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Jan 01, 2012

Enjoying the Ultimate Gift

Preacher: John Repsold

Series: Christmas 2011--The Ultimate Gift

Category: Holiday

Keywords: joy, enjoyment, gift, experiencing god

Summary:

When God gave himself in the incarnation, he gave us THE best gift he ever could. This message looks at how we can enjoy that gift every day of the year through encountering Christ in the written Word, in His Body the church and through sharing the Gospel.

Detail:

Enjoying the Ultimate Gift

January 1, 2012

#5 in the Advent 2011 series--The Ultimate Gift

INTRO: 

We’ve been talking all month long about God’s Ultimate Gift to us, Jesus Christ.  We looked at how God worked in human history for thousands of years to prepare a family line that would be the Messiah’s. We tried to understand how God packaged the gift of himself in human flesh in what we call the incarnation.  We looked at how God gave that Ultimate Gift of himself 2000 years ago and how any person wanting that Gift of God can receive it. 

So today, to wrap up this short series, I want us to give some thought to how it is we are going to ENJOY God’s Ultimate Gift of himself all year long.

If I were to ask you, “How are you planning to enjoy this coming year,” the answers could be hundreds of times larger than the number of people we have here.  Life is big.  So our experience of enjoying life can obviously be huge too.  We could say we’re planning on enjoying work, family, recreation, vacation, sleep and thousands of other things this coming year. 

            So to invite you to think for a few minutes today about how you plan to enjoy God this coming year, that’s even a bigger field of experience.  There are infinite ways we can enjoy God because God is infinite. 

            So today I’m just cherry-picking 3 ways to enjoy God’s Ultimate Gift of Christ in this new year.  But they are ways that are pretty foundational to enjoying all the rest of God.  Without these three, we will miss enjoying huge spheres of experience God wants to share with us this year. 

Challenge:  Use the “Sermon Notes” page in your bulletin to jot down the main points of any message (especially today’s).  [Share how I always do that whenever I’m listening to another person preach/teach…even if I just head the message in the 1st service!]

So here is the first of 3 questions I would like you to answer for yourself today about HOW you will enjoy the Ultimate Gift all year long. 

#1.  How do you plan to enjoy the Living Word of God in the written Word of God this year?

God’s Ultimate Gift to us is himself.  Unlike some egotistical people who think they are God’s gift to mankind, Jesus Christ really is God’s gift to mankind.  God is himself the best he has of anything.  He is the best he can give.

            When the Apostle John wrote in John 1 about “the Word,” he was speaking of none other than Jesus Christ.  He was using a word that has many other applications in speech and writing as a proper name…just as we may use ordinary words as if they were the name of someone—Amber (a color), Sky (a noun), Tiny (an adjective). 

            John 1:1ff—“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” 

            John 1:14—“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”  He’s talking about Jesus, right? 

            If there is any doubt about who the Word is, Revelation 19:13 settles it when John describes his vision of the rider on the white horse whose name is also “Faithful and True,” the one who judges with justice and will rule over the nations—“…his name is the Word of God.” John goes on to tell us in vs. 15 that “Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations.”  Notice the connection between the Living Word, Jesus Christ, and what comes out of his mouth—a sword that defeats His enemies. 

Isn’t that the same connection the Apostle Paul made in Eph. 6:17 when he commands us in spiritual battle language to “take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.” 

            That very same “sword” that will one day defeat all the powers of hell and earth in the battle of Armageddon is the same sword we have available to us right now with which we can fight against those same forces of evil in our world and lives today. 

            Jesus himself modeled that in his own temptation when he answered and defeated every one of Satan’s most powerful temptations, not by arguing or debating or reasoning with Satan, but simply by speaking back the already written word of God.  

  • To the temptation to satisfy his raging hunger for food by obeying Satan in the use of his divine powers Jesus replied, “It is written; ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Mt. 4:4 quoting Deut. 8:3)
  • To the temptation to demand of God something that Satan wanted done Jesus responded with another passage of Scripture from Deut. 6:16—“It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
  • And to the final temptation to gain all the splendor and power of worldly kingdoms, Jesus again used simply the word of God from Deut. 6:13 when he replied to Satan himself, “Away from me, Satan!  For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”

If we want to experience the power of Christ IN us, we must love, know, embrace, memorize, quote and use the word of God from our hearts.  We cannot hope to enjoy Jesus Christ without knowing and using the written word of God.  We cannot hope to have victory over sin of any kind without knowing deeply the written word of God and using it constantly against the temptations and attacks of Satan and his demons against us. 

 

We could spend a month of Sundays and more just listing what the word of God can do in and for us.  Just consider a handful of verses from just 1 chapter, Psalm 119, that speaks in virtually every one of its 176 verses about the word of God.

