Seeing the BIG Picture
October 1, 2006
HONORING God
Intro: (Pictures) It has been said that a picture is word a 1000 words b/c pictures capture time, share a story, stir our memories – some pictures even capture our hearts. If a picture is worth a 1000 words, then a vision is priceless. A vision is nothing more than a picture of what can be and should be.
Trans: On Dec. 17, 1903, at 10:35 am., Orville Wright secured his place in history by executing the first powered and sustained flight from level ground. For 12 gravity-defying seconds, he flew 120 feet along the dunes of the Outer Banks of NC. This single event represented a new beginning in history, but for Orville and Wilbur Wright, it was the end of a long and tedious journey. Their journey began as little boys who dreamed of flying. But instead of only dreaming about it, they determined to make it a reality. Orville and Wilbur didn’t just believe they COULD fly, they believed they SHOULD fly.
Define: This AM as we officially kick-off our series of messages coinciding w/ our capital campaign I’m compelled not to speak about money and giving, but vision – in particular, God’s vision for our church. Over the next (4) weeks I’m going to cast a renewed vision calling us to simplify our lives around God’s will as we consider how we can impact our world beginning in White House.
Insert: What is the vision of our church? Where are we headed and what are we doing? Are we in alignment w/ the Father’s heart?
Note: Our mission is not to randomly develop our own vision, but to plug in to God’s vision and then articulate it for our community and culture. Thus while every church shares God’s Great Commission it isn’t going to be expressed the same way in different churches or locations. The thing is though, we don’t have a choice w/ regard to the mission, we only have to determine how to best accomplish His mandate in our community.
Trans: This AM, I want to paint the picture God has placed in my heart as your pastor. I believe God has called us to be a disciple-making church. But this will not occur by happen chance – we must intentionally focus our energies and build a strategy that seeks to make God’s vision a reality.
Trans: In the past few months God has been re-ordering my ideals and concepts of ministry – fine tuning them. In fact, I feel as if He has accomplished more in me in the last 6 months than in the last 6 years. And it all centers around simplifying my life and our church to be able to be on mission w/ Him.
Insert: A few months ago while in Pigeon Forge, I woke up around two in the AM sensing God was speaking to me. I felt compelled to read 1st and 2nd Timothy, Titus, and Ephesians. While many things jumped out at me, I was shattered by the reality that Paul’s first encouragement to Timothy was to entrust the truth in reliable men able to teach others and that his final challenge was to preach. I was blown away and convicted that I was preaching first and discipling last.
Insert: Milk jug analogy – preaching versus discipling.
Reality: God hasn’t called everyone to be pastor and Sunday School teachers, but He has called all of us to make disciples. Are we all making disciple?
Note: I began to ask the question – what is a disciple? A disciple is one who honors God by connecting people w/ Christ and a local church, who grows in their relationship w/ God and who shares in the responsibility of ministry to nurture and encourage the saved and to reach the lost and unchurched.
Note: Why do we exist? To honor God! How do we honor God? By connecting people w/ God, by growing believers in the faith, and sharing God’s love, hope, and truth w/ one another and w/ a world in need of Jesus.
Note: To simplify our understanding of our mission, I believe we need to refresh and clarify our mission to match our ministry structure and strategy.
Insert: FBC White House, the celebration church – exists to honor God by connecting people, growing believers, and sharing hope.
Trans: Today I want to focus on the idea of honoring God. I believe to honor God we have to have a heart that is captured by him.
Video: David Crowder Clip – All this for My King
I CAPTIVATED – fixated, hungry, thirsty
Note: What is your first impression of this clip? (response) I was challenged, convicted – CAPTIVATED!
Is it possible that in my life I can be so swept away by God’s presence that I become oblivious to the bustling world around me to enjoy the presence of my King? Can I get lost in His immensity? Do I hunger to honor Him no matter the cost and what others might think?
Insert: Can I be honest – there are times in worship that I want to raise my hands and don’t b/c I’m concerned what others might think b/c I’m the pastor. Not anymore! God wants us to be fixated, hungry for Him.
Verse: As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. Ps. 42:1-2
Note: Do we have a genuine hunger/thirst for God? It He the driving force behind everything we say and do? Is he the unquenchable desire of our lives?
Text: Then He came to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. And Jacob’s well was there. Jesus, therefore, being wearied w/ His journey, sat thus upon the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, Give me to drink. (For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, How do you, being a Jew, ask a drink of me, who am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews do not associate w/ Samaritans. Jesus answered and said to her, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that says to you, Give Me to drink, you would have asked of Him, and He would have given you living water. The woman said to Him, Sir, you have no vessel, and the well is deep. From where then do you have that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself, and his children and his cattle? Jesus answered and said to her, Whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. The woman said to Him, Sir, give me this water, so that I may not thirst nor come here to draw. Jn. 4:5f
Note: Jesus encounters a woman dying of thirst? No, not physical thirst – spiritual thirst. He found a woman desperate for God and He offers her drink to soothe her soul – and she drinks! From the moment she met Jesus she was captivated b/c her heart was captured by God.
II COMPELLED – moved to bold action and unashamed
Note: A second lesson was burned into my soul by that clip – b/c the guy was captured by God he was unashamed to proclaim His love for God – you could say that he was motivated to unashamedly proclaim His King.
Verse: For I am not ashamed of the gospel, b/c it is God’s power for the salvation of everyone who believes, of the Jew first and also of the Greek. Rom 1:16
Note: Genuine faith is captivated to serve the Father’s will. Anything less is suspect. I think this is what the apostle Paul was trying to communicate in 2 Cor. 5.
Verse: The love of Christ compels us, for we are convinced of this: that one person died for all people; therefore, all people have died. He died for all people, so that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for the one who died and rose for them. So then, from now on we do not think of anyone from a human point of view. Even if we did think of Christ from a human point of view, we don’t think of him that way any more. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have disappeared, and-look!-all things have become new! All of this comes from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. For in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself by not counting their sins against them, and he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are Christ’s representatives, as though God were pleading through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf: "Be reconciled to God!" God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become God’s righteousness in him. 2 Cor. 5:14-21
Note: Christians are controlled and compelled b/c they are convinced. They live w/out doubt and w/ conviction. Personally, I’m not convinced that we grasp this concept. We grasp the idea that we are masters of our destiny, but we miss the idea that we are to be completely captivated by His grace.
III COMMITTED – surrendered
Verse: I beg you brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, which is your spiritual form of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, in order to prove by you what is that good and pleasing and perfect will of God. Rm. 12:1-2
Note: We are to be surrendered to God’s will and God’s plan – nothing more and nothing less.
A We are to OFFER our lives.
Note: This is a volitional act of surrender. Not my will be done but your will be done. Whose will has been accomplished this week in your life? Your will? Your spouses’ will? Your children’s will? Your bosses will? Or God’s will?
Note: Only a life surrendered to God’s will is acceptable and pleases Him.
B We are not to be CONFORMED but TRANSFORMED
Note: Does your life and mindset look more like Jesus or more like the world?
Insert: Consider what you are concerned about. Are you concerned about what every other person is concerned w/ (bills, money, success, popularity, etc), or are you concerned about the things that concern God (the souls of men, truth and righteousness, you spiritual life, etc).
Story: To be captured by God is to be set free. It’s a paradox. I see it like bungee jumping – you’re securely held in a harness yet as you take a leap of faith, you experience the exhilaration and freedom of flight – even if for one brief moment in time.
Note: Would you consider that your life is captured by God – captivated, compelled, and committed to Him. My single ambition as your pastor is to lead you and our church to honor God in every aspect of your daily life.
