Point 1
"You are no more capable of doing better than you are of creating new world." A W Pink.
So many of us, even those who seek to know, understand and apply the gospel, are plagued by this need to do better, to be better. I was involved in sports and church as a kid. A lot of my sports teams were very good and we were pushed to work hard, practice hard, give max effort all the time and that would yield success.
In church, I was taught the same thing. Our offering envelopes that got mailed to our house every three months had boxes on them to check off. The boxes were giving, bible brought, bible read daily, Sunday School attendance, outreach attendance and some more that I do not remember.
The point of these boxes was to get the minds of the members to think about such things. But the result that was poured into my conscience was that these are things that I could do to make God happy, to be a good Christian. There is nothing inherently wrong with any of these things. But there is something very wrong with my working to get to God.
Point 2
Genesis 2:25 says that Adam and Eve were (pre-sin) naked and unashamed. Gen 3:7 says that Adam and Eve (post-sin)knew they were naked and so they did things to cloth themselves.
What if we stopped focusing on who or what we are and started to focus on who and what God is? What if that took away this need to try harder or try to cover ourselves? What if our problem is that we are too focused on ourselves and we need to get back to that place in the garden where we were naked and unashamed. Between Genesis 2:25 and 3:7 the physical thing that happens to Adam and Eve is that their eyes are opened to who they are. That is, they are distracted from God and His pure beauty and provision by themselves.
Showing posts with label 2 points. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2 points. Show all posts
Two Points:: Wednesday May 19
To restate the point of the frequency and content of this blog...Our series on the church will give us a compass for the purpose of our church. Our series Questioning the Church seeks to provide us with a biblical understanding of the church. This blog will reinforce those teachings.
Point 1- “You can be baptized in the church, raised in the church, confirmed in the church, serve in the church, marry in the church, die in the church, and have your funeral in the church, and still wake up in hell if you are merely in the church and not in Christ.” (Mark Driscoll)
Dave used this quote in the sermon last week and it really leads us well into some of the stuff that will talk about this week and it gets to the heart of the foundation of the church.
Scripture uses lots of metaphors and imagery to teach about the church. The principle that is taught by most of them is that Jesus Christ is the essence of what the church is built upon. This is the heart of the message that I will preach this week.
I think that Driscoll here is getting to that point, but he is also getting to a critique on the church and on church people. Church can become the end. Church is supposed to be a means to an end. That end is God. It can become the thing that is worshiped.
Point 2-Acts 2:36-47
In this passage verse 42 is a well known and frequently quoted verse in regard to the activities of a church. It says, "They devoted themselves to..." Dave summed up the passage with four calls for the church.
1. Gospel centered preaching
An Apostle was one who had been with Jesus and been given charge by Jesus to go and preach. A church should have at its core of preaching the gospel and Jesus.
2. Gospel centered, loving relationships
Dave used a phrase on Sunday that was great and I want us to think on it. He said, "The gospel informed how they lived their lives." These people in the church that Acts 2 is talking received their instruction, direction and motivation for their relationships from Jesus and his gospel. The gospel informed how they lived their lives. This is a natural outflow of a church that is on mission.
3. Baptism and the Lord’s supper
These are what are called sacraments or rites of the church. Scripture teaches that churches are to be administering these rites, helping to remind the church of what Jesus did to cleanse and feed the assembly of called out believers.
4. Pursuing relationship with God together (Acts 2:42, Acts 2:46)
Go back and reread those verses. Think deeply on them and understand that our privatized culture has made giving ourselves over to this kind of living very difficult. We are guarded and like to hide. But this early church was not. Ask yourself this question: What relationships do I have that could develop into this kind of relationship? Then pray that God would begin to prepare you and develop you for it.
Point 1- “You can be baptized in the church, raised in the church, confirmed in the church, serve in the church, marry in the church, die in the church, and have your funeral in the church, and still wake up in hell if you are merely in the church and not in Christ.” (Mark Driscoll)
Dave used this quote in the sermon last week and it really leads us well into some of the stuff that will talk about this week and it gets to the heart of the foundation of the church.
Scripture uses lots of metaphors and imagery to teach about the church. The principle that is taught by most of them is that Jesus Christ is the essence of what the church is built upon. This is the heart of the message that I will preach this week.
I think that Driscoll here is getting to that point, but he is also getting to a critique on the church and on church people. Church can become the end. Church is supposed to be a means to an end. That end is God. It can become the thing that is worshiped.
