God Has Great Things Ahead
Joshua 1:1-11 Colossians 2:6-10 9/5/2021
Rick Gillespie- Mobley
How many of you remember entering into the first grade. Some of us were excited, some of us were scared, some of us didn’t want to leave our parents, some of us were nervous about that bus ride. Some of us were glad to be able to walk to school with our older brothers and sisters.
We hung in there. We eventually reached the eighth grade. Everybody looked up to us because we were the oldest ones in the school. When we spoke, the other kids listened. We had completed elementary and junior high school and in a week we would be graduating.
How many of you know that even though we had accomplished a lot, there was still more for us yet to learn and to experience? We were graduating, but we were also preparing to start over again at the bottom of the school as freshman in high school with a whole new experience waiting for us.
None of us was wishing we could just go back and do sixth grade all over again no matter how much fun it had been. We understood that to reach our potential, we had to keep our eyes on our future.
Today in the history of New Life At Calvary, we are at the final week of graduation from 8th grade, because next week we will Celebrate our 8th anniversary as a church. And as good as God has been to us over these past 7 years and 51 weeks, we can know that our God still has some greater things ahead.
Looking back almost 8 years ago, Calvary Presbyterian Church and Glenville New Life Community Church came together with a united vision for the cause of Jesus Christ. That vision birthed a new congregation, New Life At Calvary. For the past almost 8 years, Jesus Christ has been our reason for staying in business. Jesus has been touching, healing, and changing lives in this place week after week, month after month and year after year.
When people ask, what is really going on in New Life At Calvary, they need look no further than our desire to be united in the cause of Jesus Christ as it is revealed in the word of God. We do not attempt to change the word of God to fit our desires. Our goal is to change ourselves to fit the plan and purposes of God.
We were challenged in the word of God today in Colossians 2:6 where it says 6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
For the past nearly 8 years we have been sending our roots deeper and deeper in Christ as a church, and we have been built up in him. When our former denomination would not stand on the Word of God, we left to stand with our sisters and brothers in ECO who believed, God’s word has the same power to change lives today as it did the day it was written.
God has been faithful to us in so many ways. We thank God for all of you who have joined us on the journey here at New Life At Calvary since our beginning in 2013. We can promise you that you will experience with us many great things that God has in store for us in the future.
We didn’t wait for everyone to get on board to start the new congregation. When God calls us to move, then the thing to do is to move. We didn’t know how we were going to make the numbers work financially, but God did.
After we had voted to come together as churches and had become one, we were blessed with a gift in the will of the Nelson Family with nearly a half million dollars to use for our ministry. We had no way of knowing that was going to happen, but God did.
So what did we do, nearly 8 years ago, we decided to believe God and that the new church would be His church. We stepped out in faith on what could possibly happen. We were willing to believe, that if God could take a Joshua and encourage him to only be strong and courageous, that same God could do the same for us if we chose the same path.
Joshua, the leaders and the people banded together, and they received the promises of God and the land that God had for them. For nearly 8 years, we have discovered a God who loves this congregation and is faithful to His word.
When we step out on the word of God, we discover there is no limit to the possibilities of what God will do, when we as a church make ourselves available to be used. We know that we have been made for a mission.
Look at the number of lives we have touched in this community through your love and your service. We have seen people give their lives to Christ. We have served thousands of meals. We have given out tons and tons of groceries.
We know that in that mission, we are to demonstrate excellence in action, because we serve an Excellent God who does all things well. There is power in the unity found in Jesus Christ.
When we started nearly 8 years ago, we came with a desire to do God’s will and to try to help build a great church. A lot of our success as a church, has been your willingness to believe that God loves you and if you put your trust in God, God will make a way for you.
You have trusted God with your money and look what God has done. Year after year, we have continued to send money overseas to provide housing and medicine in India for Pastor Darvin and his wife Marcy. We have nurtured children in Nigeria with Rev Dr. Julius and Mary Lawal through our Rotolu Children’s Home. We have helped to feed and educate children in Haiti through giving to the Presbyterian Foundation. We have supported Syrian Refugees in camps.
Closer to home, we have supported inmates financially throughout their time in prison. We have helped single parents directly and supported Hannah’s Home for Women in Crisis Pregnancies. The deacons have helped with rent, lights, food, school clothes, funerals, id’s and a whole lot more. We’ve provided college scholarships. We’ve provided all kinds of resources for Wade Park Elementary School and too many activities for youth to count.
Think of all the ministries we do, we impact people’s everyday lives both in the natural and spiritual realms. There is enough bible study teaching and life application going on in this church for everybody to know the word of God on a daily basis.
We thank God not only for your faithfulness today, but also for the faithfulness of those who have been a part of our journey, but who are now with the Lord today. Our church has been blessed with so many saints who gave their all for the cause of Christ here at New Life At Calvary.
I’d love to call some of the names, but I know would forget some who should be mentioned. Let me just put it this way, we are honored that in the verse in Hebrews that says “we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses” that many of our covenant partners and friends are among those witnesses.
For they have served, they have sung the praise of our God, they have taught us the word of God, they have loved and they have helped to get us to where we are today. Yes they did indeed fight the good fight of faith.
Memories of them laboring alongside of us brings both tears of joy and moments of sadness in our hearts. Without them in our history, we would not have experienced all the goodness of God that we shared.
I’m thankful for those who have been a part of the journey with us but are now a part of other churches. They too had a role in getting us where we are today. May God bless them in the places they are serving.
For 8 years, we have been moving forward with a united vision of loving others, teaching the word of God, and reaching others for Christ. During that time God has shaped us into being more patient with others. He has taught us and is teaching us how to love those who are difficult to love.
We’re getting better at accepting that we can have differences of opinion and still be united at the foot of Jesus at the cross.
