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Jesus Is Coming Again!
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 August 14, 2022 Intro We believe in the real and personal return of Jesus Christ -read belief statement Why does this matter? -they thought their loved ones had missed out on Christ’s return! -we must all consider our appointment with death -Ecclesiastes 7:2 -some people avoid talking about death (fear, distracted) -death to some is popular, a way to escape (possibly in pain, lacking proper information) -The Bible says Jesus is coming again -We must trust the whole Bible, or none of the Bible! 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 We do not grieve like the rest, who have no hope -Christ followers have real hope! -We follow someone who solved our greatest problem: death! -1 John 5:11-13 …you may KNOW that you have eternal life -Yes Christians grieve over death, but with HOPE! Jesus died and rose again, and so will we! -John 11:25-26 “I am the resurrection and the life…” What believers experience when they die:
Jesus is coming back! -Acts 1:9-11 -This can happen at any time! -Paul and the Thessalonians anticipated Christ’s return -Acts 1:7 Jesus tells us not to worry about when Paul tells us how (vs 16-17) -The Lord will personally come down -This will be noisy! -A shout- a cry, command, announcement -Archangel’s voice- Mark 8:38 -Trumpet of God- no one will miss this event!! -The dead will rise first to join Jesus -No description of how, nature of bodies, -We who are alive will (also) be “caught up” -Same word in Acts 8:39; 2 Cor 12:2-4 -Happens along with resurrected dead -We meet Jesus in the clouds- Mark 13:26; Acts 1:11 -This is where we get the belief in the Rapture -1 Thes 4:15-17 does not offer a clear timeline -differing beliefs on the timing of the rapture come from Multiple verses in the Bible -Our church believes in the second coming of Christ and the Rapture of His church, we agree to disagree on exactly when this occurs in relation to the final judgment of the world -see our Belief Statement about Last Things We will always be with the Lord -Our reunion with Jesus physically is forever! Jesus is coming again! Therefore encourage one another with these words -Every believer should be encouraged by this promise! -Every unbeliever CAN be encouraged: trust Jesus now! -1 John 5:11-13 -Romans 10:9-10 -Acts 10:42-43 St Joe Community Church Belief Statement about Last Things God, in His own time and in His own way, will bring the world to its appropriate end. According to His promise, Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly in glory to the earth; the dead will be raised; and Christ will judge all men in righteousness. The unrighteous will be consigned to Hell, the place of everlasting punishment. The righteous in their resurrected and glorified bodies will receive their reward and will dwell forever in Heaven with the Lord. Isaiah 2:4; 11:9; Matthew 16:27; 18:8-9; 19:28; 24:27,30,36,44; 25:31-46; 26:64; Mark 8:38; 9:43-48; Luke 12:40,48; 16:19-26; 17:22-37; 21:27-28; John 14:1-3; Acts 1:11; 17:31; Romans 14:10; 1 Corinthians 4:5; 15:24-28,35-58; 2 Corinthians 5:10; Philippians 3:20-21; Colossians 1:5; 3:4; 1 Thessalonians 4:14-18; 5:1ff.; 2 Thessalonians 1:7ff.; 2; 1 Timothy 6:14; 2 Timothy 4:1,8; Titus 2:13; Hebrews 9:27-28; James 5:8; 2 Peter 3:7ff.; 1 John 2:28; 3:2; Jude 14; Revelation 1:18; 3:11; 20:1-22:13.
1 Thessalonian 4, Jesus is coming again. Amen. He's coming again. As much as He came, as true as He came to this earth, as true as He died and rose again, as true as He ascended into heaven and people saw Him do that. A multitude of people saw this happen. He's coming again. The Bible is as true about His coming the first time as it is about His coming again that we've not yet known. The Old Testament was full of prophecy that said He was coming. He's coming, He's coming, He's coming. The God of the Old Testament, the same God of the New Testament; there's no difference, no change. The message isn't different. He operated in different ways and seasons, but God was the same when He started in Genesis, all the way when He said, Hey, there's something going to happen. And you can read there for yourself that He predicted. And then all the way through the prophets and all the way through the journey of the Israelite nation, as it foreshadowed the coming of Jesus Christ, that He would die and rise again.
And He did, He came, He died, He rose again, and He was sending into heaven. And just as He said that He is coming again, a second coming, we believe that as a church family. In fact, let me read for us the statement of faith that we all signed that says, this is what we believe about the end times. Last things is sometimes how it's said in doctrinal statements. And there are many scripture verses, and you can find this online. And if you go online to my Bible sermon notes, you'll find it at the end of my sermon notes this morning as well. God in His own time and in His own way will bring the world to its appropriate end. There's going to be a final moment. I don't know when that is, but it's going to happen. According to His promise, Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly in glory to the earth. The dead will be raised and Christ will judge all men in righteousness. The unrighteous will be consigned to hell, the place of everlasting punishment. And the righteous in their resurrected and glorified bodies will receive their reward and will dwell forever in heaven with the Lord. Multiple verses attest to that doctrinal statement. And yet - let's just make sure that we know that's a human statement about Bible truths. It is a finite statement. It's something that will pass away, but God's word will never pass away. But it's a way for us to encapsulate multiple verses in scripture for us to come together and say, we're united on this. We're not united on anything other than this, in other words; we're united on this. And we together believe and agree together on this, where we disagree or we add to, or we say, well, I think there's another series of things that we may have different convictions and there are in this room, but we agree to disagree agreeably -we have the liberty to do that. But in all our beliefs, whether it is this true belief, this doctrinal statement that we all as members believe, or the things that we agree to disagree on, exactly how it's going to happen and eschatology stories of different systems of thought about how that's going to happen. We all operate out of love for one another because we can believe the exact right things and not have any love and it doesn't really matter. And so this morning, I want to open up for us a passes of scripture that it's not mysterious, but it's a mystery. It's not something that is sort of this fantastical thing that I can't even understand it. We can't because it is otherworldly and the way it's described. And yet, wasn't the resurrection and other worldly thing. Isn't the coming of Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, the God man, isn't that another worldly thing? And so too is this topic this morning. Now, I'm just going to be honest. I had a lot of things on my plate this past week, a lot of things that were going on a lot of moving parts; things that were already scheduled well in advance, a bunch of things thrown in on top of that, and then a bunch of things thrown in on top of that. How many can relate? That's the kind of week you might've had. I'm just flat tired, and on Friday I'm going... I'm staring at this passage, I looked at it, I kind of studied a little bit about it, and I've read this and I was reading all the theologians and I'm trying to go back and get my commentaries. And I'm trying to put together, God, what do you want me to say? And there's this block party coming up. And I thought, you know what? I'm just going to pull out something that's real easy to preach on. I mean, I'm going to... Thank you, Darrell. There's nothing easy to preach on, but there's easier topics. Yeah. Topics I really love to talk about and that's why you let the Bible tell you what to teach, not just your feelings. And I was just going to say, well, I'll just push this off. Not skip it, but I'll do it another Sunday. And I know that Bill's wife Lynette, would've said, "That's going to mess up my journaling. Don't do that." See, she's got her journal down here. I knew. Testify! And so, I'm staying on schedule and said, you know what? So I buckled down and I'm so grateful I did. And then this morning somebody came up said, man, I'm so glad you did that. And I feel so inadequate sometimes when I'm coming all the time, so many times - God, you've got to just speak through me. And He spoke this morning and it was confirmation that in spite of all of the midnight oil and the things that I was doing to get ready for this, God is in charge of this. And He was in charge of the time schedule. And if you're here today, you are here on the timing schedule of God, not mine. I was gone a couple of Sundays this summer, as somebody who thought you were going to get a new pastor. I don't know. So I was gone so often, somebody's going to put a for sale sign in my front yard. I mean, so I have pushed this off. This is the Sunday when this sermon comes, and it's, God's timing, not mine. And here we are, about the perfect timing of Jesus' return, whenever that is. And isn't this something that people are talking about. For some, the Christians are like, "Oh, I'm just waiting for Jesus to return. I'm done with this world." How many kind of sometimes are that way? How many of you are tired of dealing with the sin in your life? And you're like, "I'm done. I'm ready for Jesus to come back." That's more me than about the times and the epics of what's going on. Some people are really into a timeline and they say, this is how it is. I always use that wall as if somebody someday, maybe they did have a timeline there maybe. I don't know, I'll go over here. And they have this whole timing of how the events are going to happen in the current geopolitical scheme of things and there's wars going on. And it's horrible. We need to keep praying for Ukraine. We need to keep praying for Taiwan, and we need to keep praying for these hotspots in the world. We need to keep praying for the church in the Middle East, where Christians are being martyred on a regular basis for their faith in Jesus. We need to pray for the church in China that is thriving under great persecution. And we need to pray for the church in America that is not thriving under great freedom to share our faith. Did you hear me? Sometimes freedom isn't always free spiritually. It's a cost. This topic matters. We need to believe and trust in and look forward to the return of Christ because first of all, the Bible says, so it's going to happen. Now in this particular passage, it seems as though Paul was answering a question that was being asked of the church. They're like, "Hey, we've had some loved ones died. Did they miss Jesus? Because He said He is coming back." They assumed He was coming back. And because they so assumed it was so real to them that He was coming back, that the fact that He was coming back and their loved ones had died before He came back, it was a mystery to them. Are they going to miss it? Is that's it, they're dead and gone and what's going to happen to them? And Paul's trying to answer that for them. This is in their temper in their first century moment in life, this letter was written to answer a question, but it's also an answer to a question to bring us hope in our circumstances because we must all consider our appointment with death. I jokingly said yesterday, Fair Haven Funeral Home sponsored us. We're going to have them come by, try out the hearse, go inside, sit down in it, lay in it, see if you like it. I mean, just like the show and tell at the police station; how many would've done that? Anybody here morbid enough to do that? Jean would've done it. All right, and we would've taken tons of pictures and said she is nuts. But we do have a picture of one of our elders laying in a hearse. I'm just going to tell you, I haven't shown it to his wife yet. No, we put it online, she said, look at this. And some guy had a used hearse that he... anyway, that's a whole nother story. And he looked pretty comfortable in there. But we don't want to think about death. We pop into Walmart, we pop into the gas station. We pop into this or that. We pop to see a friend. How many of you pop into the funeral home? We don't. I just pop in. Now, I do. I'm morbid. I have friends over there. They work the funeral home. I was like, "Hey Mark, how's it going? Hey Britain!" I'm good friends with the four guys that own Fair Haven, and so I'll stop in just to say hi, Hey, let's go to lunch. I mean, you know, that sounds very, very sacrilegious, doesn't it? But you know what, it's part of life. But most of you are saying, "No, I don't normally do that." I make a plan to be at the funeral home because I have to think about what, death. And as someone who has lived more years than he is going to, I agree with you. I don't always want to think about that, but we got to. The Bible says in Ecclesiastic 7:2, "It's better to go to the house of mourning than it is to go the house of feasting." Because if we're just having a party all the time, we're going to get to the end of our life, and did we live it the way God intended for us to? Did we fulfill the plans that He had for us? Did we do what He called us to do while He had us on His earth? Because once we're gone, we can't. We got