When It’s Time To Move Forward Series

When It’s Time to Move FORWARD

Brad Bailey

April 11, 2021

Intro:

I am so glad that you’ve chosen to join today. This is a unique and exciting week for us a community. Today we have begun gathering in person again. And I want to say to each of you in this livestream...you are just as much a part of this moment. We are fully committed to our online community and connection. In fact we have invested a lot of our thoughts...and time.. and resources... to this online gathering....and community.

Most importantly... no matter how we gather today... we are all in a transitional season. Life is opening up after a year of a pandemic that has been both confining and consuming our lives.

For some of us this past year has brought dramatic changes and losses...for others ...perhaps it’s been more of a strange trip... an altered state of being... and we may wonder what normal really is.

As I’ve described before... as much as we may all have hoped for a moment when everything is over...when everything goes back to the way it was...the truth is that the months ahead will not be defined by a moment...but by a movement... a movement each of us will navigate. We know that during this Spring season...health conditions may vary...comfort levels will vary...vaccinations will slowly be expanding. So we see the months ahead as a transitional season.

We also recognize that the nature of this pandemic has adjusted some of our “inner settings” related to communal life. We have now had a full year without gathering in a normal fashion as a church... nor likely in many larger public gatherings. Our inner settings have become both more passive... regarding the initiative involved with going out ...and more pensive about being near others. So we see this as the beginning of a process. And we recognize that such movement will be different for each of us, but we want to encourage everyone to begin allowing the Spirit of God to guide that movement.

And today I believe God has one key word for us...and that word is FORWARD.

Way back in July....I felt the lord impressing on me...that we would face the effects of a long season defined by staying in place... in more ways than one. Staying in place may speak to staying at home...but it also speaks to the state of our lives. The truth is that life has been halted in various ways... from some that has involved work... for some socially...for some travel. And I sense at some level all of us have found ways to function reasonably well...but often with our future plans on hold.

As we come to this juncture, I believe that God wants us to grasp the unchanging truth...that the life that matters most... is what is ahead of us.

Last weekend... as we celebrated the events of Christ dying and then being raised from the dead... we considered the power to transform those who were bound in fear to become a force that changed the world... could best be understood by how their lives were unleashed. When the one you just watched die of Friday...whose lifeless body you held... shows up on Sunday ...and is now present before you...in a new bodily state... it changes everything ...including the nature of our own future.

As I noted... I believe that as we get older... we tend to focus on the past... and to believe that our best years are behind us.

And I believe that when a pandemic causes life to stop moving forward... we tend to focus on the past... and to believe that our best years are behind us.

When we realize that Jesus has risen... when we allow him to be present with us... we can realize that life is defined by what is ahead of us. Jesus lived out of a defining sense of purpose... he was focused on finishing well... completing his mission... that would then lead to the renewal of all things.

This is what the Apostle Paul describes. You may recall that shortly after Christ had been crucified and rose again... and the news was spreading... Paul had been a rising leader of religious system... proud of the rules they kept....and trying to silence these unleashed lives. And then the spirit of Christ confronts him...and he realized that it was Christ who had actually fulfilled what the religious system never could. And in writing as part of the Scriptures... he wrote to the Philippians...

I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead.... 13 I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us. - Philippians 3:13-14 (NLT)