowing. And he said, I just want you to, and he said, I know you just woke up. I want you to go back to sleep, but I want to talk to you more about this. He said, I was at church tonight. I gave my life to Jesus Christ. And he said, and I want you to give your life to him. So I said, Oh no, what you don’t tell me this. I’ve just been in training to be a drunk. And now you’re you’re telling me this, my older brother, I don’t admire anyone more than I admire you, and now you’ve made a decision not just to not drink, but to follow Jesus. And he said, Yeah. So I said, Well, I’ll just watch you. So I said to him, I said, I’ll watch you. Because we’d been in and out of church in our life growing up together, and this time it was different. Something really had happened in his life. Now I know he was born again. He couldn’t go back to that way of life, even if his flesh wanted it. His spirit had changed.

So shortly after that, I made my way to Christ. And I gave my life to Jesus during what’s called the Jesus movement. It was a summer in 1972. Just fresh out of high school. And I gave my life to Jesus and I have not looked back. But my first job wasn’t in a pulpit in a church somewhere. It was working for Texas Power and Light Company in Mesquite, Texas. And again, I’m very young. I’m very young in the Lord. Started going back to church, started this new job, was training as an engineer. The agreement I had with them was that I would work six months in the field in construction, underground power, and then I would work overhead power, learning how to put it together and grunting and helping others do that work and doing some of it myself. And then I would go to college for a while. And now I just back and forth on that. And he was kind of our teacher. But he was no longer going to church. His name was Robert. And he cornered me one day and he said, Marshall, I’ve been away from God a long time. What do I do? And I said, I’m just a young believer. He said, Yeah, but something’s really special about you. He said, I’m not trying to embarrass you. I know I’m a whole lot older than you, but something’s happened in you. What happened? And I shared a brief testimony. He started coming to church with me, my foreman.

Well, I’m on the crew with six, eight, ten guys. Some of them had, I mean, incredibly foul mouths, and their jokes were real, I would say, real ungodly and immoral. A lot of times they were about women. And we would get in truck in a big truck we were in, they put me in the middle for us to be sitting here together going to a job site. And they would tell these jokes. And all of them noticed I wouldn’t laugh. But I didn’t preach. I didn’t have the words to give them, but I had some actions to give them. I said no with my actions. And they began to ask me why I wasn’t laughing, why I didn’t find their jokes funny. One of them, a real kind of intellectual guy, had a real foul mouth. One day he saw me, I was driving a copper, long copper rod into the ground to put a grounding cable on. And the hammer slipped and I hit my hand really hard. But I what I did was, instead of curse like the rest of them, this is very small, but listen, I didn’t curse. What I did was they heard me say, Well, praise God. I said, That hurt. And this one guy in particular did not let 15 minutes pass before he grabbed me, pulled me aside, and said, Why do you do that? I said, What, not curse? He said, Yeah, we all curse. I said, Well, you ask. It’s because Jesus has given me a brand new life. A way to live my life that I’m just learning how to live. And I love it. And I’d be happy for you if you would receive Jesus as Lord. Oh no, I’m not gonna do that.

Well, I’ll cut it short here and tell you that before I left that crew, my foreman would take time off when we would work out of town. He would try to finish early to give the guys, the crew, some playtime, some fun time. And that’s what we would do this day in Balt Springs, Texas. And he he let the guys flip washers. That’s like pitching horseshoes on you do it with washers. And he let them just relax under shade trees and stuff. And then he surprised me that day, and he said, Hey guys, come together, sit on the trailer. Marshall’s going to tell us about Jesus today. Are you serious? I looked at Robert. He looked at me and said, He didn’t say anything, he just went, right? That’s all he said. I said, Let’s do this. I stood at the end of that trailer, these guys looking at me. Some of them took off their heart hats, some of them kind of already looked like they weren’t interested. And I just shared how Jesus had changed my life. I didn’t have scripture to quote. I didn’t know a lot of scripture. I just shared my story. You know what happened before I left that crew? All of my crew but one had started coming to church with me. Have given their lives to Jesus Christ. I still think about it. I almost just almost weep when I think about marriages were restored. Men on my crew who had broken marriages, their marriages were restored. Their wives started coming to church with them. Their children started going to our Sunday school.

And I share today to reinforce some of what we said from here, but to help you understand today that what’s on the inside of you, the world needs. The people you work with needs. They come to church with you, and somebody else can preach. That’s your preference. Great. Praise God for that. But don’t limit what God can do through you. That’s right. People are watching, people are wondering, people are what life is tough. How are you handling it? You have what they need.

Invitation

And so as we’re about to pray, I want to invite anyone in this room here today who’s never made Jesus the Lord of your life. You may be thinking about it. You’ve been like me growing up in and out of church, but not making a solid commitment. Maybe you’re at that place. We’re glad you’re at that place. But there’s another step to take. Scripture says we love because He first loved us. So in this one is fixed, the Spirit of God begins to shed abroad in your own heart, the scripture says in Romans, the love of God. That fills you. You overflow, and you want others to know the love of God. You want them to know what you know now and what you come to know. So I want to pray with you. We’re going to all go pray it together. We’re going to pray it as if it’s the first time we prayed it in our life. And I want those of you who may be again watching online, pray this prayer with us. Even if you’re by yourself in that room, bow down, just get quiet and pray this out loud. The key is not just in what we’re about to say, it’s engaging our heart in faith. Say, I’m not good enough. You’ll never be good enough on your own again. I have to keep repeating that. You’re not trying to qualify for this. All have sinned and come short, short of the glory of God. Can’t reach it on your own. So God sent Jesus. Jesus made it possible. He gave his life for yours. And now what you need to do is put your faith in what he did perfectly so that you can begin this new life. Amen.

So let’s just bow our heads and let’s lift a hand to God in here. And let’s pray this out loud. You after me, God in heaven. I’m grateful for Jesus. The price that he paid. I’m convinced that I can’t earn this. I can’t merit it on my own. I will never be good enough to get what I’m asking you for. I believe Jesus is Lord. I believe He’s alive. That you raised Him from the dead. And now I bow my heart and confess him as my Lord and Savior. He is Lord. But I make him my Lord. I make this no-turning back decision. To follow Him the rest of my life here. And into eternity in heaven. God, I thank you for the forgiveness I received today. For all my sin. And I thank you for the new life. Eternal life. That I receive today. I thank you that the relationship between you and me is fixed. You’ve received me. You’ve accepted me. And I thank you for it. From the depths of my heart. I give you all of me all of me in Jesus’ name. Amen. And amen. Let’s thank God today.

So if you’re here today and you made that decision, here’s what you need to do. If you will, is tell somebody before you get out of here that you made this decision to follow Jesus as Lord. Come back to church. In fact, I’d invite you just to hang, even if you don’t know what’s going on, just kind of, you know, wander out there in the foyer and talk to other people and get to know somebody before you leave. Amen. Come back to church. And if you need a Bible, you can count on us to get you one. All you have to do is go over.