UNSTOPPABLE #2 - “Unstoppable Alliances”
Quick review of last week: “Unstoppable Vision”.
Here’s our vision, our Big Idea - its based on Ephesians 5:2 in The Message: Keep company with God, and learn a life of love. We talked about our Big Idea, and how we go about carrying that out... (review)
This week: We’re called to an Unstoppable Alliance; one where we partner together to live this vision out. Keeping company with God, and together, learning a life of love. We’re all faced with a choice; to do life alone or do it in a strategic alliance, in connection with one another.
Let’s unpack this a little bit. If you have a Bible, open up to Acts 2 but it’ll be on the screen.
V44: All the believers were... Whats the word? Together. All the believers were together and they had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet... How? Together. ...they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate...” how’d they eat? Together. ...they ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
Incredible impact. Why? The early church, in my opinion, were tremendously blessed because they were unified. They were together. They believed that scripture was very, very important, so they studied it together. They believed that relationships were incredibly important, so they did life together. They believed that generosity was incredibly important, and so they were, and they did this together. And because they were so unified, an incredible dynamic was present:
You could criticize them, but that wouldn’t stop them. You could threaten to hurt them, but that would only make them more passionate. You could persecute them, and they’d become more united. You could even kill some of them, and that would just make the rest of them more focused and intent on doing what Jesus called them to do. They were so united, no matter what you did to them, you couldn’t stop them. Unity. Together. Unstoppable Alliance.
A couple of things, if you’re taking notes. What does God want? God wants us united, to be in agreement, to be together. What does our spiritual enemy want? He doesn’t want us united. He wants us divided.
If I were to ask you, “Do you think Christians around the world today are united or divided? I’d say sadly, Christians are pretty divided. Worse than divided, we’re splintered, and in some cases can barely get along.
Craig Groeschel took those verses in Acts 2, and kinda translated them into how this actually looks in our day. Remember, the way they were lived in the early NT days, they were together. They were in agreement. They were generous. But, here’s how it is lived out today:
All the believers were divided. They didn’t have much of anything in common. Hoarding their possessions and goods, they kept as much as they could for themselves. Every now and then, if it wasn’t football season and they weren’t too tired, they’d come to church for an hour and leave before connecting with others. They loved Jesus when it was convenient; yet, they were despised by people for their hypocrisy, and very few people got saved.’
Why is that the unfortunate truth? One reason is that in our country today, Christianity has become more of a “me” Christianity instead of what it was meant to be; and that’s a “we” Christianity. Today, it’s about me. “What can I get? I’m looking for a church that meets my needs. I’m church shopping. If this one doesn’t wow me, if it doesn’t make my socks go up & down, I’ll look somewhere else.”
Then, a lot of people today say, “I can’t find a church I like anywhere. None of them meet my needs, and so I’m just not going to go anywhere.” My needs; my wants; my opinion.
But when I read the New Testament, it seems to be more about we. It’s about us doing our part in the family of Christ. You hear this me-centered philosophy, even in our language, and we’ve said this phrase a gazillion times: “You need to have a personal relationship with Jesus”. Thats true; you do, because no one else can do that for you. But what’s more Biblical, rather than saying that I need or you need to have a personal relationship, it’s even more Biblical to say we need to have a shared relationship with Jesus, where we know Him in community, where we experience Him wherever two or three are gathered together in His name.
If you’re a believer, you need to partner somewhere in a local church. If it’s not here and you don’t like us, thats ok. No hard feelings. Go find a church that teaches the Bible and plug in, and invest your life in the greatest cause on planet earth. But do it somewhere. If it’s here, today I want to give you 3 ways that we’re going to partner, and if you agree, then you might say, “Yes, I want to partner with other believers at 360. We’re going to help ppl Keep company with God and learn a life of love. What are these 3 things? Glad you asked.
