“Being A Good Church, Becoming A Great Church”
Text: Phil. 1:3-11 (ESV)
3 I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, 4 always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. 6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. 7 It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. 8 For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.
9 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
This is the best series of verses that I know that – DESCRIBE HOW I FEEL AS YOUR PASTOR in the first year of SonRise’s existence.
I love verses 7-8 : 7 It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace,[d] both in my imprisonment [in our case @ SonRise – in my hospital and home recovery] and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. 8 For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.
Being A Good Church, Becoming A Great Church…
Heart of the message this morning…………..
-We will be successful in the eyes of God as a church (and that is all that matters at the end of the day) because we become and stay the following:
#1 Be A loving church – love for God, one another (and that includes proper self-love) and for the lost of our community.
13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.2 And if I have (A)prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith,(B)so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 (C)If I give away all I have, and (D)if I deliver up my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, I gain nothing. 13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Jesus spoke to his disciples in the closing hours of his life these words:
34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Jesus said to the crowds and his disciples………
43 (BZ)“You have heard that it was said, (CA)‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, (CB)Love your enemies and (CC)pray for those who persecute you, 45 (CD)so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and (CE)sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 (CF)For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers,[i] what more are you doing than others? Do not even (CG)the Gentiles do the same?
Matt. 22:34-40
34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
-A loving church – love for God, one another (and that includes proper self-love) and for the lost of our community.
Here’s the order of our “love life” according to Jesus in Matt. 22:
1st - LOVE GOD PROMINENTLY (Upward relationship)
2nd -LOVE YOURSELF PROPERLY (Inward relationship)
3rd - LOVE OTHERS PRAYERFULLY (Outward relationship)
LISTEN: You cannot love yourself or others IF you do not love God – first!! If you love yourself first it will end up in self-worship. If you try to love others first it will end up in man-worship. If you love God first, it will end up in God-worship! Love God, see yourself the way God sees you and then you can love others – especially those who do not know God.
Paul says to the church at Thesselanica: 1 Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you, 12 and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, 13 so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.
-We will be successful in the eyes of God as a church (and that is all that matters at the end of the day) because we become and stay the following:
#2 - Be A praying church – trusting God especially to do things that can only be explained as a “God thing.”
When the early church prayed it was: Immediate, United, Believing, Worshipful, Scriptural, Christ Honoring, Directed, Answered.
I believe that it is essential that every member be involved in the process of prayer. There is incredible power and resources available to the church that prays. In conjunction with that thought, today I want to talk with you about what we can expect when we as a church pray.
The records of the early church point to prayer as its dominant feature. The early believers knew that they were responsible for each other’s well being. They were to be salt and light to their world. One way they demonstrated that responsibility was by praying for the hurts and needs around them. Just as the members of the early church prayed for the needs of the people around them, we are to pray. Prayer unlocks the storehouse of God’s infinite grace and power. All that God is and all that God has, is at the disposal of prayer.
Someone wrote, “At a horse-pull in Canada, one horse pulled 9,000 pounds, another pulled 8,000 pounds. Together, we might assume that they could pull 17,000 pounds. However, when harnessed together these mighty steeds pulled 30,000 pounds, over three times what either could pull separately!” Similarly, God's power through His church is greater than the sum of His power in our lives individually. It is important to recognize that this prayer is prayed by people just like you and I.” AMEN!!!!
1 Chronicles 16:11 Seek the LORD and his strength, seek his face continually.
Luke 18:1 And he spoke a parable to them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;
Philippians 4:6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
Colossians 4:2 Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving;
1 Thessalonians 5:17 Pray without ceasing.
James 4:2 You have not because you did not ask.
Ephesians 6:18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,
1 John 5:14-15 And this is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.
Is the church in the books of Acts any different than the church today? Should it be? No. The God they prayed to is the God we pray to. The God who shook them is the God who will shake us. The God who filled them is the God who desires to fill us with His Holy Spirit. The God who empowered them to speak is the God who empowers you and I to speak so boldly about Jesus Christ. What I want to do today is challenge you. I don’t want to be an ordinary Christian and I don’t want to be the pastor of an ordinary church. I don’t really care about the size of our church, I do care a great deal about the spirit of our church.
-SONRISE let’s commit ourselves anew on this first anniversary to be - A praying church – trusting God especially to do things that can only be explained as a “God thing” so that He gets the praise & honor!
-We will be successful in the eyes of God as a church (and that is all that matters at the end of the day) because we become and stay the following:
#3 - A focused church – focused on the consistent defeat of the devil in our lives and in our church. Keeping Jesus Christ as the main attraction – always!!!
-Our motto here at SonRise is: “SonRise Christian Fellowship – Where Jesus Is The Main Attraction.”
A focused, Christ-honoring, Christ gets the credit church is what - I dream that we become as we exist to reach a lost and hopeless South Jersey community!
-To be the church that LIVES OUT the statement, “Seek and hunt out the kingdom rule of Christ and all the things that worry and bother you – will be taken care of! (Gregas Paraphrase for Matt. 6:33)
The challenge: TO KEEP THE MAIN THING – THE MAIN THING!
Most churches start out the same way….
-With hope and dreams – with excitement and vision. With an eye on what the Lord wants in those early days and years. BUT……
Something happens along the way!
When they started – the dog wagged the tail like it is supposed to do. But in time, the church loses their original goals and their FOCUS gets blurred and they wake up one Sunday and to their blindness or amazement – the tail is now wagging the dog!
Simply because they have lost their “God focus”and now they are bent on keeping the show going and the people happy and the ministry of the church erodes into an ugly business where man’s needs ARE REPLACED AND PUT ABOVE – GOD’S DESIRES!
