On The Edge Series

Matthew 16:16-19

On the edge

What are you looking for? Every one is looking for something. A new job, new house a new car or maybe a new boy or girl friend. We look and look. Christians are looking as well for something, sometimes it’s being more encouraging or smarter about scripture. We even look for being more spiritual in live and actions. Some even look for ways to serve or where to sere. What are you looking for?

I remember the first time I went to Haiti on a mission trip, I really thought I was going to impress those Haitians with my knowledge and my understanding of scripture after all they are unschooled and uncool about the way’s of God right?

Well what I learned was they could care less about my knowledge or my speaking skill they just wanted to know someone who cared about them and would do something to help them just to live and survive. They needed someone who was on the edge of true Christianity and understood what it would take to care for them or at least someone who would try to learn what it would take even by mistake. What I learned was we all must be on the edge.

When someone ask you where you go to church say on the edge. They might ask on the edge of what or where, just say on the edge.

I am going to in the next three weeks speak on the edge of what and where but to day I want to get us to the place we can understand how to get on the edge.

Yes being on the edge can be very dangerous; after all we might fall off.

While in Haiti I had the opportunity after walking ten miles, (yes up hill all the way) up a mountain to get to a village called Des-Alms. When I arrived there

I was exhausted and wiped out but I stood on the edge of the cliff just outside of that village and the view was beyond description, it was awesome scary but awesome. I would never have seen that view if I would not have gone to the edge.

Before we can grasp what we are on the edge of, we must first understand how to be on the edge, how to get so close we can see the whole view, picture of what God wants us to be as a church.

To be the Church on the edge we must first understand.

1. The Church is with out walls.

The Church is not built by man for man---VS 18 (Build My Church), that was Jesus speaking.

In other words it is built by God with people not by people using stone, wood, steel, concrete or other building materials man uses.

A. It extends from here to Hell itself. No walls to hinder the outreach of His message. One thing stopping the Church from being on the edge is the thinking we must go to church or we meet at the church. We seem to forget we, you and me are the church. Acts 2:47 shows we are added by the Lord to His church in the KJV and in the NIV it says to the saved.

When we are asked where we go to church we say we go to the Ligonier Church of Christ at 9025N 860W on the corner of North Main St and Perry Rd. We need to say the Church meets weekly at the Ligonier Church of Christ building at 9025N 860W on the corner of North Main St and Perry RD. But we go to the church on the edge.

"As you come to him, the living Stone--rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him-- 5you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." 1 Peter 2:4-5

“Living stones” sounds like a contradiction in terms. Nothing is more inanimate than a stone. Stones are not a staple of life. The idea that God infused life where it did not exist before shows us something of the wonder of the gospel. God takes us in our most lifeless form, when we were dead in trespasses and sins, and gives us new life in him. In his hands we become malleable as our Lord shapes us and conforms us to be a part of his church.

Let me give you a pre-definition for what the church is. For many have mistakenly defined the church in terms of a building where people gather once a week so they feel good enough to make it through the next week. That’s not the purpose of the church; it’s merely a benefit.