to live it to the fullest, and not just eat, sleep and for tomorrow we may die; eat, sleep, go to party - party with a purpose. The block party, do the fun things in life with purpose. I'm not saying not have fun. I'm a fun guy. You all are a bunch of bullies. Tell you, that's just not right. I think I am, but I like to have fun. But man, if you just live your life, having fun all the time and you forget, what's really important, you're going to miss a lot of stuff. In a flash, my daughter's a senior, the last one. In a flash I take my daughter to go start her junior year this week at Purdue. In a flash, two kids are married. In a flash, it's gone in a moment. What are you doing with the moment you got? We got to think about the end times because how we end matters as much - it has to do with how we live right now. And quite frankly, the Bible says He's coming again, so if we believe the Bible to save us from our sins, if we believe the Bible that Jesus died to pay for our sins on the cross, if we believe that He died and rose again, a fabulous story, an incredible story, a miraculous story. If we believe that we got to also believe what the Bible says about His return. He's coming again. He's coming again. And if a church doesn't believe that, if you don't believe that you're saying, I believe part of the Bible, not all the Bible. I'm saying, if you don't believe some of the Bible, you can't believe any of the Bible; it all stands or falls on itself. If something's not true, then God's a liar. Why would we trust God if He lied here and He didn't lie over there? That's a shifty guy to me, I wouldn't trust Him. I trust Him to be true, and even if we don't understand it, even if we stare at it and go, what is that all about? We have to believe it as a fact, as much as we believe anything else that the Bible says. So let's read 1 Thessalonians 4:13, "We do not want you to be uninformed brothers and sisters concerning those who are asleep so that you will not grieve like the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, in the same way through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep. For we say this to you by a word from the Lord. We who are still alive at the Lord's coming, will certainly not proceed those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from the heaven with a shout, with the archangel's voice and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are still alive who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore, encourage one another with these words." What is Paul saying here in this brief passage that is concise, it's not all inclusive, it doesn't give every detail, but it gives a lot of detail. First of all, we do not grieve like the rest who have no hope. Every time that I'm giving a funeral for a person who knows Jesus, who's gone home, they have gone home to be with the Lord. And while there's grieving, there's always going to be grieving when someone dies. Maybe not as much for some than others in terms of, I feel comfortable with where they're going. An elderly person that passes away, maybe they've been struggling, whether they be younger or old, they've been struggling with a debilitating illness. Or my grandma, I didn't weep uncontrollably at her death. I had an uncontrollable sorrowful moment when I realized she had so much dementia she didn't remember me. That's when I said goodbye to my grandmother. And so, I was not happy when she went home to the Lord, but I was grateful that she was no longer in the prison of a body that was no longer functioning the way she functioned when I knew her as my grandma. We're going to grieve. We're going to be sad. That's normal. But we don't grieve like people who say that person I'll never see again. We're going to see him again. I say, see you later. How many have lost a loved one in heaven? You lost them in heaven, really? They're lost. I just absolutely tricked you just now. No one is lost if they're in Jesus. They're found in Jesus and they're forever with Jesus. And somebody asked me, you didn't get into the idea of where they're at before this all happens in this passage. No, I'm not going to. Well, we can talk later about that, but it says to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Whatever that means, I don't know. We're not on pause, somehow we're with God, but in some other sense, we are. And there's conversation about that, but the quickest answer is, we're with Jesus when we go to heaven or when we die, but this is something that will definitely happen at a moment that we think not. Jesus died and rose again and so will we. What does it say in verse 14, "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again," and that if could also be a sense we believe, or in other words, of course you believe that Jesus died and rose again. Well, in the same way through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep. We will rise again too. When we baptize people in our church, they are baptized, buried in the lightness of Christ, raised to walk a newness of life. We baptized by immersion by simple fact that the word baptism means immersion, but it's a word picture of a death, burial of resurrection. It's a symbolic gesture that I am buried with Christ raised to walk with Christ. Someday I will be buried if I die before He comes again and I'll be raised up just as Christ was raised from the grave. We symbolize that in baptism. We talk about that as a body of Christ. We are resurrected spiritually into a new kind of a person. We're transformed into the kind of person that God intended for us to be when we become a Christian. But there'll be someday when our body will catch up with what's happened already, spiritually inside. You know when believers die they experience a freedom, a relief from the temptations, a relief from this earthly body. They receive fellowship with Jesus and all the other believers. And there was a man that died that he spoke to our church two different times. I went to see him just before he died at the age of 33 years old, I believe it was. And he's on he's deathbed, and I just had a few moments with him, me and somebody else. And he said, "You know, a lot of people want to go home to be with Jesus; a lot of times everybody said, 'oh, I want to go be with grandma and grandpa. I want to go be with mom and dad that died already. I want to be with my child that died.'" And certainly, I can't even imagine in those experiences what you might feel like, but you know what he said? He says, I'm telling you what; I want to meet personally the one who died for my sins. I want to personally say hi and thank you and follow at His feet and worship the one who bled and died for me. That's who I'm looking forward to seeing in heaven. I'm looking forward to seeing grandma, but I want to see Jesus. He is the king of Kings and He's the Lord of Lords, and He is the most important person in heaven that I ever want to see. And I'll see the others too, but it's because I see Him that I get to see them. Yes, because we all trusted in Him. He's our hope. He's the resurrection in the life. That's what He said in John 11, "I am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in me will never die." Do you believe this Martha? He's about ready to raise Lazarus, and Jesus, almost like he's asking you, do you believe this? He raised Lazarus. You know, that was such a miracle, that Lazarus came back from death. In that same time period, not only are they trying to kill Jesus, but because Lazarus was a testimony to the power of the resurrection in Jesus Christ, they put a death warrant out for him as well. Let's see if we can kill Lazarus too. There's no indication that I can find in history that they followed through with that. But they were like, he is evidence that Jesus is somebody that is taking our power away from us, and we got to erase the evidence of his power. This Jesus is the one who has life and death in His hands. Verse 15 kind of describes how He's coming back. Jesus is coming back. He's coming again. Acts 1:9-11 tells us that He had ascended into heaven, all this crowd saw Him; they're gazing up into heaven. Okay, he's gone now, what do we do? He had told them what to do, but they're just standing there. And it's like you got your orientation for your job, and then you're just looking at your boss and your boss's like, "Now go, go do what I said to do." This is kind of the church looking at this fabulous thing of Jesus going up into heaven. And while He was going, they were gazing into heaven and suddenly two men and white clothes stood by them. And they said, 'Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into heaven?’" The same Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven will come in the same way that you have seen Him going into heaven. He's coming back. They knew that from the very beginning. And in fact, Acts 1:7, they were saying, 'When you're coming back? When's this going to happen?" And Jesus even said, "It is not for you to know the times or periods that the father has set by His own authority." I'm not here to tell you how it's going to happen. And by the way, if Jesus didn't come to tell you how it's going to happen, this pastor not going to tell you how it's going to happen either. I can give you some ideas. I can point you some scriptures, but it's going to happen. That's what I can point to for sure that He's coming back and we must be ready. Are you going to be ready if He came in a moment? Would you go to heaven or hell? In your trust right now where you're at - I'm not here to put anybody in stark fear, but you need a spiritual reality check is, have you put your faith in the one who can give you eternal life? Have you trusted in the one who, if He came in a moment, He would take you home to be with himself forever? Or are you still waffling, wavering or rejecting? So Paul tells us a little bit how verse 16 and following, and let me just break it down. He's going to come personally. He's coming down. It's him. It's not some mystical mist, you know. And people can have apparitions and ideas and mystical things that they've seen. There's a farmer in Iowa that probably had crop circles that he didn't see the teenagers go in and do that. I don't know if it's true or not. I don't know. I don't have to believe in crop circles to believe in Jesus and have a life and hope. That might or may not have happened. UFOs - anybody seen something weird? Don't raise your hand. That you're like, I can't explain it. I've seen a few things; I can't explain it, but my faith is not based on that mysticism that I don't know. My faith is based on truth that I do know. And my hope is based on that. Not on something that somebody's told me that they might have thought of that they saw. And again, I'm not here to clarify it or disagree with that person. I'm just saying, I trust in what I know is true, and that is that He's coming again personally. Oh, and it says here it's going to be pretty noisy; a shout, a cry, a command, an announcement, the archangel's voice. This is also referred to in Mark 8:38, the trumpet of God. Great instrument. We played trumpet in Ball State together; my wife and I did too. That's a great instrument, right. And God's going to blow His clarinet. I'm sorry for any clarinet people. No, He didn't say that. He said trumpet. I'm sorry. His bass guitar, maybe. No, trumpet. Anyway, now I'm stepping on everybody's toes this morning. But it's going to be loud. This is going to be noticeable. Now for the flat air society, they're like, "Yeah, He is going to come one spot where I going to see it." I don't know how He is going to do it globally. I don't know. I don't know how it's going to happen, but it's going to happen. And we're going to know that it happens. We're not going to miss it. Pull a prank on your friend, go to their door tomorrow morning at 6:00 AM and bang on it, "Hey, the rapture happened and we missed it." Don't do it. Well, I know where I'm going, I don't know about you. We're just fine anyway. That actually happened to somebody and it was weird, so don't do that. But it says here, here's the timing, "The dead in Christ will rise first," be first to join Jesus, "and then we who are alive will be caught up with them together." Now, that, what the Bible says there's a sequence, the dead and Christ rise than us who are alive. But it also, the way it's worded to say, it's a simultaneous - in other words, Paul is addressing a problem that they had in their minds. Did they miss it? No, they're actually going to get ahead of the line. But it's not about who gets there first. We're all getting there together. We're all together going to be caught up. Again, a fantastic, wonderful moment in this world event of history that's going to happen. And it says, we hear a lot "caught up" same word in Acts 8:39, 2 Corinthians 12:2-4. In fact, Paul even used this word, "I was caught up into the heavenly," the third heaven, maybe your version says, and he had a vision from God. Maybe this was one of those visions. We don't know. He didn't quite explain what he learned or even how that meant, if it was an out of body experience, if God actually physically took him up there or not. I don't know. We know Elijah had a chariot come down, pick him up and take him home. That was kind of crazy. Enoch walked with God. He was no more. Walked with God, and he just walked right up into heaven with God. Wow. Wouldn't that be cool? But you know, those are unique moments in history. This happened. What did Paul mean by that? We don't know what he meant by his experience, but he's using the same word that we