God's Strategy to Touch Lives

When I worked at Boeing, I came to realize there were 2 different career tracks as a person advanced in their career.  One was what we called “IC”s- Independent Contributors and the other was traditional management.  Now at the time I was young in my career and my thinking, with a tad bit of arrogance and over estimation of my great abilities and so I thought the best way to build my career was as an Independent Contributor – I liked the sound of that.  Really IC’s seem to get all the same benefits as a manager, they got the manager parking permits, they got same type of salary structure, but they had a lot more freedom to do their job with less responsibility for other people.  They got put on ‘special assignments’ with not a lot of direct supervision, they just did their job.

Traditional management seemed always beleaguered by personnel problems.  They not only had the responsibility to get a job done, but they had the responsibility for other people, who sometimes didn’t do their job the way they should have.  They had to deal with their people who got sick on Fridays of an important deadline.  They had to deal with motivating people who had other priorities in their life.  Sometimes the traditional management track didn’t look very appealing. 

But over time, I began to realize something and learned an important lesson.  Those who cared for the needs of others did better in their career than those who were only interested in their own success.

When we moved here to start a church that ultimately became The Bridge, I became acutely confronted with a significant concern of not only our community, but a pervasive attitude of much of modern western society.  The thought “God I am into, Jesus may be okay, but organized religion I am really not into”.  As I began to meet and talk to different community leaders I heard the comment “I believe the church is nothing more than a parasite on our community”  “All the church does is to take good people out of serving our community and have them do inconsequential things”

I realized that the people I was hearing from had no idea of what the church was.  The church that I so loved  that I was willing to move my family across a continent, away from friends and family, take a 50% cut in income and an exponential increase in risk exposure just to see the bride of Christ come to this area of this city, to experience the family of God put down new roots in this community, to encourage people to give up their independent natures and become dependent parts of the body of Jesus that God would fashion together just as He would desire it to be. 

I longed to see a church that has a supernatural spiritual life, a power that comes only as the people of the church experience the spiritual indwelling and gifting that the Holy Spirit gives to people who are part of that body.  A gifting that is not for their benefit, but for the benefit of others in their body and they themselves are experiencing the benefit of someone elses gifting.  Where people rise in leadership so that others might experience salvation because they know that it is only in the transforming sanctification of another’s heart and mind that can only truely advance God’s kingdom and change the spiritual and social challenges of our world. 

I believe the world, and this community needs Jesus, not as a philosophy of living, but the living Jesus that shows up in flesh and blood of the people God has called and assembled into His church.

There is a great mystery of God – Our Salvation is directly tied to our connection to a Church.

Phil 2:12-13

12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed — not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence — continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

There is a lot of speculation about what a church is or is not today, what a church does, doesn’t do, should do, should not do.  The church of Jesus Christ is God’s idea, not mans.  He designed it, initiates it and empowers it.  One way God designed the church was as a spiritual family.

Truth #1 When we are saved God places us in a Spiritual Family

When God brings salvation to a person he never leaves them as orphans, instead He adopts them into His family – a Spiritual family, a spiritual home.

John 1:12-13

12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent,c nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

Eph 2:19-20

19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, 2

When you are in a family, there is not too much that is private is there.  When teenagers become ‘private’ parents become suspicious, because they want them to grow up healthy and whole.  That doesn’t mean you don’t have personal time or space, but in a healthy family, nothing is off limits.

Our relationship with God is personal, but never meant to be private

1 Thess 2:8

8 We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.

The most convincing evidence we have received the gift of salvation is that we demonstrate Christ like love to other believers.  We can claim to love God all we want, but if we are not intimately connected to the people of God, we are deceiving ourselves.

1 John 3:14

14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers.

Do you realize how seriously God takes your relationship with other believers?

We are in God’s family, and while each member of the family is loved equally, family members have different personalities, roles, talents, gifts.  The mothers role is different than the fathers role.  The first born childs role is different than the youngest childs role, or the middle child.  But it all comes together to make a family that shares their lives together, helps one another and loves each other.  When a child is born it has to learn to love it’s siblings, that doesn’t happen automatically, if they want to get along with the parents, the same is true in God’s family, if we want to get along with our Father, we will have to learn to live in His family, the way He set it up to operate.

We must never become jealous of one another or thinking one has a better deal than the other – Jesus always nipped that in the bud when he saw that happening

Because we have been saved at such great a price – we must fervently love all people for whom Christ died.  For a Christian to consciously refuse to love the Children of God for whom Christ died is to dishonour His death and ridicule His love.  But when we walk in a loving relationship with God’s people the testimony to the world is profound.

John 13:34-35

34 "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

God has called us to join His family and enjoy the great benefits of that relationship.  There are things that God does in, for and through his family that he does no where else.  We do not live life alone, just as a biological family interact and spend significant time together, so do spiritual families walk together in love.  We receive strength, encouragement, much needed friendships.  We grow in wisdom and maturity as we interact with others who have walked with Jesus for many years.  We find security and watch care over our lives and we can respond to the comfort and accountability from one another.

God manifests his presence in many ways.  When the family is together, the Father is always there too.  He speaks to His family, He gives gifts to his family, He provides direction and  gives his power to his family.  Apart from God’s family a Christian will never be pleasing to the Father. 

Truth #2  When we are saved we are also placed into a strong & living body – the church

The most dynamic expression of God’s family activity is found in the local church.  The church is God’s primary means of bringing salvation and redeeming the world.

Eph 3:10-11; 14-19

10 His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, 11 according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.

14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom his whole familya in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

We are always in danger of making the church into what we want it to be.  This is where the value of scripture helps us – it helps us maintain God’s vision of what the church is to be.

The church that Jesus builds stands against Hell and the forces of evil, changes people’s lives and looks more like a marriage, family, or a body than an organization. 

People rile today against organized religion because we expect the church to act more like a business or government, doesn’t really make a difference in people’s lives and isn’t sure what is evil or Hell is.  When the people of the church try to make the church look like and act like these things – is it any wonder the world does not like the church for all the wrong reasons.

This is what Jesus said about His church...

Matt 16:15-20

15 "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"

16 Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ,b the Son of the living God."

17 Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter,c and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hadesd will not overcome it.e  19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will bef bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will beg loosed in heaven."  

God had drawn Peter into a new understanding of who Jesus was and what it meant to follow him.  God had opened his mind up to Him in a way completely different than the rest of the world and Peter saw the true nature of Jesus as the Messiah. 

This is a consistent pattern  of God’s activity...

John 6:44

44 "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him,

Paul said:

1 Cor 2:12-14

12 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.c  14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Peter had insight to the nature of Christ because God’s Spirit revealed it to him.  He could never have known this unless God showed him.

Jesus was essentially saying, “On the basis of my heavenly Fathers activity in the hearts of people, convincing them that I am the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, I will build my church” 

When Jesus builds His church upon the Fathers activity in the hearts of people, a dramatic event takes place.  It is not our ability to convince people of truth; that is the job of the Holy Spirit.  But the gates of Hell will not prevail against that group of people, for the Spirit of God is actively drawing them and guiding them to His Son, who has come to do His perfect will. 

Is it true that when Jesus builds His church the gates fo hell will not prevail against it?  Whether we believe it or not is immaterial, Sermon Notes