First, and this one will sound startling if you tend toward the religious side of things:
1st way of partnership: Do anything short of sin, to reach people who don’t know Christ. We must show a bias for action rather than being too passive. We should do anything short of sin. Why is that? Because the church doesn’t exist for us. We ARE the church, and we exist for the world. There’s a big difference. Paul said it like this. 1 Cor 9:19- Even though I am a free man with no master, I have become a slave to all people to bring many to Christ. When I was with the Jews, I lived like a Jew to bring the Jews to Christ... When I am with the Gentiles who do not follow the Jewish law, I too live apart from that law so I can bring them to Christ... When I am with those who are weak, I share their weakness, for I want to bring the weak to Christ. Yes, I try to find common ground with everyone, doing everything I can to save some.
“...doing everything I can to save some.” He’s saying ‘I’ll do anything. Anything possible short of sin to reach people who don’t know Christ.” That’s one of the main reasons why we exist, to reach out to people who don’t live in friendship with God.
Here’s a good example that may make some of you uncomfortable. There’s a network of Life Churches that we associate with, and one guy shared this testimony:
“Man, the coolest thing happened. I was at my Life Group in a bar...” And thats where some folks blow a gasket. Anyway, he holds a Life Group in a bar, which I would not recommend for everybody, because some people have vulnerabilities and weaknesses, and they shouldn’t be in a bar. Well, this guy was in there and he was reading the Bible, talking to other guys, and drinking his diet coke and reading the Bible and he had so much diet coke he had to go to the bathroom. Ladies, some quick insight about men’s rooms: Men go to the bathroom, obviously standing, doing their business, and there’s dividers between the stations there. And there’s a law. All men know it. It’s a God-ordained law, and that is, when you go into a bathroom, you look forward. You look dead at the wall in front of you. Its awkward, but you learn to get used to it. You never look... You just don’t. Thats trouble. Guys have been beaten up for that, so you never do that.
So, Bible study guy says he’s going to the bathroom, and a Bar guy comes up to him, and Bar guy stands right next to him, and Bar guy starts doing this... Bible study guy doesn’t look away. He’s looking straight ahead like a good Christian. Bar guy says, “Were you reading your Bible in there?” Bible guy says, “I sure was,” and Bar guy says, “Why are you doing that in a bar?” Well, Bible guy starts talking to Bar guy while they’re in the bathroom, and right there by the bathroom sink, Bible guy led Bar guy in prayer to receive Jesus.
Bar guy left the bathroom, went with Bible study guy back to Bible study, and now Bar guy is a Bible guy, and Jesus would be so pleased with that.
Now, understand that Bible study guy doesn’t sin in this adventure. Do anything short of sin. Bible study guy never looked away from the wall. He never did that or any other kind of fallen behavior, cuz we’ll do anything short of sin to reach those who don’t know Christ.
I’ll tell you how it plays out at church. This is all about Unstoppable Alliances, right? So we want to partner with you. Many of you have people that you love who don’t live in friendship with Jesus. Maybe your mom or dad or son or daughter or brother or sister or someone you work with or go to school with, they’re people you love but they’re not followers of Christ right now. When you bring them to church, and I hope you will, I promise you it’ll be a good week. We do our best to present Jesus in a very straightforward fashion every week.
Part of the reason this is important to me, when I was growing as a new believer, sometimes I tried to get the guys I played basketball or golf with to come to church with me. Most times they wouldn’t. So I’d go to church and it’d be like the perfect week to bring someone. And I’d be thinking ‘Man that would’ve been perfect!” Next time I ask, “Can you come?” “No,” and it was perfect again. Finally, I’d get somebody to come, and that week weird things would happen. Either the weird lady would go dancing by, or it was national Embarrass Your Guest Sunday or something I didn’t know about. And I’d be saying “Why? Why this week?”
My commitment to you is this. Bring those you love, and we’ll present Jesus in a way that will engage them. We want to partner together! And we should do anything short of sin to reach people who are without Christ. Here’s the 2nd way to partner:
2. Do more with less. We are called to make every dollar scream for the Kingdom. As you see the words of Jesus, you see just how important wise use of resources was to Him. He said this in Matt 25:23, “You have been faithful with...” what? “You have been faithful with a few things. Because of that, I’ll put you in charge of...” many things. Jesus was serious about a wise use of resources.