are going to have this personal reunion with our savior Jesus. And this is where we get the belief in what's called the rapture. Does your church believe in the rapture? You'll notice that in our doctrinal statement, the word rapture does not appear. You know why, because the word rapture doesn't appear in the Bible. However, the concept of it does. That word meaning - a Latin word, meaning carrying off or a snatching away. So yes, we believe in that, but we don't use that word because that's not a word - but we can use that word because it's interchangeable; if you want to put it in the terms of what we're talking about here in 1 Thessalonians 4. There's no clear timeline, by the way. Paul does not give a clear timeline. He doesn't say these are the world events that are going to happen when it happens. He just says it's going to happen. And he says we will be caught up with them. We wonder maybe even if Paul even thought that in his lifetime it might happen. There's some conversation about that. Or maybe he might, we, like whoever's alive at the time that it happens, it will happen, will be caught up with the dead in Christ. Again, Paul isn't overly clear, but it seemed to make sense and it worked well for the people who were receiving the letter. And I think that if we don't make it too complicated, it's going to make sense to us as well as we trust the Holy Spirit and His timing in our life. See, our church does believe in the second coming of Christ. We believe that. He's coming again. That's what we urgently appeal to people; be reconciled to God, connect people with God, connect people with the body of Christ. There is no plan B or C or D. The plan A is the local church. And if you're in a local church, participating in and helping pursue the mission of God, to declare His glory to the whole world, by declaring the good news of Jesus Christ and making disciples and helping them to grow in their faith, that they might go and do the same with their friends and family that we might, all of us, have multi-generations of believers in our lives. Just as we might have children who are physically born to us, it is natural for us to have spiritually born people around us that we've led to Christ and we've grown in Christ. And it is unnatural for any of us to be spiritual orphans or to be spiritually childless. In other words, who are you telling people about Jesus? And if you aren't, why aren't you because that's what God's all about. Connecting people with God, connecting people with himself, connecting people with the body of Christ. And that's why we say we are pursuing the lost and unchurch. We're unashamed to say we want to tell the whole world about Jesus Christ and we warmly welcome people who want to come in and transfer in and help us to do that who are already follows of Christ. Join us in the mission of what we're trying to do here, that we might see God be honored and glorified, and that we'll see multiple generations of spiritual babies growing up to become mature Christians, to see other people come to Jesus, spiritual babies, mature Christians. And that cycle continues until Jesus comes again, as we await the second coming of Christ and the rapture of His church. And then it says at the end there, we will always be with the Lord. At that moment, there'll be no separation. Oh, they were clinging to Jesus when He was eating with them and talking with them and teaching them the last things and really investing in them for those several days that He was on earth as a resurrected body person, showing them His wounds, helping them to have clear evidence, evidence that was so clear that most of the people that trusted in Jesus were martyred for their faith. Some were tortured for their faith. There's tradition that most of the disciples died a horrific death because they clung to the fact that Jesus rose again and they were unwilling to renounce it to their peril. And only one guy we know of that we know for sure was probably John who died of old age, but God used him in his old age to give us the revelation at the end of the Bible and gave us such great wisdom and ministry to the local church as he lived out his old age life, but most others were martyred for their faith. This was such a fact that was true to them. And they were looking forward to the return of Christ. They were looking forward to all that Jesus said was to take place through the church, through them and for the end of time. But even as they anticipated and they saw this separation from them and Jesus in bodily form, they weren't going to be with them, that all ends when it all ends. That all ends when it all ends. We're with Him forever. There's no more separation. There's no more, well I'm going to go away for a while then I'll come back and be with you. No, that's over. It's done. And we're with Jesus forever, our savior. So Jesus is coming again. He's coming again. Do you believe that? Therefore, encourage one another with these words, don't be discouraged. In fact, I want to read a passage here to just keep us on track with this because some of you, you've got a timeline in your brain of how this is going to happen. "Now, pastor, I heard you say this, but do you believe this too?" Well, I might, but here's what I know. There's a lot that we agree to disagree on. And there's some basic things that I already told you we agree on with unity. And if you don't believe that, then you wouldn't want to be a member here because that's what we believe. But let me just share a quote from somebody about this idea of the rapture of the church. It's an glorious event that we should all be longing for. We will finally be free from sin. We'll be in God's presence forever. There's far too much debate over the meaning and scope of the rapture. This is not God's intent. Rather, the rapture should be a comforting doctrine full of hope. God wants us to encourage each other with these words. And if you are looking at this as a discouragement, there's only one reason you should be discouraged by it. You're not going to be a part of it. There's only reason you should be discouraged by it, that you do not have hope in Jesus Christ. You have hope in a religious system; you have hope in some kind of a way of living that doesn't include surrendering your life to Jesus Christ. You don't have any hope and you should be floundering and you should be very unhappy about what I talked about today. But if you have put your faith in Jesus Christ - Paul said in Romans, "Whoever puts their hope in Him, will never be put to shame." His grip doesn't slip. I've walked my toddler children across icy parking lots. And I can remember times when I said, let me hold your hand. I don't want them to hold my hand. It was too weak to hang onto when their feet slipped. And I've told my children this, and I hope you've told your children, this there's things you can't do for kids when they go places and do things and they've got to deal with real life grown up situations. But I've told my kids this and it's a word picture of God's love; there is nothing you'll tell me that ever stopped me from loving you. There is nothing you will ever do that will stop me from pursuing you. There was nothing you will ever do that will stop me from ever wanting to have a fellowship and a love for you. I will always be your father. I gave you my last name because I believe that that's who you were. You are mine. I am yours. And as your father, that will never... You can take away my name from you if you want to legally, but I will never take my name away from you. Now, some of you, you never had that kind of a father. And it breaks my heart if that's ever the case. But it's a word picture of the father's love for us. He gives us a new name. He gives us a new life. He gives us a new way of living. He gives us a new heart. And I plead with you just as Paul did, I plead with you on Christ's behalf. Be reconciled to God, put your faith in Jesus this morning. Let's stand together. Our worship team's going to bring one more song to us and help us to come and worship Him in music. But this isn't a time to show off how good we can sing in this room. It's a time for us to get serious with God. Be encouraged by these words this morning. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, be encouraged that He's got you in the Palm of His hand, and that he's got a purpose and a plan for you, and you're saying, 'Oh, I better be ready for that moment." Well then, maybe it's time for you to surrender and get going with what God's called you to do and stop waiting for something else and go do it. Maybe for you this morning, it's time for you to stop playing around with this thing about Jesus Christ. Put your faith in Him, or I'll be honest; there's some of you, "I don't have enough information pieces. I'm really confused. I've been given all kinds of other information and I don't know what to believe." Your best step is just to simply say that. Maybe your best step today, yes, put your faith in Christ. But yes, put your faith in Christ like saying I want to put my faith in Christ. Ask the questions. We're going back to school some of you, I don't have to. I'm back in school too. We're all going back to school, and what they say - the dumbest question is the question that you don't ask. There is no silly question. Use the connection card. Connect with us, email us, text us, ask us the questions. But I believe this, is that true? Well, I don't know about this, is that right? But I don't know about this, is this...? Help us help you take that step of faith that God's asking you to take today.
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Church Health Check-up
1 Thessalonians 3:1-13 July 3, 2022 Jesus is building His church Matthew 16:18 “I will build my church” -Jesus is building his church -Paul planted the church in Thessalonica under Christ’s authority (Acts 26:12-18; Rom 1:1; Gal 1:1) -the church is plan a; there is no plan b! Acts 1:8 “…and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” -Jesus does not lie, we WILL be and ARE his witnesses Jesus is the Head of the church (Ephesians 1:2-23) -Paul reminds the church that we follow Jesus, not men -1 Pet 5:4 Pastors answer to the Chief Shepherd -Hebrews 13:17 Pastors will answer to God for their work A church must continually examine her spiritual health -Celebrate changed lives- what Christ has already done -Examine the spiritual health of believers -Examine how well church is following Christ and His Word -Pray for the church’s future until Christ returns Church Health Check-up: 1 Thessalonians 3:1-13 Check-up #1: How well do leaders care for the church? -Paul cared deeply about their faith- a father’s heart -He sent Timothy to check on them -Paul wondered if they had survived persecution -Real pastors and elders care deeply for the church -they can control how they serve and what they teach -they cannot control the final outcome! Just like parenting -Every church leader must care deeply about the spiritual wellbeing of believers -Every ministry (preaching, singing, property care, etc) ultimately aims to build up believers! -church leaders must never have personal agendas! Check-up #2: What is the church’s current testimony? -Timothy reported good news to Paul and his ministry team! -They still appreciated their church planter -They stood firm in their newfound faith despite persecution -Their spiritual growth gave Paul joy and thankfulness -Who is encouraged by our church’s testimony? -how have we persevered through opposition and trials? Check-up #3: A vision for more spiritual growth -Paul prayed he would be allowed to be with them again -Paul did return later! -Believers must continually grow in their love for one another -John 13:34-35; John 15:17 -Believers must become more blameless and holy -We answer to God, not ourselves, feelings, the culture -Believers look forward to Christ’s second coming! -Every day is spent knowing it may be our last -We continually confess and forsake sin, and re-surrender constantly to our Lord and Savior who we will answer to for our actions! What would our church health check-up reveal? -Do our spiritual leaders really care about every believer? -Are we growing despite cultural opposition? -Do we overflow with love for one another? -Are we becoming more blameless and holy as we await Christ’s return? How must we grow our love for one another? -keeping the main thing the main thing, forgiving one another -serving one another, bearing one another’s burdens, ?? What must we change to become more blameless and holy for Jesus Christ? -Trust in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord -Submit to God’s Word to change our attitudes and behaviors -Live within the accountability of the local church community -Connection Card, Discovering Church Membership Class -Seek out our Prayer Team Today- in person or online
Well, we are back in 1 Thessalonian 3 now and continuing on. For some of you, you may have come the last two Sundays and said, who's that guy up there? I'm the pastor of St. Joe Community Church. I have been absent for two Sundays and my son got married the 18th, and we were out that weekend. And then we went straight to church camp with our kids on Monday, and then Friday, we turned everything around, including our laundry. My family did, and we loaded up in Saturday morning, my wife and I, and our kids went to Myrtle Beach to be with my mom and dad and my sisters and their families. So we've been out for this last week, enjoying the sunshine, some rain, but bad weather at the beach is still the beach, so we've had a great, great time.