  • Psalm 119:1—“Blessed are they…who walk according to the law of the Lord.”
  • 119:9—“How can a young man [and by inference, therefore, any man/person of any age] keep his way pure?  By living according to your word.”
  • 119:11—“I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”

ILL:  Talking yesterday with a wonderful 27 year old young man in the U.S. military and his beautiful 25 year old fiancée who is serving in Afghanistan for a year as a nurse, what a blessing it was to see two young adults who, surrounded by an very sexually immoral environment and constant pressure to give in and go with the crowd, have maintained their sexual integrity before God and each other because of the word of God daily at work in them.  

  • 119:28—God’s word strengthens our innermost being—“My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to your word.”
  • 119:105—God’s word leads, guides and gives direction in life—“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.” 

I could go on and on talking about how Jesus said…

  • keeping His word will keep us from experiencing death in its many forms (Jn. 8:51)
  • taking His word to heart will cleans our lives from sin (Jn. 15:3) and “sanctify” or set us apart for God’s best purposes (17:17)

In the final book of the Bible, Revelation 1:3, John tells us that there is simply “blessing” for anyone who reads God’s word. “Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it….” 

 

If we want to enjoy Jesus this year, then it will be to our benefit to immerse ourselves in Him through immersing ourselves in His word day by day. 

 

As your pastor, it is always a great encouragement to me to see various people “catch fire” through God’s word from time to time.  One of those people who I get to see almost every week when I come in early before the first service is Barb O.  Week by week I hear pouring from her heart and mouth one wonderful blessing after another she has experienced by being in God’s word on a daily basis. 

[Invite Barb up to share some of her experience in the word daily. 

  • WHEN do you enjoy this time with God in His word?
  • WHAT do you do?  HOW do you go about experiencing Christ in His word?
  • WHAT would you say to someone who isn’t in the habit of making reading of and meditating on God’s word a regular part of their daily life?]

 

This is the FILL part of our Fill-Mix-Pour paradigm we structure our church life at Mosaic around—being filled up with the life of Christ through filling ourselves with His word. 

 

APP:  Take the insert you have from your morning bulletin.  Talk about HOW to use it on a daily basis this week. 

  • Decide WHERE you will be reading in the Bible.
  • Decide WHEN you will seek to enjoy God in this daily.
  • Decide WHERE in your home you will have a quite place.

[Take a minute of silence to let people talk with God about this and make a plan this week to enjoy Christ in His word.]

 

Here’s the second question for this morning about how you plan  to enjoy the Ultimate Gift of Christ

#2.  How do you plan to enjoy the incarnate Christ in the Body of Christ this year?

At Mosaic we also talk about the MIX part of our life together.  This refers to how we experience God when we mix our lives together as the people of God.  Churches like to use the word “fellowship” to describe what happens when we do life together as God’s children.  Truly biblical fellowship is far more than just sitting next to each other on Sundays and exchanging a few pleasantries.  It is actually connecting our hearts and lives together in ways that enable us to experience Jesus Christ through our relationships with each other.

            Just like the infinite nature of Christ, there are virtually an infinite number and types of ways we can do that.  One day it might look like enjoying recreation together with some of God’s children.  Another day it might look like a quick phone conversation.  It might mean a minute, an hour or a day of prayer together with others.  It might be a shared cup of coffee or lunch. 

            Whenever we experience a touch of God through the life of a brother or sister in Christ, that is enjoying God’s Ultimate Gift of Himself. 

            The person of Jesus Christ and the life of Jesus IN the Body of Christ, His church, is linked together in very powerful and irreplaceable ways.  That’s why it saddens me when I so often talk with or hear about someone who has gotten wounded or hurt by “the church” and has stopped even trying to enjoy God through life with His family. 

Paul, of course, used this metaphor of the church being the “body of Christ” in multiple places in the N.T. like I Cor. 12, Ephesians 2, 4 & 5, and Col. 1 + 2. 

 

In Col. 1:18, Paul states it as clear as crystal when he says, “And he [Jesus Christ] is the head of the body, the church….”

In Ephesians 4 we are told that God gave certain teachers and leaders to the church “…to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ,” (Eph. 4:12, 13). 

He goes on to say that rather than being tossed around from pillar to post in our life in Christ, “…speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is Christ.  From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work,” (Eph. 4:15, 16).

            People today in America often say, “I don’t need the church in order to experience Christ.”  That statement is only partly true.  If you, by force of circumstances, are isolated from other believers and don’t have the opportunity to be in fellowship with the church, then I think God will give you special grace to experience him apart from his church.