A focused church – focused on the consistent defeat of the devil in our lives and in our church. Keeping Jesus Christ as the main attraction – always!!!
MAY SONRISE CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP never forget this!!!
2 Cor. 11:2-3 (KJV) “2 For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. 3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
OH TO KEEP IT SIMPLE! The only way to do this is to keep Christ the main and beautiful attraction here at SonRise! Remember – His burden is easy and light!
-We will be successful in the eyes of God as a church (and that is all that matters at the end of the day) because we become and stay the following:
#4 - Be A free church – motivated to see every person at SonRise spiritually free in Christ.
The Christian life is all about trading old, crusty lies for God’s relevant truth. When the Bible tells us to “renew our minds” (Rom. 12:2), what it is simply saying is, trade the lies you have falsely believed with the truth of God that is wholly believable. Spiritual freedom is the goal of Christ for us. He said it Himself. Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free. (Jn. 8:31-36- NLT)
Paul wrote, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” (Gal. 5:1-NIV 2011) If the truth be told, Christ gets jazzed up over us being free! He loves when we are free from the chains of sin and shame. That is why He came. That is why we continue in our quest to be all that God dreamed we could be. Freedom is the song we sing; the hope we hold on to; the calling of every child of God.
The devil knows that he has lost our “spirit’s” when we came to know Christ which means that the real us is God’s property for eternity. He can do nothing about that but what he has left (our body’s and our souls) he seeks to keep in desperate, debilitating shape. Think about all the junk and spiritual trash that we have captured in our minds and flesh over the many years that we have lived. Lies, disappointments, hurts, abuse. All of it has taken a toll on our psyche. All of it has the potential of destroying us physically, emotionally and spiritually.
Some of us deal with these challenges better than others but all of us (yes, you read that right) have to deal with spiritual bondage on some level when we are translated out of darkness into light. Satan hates to lose anyone to the ownership of Christ. Yet, he will not go down without a fight in our lives. It is important to remember that we as Christians do not fight the devil for victory, but we fight from the place of victory. That is huge.
We are already “more than winners” (Rom. 8:37) The battle has already been won on the cross by our Savior. (Col. 2:13-15; Heb. 2:14-15) Yet, our spiritual stability is defined by whether we become free in Christ or stay in bondage to the lies of the enemy. Paul’s words here as a way of reminder sets us straight on God’s way of freedom, “but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead.” (Phil. 3:13) It is not enough to be freed from the past. We must allow God through Christ to define and lead our present and future as well.
• Acts 13:39 “and by Christ everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.
• Rom. 6:7 “For one who has died has been set free from sin.”
• Rom. 8:2 “ For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.”
• I Pet. 2:16 “ Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.”
LISTEN::: The need for spiritual freedom often is not seen because of pride. (John 8: 33 reads, “They answered him, "We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, 'You will become free'?”) I heard one time, Pastor Robert Morris, Pastor of Gateway Church in Texas preach on this passage. He said in essence, this verse has to be “one of the funniest verses in the New Testament.” The question is, was there anyone that the Jews were not enslaved to? They were, when they said this, slaves of Rome and quite frankly, had been enslaved to nation after nation for centuries! Do you know why people can say something so ridiculous? Because pride and deception go hand in hand. Those who often are enslaved to sin or some pattern of life are blind and deceived to their own bondage. Being “self-deceived” is the most dangerous deception of all and very often this is what keeps us in the web of sin.
THE POSSIBILITY & PROBABILITY OF SPIRITUAL FREEDOM:
2 Corinthians 3 and verses 16-18. 16 But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17 For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image. (NLT)
#5 - Be A unified church – desirous for every person to biblically submit to God and to the spiritual leadership that God raises up at SonRise.
Eph. 4:1-3 “4 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
“MAINTAIN” tells us we must realize that unity has already been given to us. We just need to live it out. DID YOU HEAR THAT!!!
BUT ……..this unity is “of the spirit.” NOT THE FLESH! The flesh can never pull this off!
-There was a pastor that was giving a "children’s sermon" to all the young children. And as they sate before him, a bright-eyed three-year-old girl listened intently as he explained that God wanted them all to get along and love each other. "God wants us all to be one," he said. To which the little girl replied, "But I don’t want to be one. I want to be four!"
I don’t know what you want to be, but God, I firmly believe wants us SonRise Church to be one in spirit.
Pride promotes disunity. When we demand our way over others… When we think our way is superior… When we try to be on the top… We hurt the community.
Unity is God’s idea. Unity is God’s priority. It is something we must get right. This is an absolute for us. There is no debate about it.
ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL PASSAGES ON UNITY IN THE CHURCH IS – PHIL. 2:1-5: Let me read it to you.
"Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate? 2 Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose.
3 Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. 4 Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too. 5 You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had."
Q. DID YOU KNOW THAT ONE OF JESUS’S LAST PRAYERS ON EARTH WAS – THAT HIS PEOPLE WOULD BE UNIFIED????
John 17 – “The High Priestly Prayer of Jesus”
[Jesus speaking] "My prayer is not for the world, but for those you have given me, because they belong to you. 10 All who are mine belong to you, and you have given them to me, so they bring me glory. 11 Now I am departing from the world; they are staying in this world, but I am coming to you. Holy Father, you have given me your name;[b]now protect them by the power of your name so that they will be united just as we are. “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. 23 I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me."
THAT WAS HIS PRAYER?
IS IT OURS HERE AT SONRISE?
“Being A Good Church, Becoming A Great Church”
That is God’s goal for SonRise this morning. Let us work together WITH HIM to see this happen and IF WE DO – there is no telling where God will take us as a body! The sky is indeed the limit to what He, the Head of the church, can do!!
WOULD YOU PRAY WITH ME???