And I'm just thankful for St. Joe and your support for our family to be able to get away and to do things that we do, and just enjoy family. I say work hard, play hard. And if you don't have time off to refresh and rejuvenate, then you need to find time if you can. Sometimes it's just finding that one day or two a week and try to protect time to just rejuvenate and grow and just rest. Just take lots of naps. I believe in naps. I just think it's great. Just awesome. Anyway, Jesus slept in a boat. I mean, I'm thinking, it was a storm, but He didn't care, He was asleep. Anyway, it was good. And thanks Jacobs Well, they're going to be with us this Sunday, next Sunday, the band, to help us worship while Brae is still on his mission trip in Brazil. And for those of you that are connected with him, I pray you'll continue to pray for him and hear his reports, and as our worship leader, prayerfully considers his future and what God has for him. And just appreciate young people saying, I've got time, I've got energy, I've got ambition, what does God want me to do with my life? Yay, that's the best question you could ask. And when you don't have a lot of responsibilities or newlyweds, like you got, go for it, go do something for God, go do something big. Some people, they save up a bunch of money and then they take a year off to hike the Appalachian Trail. Bonita has a cousin that did that, and he just raised enough money for himself and went on the Appalachian Trail and did it, the whole thing, found his wife along the way. I mean, he found a girl that he married along the way, sorry, let's say that the correct way. And she was doing the same thing. And so, we quit and we invest to do all kinds of crazy stuff. And I think it's really important for us to invest and think about what does God want me to do and spend time thinking about that, especially you who are younger. And but for us who are whatever age we are, we need to keep thinking about that as well. But I'm thankful for our church. And I believe that as we think about that tomorrow we celebrate the 4th of July, the birth of our nation or the celebration of our independence. Yeah, and we praise God for that. But you know what, the best thing we can do is to be the church that God wants for our nation. That's the best we can be. We may have voted and everything went south and wrong in whatever we voted in the last 15, 20 years, it doesn't matter. God's in charge and He's building His church. He builds nations. He tears down nations, but He is always, and will it be about until Jesus comes again, building His church. The church is what has stood the test of time. Local churches come and go. Sometimes local churches last a long time. And sometimes churches last a short time, but God, Jesus Christ said, I will build my church, so today is a church health checkup. We're going to talk about in chapter three, how Paul is excited about wondering how they were, he hears the report of how they are, and then he praised for them in their future. And we're going to use that as kind of a way of thinking about our church, because we, as a church, have much to offer the community of people around us. We have our faith, we have our convictions, we have our beliefs, we have our energy and time and talents. Just recently, and I am celebrating the 4th of July in a fresh way because we now have an opportunity to enact laws that protect the unborn. We as a pro-life church, and we praise God for that, and we celebrate that. We celebrate the fact that we have an opportunity to do something that I wasn't even sure would even be possible in my lifetime to turn the clock back on a culture of death, to maybe pursue a culture of life. However, even as we have made a legal maneuver that I think was strategic and thoughtful, and people were a part of that, and some people voted their conscience in order for that to happen, and I think God worked in all of that in all of those different ways, we have much to pray about as well. So while we celebrate, we have a lot to pray about. Even one of our local churches was graffiti by pro-choice people. And I'm like, what? And I actually was kind of holding my breath to hear while we were out for two weeks, if somebody might graffiti us because we talk openly about supporting a Hope Center and we talk openly about supporting adoption and supporting pro-life things in our community, and so I wondered, would that happen to us? And I'm grateful it hasn't, I hope and pray it doesn't. I'm not living in fear, don't get me wrong. But there was a church that somebody online from the Gospel Coalition article that they actually had a mob of people come and absolutely smash out every window on the first floor of their building. It's like a block of buildings, and wrote all kinds of horrible [epitas05:52] and graffiti all over their building because they knew that they stood for life. And these people were standing for not life. And it was just a sad moment to realize that people not only do not like when you are pro-life, but some are becoming more hostile. I'm praying for safety as people continue to pursue life. And I'm also praying that we will be able to in a loving way, help people find and follow Christ and know what the Bible says about that, because our culture's not going to change until the heart changes in the culture. And that means that we need to be about the business of sharing the love and the life of Jesus Christ with our friends, our family, our neighbors, people all around us with our community. We need to be missionaries in our own hometown to share the good news of Jesus. Laws aren't going to change lives. Laws are important, but they don't change hearts. Jesus changes hearts. And so, let's just keep praying for that. So celebrate, but pray. I'm going to say something much more carefully prayed over and thought out and edited in a way that I would like to say it in this week's newsletter in the eNewsletter, and I hope you'll look at that and prayerfully consider some thoughts that I have when I say that. 1 Thessalonians 3, I just want, as we head into this chapter to remind ourselves that Jesus is building his church. We're not building it, it's not about our budgets and baptisms; it's about what Jesus is doing to change lives. We have a budget, we love to baptize. We're supposed to, the Bible says to. We receive resources so that we can spend those resources to invest in lives, to help people find and follow Christ and to grow in Christ and to go in Christ, but Jesus is the one building His church. It's not my church. How's your church doing, Greg? It's not my church. It's Christ church. How's your church doing, they might ask you. If your neighbor says, how's your church doing? What is your church? Because you're part of this church, but it's really Christ church. It's His church. He said at Matthew 16:18, "I will build my church," emphatically, and He continues to do that. Acts 1:8, "You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth." The church is going to invade every culture everywhere, the whole world. That wasn't one of those, "Well, you might be my witness." No, you will be my witnesses. You are going to tell about my resurrection and the salvation of me through faith in me because there's no one gets to the father, except through me. Jesus was very emphatic about that. He says, "And you're going to be my witnesses of this fact. You're going to be witnesses that I'm alive, that I came back from death after dying for the sins of the world, and you're going to be telling the whole world about me. Ephesians 1:23, that He is the head of the church. He is the head of the church. In fact, we know that in 1 Peter 5:4 that pastors, although we are called shepherds, pastors named shepherd in the Greek, that we're just the under shepherds underneath the chief shepherd. Jesus is in charge of this church, not me. Yeah, the elders and myself; at the end of the day, we are responsible for the spiritual wellbeing and where we go up or down, right or left, east or west. We have to finally account to God and to kind of discern. And we, as a congregation must discern together. We are congregationally led, so there's an accountability to the whole body of Christ, but we're underneath the authority and headship of Jesus Christ. He's the one that's building His church, and He's the one that's in charge of His church. It says, by the way, in Hebrews 13:17, that we are going to answer. Pastors are going to answer for their work. It says, obey your leaders because they're the ones that are going to give an account. It's not like, obey your leaders because they're in charge. No! Just help them do better as leaders because someday they're going to answer to God for their actions. There's accountability to your pastors and elders that is above and beyond the accountability that you'll have to the Lord Jesus Christ for what happens in this church. It is just like in our political cycles; if you're in charge of a city, a State or a nation, at the end of the day - "Well, yeah, but I can't help what inflation does." Some presidents, they benefit from the great decisions that were made by their predecessor, and then the ones get to not benefit from their predecessor, but who gets blamed? The guy at the top. Well, that's kind of generally true, but you know what? That is true in the church. At the end of the day, I'm the one that has to answer to God for how I served you all and how through my actions, God worked in a way or didn't work. It's up to Him to do the work, but at the end of the day, I have to answer to God for the work as I was responsible as your pastor. It's not what I think it is, it's what does the Bible say we ought to do. What does Jesus think we ought to do? I've made a lot of unpopular - I've made decisions I don't even like to make because it's not what I think, it's not my feelings, it's not my personal preferences; it's what does God think? What does he already said we ought to do? And we have to answer to him for that. A church must continually examine her spiritual health. We need to celebrate our changed lives, what Christ has already done. We need to examine the spiritual health of believers on an ongoing basis, that's why we believe in small groups, connection groups. Why we believe that even being on a worship team; that's a small group in itself. And we make sure that people are spiritually growing. Examine how well our church is following Christ in His word. And we need to keep praying for our church's future until Christ returns. We're not in a holding pattern. We're not in a holding pattern. How many here, your flower bed is in a holding pattern? What does it look like if it's in a holding pattern? It's not looking so good. You got to keep tending to it. But what does your car look like if it's in a holding pattern? It's full of junk. You got to clean it out, guys. Come on. What does your garage look like? We don't talk about garages. I don't want to talk about my garage. Anything you don't tend to gets worse. That's a scientific principle, isn't it? Things go from order to chaos, not miraculously from chaos to order. The only crazy thing that happens from chaos to order is when Jesus enters our life and takes our chaos and turns it into order. Amen. That's when life happens. And once He's in our lives, we have to keep tending the spirit, tending ourselves and doing the examination of, are we living up to what God has called us to live up to? Are we investing in His word? Are we growing? As we look at these three different sections in 1 Thessalonian 3, I want us to think about our own church health checkup. Checkup number one is, how well are leaders caring for the church? 