If there is anything we learn from Judges, one thing that is clear is that when we live a lifestyle of saying NO to God, disastrous consequences result.  First and foremost, when we say NO to God, we end up doing what is right in our own eyes.  One overarching theme in Judges is best summarized by the last verse in the book, “In those days there was no king in Israel, everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” Our desire is always to wrestle control from God and do things are own way, and when this occurs we end up doing things horrifically wrong! Instead of obeying God, conquering their enemies and destroying the idols in the land, the people of Israel inner married and took the false gods of the people for their own.

When we say NO to God and do what is right in our own eyes, we incur God’s righteous judgment.  Often we need to be reminded that God is not playing around when it comes to sin.  He doesn’t find it cute, treat it as no big deal or realize, or look the other way.  Rather, He justly punishes for sin.

If God did not punish, He wouldn’t be Holy, Righteous or Just, not to mention Mighty to Save!  Far from being unloving, this is the most loving thing God can do, for in His Righteousness and Justice, God sent Christ to bear our sin and the sin of the world as the one and only perfect Sacrifice, so that we may have new life in a relationship with Him!

Part of the beauty of Judges is that even though we say NO to God, He still saves, and save to the fullest.  While all of the deliverers God raises up in Judges are able to save momentarily and provide peace, inevitably their ministry is flawed, temporary and passing.  Conversely, in Christ we have a Judge who saves perfectly, eternally, and forever!

In what ways do we often say NO to God?  How can we begin to say YES more?

Celebrating Easter, we began a new three week series entitled “Who do you Say I am?: Uncovering the Real Jesus.”  Over the course of the next couple weeks we will learn a bit more about who Jesus is, what He came to accomplish, and what that means for us.  Last Sunday, we began our look with Jesus: Conqueror of Sin and Death.  Drawing primarily from Mark 15-16, we saw Jesus not only Paid for our Sin, but also is our hope in this life and the next.

Words often fall short in describing the terribly gruesome event that was the crucifixion.  From the scouring with the cat-o-ninetales, to being made to carry the crossbeam of His Cross, to the crucifixion event itself, we can’t imagine, save Mel Gibson’s attempt with The Passion, to understand the horrific physical magnitude of the event.  Yet, the question remains as to why Jesus had to suffer in this way, and what it had to do with us?

This all goes back to the character and nature of God.  While God is all loving, all powerful, ever merciful and kind, He is also all Holy, pure, righteous and just.  In short order, God’s Holiness demands that sin be paid for.  Going back to our first parents, Adam and Eve, when we sin we spit in the face of a Righteous and Holy God.  This Sin separates us from Him and requires payment.  Unfortunately, since we are sinful, fallen, devoid of any good thing and are by nature children under wrath, nothing we could do, or ever hope to do, would be enough to pay the penalty for our sin.  Even if we were to be sent to Hell for eternity it would not be enough to pay for sin, because our sacrifice would be impure.

What was needed was one who could suffer on our behalf, yet be a perfect sacrifice.  This is where Jesus is the hero of the story.  Being the God man, the One who knew no sin (2 Corinthians 5:21), He was able to do what we could not do.  So in one divine, cataclysmic moment, the God of the Universe, turned His back on Jesus and poured all of His wrath for our sin on His broken body, that we might be brought back into right relationship with Him.  Again, words cannot describe the enormity of this.  Jesus stood in our place, becoming our substitutionary sacrifice, He took our sin away, becoming our expiation, and His blood also cleanses us from all unrighteousness, covering not only our own sin, but also the guilt of sins inflicted on us by others.  Incredible

Additionally, not only did Jesus pay for our sin, by defeating death by being resurrected, He gave us hope, not only in the next life, but in this as well.  The resurrection is what guarantees hope beyond hope, allows this world to make sense, and gives our lives in the here and now, value, meaning and purpose.  Regardless of if we are penniless, jobless, addicted and despised, because of what Christ accomplished, by not only paying the penatly for our sin, but by defeating death on our behalf, we have obtained the greater victory!

Join us this coming Sunday as we look at Jesus our Righteous King.