            But when some measure of shared life with other believers is available to you (which it is to the vast majority of God’s children in America), God’s word makes it clear that the church is God’s chosen tool by which we are to “grow up unto him [Jesus].” 

            You’ve got to SHOW UP to GROW UP!

I’m not talking about just showing up for a worship service once a week.  That might be one place you connect with God’s people and thus come to enjoy God more deeply.  But honestly, I don’t have the best connectedness to my spiritual family on Sunday mornings. 

  • I get it week nights when I’m sitting around the table with my family. 
  • I get it Monday nights when I’m in one of the Mosaic Monday Night Training Groups. 
  • I get it in a staff meeting on Monday morning…
  • or the youth Life Boat on Wednesday nights. 
  • I get that “growing up unto Jesus” time in a classroom at Moody every week…
  • or a prayer group on Thursday…
  • or a Men’s Accountability Group on Fridays…or Men’s Connection on Saturdays. 

Granted, I may get more time with more of you than the average person here, but I’ve still made a choice to do that.  Every day of the week and every week of the year I make that choice over and over and over again.  WHY?  Because I know from experience that I need to be around YOU if I am to experience the kind of growth in Christ that God has for me. 

            Does that mean it’s a cakewalk every time I’m in one of these “mixing” experiences? Certainly not.  In fact, pressing into others lives is usually a bit uncomfortable.  That’s the nature of growth.  When I have to learn to be stretched by someone different from me, that’s when I need the love and grace of Christ more.  That’s when I will really be maturing in Jesus—when your presence in my life demands growth of me I don’t currently have. 

            Unfortunately, that is precisely when far too many of God’s kids decide to ditch the church.  In so doing they end up ditching the growth that God has for them.  They end up losing the enjoyment of God’s family and thus losing one of THE best ways God wants to be enjoyed—as the church, Christ’s body. 

 

So, how do you plan to enjoy Jesus Christ this year through His body, the church?    

  • It will take regular time in your schedule.  Through the years of pasturing, I’ve had many people tell me they don’t feel very connected to the church.  When I ask them what regular, weekly time they have set aside to just “show up” to be in some group or gathering of God’s people, they usually can only point to a worship service time weekly.  If that’s as often as I showed up around my family at home, I’d probably feel the same way—disconnected and distant. You’ve got to show up to grow up!  That takes TIME.
  • It will take a steady group of believers that you are seeing week by week, month by month, sometimes year after year.  Again I go back to family to picture this.  It takes years to build family bonds, doesn’t it?  And that’s usually living together every day, 365 days a year for years.  If we really want to enjoy God’s Ultimate Gift of Christ we will need to stick with some smaller group of believers over time. And if you can’t find one right away that is already up and running, don’t wait.  Start your own group.  Go to people in God’s family you want to spend time with and ask them if they would be interested in meeting regularly…whether over coffee or food or just at some place where a group can meet and talk, the spiritual family bonds you develop will change you, grow you and bless you. 

 

As your pastor, I will do everything I possibly can to help you discover and connect with the other “ligaments” in the body of Christ.  

  • If you want a marriage group, we’ll help get it going and resource you along the way.
  • If you want a men’s or women’s group, we’ll do the same.
  • If you want cross-generational connections and or want mentoring relationships, we’ll help you make it happen.
  • If you want to start a Bible study in your home or apartment, we can help you find the teachers or leaders or facilitators.    

One of the core values we want to live out together at Mosaic is meaningful spiritual relationships.  That means encouraging relationships over programs, people over policies.  It means keeping programming to a minimum so that we have more time for heart-to-heart relationship together. 

If you’re wondering where you start with relationship building at Mosaic, let me point out several current starting points:

  • Men:  Men’s Connection every 2nd Sat. of the month right here from 8-9:30.  (Describe what we do and why.)
  • Women:  Women’s Connection is just starting up.  Talk with Michelle Buck or Karen Chipley or Brenda Stapelton or my wife, Sandy.
  • Mosaic Monday Nights—2 new focuses will be forming starting in early February where you will be able to enjoy 10-12 weeks together with the same people, wrestling with growth-provoking material and interaction. 

APP:  Where and when are you now connected regularly and steadily with others in the body of Christ in relationships that truly help you grow up in Christ? 

            Is God inviting you to increase that connectedness?  Keep doing what you are currently doing?  Back off a little from over-involvement?  Facilitate or spearhead the formation of a new “connecting group/ligament” in the church, Christ’s body?

[Take a minute to let people reflect and talk with God.]

Which brings us to the last question today:

#3.  How do you plan to experience the heart of Christ for the lost world this year?

In my daily reading in the Gospel of Mark this week, I was in chapter 3.  Jesus’ ministry is on fire!  It is flourishing.  People are walking miles to see him, listen to him and experience his power. They are taking days and weeks out of their schedules to go find him and listen to him.  Listen to Mark 3:8ff.