Anybody here finding yourself getting creative with how to make the most of your resources? When times are tough, we start getting pretty good at this. Some of you are finding brilliant ways to cut costs and make every dollar scream, aren’t you? Thats a very good thing.
I don’t mind telling you that we’re doing this in crazy ways here at 360. We’re feeling the hit of the economy as much as anyone, and are doing our dead-level best to accomplish more w/less. Volunteers are producing so much of what we do here that its scary. It takes a commitment to doing more with less resources, and together, many of you are key players in that call.
Matter of fact, this sound system that we bought used a few years ago, is pretty much held together by duct tape, chewing gum and prayer. Just a couple more pieces have to die before we start doing worship music with tambourines and kazoos. Well, maybe just kazoos. You have to draw the line somewhere.
By the way if God speaks to you or moves your heart about this, and you want to help out in some way - please know that there is an engraved invitation to come talk to me about it. There is a huge need, obviously, and maybe God wants to use you. When you take steps of faith like that, you get blessed in ways that will make your head spin. You can’t out-give God.
Many here know what happens when you grow up and learn to give the way we are called to as believers. You’ve seen God work, provide in ways that you’ll never forget. You’ve seen the impossible become possible. Think about life and ministry when anything is possible! It gets exciting - cuz we’re not limited to earthly math. When we tithe, we step out of the natural, and into the supernatural. God does more with your obedient 90% than a tightfisted disobedient 100% thats not blessed. For some here, the time to start tithing is not when the economy is back up and things get a little more safe. The time to involve God in your finances is now - before another minute goes by. I want God looking out for me now, not later.
Ok, so we do anything short of sin to reach people who don’t know Christ. And 2nd, we agree to do more with less. Heres the 3rd way of partnering:
3. Do more together than alone We’re called to experience life together. Last week I talked about why moving beyond this environment is so important. Why we should go from the front door to the living room - meaning, from beyond just a Sunday service, to getting into a Life group and connecting relationally. Thats vitally important for each one of us.
There’s another dimension to that as well. 360 Church is called to partner in the same way. We’re called to Do more together than alone. So we partner with other churches and other ministries that share the same call, both here in Central FL, around the country, and around the world.
As I represent 360 Church, I connect with other pastors in the area regularly. No one asks me to do that, and I don’t have to. I’m plenty busy with leading this church. But we don’t exist for ourselves, and I don’t want us to be a ministry island thats disconnected from the Body of Christ. So I take purposeful steps to keep us connected. I meet monthly with some pastors and church planters and we share ideas and resources. We pray for one another. We root for one another and cheer one another on, even though we may have churches that are in the same area. We’ve committed to fight against territorialism and instead, we act in the opposite spirit. We realize that what’s important is the Kingdom of God and the Body of Christ, not the boundary line between my ranch and your ranch. I’ll help you if I can, and you help me.
We’ve been blessed with some resources that have helped us do ministry at a higher level than we would without it. We’ve blessed other congregations with our resources. There are pastors in other parts of the country teaching their versions of my messages, and using the graphics our team has produced to help it. We say, ‘If we have something that’ll help, its yours.’ One guy came up to me after a service and said, ‘Hey, I was at Summit Church down the road this past week, and you were on a video in the pastor’s message- what’s up with that?’ We partner with others, thats what’s up with that. We’re all about creating Unstoppable Alliances.
This is not about us. It’s about the kingdom of God, and that means that we are called to partner with the Body of Christ in this city and in the world to make a difference. Later this year, we’re going to partner with that little church in the Dominican Republic again. We’ll send a team to serve them and help them with some resources, and it will be an experience that will never be forgotten by those who go. So pray about being part of that team...
We partner by agreeing to do more together than alone. If you’re doing life alone, stop. The opportunity is before you to join up with others that will partner with you in becoming all you were created to be. There is something that God wants you to become, that you’ll never become apart from investing yourself in Unstoppable Alliances with other believers...