1 Thessalonian 3:1, "Therefore, when we could no longer stand it, we thought it was better to be left alone in Athens. And we sent Timothy our brother and God's coworker in the gospel of Christ to strengthen and encourage you concerning your faith so that no one will be shaken by these afflictions. For you yourselves know that we are appointed to this. In fact, when we were with you, we told you in advance that we were going to experience afflictions. And as you know, it happened. For this reason when I could no longer stand it, I also sent him (that was Timothy) to find out about your faith, fearing that the tempter had tempted you and that our labor might be for nothing." This is a more personal moment in Paul's letter to Thessalonians where he is saying, "I really care about your faith. I really want to know how you're doing and I couldn't be with you," as we learned in previous messages, a persecution broke out. Paul had to kind of go in hiding after three weeks of serving and seeing people come to know Jesus as their Lord and savior, including some very prominent women, probably prominent business women in that community. But people got upset with this new movement and started to make false accusations against them. And they even took them to the authorities and said, "These people have got bad religion, this is bad stuff for our city. It's not helping us at all and you need to get rid of them." And these guys are housing those bad people, and they're wanting to beat him up and they're wanting to imprison them. And literally, the guy that was hosting Paul, he actually paid off - he paid a fine to the authorities so they wouldn't come against them. And Paul disappeared from their midst and went on to the next town to share the gospel, knowing that his presence was not helpful in the building up of that church, it was more of a detriment than a benefit. And so, he had to abandon them right after he had planted the church. And he was really concerned, how are you doing? Are you okay? "And I sent Timothy," he says, he sent young Timothy; his protégé in the faith was growing up to be a pastor. And he said, "I sent him to go see how you guys are getting along." And so he was caring about them. He wondered if they had even survived the persecution. He was wondering if our labor was in vain. There's pastors that have been called to plant churches, they planted them and then they move on to the next church and they go back and they find that there's a church there, and sometimes they find there's no church there. In Ecuador, it was so clear when we were... and by the way, some of you knew that my daughter and I were praying about going to Ecuador. And that actually disappeared that we're not going to go to Ecuador this week on a mission trip with another church in Evansville. We had talked about doing that and was trying to get Janae to the country. I've taken all my kids there and this opportunity presented itself, we thought, but there's political unrest, there's civil unrest, and so it's not safe for us to go to Ecuador right now so that's on hold. But I remember being there and we would share the faith and we would start these little churches. We, the teams of people, and I was just part of a little tiny cog and a big wheel of cogs of activity, that we would go in there and we would go up to this mountaintop area and say, is this church even here still? Are they still meeting? Are they still gathering for worship? Are they still following Jesus Christ? And sometimes we'd see them flourishing and sometimes we'd see them struggling. It was kind of a back and forth thing. In one church, they kept abandoning so much that Dave Wilson, the missionary finally said, "Look, you guys are going to have to decide whether you're going to follow Christ or follow culture, your choice. I can't keep coming up here if you're going to just only do things when I'm here and do nothing when I leave." And he said, "There are people that are hungering for us to be in their cities. And if you don't hunger for us to be here to grow the church, I'm going to have to find..." It was a heartbreaking tearful moment when he realized these people really don't want a church; they just want him to show up once in a while. And it was heartbreaking to see the investment that was made, that there was no spiritual activity to show for it after the fact. Paul didn't know if they were going to survive. In 2003 when we launched St. Joe Community Church, we had no idea what God was going to do. This is like parenting. When you have kids, you raise them up, you help them to find God, you help them to grow in their faith, but at the end of the day, we all have freedom to choose whether we're going to follow God or not follow God. As Grant was getting married to Sarah, I said to my son, "You know, I look..." He says, "Man, thank you, dad." And we were having those moments. I teared up a little bit - a lot, and it's like emotional and it was fun. And it's like, "Oh, it's my second born son getting married. Oh my goodness, what's this all about?" But I said to him on more than one occasion, and I believe I kind of said it that weekend, or maybe over break this past vacation time, I'll know that I've done my job, if God gives you kids, follow God, because you've passed on the faith that I've given you to them. And maybe even more so, great-grandchildren, if I'm alive then, I probably won't be. But if I am, that they're growing in their faith. But I have no control over that; I have no control over that. And so, you do what you're supposed to do; Paul did what he was supposed to do, plant the church and hope that God did the work. And He did. This church was flourishing. It was happening and He was excited about it. But a good leader cares well for their church. If you're a leader in our church and all you care about is your little sphere of influence and your budget line item, then you shouldn't be a leader. It's not about having a title. It's about carrying a towel in order to serve people in Jesus name. If I were to stop being a pastor of this church, like that position, the title pastor, would I be diminished as a person or as my identity in Christ, not in my position? That's a hard one for us, pastors, by the way. When you're not a pastor anymore, does that mean you're... What's your status? It's important for us to know that it's not about what we're doing and what our title is or what ministry position is, is that what we're doing as a leader is growing the greater cause, and that is helping people find and follow and grow in Jesus Christ. And if you're in charge of cutting the grass, if you're in charge of singing on a worship team, or you're in charge of something that nobody even knows is going on in the church, but is necessary in order to keep the church functioning well; you're doing it to the honor and the glory of Jesus Christ. That's what a leader does. They care about the people they're serving, not the position they're performing in. How well do leaders care for the church? That's a church health checkup for all of us, not just for the pastor; although I think about it often, but for all of us who are in leadership in the church. Checkup number two, what's the church's current testimony? Let's read in chapter three verse six, "But now Timothy has come to us from you and brought us good news about your faith and love. He reported that you always have good memories of us and that you long to see us as we also long to see you. Therefore brothers and sisters, in all our distress and affliction, we were encouraged about you through your faith. For now we live if you stand firm in the Lord. How can we thank God for you in return for all the joy we experienced before our God, because of you; as we pray very earnestly night and day to see you face to face and to complete what is lacking in your faith." What's the current testimony of a local church? Well, Timothy came back and said, "Great things are happening, Paul. This church is flourishing. Good things are happening. They still love Jesus. They're still following God. They love one another." In fact, earlier in the chapters as I talked about it in other sermons, they were an example for other churches of how to be a church. Isn't that the kind of church we ought be that people want to emulate us? They want to say, "I want to be that kind of church. I want to be part of that kind of church family. I want that kind of church to be in my town, in my city, in my community, across town." If we were to start another church, we want one to be sort of like St. Joe, not like St Joe, but sort of like in the way in which we do things that we're spiritually healthy. And that's what Timothy is saying. There's some good things going on. They still appreciated their church planter. It's enjoyable to go and see people from previous churches I've pastored, and we still have fond memories of our time together. I enjoy that. I still have friendships from people from my very first church. And I'm grateful for that. But I'm more grateful when I see these same people who I'm friends with growing in their faith, not just, "Oh, that was a good time. And did that. Been there. Got a t-shirt. Moving on with life." Is they're actually growing in their faith. They're still involved in church. They're still becoming what Jesus wants them to become in their own local church, beyond my presence as their church planter. These people stood firm in their newfound faith in spite of the persecution. I imagine, we can only imagine that these prominent people who had come to faith may have lost their jobs. They lost their prominence. They didn't have their social status that they had because they were followers of Christ. And that was not popular. It's still kind of okay to be a follower of Christ in America. It's okay to be a follower of Christ in America. There's a time when it was really popular to be a follower Christ in America. There are places in the world where it is totally unpopular to be a follower of Christ. And you may even be in some work environments where it's unpopular to be the preacher boy or the preacher girl. I don't know. I know that to be true in some personal instances where I hear people talk. And so these people in spite of the cultural opposition to their faith were standing firm. Is that true of us? Are we standing firm? Not like in some like militant, oh, there we are. No. It's oh, we love Jesus too much to abandon Him. We love the word of God too much to abandon what it says on how we ought to live our lives, and how we ought to practice our faith, and how we ought to be the kind of people we ought to be. And the citizens that we are, and the families that we are, raising our children the way we do, believing in marriage, the way we believe in marriage, believing in all the things that God has put forth in His word, the way God has put forth in his word; boldly standing even when it's unpopular culturally to do so. What's our current testimony? Collectively, do we represent what God wants to be doing in local churches all over the world? We have our own unique footprint and fingerprints of how we do church and life. But in generally, are we following the New Testament pattern of a local New Testament church? What's the church's current testimony? Who is encouraged by our church's testimony? How have we persevered through our own oppositions and trials as a church family? If we stopped existing tomorrow, how many people outside of our fellowships and friendships would care? Would