God intended for Sabbath to be a day of perpetual Spiritual Spring, one of multiplication and fruitfulness.  When God “blessed” the Sabbath day, this means he made it spiritually fruitful.  On Sabbath, the people of Israel were called to celebrate and remember Creation and Salvation.  They were to remember not that earth was their mother, but that God was their Very Good Father who had created them in His image according to His likeness to both relate to and reflect Him.  They were to celebrate Sabbath as a day of Salvation, remembering that not only had God saved them from the curse and punishment of sin, but that He had delivered them out of bondage in Egypt and brought them into the promised land.

Sabbath is about rest, family connection, community, Joy and Salvation!

The problem for many of us today is we have treated the Sabbath as another day to fill with activity and program, when in reality we need to cease striving, rest and remember our Good God, enjoying His Creation and Celebrating His Salvation.

How do you keep your Sabbath from being filled with perpetual activity?

Yesterday we talked about prayer.  While there is surely much that can be said about prayer; infinitely more than can be written in a blog post, here in Colossians 4:2-4 Paul gives us a bit of insight into what the character and direction of transformed prayer are to be.

First we see that Prayer is to be Persistant.  Sam Storms reminds us, :”The easiest thing about prayer is quitting.”  Instead of being quitters we are to persist even in times when it seems there is no response.  When we persist in prayer we are like the petitioning widow in Luke 18 who cries out for justice unrelentingly and the judge acquiesces.  However, unlike the widow, we have a just judge who will grant justsice to His elect who cry out day and night.  Persisting in prayer purifies the content of our prayer, cultivates patience and is God’s way of developing dependence on Him

Prayer in many ways is the conversation through which our desires come to line up more and more with His, not the other way around.

Not only is the character of our prayer to be persistent, it is also to be Thankful.  We pray thankfully because we have a God who not only hears our prayers but answers.  Ephesians 3:20 reminds us, He is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think.  If we believe this, are we begging God in prayer.  And if in fact we are begging, what are begging for, and when we do beg, do we expect Him to respond?

Paul shows us Prayer is not only to be persistent and thankful, it is also to be centered on God’s mission in the world.  Paul prays that a door would be opened and that he would be able to speak clearly.  Where Paul is concerend with effective evangelism and service in the midst of his chains, we are too often concerned with safety and security.  John Fischer says this:

We as Christians need to learn the danger of living in a dangerous world and trust not a safe subculture to protect us, but a praying Savior…We want to be in a safer world; God wants us to be safe in an unsafe world.  We want to protect ourselves from danger, God wants to protect us in the middle of danger

In the end, we need to be reminded that it isn’t so much how long we pray or even how often, but that we just pray.

Any thoughts?

Last Sunday at DCC we saw that sometimes hard words are needed to communicate glorious truth and Paul’s words to the Church in Colosee are no different.  Using the language of circumcision and baptism Paul reminds the believers in Colossians 2:11-15 that they have been buried with Christ in death and raised through faith in Him into a new way of life. Paul uses circumcision as a gruesomely vivid illustration of what happend not only to the literal body of Christ, as it was stripped away by His death on the cross, but also to our sin nature.  In this example Paul also shows how having the “tattoo” of circumcision is not what guarantees new life, because it is a circumcision “not made with hands”, but rather it is about the accomplishment of Christ on our behalf.

In a simular manner, Paul points to baptism as an incredibly beautiful picture of being buried with Christ and then raised to walk with Him.

Just as circumcision was to be an outward sign of an inward change, so it is with Baptism.  When we are baptized we proclaim to the world that we belong to Christ.  We proclaim we are dead to an old way of living, buried with Him in death and raised to walk in a new way of life.

Neither circumcision nor baptism are mighty to save in and of themselves, but rather only “faith in the working of God”.  We noted how faith is a conscious experience of the heart yeilding to the work of God, and since this is not something infants are able to experience, they are not fit subjects of baptism.  (Thanks to John Piper for this succint explanation) While some would say that Baptism in the New Testament is the equivalent of circumcision in the old, because both mark out the covenant people of God, we remembered that the New Testament equivalent of circumcsion is not Baptism, but rather again, “faith in the working of God”.

Moving from the hard words Paul, tells us of the glorious truth they communicate.  First we were once dead in sin, but now we are alive in Christ.