Our mission is to point people to Jesus Christ. We thank God for the various ways in which God has used our technology to carry the gospel message beyond our doors.
Cindy is thankful that we had our public access tv programs because she was watching them one day when God touched her heart. She went from not walking with the Lord to being an outstanding deacon in our church today.
We have people across the country watching our services each Sunday. I was surprised to get a phone call in the office from one of my brothers whom I had only seen three times in my life. He was calling to find out how to send in an offering to the ministry since he had been watching us for months.
Last year we began supporting a radio station in Liberia so that they can preach our sermons in Liberia and Sierra Leone. During the past nearly eight years, God has laid it on our hearts to make sure that our building itself could be a blessing to others.
That’s why River of Life Church under the leadership of Rev. Banaci faithfully proclaims the gospel of Jesus Christ out of chapel. They are grateful to us as a congregation, and they in turn will bless us when we have needs.
That is why families of people in our community who have suffered violent deaths can come and use our building at no charge for funerals and repasts. We share what has been entrusted to us.
That is why we could allow PNC to us our building for summer camp. When we do things like this, we never know what blessings God has in store for us. I wish you could hear all the many thank you’s that I hear, from people in the community who are grateful for the things that our church does.
One person who had simply heard of our reputation in the community, came and made a $2000 donation because she said, she knew it would be used wisely. It is great to have a reputation as a church of being faithful with what it receives so that others trust us an institution in the community.
For us it means that we are being faithful to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. How do we know that God has Great things ahead for us? Because Jesus Himself, said that those who are faithful with little can be entrusted with much.
You ought to be excited about what Jesus is going to entrust us with in the future. Not because of the amount itself, but because what we will be able to do with it to enrich the lives of others and to further build the kingdom of God.
A vision for a new church came out of our midst from a group within our church about two years ago. Next Sunday that vision will be complete with the launch of Bridge City Church. It will enable us to reach an entirely different group of people for the cause of Christ on the West Side of Cleveland. Who knows what Great things God has in store for that ministry.
If you go to sermon central, you will discover that in the last 180 days, our ministry has touched people in 171 countries. Even though we are not a large church, God has equipped us with a way of touching people we will never see until we get to heaven.
Even when our church building is closed, we are open 24/7 on our website, on Roku, on Facebook, on our church app and even on our sign out in the front of our building. We have equipped you to become evangelist right there in your own rooms.
Those of you on facebook, get a vision for it for ministry. When you hear a sermon that has blessed you, or song that you know would be helpful, get in the habit of sending your friends a link to the sermon or song on your facebook page.
Don’t just tell us that you thought a sermon was good, tell somebody that didn’t get the chance to hear it. Be as bold to paste it on your facebook page as you are some of the other stuff.
We can reach out technologically, but we still need to go find people the old fashion way. We need to invite strangers and friends to join us in worship. Who can you invite to the church picnic so that they can see what we’re like as a church? Who can you invite to our 8th anniversary service next week? Who can you give out a tract to this week.
Every time someone ask you for money and you give it to them, give them a tract as well. If you leave a good tip on the table, set it on top of a tract. You can be a silent evangelist if that’s what you have the courage for at the present. Just keep a card or a tract on you if the possibility arises. Remember, Jesus came to save lost people. Anything we can do to help people go in the right direction is a step forward in the kingdom. Somebody thinks about God when they read the bumper sticker on your car.
It is because we know the forgiveness of Christ, that we should be concerned with those who are missing out. We can’t believe the lie that people just aren’t interested in God Today. Jesus said the harvest is ripe, but the laborers are few. Pray that the Lord would send more workers into the fields.
We should realize more than ever that God wants us to be one of those workers both as a church but also as individuals. Some of us are called to be sowers and others reapers, but let’s do what God has equipped us to do.
For the past nearly 8 years of ministry, we have been breaking down walls between people.
We don’t need to know how much money you have to be a covenant partner, or what kind of job you have, or how good you have tried to be. If you want to know the love and forgiveness God, and you’re willing to strive to live your life in obedience to God, then we want you to be part of us because we are growing together.
There are no perfect people here at New Life At Calvary. We know what it is to have members stumble and fall. We know what it is to give each other another chance for as many chances as we need, because that’s what our God does.
Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners. Our church is full of people who came out of a sinning background. We know we are not better than anybody else. We also know that we need to continue to be changed by the power of Christ.
We have discovered, you can’t wait until you are good enough to get saved. If you do, you never will get saved. God knows all about you. God knows your successes and failures.
God knows your good and your bad. God knows your hopes and disappointments. Yet God wants you to become a child of God. For nearly 8years we have seen God developing children of God.
Some of you have weathered some very difficult storms in the past eight years. Your hearts were broken over the death of loved ones that we had tremendous homegoing services for. Some of you endured the pain of children who became involved in all sorts of difficulties and troubles. Some of you saw marriages come to an end that you wanted to last a life-time.
Some of you lost jobs that you had for years through no fault of your own. Some of you went through periods of doubt and depression. Some of you had reversals in your careers. Some of you had dreams for your lives that didn’t quite come to pass and you realize now, they might not happen. All of you went through this pandemic.
Yet you have found a strength and faith in God that has gotten you through this period. You discovered that God meant it when He said, I will never leave nor forsake you.
You have found a group of people from New Life At Calvary who have put their arms around you and tried to walk with you through your crisis.
We know what it is as a church to rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those who weep. For nearly 8years we have been moving forward with a vision to love each other as Christ loved us.
. There are a lot more people out there who need to know the kind of love that goes on in this place. We challenge you to help us find them, and allow them to be changed, even as God has changed you. Next week we graduate from 8th grade, so get ready for our high school assignments in the kingdom. God has some great things in store.