Fort Wayne notice if we disappeared tomorrow, other than the building's vacant? How little or much are we making a difference in our community for Jesus' sake will determine the answer to that question? If you disappeared tomorrow from your workplace, from your neighborhood; would Christ's presence be diminished or would it be a non-issue? Nobody knew that you were a follower of Christ. It matters what our testimony is for the Lord. Jesus Christ. It matters that we're making a difference in our time and place until Jesus comes again. And then finally, in this checkup, we need to have a vision for more spiritual growth. What does it say in verse 11, "Now may our God and father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you." That was a personal request. He wanted to get back to see them again, and he did get to see them again, by the way later. In verse 12, this is the prayer that I believe we ought to pray over our church all the time. "And may the Lord cause you to increase and overflow with love for one another and for everyone just as we do for you. May he make your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints, amen. Real quickly, as I closed this morning, we need to have a vision for more spiritual growth. We must continually grow in our love for one another. We don't come from the same political landscape from each other. We don't come from the same. We may have had diametrically different ideas within this body of how to handle this current pandemic. We may have all kinds of ideas. Some of you might be conspiracy theorists. Some of you don't believe in any conspiracies at all. I don't think anybody has a bunker, but if you do, you're not supposed to tell anybody. All I'm saying is, we don't sit here and try to figure out how different we are from one another. We're trying to figure out how we're moving together in the name of Jesus Christ together. And love, you know, we have a vision, it says, around our beliefs, we have unity. Our convictions, those core statements, we have core belief statements in our doctrine, doctrinal statement. You can learn that in the new members class that we teach, and it's just basic Christian beliefs. It's based on the word of God. It's our own way of saying what God says. And again, it's pretty common to so many churches and we have unity around that. And if somebody doesn't believe that, well, there might be nuances they may have to maybe attend a different church, but those are our unity unifying statements. But in those areas where we don't have those unifying statements, those things that we don't openly talk about; they're the absent of conversation about in our convictions, we have agreement to disagree agreeably with one another. We don't all come at it from the same angle. Some people they strategically voted for what happened at the Supreme Court. Some people said, you know what, God's going to do what God's going to do and voted their conscience in a different way than some other people. But at the end of the day, what brings us together is our love for Christ and His word that we are all trying to be Christ-like. And we all going to answer for whatever we did at the ballot box. Not trying to make everybody toe in line exactly what you ought to do what I think you ought to do. I've said many times before; I have opinions nobody's asked me about - may not ever want to. If you want to know my thoughts, I'll take you to lunch sometime, maybe, but up here, it's God's opinion about His word and how we move together in the spirit and the love of Christ. And we walk together in the spirit of Christ and that spirit of Christ involves loving, increasing in our love. John 13 says that we must love one another. That's how people know we're his disciples, that we love each other. We love each other even sometimes when we don't like each other, because we've got to love each other. And love is practical. It's not like a feeling. We're talking about laying down our lives for one another, caring for one another, truly stepping up to the plate. When you're going through crisis, we want to be there for you. We want to help you grow and go. Through whatever circumstance, we want to be a true body of Christ for one another. We do that best through small groups, by the way, it's hard to do just to know what's going on generally on a Sunday morning, but when your connection group knows what's going on, that's when we can really minister and serve and show God's love in a practical way. Do we overflow in love for one another? And then finally, we need to be blameless and holy knowing that we are going to finally answer to Jesus who could come at any moment and make us accountable for our lives. We're looking forward to the second return of Jesus Christ. We're looking forward to Him finally finishing and putting a period on the end of the sentence of history in a world. Some people say, "Boy, I'm ready for Jesus to come today." Well, I am too, but you know what? I know a lot of people that aren't and they'll be separated from God forever if Jesus came right now. Here's another scary thought. Are you ready to face God and be accountable for wherever you're standing right now in him spiritually? If he were to show up right now, have you prayed up? Have you been able to confess up and to recant and to move away from the things you know that He's asked you not to do - He's told you not to do in His word? Are you right with your brothers and sisters in Christ? Are you harboring bitterness and unforgiveness? How can you go to the throne of God and say, "Oh, I still hate so and so"? That's not going to fly in front of God. Are you ready to meet Jesus? I'm ready for the return of Christ, are you? Are you blameless and holy in God? Blameless doesn't mean perfect. Blameless like we said earlier, Paul said he was blameless. It meant that he was continually confessing his sins, repenting and turning away from and re-surrendering to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in his life. Is that where you are right now? You're ready to meet Jesus. Do you have a vision for more spiritual growth in your life? Or do you feel like you've arrived, you got enough of Jesus, now I'm going to get into little more of this, a little more of that, get a little bit of Jesus, move on? Is coming to church just a stop along the way of many things to do or does what we do here affect the rest of what you do during the week? So, what would our church health checkup reveal? What would it look like? Jesus, you're a consultant. You're the Lord. You're not a consultant. Jesus come down here. What do you think? What do you think our church looks like? What do I look like in front of you, Jesus? Do I really care as the leader of this church the way I ought care for this church? Are we still growing in our faith in spite of the spiritual and cultural opposition that's around us? Are we really growing in spite of the tendency for people not to grow in their faith? Jesus, do we overflow in our love for one another? Or do we find getting along with people in our church a chore, some sort of a legalistic habit that we got to come up with because it's the right thing to do? Do we really love one another? Are we leading blameless lives? Are we hypocrites in real recovery? Christians or sinner, we're just saved as there's bumper stickers. You know, we're not perfect. We're just forgiven. Well, is that an excuse to do whatever you want because you got free grace? No. What would our church health checkup reveal? How must we grow in our love for one another in our church? What step do you need to take to be part of the love growth in our church family? What must we change to become more blameless and holy for Jesus Christ? I hope that you'll take this connection card and you'll let us know how to pray for you, how to encourage you that you'll go online and look at the contact information area on our website and get in touch with us so that we know how to help you move forward. It might be this altar. This could become the place where you publicly say something to God in prayer. It might be that you go back in the back and talk to a prayer team that will be waiting to receive you and to pray with you about whatever's going on. Let's just honor God with whatever decision we make, that might be the example that He wants for us to be here in little old Fort Wayne, Indiana. Father, God help us to step forward in our faith and to honor you with our lives. For someone this morning, it might be for the first time they put their faith in you. And that would be their first step to tell the world that they're a Christian and have the courageous bold step of getting baptized. I pray that they will identify themselves this morning if that be their need. And for all of us who know you, I pray that you'll show us how to take our next right steps. Maybe someone's contemplating their faith and they're still not there; I pray that they would just hang on and keep coming and learning and growing and being around us. Not because we're special by ourselves, but because we follow one who is so special and worthy of our worship and adoration. I pray that our lives will be an example and a testimony that will cause them to want to know you. I pray these things in Christ's name, amen.
What to do now!
Acts 1:7-8 Jesus is coming back! Acts 1:11 He will return the same way he left Anticipation of His return is growing His return has been anticipated since He ascended! -The Apostle Paul had to discuss this in Thessalonians -Every major world event has triggered talks of His return -I remember the Cold War, everyone thought The world was going to end soon, Jesus would return Jesus told us what to do until he comes back What to do now (until Jesus comes again) 1. Don’t predict the end of the world -We aren’t supposed to know -Even Jesus submitted to His Father regarding end times -Prepare as if Jesus is coming at any moment, plan as if he isn’t 2. Trust Jesus with your whole life! -Place your faith in His sacrifice for your sins -Place your faith in His resurrection from death -Romans 10:9-10 -God’s plan right now is for everyone to trust Jesus 3. Tell others what you know is true -Sharing the good news about Jesus Christ is our #1 task! -We are Christ’s witnesses- whether good or bad witnesses! -Jesus has empowered us to be His witnesses (vs 4, Holy Spirit) -Be more excited about sharing Jesus than sharing your opinion about how Jesus is coming back to fix the world! -Helping people trust Jesus with their whole lives IS how Jesus fixes our world! -“Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth” -this only happens when people surrender to Jesus Christ! 4. Share Jesus with the whole world! -Jesus provided a logical plan, go from local to global -Take the next right step to tell others about Jesus How everyone can share Jesus globally 1. Pray 2. Give 3. Go Consider this thought: If you believe the world is about to end, are you spending all your resources to help people go to heaven instead of hell? -Is the return of Christ something you are hoping for because you don’t want to deal with this world? -Who do you know will be eternally separated from God forever in hell if Jesus returned right now? -I pray we will be as excited and convicted to share the good news with our friends and family as we are about the return of Jesus Christ! What to do right now 1. Make your decision public -Connection Card -Website contact page 2. Depend on Christ’s power to obey Him -Jesus is the best leader anyone could ever follow! -His ways are perfect -His plans give us purpose -He gives us the power!