Point 2-Acts 2:36-47
In this passage verse 42 is a well known and frequently quoted verse in regard to the activities of a church. It says, "They devoted themselves to..." Dave summed up the passage with four calls for the church.
1. Gospel centered preaching
An Apostle was one who had been with Jesus and been given charge by Jesus to go and preach. A church should have at its core of preaching the gospel and Jesus.
2. Gospel centered, loving relationships
Dave used a phrase on Sunday that was great and I want us to think on it. He said, "The gospel informed how they lived their lives." These people in the church that Acts 2 is talking received their instruction, direction and motivation for their relationships from Jesus and his gospel. The gospel informed how they lived their lives. This is a natural outflow of a church that is on mission.
3. Baptism and the Lord’s supper
These are what are called sacraments or rites of the church. Scripture teaches that churches are to be administering these rites, helping to remind the church of what Jesus did to cleanse and feed the assembly of called out believers.
4. Pursuing relationship with God together (Acts 2:42, Acts 2:46)
Go back and reread those verses. Think deeply on them and understand that our privatized culture has made giving ourselves over to this kind of living very difficult. We are guarded and like to hide. But this early church was not. Ask yourself this question: What relationships do I have that could develop into this kind of relationship? Then pray that God would begin to prepare you and develop you for it.
Two Points::Monday May 17
Today's two points come from the sermon from yesterday. You can listen to it here. We began a new series yesterday called "Questioning the Church" and this is a vital study for us and for Christians in general. We need to learn what scripture says about the church and what God intended the church to be and what God intended the church to do. So we will use this blog to go into detail with some topics that are touched on in the messages. Be sure to check the blog frequently and know that you are encouraged to interact here and connect with a Community Group for face to face interaction.
Point 1- Deuteronomy 4:10 (ESV)
10 how on the day that you stood before the LORD your God at Horeb, the LORD said to me, ‘Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children so.’
The word that is translated here as gather is translated elsewhere as assemble and it is the Hebrew word for church. The Hebrew church is a gathering or assembling of God' people. But the real information that is here is what follows because it lays out the purpose of the gathering or assembly or church. The author lays out three things as purposes for the church.
1. To teach the word- We gather together as the church for the purpose of being taught the word of God. The Bible is the word of God so the church exists to teach the Bible.
2. To learn to revere God and place Him in proper perspective- Deut 4:10 uses the language "Learn to fear". The is a commonly used phrase in Old Testament and it can be summarized as having a proper view of God and his power, glory, love and other attributes. It means to respect, revere, worship, see properly. The church exists to lead people to a proper view of God.
3. To disciple others- We have the word taught to us and we receive this proper view of God and then we teach it to our children or those who come after us. The church exists to create disciples.
There are so many places in scripture where the purposes of the church are spelled out, none of them are exhaustive. This one is no exception. These are not the only things that a church does, but they are what a church does. Every church should be doing these things, if it does not it is either not a good church or it is simply not a church.
Point 2 The church is more than just doing something spiritual. This is a point that Dave made in the message last night and it is spot on, especially for this current generation.
We live in a culture that rebels against organized religion. Many of the critiques on organized religion are valid and need to be challenged. But the pendulum has swung too far. Instead of reform to the church we have fake replicas of the church. We have three guys meeting at Starbucks and talking about spiritual things replacing the gathering. We have Christians living outside the gathering who have no one who has authority or discipline in their lives. This is not a church and this is not what Go has called His people to.
We have to KNOW that God has brought about this redemptive plan of Jesus and has impacted the world through this plan to reconcile man to Himself and He has created the church to accomplish this task. Living outside of a gathered expression of God's called people (another way to church) is living outside of the plan of God. This is important and heavy stuff that must be said to this generation of people who have been hurt or turned off by particular churches.
Mark Driscoll says this about this idea, "The postmodern world would have an entirely new definition of church, one in which church is understood as a community of Christians and non-Christians who love together without distinction, without leadership, or discipline or doctrine, trying to emulate the character of Jesus without stressing the gospel requirements of repentance of sin and faith in Jesus that enable the life of Jesus to be lived by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Get into and connect honestly with a church THIS WEEK!
Two Points::Friday March 19
Point 1::The kingdom of God. What does that mean?
I want you to take a minute to read this and think hard and perhaps even pray and think about how God is pursuing you.