8 When they heard all he was doing, many people came to him from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, and the regions across the Jordan and around Tyre and Sidon. 9 Because of the crowd he told his disciples to have a small boat ready for him, to keep the people from crowding him. 10 For he had healed many, so that those with diseases were pushing forward to touch him. 11 Whenever the evil spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” 12 But he gave them strict orders not to tell who he was. 

            Now put that up against the very next paragraph and what Mark says Jesus wanted a different group of people to do.

Mark 3:13-15-- 13 Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. 14 He appointed twelve—designating them apostles—that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach 15 and to have authority to drive out demons.   

            What do you notice is different about what Jesus asked of a.) the demons, and b.) his disciples? 

            The demons he told to be quite.  But they were speaking truth, weren’t they?  Mark tells us that demon-afflicted and oppressed people were falling down before him (looks almost like worship, no?) and were crying out “You are the Son of God.”  Wow!  Isn’t that better than what a whole lot of good Israelites were doing at the time?

            So why did Jesus not want demons speaking this truth?

But then immediately Mark tells us that Jesus had another command for those who were his disciples.  What were they to do? 

Answer:  Be with him, go out to preach and demonstrate the power and authority of Christ over demons.

It’s just the opposite of what he wants the demons to do. 

Question:  Who was experiencing and enjoying the heart and life of Jesus Christ more, demons/demon-afflicted people OR obedient disciples? 

So which am I more like? 

God wants us to first “be with Him” and experience his life in our life.  But it shouldn’t stop there.  He wants me and you to take that life out into our world, to literally “preach” the Gospel of life in Jesus Christ and to exercise His power and authority in this world by helping others get free of the evil powers exerting control over them even now.

That’s why at Mosaic we talk about the 3rd leg of our church life together is “pour”—pouring out the life Christ and gospel Jesus has poured into our hearts.  I know that in my own life, I often don’t have room for a fresh work of God because I’m not pouring out what He’s already given me to bless others with. 

            Every follower of Jesus has the same life-saving Gospel to give to others.  Every one of us.  Satan wants to keep us quiet about it…and Jesus wants us to speak out about it.  Whose winning that battle right now? 

At Mosaic we want the Good News of fullness of life in Jesus Christ to be pouring out of us as much as possible.  That is why we keep encouraging each other to step out and SERVE the city at some point of need. 

  • A Hand Up!
  • City Gate
  • Cup
  • Alpha

It’s not about just being busy or filling our lives with more activity. It’s about filling our lives with action that leads us into places and relationships that call for fresh experiences with Christ.  It’s about being filled with the Holy Spirit as the early church was so that we are declaring the wonders of God to people needing to hear and experience God. 

Now you can be sharing Jesus every day at school or work or in your neighborhood and by so doing be obedient to Jesus’ call to “Go and make disciples” without being a part of the ministries I just mentioned.  BUT some of us need a little help and encouragement in this arena.  Some of us, self included, tend to be timid where we should be bold.  That’s where serving our city comes in and makes it a little easier and more natural. 

So let me ask you:  where and when are you sharing the heart of Jesus with people outside Christ in our city?  If we are truly followers of Jesus, he is going to be asking us to “preach the gospel” to those who yet do not know him.  Would you say you’re doing that regularly and frequently OR irregularly and infrequently…or not at all? 

Here’s a  challenge: PLAN to make 2012 a year of experiencing and enjoying the Ultimate Gift of Jesus Christ by being a regular part of some outreach that touches unchurched and unsaved people. 

One of THE BEST ways I know for us to do that as a church is through the Alpha Ministry. 

  • How many of you have taken Alpha? 
  • Would any of those who have be ashamed to have your best friend take that course with you?
  • How many of you would say it was a great tool to help others begin and grow in a personal relationship with God?

[VIDEO promo:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LlIwdI4jVo]

We currently have 3 groups that will be launching in late January.  I honestly wish it were 13 groups!  Know why?  Because the optimal size of a group is about 10-12 people.  And I KNOW that God has placed every one of us around dozens of people who still need to know Christ.  If just half of us were to invite just one individual or couple to join us in Alpha and they did, we’d need at least 13 groups.  Think of it:  just ONE other person/couple! 

We’ll be taking sign-ups over the next 4 weeks.  So what about each of us committing to trust God for the boldness and love of Christ to invite at least one person or couple to join us for a group this winter/spring?  [Allow people time to talk with God about it and write down a few names He may bring to mind.] 

[Pray for Holy Spirit boldness to invite these people in the next 3 weeks.  Promotional material will be available starting next week.]