Introduction
Today is Sunday, April 18th, 2021, and welcome to St. Joe Community Church. Today’s message is entitled: What to do now, and it’s taken from Acts chapter 1, verse 11. Be sure to check out Pastor Greg Byman's outline notes available at the St. Joe website. Just visit www.stjoecommunitychurch.org, click on the sermons tab, and find today's broadcast. So now, let's open the Bible, get a notepad, and pen, and prepare to hear from God's word. Here's Pastor Greg. Pastor Greg Byman What to do now? Last week we read an account of Jesus who was resurrected from the dead. He appears to his disciples. The third time he restores Peter from his shame of denying Christ three times. He kind of recommissions them to say, let's move forward guys, come on, we’ve got work to do. And now we see another account of his resurrected body, his human body, who is not in the grave any longer. He's appeared to these hundreds of believers and his disciples gathered around him, and he's giving them the last few words of instructions before he goes up into heaven. Now, before we read verses 7 and 8 in Acts chapter 1, I want to declare to you what our church believes, what the Bible says to be true, what I'm staking my life on is that Jesus is coming again. Jesus is coming back. He is returning. It says there if you read down a little bit further in that text that we're reading this morning in verse 11, it says men of Galilee why do you stand looking up into heaven? What are you doing standing around here? There's nothing to see here, move on, move it on. He says this same Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven will come in the same way that you have seen him going into heaven. We know that in John chapter 14, you don't have to turn there, but you can put down if you're writing any notes today that in John chapter 14, it says, don't let your heart be troubled. Jesus is telling his disciples to believe in God. Believe also in me, in my father's house are many rooms. If not, I would have told you I'm going away to prepare a place for you. In other words, I'm going away, but I'm preparing a place for you to be with me forever. And there's someone in this building that believes that more than anybody else; it’s our friend, Corey. I think every week he comes to work in our church he tells me that God's preparing a place for him, and for you, Pastor Greg. He believes Jesus is coming again, and when he takes us back to be with himself, he's got a place for us to be. And I love the translation, I think it's more appropriate to the Greek language than the original Aramaic Greek that the New Testament was written in where it says not mansions but rooms. In other words, we're going to have attachments to the mansion of God. We're not going to be in all these different houses and our little plot of land so that we can have our own little spot. No, we're all going to be together with God. And who's going to be the light of heaven? God himself. He's the energy source. He is the one we're attached to. He's the one that we're going to see and be with forever. And he says, I will go, come again. I will take you to myself that where I am you may be also. You know the way I'm going. And of course, Thomas says, we don't know where you're going. How can we know the way? And this is the famous passage we often hear people talk about. And we say, and I've said many times from this stand right here, it says, Jesus said, I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through for me. The way to get to eternal life, the way to get to where God is preparing a place for all of us, is to get to Jesus. Jesus is coming back. There's an anticipation of his return; it's growing. People think he's coming again. If you're on social media is sort of like, you know, you see all these different people putting posts on the properties. Oh, what chapter of revelation are we looking at today? You know, all these sayings and clichés and everything. And I want to say to you, I'm not that old, but I'm old enough to remember that in the 1980s when I was in Sunday school they had it all figured out that Jesus was coming. Like within moments, he would be there because there was mutually assured destruction through nuclear annihilation. The cold war, anybody remembers this? Some of you say no, our history books maybe, but I'm too young for that. But many of us remember, and I was at the tail end of it. Remember when we used to have those tornado drills? I used to have a tornado drill where I got underneath the desk and put a book on my head or we'd go out in the hallway and put a book on our heads. Like that was going to do anything. Anyway, who knows? Actually, some of them say that wasn't necessarily a tornado drill. In Ohio, that's a serious business for tornado drills, but it was also for nuclear fallout drills because we were under the constant threat of annihilation by the nuclear Holocaust. When we went out west with our kids five years ago or so, we saw in South Dakota these decommissioned missile silos. It looked like a huge washing machine with the agitator in the middle of the top load. And you look down there's that missile pointing at you. And this one was decommissioned hopefully, but they'd taken out the nuclear warhead that was on it. And that thing right there speckled all around the west and some are still commissioned in order to protect us. The reality of the fact I was on a ship, a nuclear submarine that my cousin used to be the commander of, and I remember just putting my arms around one of the 22 nuclear warhead silos, the tubes that held these ballistic missiles and they were multiple heads. Each of the 22 had multiple heads that would come off of it and be assigned to particular cities and our enemy territory in Russia and other places in order to assure that our enemies were annihilated the submarine went underneath the water and it just made sure that it was deterrence. Hey, we're here and at any moment we can push the button and everybody's gone. And I remember putting my arms around that down in Kings Bay, Georgia going wow, this right here could destroy millions of people, what I have my arms around. It's mesmerizing, Lord Jesus comes quickly. There's this excitement that he's coming. There's this anticipation. There’s this foreboding that he's coming. Wars and rumors of Wars, calamity, earth lead destruction, hurricanes, and all kinds of things. I mean this was actually true back in Thessalonians in the first century the people were dying and they said, well, Jesus is coming back. They missed it. They're dead. And Paul had to write to the church and say, no, no, no, no, you don't get it if he hasn't come back yet, he will. And you can know that he was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write that the dead in Christ will rise first, and then those who are alive will be caught up together. That there's a plan for those who have died in Christ. In other words, his coming again hasn't happened yet. And God has a plan for those, even if we die before it happens. You see, Jesus told us he was coming back. The Bible declares he is, but it's been 2000 years and I'm planning for great, great-grandchildren to actually live a life on this earth unless he comes back, and I'll be happy for that too. We don't know when he's coming back, but there is this anticipation that he is going to. But I believe that Acts chapter 1 declares for us, and I believe it, I am convicted that the Bible tells us that Acts chapter 1, verses 7 and 8 these are our marching orders until he comes again. What to do now until Jesus comes again? Let me read for us verses 7 and eight, Jesus said to them, it is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. What are the things that Jesus is asking us to do? He’s not asking us, he's telling us what to do until he comes again. Well, first of all, number one, don't predict the end of the world. When we were visiting churches in my middle school years of life, we were in transition and we went to a church in Dayton, Ohio, a good solid church and nothing was. But one thing they did do is when I went into the Sunday school classroom for the youth they had this chart, and I don't think literally it was as far as from that wall to that wall, a chart that explained how Jesus was coming again. It had nations mentioned of that Bible this was the nation. This was the nation, some of the nations on that they don't even exist anymore. They had it all figured out. I can guarantee you of every chart that you've ever had from somebody who says this is exactly how Jesus is coming again. I can guarantee one thing true about all of those charts, they’re not true because Jesus himself says it is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. Even Jesus said, now, I'm not saying Jesus didn't know. He may or may not have known, but in the Trinity of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit he was submitting to the will of the Father regarding the times and periods of how things would pan out for his kingdom to come, his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus himself was submitting to the Father. I submit to you that we must submit to the Father and we must listen to Jesus, does not predict the end of the world. I say we ought to prepare as if Jesus is coming at any moment, but plan as if he isn't. I think at any moment he could. At any moment, in fact, that's why in a moment I'm going to share. You need to be ready. You need to be ready if he's coming at any moment. We need to prepare. We need to plan and continue to live our lives according to the plan that God has for us even if he doesn't come back at this very moment. Don't predict the end of the world. Don’t get on Facebook and say, it's coming right away. It’s coming, yes, you can say, he's coming. He's coming. He's coming. I can say that. I will say that I'm convinced he's coming. If he's not coming the Bible is false. It's a lie. Why believe any of it? He's coming. And by the way, there are some legitimate conversations I think, according to the word of God and according to the signs and according to all the different Daniel, Revelation, these are good things to talk about. And there are some, I think, very biblically responsible conversations to be had about how about it's going to come about. But don't be predicting it because nobody knows except the Father. Number two, we need to trust Jesus with our whole life if he's coming again, right? In other words, we've got to put our faith in the resurrected Jesus Christ, just as I said, last week, I'm going to go backward. We need to place our faith in his sacrifice for our sins. Place our faith in his resurrection, from death. Romans chapter 10, what does it tell us? It says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. One believes with the heart resulting in righteousness and one confesses with the mouth resulting in salvation. For the scripture says everyone who believes in him will never be put to shame. This morning are you ready for the return of Jesus? Are you ready for this world to be completely over? Every minute of your life you have a decision to make, whether you're going to put your faith in Christ or you're going to reject Christ and there's no middle ground. Well, I'll decide tomorrow. If you decide tomorrow, you have decided to reject Christ forever. And maybe you'll wake up tomorrow and have an opportunity to change that decision. Some pastors say everyone at church, so how many decisions did you have on Sunday morning? He says, well, everybody made a decision. They either decided to follow Christ or not follow Christ. They decided to tell us publicly what they thought or to decide to keep it to themselves. But everybody made a decision and everybody in this room is going to make a decision. Whether you're going to put your faith in Christ or whether you're not going to put your faith in Christ. For the Christian, you're going to decide whether or not you're going to keep on living for Christ or that you're going to start trying to take control of life your own way and do your own thing. Whether you're going to do what he's asked you to do, or you're going to reject his plan and try to do your own way and see the discipline of God come against your life and say, man, that's not what I intended for you. And just like an earthly father would try to help a young teenager do the right thing. Indeed God himself helps us as our heavenly father. He helps us and disciplines us to move forward and do the right thing. Everybody's going to make a decision this morning. The question is, is your decision to follow Christ or reject Christ? There's no in-between. Right now you could put your faith in him by just saying, God, I admit to you, I'm a sinner. I believe you died on the cross for my sins. I no longer want to live in the shame. I'm done living in my own power because I can't overcome this stupid stuff I keep doing. God helped me. Come into my life. I believe Jesus, you died and rose again. You died for my sins. I trust you with my life. If you'll just put your faith in him this morning, he says he will never put you to shame. His hand, his grip, his grip doesn't slip. He wants to hold onto you this morning. Will you reach out to him? I pray that you'll take that connection card that's on a window sill or you'd go onto our website on your phone or your computer at home and you just reach out to us and say, Hey, I'm making this decision today. I need some help knowing what that means. We'd love next week to have a baptismal service and let you openly declare your faith and baptism. Would you let us do that? Would you let us help you put your faith in Jesus Christ? He's coming at any moment. I'm not here to scare you. I'm just giving you a reality. You need to be ready when he comes. You need to be ready before he comes. You need to be ready. Put your faith in Jesus. And number three this morning as we get back to the text let's tell others what we know is true. Let's tell others what we know is true. We as believers if we've put our faith in Jesus Christ, we will be his witnesses. We are to tell others. 