Life without God is a living death, a zombie like existence.  When you are dead in sin you are a living shell of the existence God has for you.  You are spiritually dead, in a perpetual coma with no hope of recovery.  Everything looks relatively normal on the outside, the skin is warm, peace looks apparent, but in reality there is no life happening on the inside.  So it is with those who are outside of a relationship with God in Christ.

We are also freed from a debt that we could never repay.  Not only did God cancel our debt in the death of Christ, He also destroyed the document on which our debt was recorded.  Christ accomplished this removal in the most unbelievable way, through humility and weakness.  Christ made a mockery of Satan on the Cross.  The very element that was thought to gain victory for evil was that which God used to secure victory on our behalf.

The cross was a shame, a reproach, a sign of disgrace, yet we glory in and only in the cross.  We call it wondrous, beautiful, mighty, awesome, glorious.  We sing and marvel at its greatness because of what it guarantees.

As we sing in the old hymn; “Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe, sin has left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow”

How is the triumph of Christ evident in your life?

When Jesus gave the Great Commission, He sent the disciples to all nations, all people groups, a pretty daunting task for the early church that continues with us today. Yet, even though the impetus for mission was given in Matthew, namely to make disciples, the strategy was given over in Acts 1:8

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

While this can be understood to be a step by step undertaking, ie. beginning with Jerusalem and then to Judea, (in our case, De Soto, then Johnson County), etc. It is my contention that we seek to reach our Jerusalem and Judea while also reaching to the ends of the earth as well. It seems as if many churches easily slide to one extreme or the other. Either they are actively involved in local community ministry while doing little worldwide other than giving money, or they are in constant pursuit of the next foreign mission opportunity at the expense of making a sizable difference in the communities in which they have been planted.

Rather than being in opposition to one another, local and global impact go hand and hand. As we seek to transform our neighborhood, it is imperative that we also realize our global citizenship and responsibility to our “neighbors” around the globe. Bob Roberts in his book Transformation calls this speaks volumes about what he calls “glocalization” and our responsibility as members of this global neighborhood.

Transforming our neighborhood in De Soto can take on many forms. Doing yard work for a neighbor, watching kids for that single mom you know or even sacrificially giving so some others can have Thanksgiving and Christmas are good places to start. In all of these, our goal is to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ by performing practical acts of service.

What are some other ways we can be a transforming presence in our community?

Becoming an Expression of Christ in Community to Transform our Neighborhood and the World.

As followers of Jesus Christ we were all given the same mission. That mission is found in Matthew 28:18-20 where Jesus said:

All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always to the end of the age.

If all Christians were given the same mission, then what is the need for a separate mission statement? Good question. While the mission of all followers of Christ is the same, the way that mission expresses itself or is lived out changes depending on where we find ourselves. People speak different languages, are part of different cultures, have different histories, and all of these factors change the way we do ministry. One has to look no further than chapter 17 of Acts to see how Paul managed these differences in his day. While in the synagogue, Paul reasoned with those from a predominantly Jewish background from their own book, The Torah, yet when in Athens, Paul draws from the popular Philosophers and Poets of his day to point people to the Messiah.

While we may be the better part of 2000 years removed from Paul’s work among those in Athens, our mission in De Soto remains the same. To make disciples of all people, including the residents of De Soto. So, what does all of this mean?

Think about what it means to be “An Expression of Christ in Community”. In other words, what does it look like when Jesus moves into a neighborhood? Who’s needs are met, who is radically transformed? The writer of the book of John put it like this, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Literally meaning, God moved into the neighborhood. At De Soto Community Church we want to be that expression of God moving into the neighborhood. We want to be part of what Christ is doing in this world, “declaring the year of the Lord’s favor, setting the captives free, giving a cup of cold water, looking after orphans and widows and those in distress.

We chose “Becoming” an Expression, because we realize this to be an ongoing work, one that will not find completion this side of eternity. Our hope is that as we are becoming that Expression of Christ, lives will be transformed by the Power of God.

Tomorrow we will continue with a look at the second half “…to transform our neighborhood and the world”

It is essential as we seek to Become an Expression of Christ in Community that we keep in the forefront what that actually looks like practically. Tomorrow I will begin this series with an explanation of our mission statement:

Becoming an Expression of Christ in Community to Transform our Neighborhood and the World