2nd Corinthians we read it, we are his ambassadors. An ambassador doesn't have their own authority. An ambassador doesn't tell people what they think it is. They tell people what the person who sent them the truth is. We are the ambassadors of Jesus Christ imploring people, encouraging them, begging them on Christ's behalf to be reconciled to God. Sharing the good news about Jesus Christ is our number one task as believers. We are his witnesses whether good or bad witnesses to be honest. He's empowered us, he said you will receive the power it says here. From on high the Holy Spirit is living in our lives if we're a believer in Jesus Christ. And we need to be more excited about sharing Jesus than about sharing our opinion about how Jesus coming back to fix the world. How did Jesus tell us to pray? Your kingdom comes; yours will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Do you know how the kingdom comes into this world? One heart at a time yielding their lives to Jesus Christ. The kingdom of God is in the heart of men, and women, boys, and girls, people who have surrendered the authority of their lives to the authority of Jesus Christ, his kingdom. Do you want to see our world change? So many people as said he's coming again because they're tired of the system we're living in. They're tired of the injustices. They’re tired of seeing babies slaughtered in the womb and politicians elected that are happily and gladly telling people that it's everybody's right to do so. They're happy that bad things are being called good and good things are being called bad and Christians are going, Oh, I just want to get out of here. Jesus come quickly. And some people say, well, we need to just reform our nation. We need to get a bunch of people in there and elect the right people. You know, as responsible citizens we are responsible and the blood is on our hands if we voted for somebody who does not believe in God. But you know what, how do you know who does that? Because who does or doesn't believe in God. And I've cast my vote going well, I think this is the most godliest choice, but I don't know if they believe in God. So I know it's a mesmerizing moment, but do you know what I know for sure? I pray for the salvation of our leaders. I pray for the salvation of our elected leaders, whether it's from the White House Congress or Supreme Court, I pray they trust in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. I pray that they'll get Daniels in their life. You know, Daniel in the Old Testament, I pray that godly men and women will be advisors to ungodly men and women in office so that they will know the truth of Jesus. They will know the truth of the Bible and start living that because what will really fix our world is when people put their faith in Jesus Christ. That's what changes Fort Wayne. That's what changes Allen County. That's what changes Indiana. That's what changes the United States is when people put their faith in Jesus Christ. People who God changes will change the world. That's what we need to pray for. That's what we need to look for. We need to tell others what we know is true. We need to share Jesus with the world. And number four, we need to share Jesus with not just Fort Wayne, but with everybody, the whole world, Jesus gave us a plan here. It says you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the outermost parts of the world. You will be my witnesses in Fort Wayne in the 05, 46805 districts, and the other districts around Fort Wayne. You'll be my witnesses in Allen County, in Indiana, United States, and to the outermost parts of the world. If you were to go up to my office and you're welcome to do so at any time, you will see that I have two maps. I put a call out to say I was looking for a map of Fort Wayne that I could write with a dry erase marker on. And they have them for sale. And I was in the process of buying one and Tom Garrity who went home to be with the Lord last year, he said, I got something for you on your desk. And I went up to my office and he had taken a full-size map of Fort Wayne, cut it into fourths, ran it through his laminator at work, and brought me a map of Fort Wayne. That's just the kind of guy he was. He would just serve. If we needed leaves picked up, he was out there picking up. Do you know why we had leaves all over this yard, over the fall and winter? It’s because Tom died before he did it. Honestly, a week before he was planning to do it, he passed away and we didn't have any other Tom get up and do it, shame on you. No. But that’s just the guy he was. I didn't mean to do that I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to guilt you’ll, but he was awesome. But do you know why I had that map? I got sidetracked here because of Tom, he was awesome. I love Tom. Pray for Gina. She's still going through, she's going towards his birthday and anniversary and all that. His widow needs prayer right now. And if you're listening to us, Gina, we love you. If you're listening to us online. Tom gave me that map. Do you know why I wanted that map? I wanted that map so I could have a visual aid of where God has called us to share Jesus and penetrate darkness and lostness. And I have a little dot right where 2900 North Anthony is, right here on the map. And then I have a circle around it. So is that a mile radius? No. That's about a size of a masking tape reel that I drew around it. It's just a way for me to get a target thought of this is where God's called us to reach people for Jesus. I've got the demographics I can tell you all about it. I can tell you how many percentages of ethnic groups are in here. I can dice it down to the median income. I mean, boy, the Census Bureau, you'll give a lot of information out and so do I, and we have that. Of course, credit cards tell our story too, you know, every time you go into that Kroger plus card, you know, whatever it is. They just figured out everything about you so that they can sell stuff to you, right? Well, we get that information as a church so we can learn what our mission field is. And it drills down, and we can know those things because God's called us to share Jesus right here in Fort Wayne. And we want to be missionaries in our own backyard, but we also need to be sending missionaries beyond our backyard, sharing Jesus with the whole world. See Jesus provided a logical plan here and everywhere to the outermost parts of the world. And the last I checked, we're pretty far away from Jerusalem. I think the plan is working. What do you think? Do you know why you're here today in Jesus Christ? If you know Jesus is because somebody outside of Jerusalem told you about Jesus. And I'm praying that somebody outside of Fort Wayne hears about Jesus because we sent them because on the other side of my office on the other wall is a map of the world. And I have a dot where we've sent mission teams to other places in the United States and around the world to share the good news of Jesus. And these are mission trips that are not vacations with a little bit of Jesus in there, you leave, you leave ready to serve. You use the money that people raise to give you in a very careful way. We worked you hard and you're ready for a vacation when you come back because you're there to share Jesus. You're there to work the field that you've been given when you get there. And over a hundred of us have been mobilized in the last 18 years to go share Jesus. Why? Because we believe that it's to share Jesus, not just here, but everywhere. And I want people to have a world vision of the kingdom of God, not just their own backyard vision of the kingdom of God. And we have missionaries that we support. In fact, here's how we do it at St. Joe, and I pray that you'll be a part of this with us. We pray for people who are sharing Jesus globally. We give over 10% of our resources away to missions, causes, beyond ourselves. And we go, we send people out and our money actually helps pay for people that are sent out on a full-time basis, and they go and don't come back as far as that's where they live to share Jesus somewhere else. Now, I want you to consider this thought if you believe the world's about to end, are you spending all of your resources to help people go to heaven instead of hell? Is the return of Christ something you're hoping for because you don't want to deal with this world any longer, or is it motivating you to tell more people about Jesus? I have a friend she was a student at Indiana Tech and she named all her cows, steers. She was from Wisconsin and she had names for all of them [inaudible 26:13]. In fact, she actually had one on her Christmas card. Heidi and the herd, Merry Christmas. That's crazy. Heidi and the… I think that was awesome. I said, well, do you eat any of them? She says, oh yeah, we butcher some of them. I said, really? She says, yeah, we butcher the ugly ones. I said, but like when you name all the herd... She says oh, we don't name them. We don't name the ones that we eat because that would be too emotional. I mean, you know, Daisy. Daisy the cow. Now, for some of us in the room, us guys were like, that's red meat, I'm dealing with it, no big deal. Whatever. When you think about all the masses of people that will miss heaven, and facing an eternity without Jesus, what does that do for you? And I'd like for you right now to think of men and women, boys and girls that you know personally their names, family members, friends, neighbors. I mean, no one knows anybody's heart, but you and I know, and I know plenty of people that unless they're really Buffalo on me, they don't know Jesus. And if he were to come at any moment, they're gone. I just woke somebody up, sorry. They're dead. Sorry, Sean. They are without Jesus and they miss heaven. What are you doing with the resources, the time, the energy, and everything God's given you? Are you spending it so that more people go to heaven? Store up your treasures in heaven the Bible says. Store up your treasures for retirement so that you don't have to do anything for another 20 years, and then you die. I love retirement thoughts. I love the fact that you don't have to work for a living. You can live off what you worked for, but are you doing it in order to leverage your time and energy for the kingdom of God? Or are you doing it just to float around until you go to heaven? Who do you know personally? Names? People? Because see if we don't start identifying by naming the people that aren't going to heaven we will have zero emotional attachment to sharing Jesus with them. We won't care. Joe's going to hell, I don't care. It ought to bother you that Joe doesn't know Jesus. And you’re there to help him find and follow. Now, I got people on my list who don't want to hear from me ever again. I'm still praying for them. A few of them have actually come around and asked me questions and I'm starting to talk to them again. Some of them, I just see them, I do business transactions with them, I encourage them. I'm just being Jesus to them the way I can. We've got to share Jesus with people until he comes again. 2nd Peter 3:9 says, The Lord does not delay his promise as some understand delay but is patient with you not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. It could be that someone listening online or right here in this room, Jesus, didn't come back this morning because he's waiting for you to put your faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus didn't come yet because he's waiting for one more person to know him. Conclusion Thank you for joining us today. St. Joe is located at 2900 North Anthony Boulevard, just a few blocks south of the campus of Purdue University at Fort Wayne. Pastor Greg Byman serves as the senior pastor and the entire St. Joe Church family welcomes you to join us for worship service each Sunday morning at 8:30 and 10:30. Currently, masks are optional for the 8:30 service and required for the 10:30 service and most indoor activities. St. Joe is dedicated to helping people learn about what it means to place one's faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins and hope of eternal life. If you or somebody you know is interested in what it means to know God personally, please contact the church today. Please visit www.stjoecommunitychurch.org. Email us at stjoecommunity@gmail.com or call (260) 471-4704. Thanks for joining us today. We'll see you next week. Celebrating the Lord's SupperSermon onlyFull worship service
February 16, 2020: When you think of someone far from God, who’s the first person who comes to mind? Is it a neighbor? Coworker? Parent? No matter who it is, God can use you to reach them.
Today, Pastor Greg Byman delivers the third installment in a series called, "Who's the One" and is based on a national campaign of churches to challenge and inspire the body of Christ to reach neighbors, co-workers, friends and family with the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to do this one at a time, by focusing not on the multitudes who don't know Christ, but instead on just one--your One. Who is your One?
February 9, 2020: When you think of someone far from God, who’s the first person who comes to mind? Is it a neighbor? Coworker? Parent? No matter who it is, God can use you to reach them.
Today, Pastor Greg Byman delivers the second installment in a series called, "Who's the One" and is based on a national campaign of churches to challenge and inspire the body of Christ to reach neighbors, co-workers, friends and family with the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to do this one at a time, by focusing not on the multitudes who don't know Christ, but instead on just one--your One. Who is your One? Special resources referenced in this message: Who's Your One 40-Day Online Devotional: https://www.bible.com/reading-plans/16054-whos-your-one-40-day-devotional. Pastor's notes
By Pastor Greg Byman
St Joe Community Church February 10, 2019 As the calendar turns to 2019, millions of Americans will resolve to be better, and probably for millions of motivations. Too many Christians, however, are unwittingly making New Year's resolutions to earn God's love. Today, Pastor Greg Byman concludes his study of Ephesians 4:15 on how Live a Godly Life, and this week we're finishing on your SHAPE:
Notes
By Pastor Greg Byman
St Joe Community Church February 3, 2019 As the calendar turns to 2019, millions of Americans will resolve to be better, and probably for millions of motivations. Too many Christians, however, are unwittingly making New Year's resolutions to earn God's love. Today, Pastor Greg Byman dives back into Ephesians 4:15 to learn how to Live a Godly Life, and this week we're finishing on your SHAPE:
By Pastor Greg Byman
St Joe Community Church October 28, 2018 The temptation for a church is to rest into a fellowship, where followers of Jesus Christ can huddle while the storm rages outside. Now in its 16th year as a church plant in Fort Wayne, St Joe Community Church is Preparing for More in 2019. Today Pastor Greg Byman preached on girding oneself to reach more souls for gospel in 2018 and 2019, and what that looks like for the local body of Christ.
(machine transcription)
By Pastor Greg Byman
April 8, 2018 St Joe Community Church What is basic Christianity? Last week, Pastor Greg Byman preached that Christianity is based on the historical clam that Jesus Christ literally rose from the dead and proved that his claims were true. Today, Pastor Byman dives deeper into the present reality that Jesus is alive and the relevance for his followers. Pastor Greg Byman delivered “Jesus is Alive” on April 8, 2018 at St. Joe Community Church.
For Pastor's Notes, Slides and Transcript, please click "Read More" below.
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2900 North Anthony Blvd.
Fort Wayne, Indiana 46805 (260) 471-4704 www.StJoeCommunityChurch.org Sunday Worship: 8:30 AM & 10:30 AM (Live cast at 10:30 am) Sunday Kids Connection Classes (infants-5th grade): 10:30 AM Wednesday Prayer & Bible Study: 6:30 PM |
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