This is a question that I read in a book, "If Christianity was only about finding a group of people to live with, who shared openly their search for God and allowed anyone, regardless of behavior, to seek too, and who collectively lived by faith to make the world a little more like Heaven, would you be interested?"
The kingdom of God that Jesus spoke of is in that question. We live in a world of brokenness. Disease, broken relationships, divorce, pain, famine, earthquakes and tsunamis and so many other things are evidence of our broken world. We each contribute to that brokenness. Mine rubs up against yours and yours against mine. We are left more broken.
But Jesus came to bring this kingdom of God, to restore the brokenness, to redeem it. There is beauty in each of the things that are broken. The body that can be broken with disease is an beautiful thing; the brain, the form, its various systems, skin, the eye, these are all beautiful things. Relationships that can broken can be deeply meaningful. To look upon a wide ocean or a massive mountain can move the soul to poetry yet they can be broken and bring devastation. We are meant to live in th rhythm of that poetry, but our brokenness and the brokenness of the world breaks that rhythm.
Jesus came to restore that, to bring the kingdom of God. He invented gospel centered groups of people for the purpose of being the agents of change to bring about that kingdom.
Point 2:: Gospel Centered Community
If I were to use the term church, you might think of a building you knew as a kid or a place your grand mother took you on Easter. You might think of a place filled with judging people or a place that spends millions on a building or thousands promoting a political agenda while people around them go hungry.
The term church has been hijacked by religious people and by culture. What it really means is a group of people who come together around the fact that they are messed up and that Jesus offers them hope and love. This offer is not attached to any required behavior and is unearnable. It is just given.
People within a gospel centered community give room for other people to be messed up. They do this because Jesus gave them room to be messed up and still gave them relationship. They do this because they are messed up and will need to be given room to be messed up.
This is what Jesus is leading us to be at North Church. I want to be bold enough to ask you to come and give this community a chance, to give Jesus a chance.
I want you to take a minute to read this and think hard and perhaps even pray and think about how God is pursuing you.
This is a question that I read in a book, "If Christianity was only about finding a group of people to live with, who shared openly their search for God and allowed anyone, regardless of behavior, to seek too, and who collectively lived by faith to make the world a little more like Heaven, would you be interested?"
The kingdom of God that Jesus spoke of is in that question. We live in a world of brokenness. Disease, broken relationships, divorce, pain, famine, earthquakes and tsunamis and so many other things are evidence of our broken world. We each contribute to that brokenness. Mine rubs up against yours and yours against mine. We are left more broken.
But Jesus came to bring this kingdom of God, to restore the brokenness, to redeem it. There is beauty in each of the things that are broken. The body that can be broken with disease is an beautiful thing; the brain, the form, its various systems, skin, the eye, these are all beautiful things. Relationships that can broken can be deeply meaningful. To look upon a wide ocean or a massive mountain can move the soul to poetry yet they can be broken and bring devastation. We are meant to live in th rhythm of that poetry, but our brokenness and the brokenness of the world breaks that rhythm.
Jesus came to restore that, to bring the kingdom of God. He invented gospel centered groups of people for the purpose of being the agents of change to bring about that kingdom.
Point 2:: Gospel Centered Community
If I were to use the term church, you might think of a building you knew as a kid or a place your grand mother took you on Easter. You might think of a place filled with judging people or a place that spends millions on a building or thousands promoting a political agenda while people around them go hungry.
The term church has been hijacked by religious people and by culture. What it really means is a group of people who come together around the fact that they are messed up and that Jesus offers them hope and love. This offer is not attached to any required behavior and is unearnable. It is just given.
People within a gospel centered community give room for other people to be messed up. They do this because Jesus gave them room to be messed up and still gave them relationship. They do this because they are messed up and will need to be given room to be messed up.
This is what Jesus is leading us to be at North Church. I want to be bold enough to ask you to come and give this community a chance, to give Jesus a chance.
Two Points:: Thrusday March11
Point 1. A few words on community.- In Genesis the Bible starts with God creating. There is a rhythm that is going on. Each day there is something created and then God proclaims it to be good, it is very rhythmic. Then in Genesis 2:18 we see the words "it was not good". The reference is that man is alone. For the first time something is proclaimed to be not good and it is man being alone.
Simply put you were not meant to be alone. We were all meant to be in community. Community is is not a neighborhood. The root word of community is commune. When I use community in this context, I mean that we partake of life together and we partake of each other as we do life. You are meant to live this sort of communing life with people.
There is more though. As North Church, we seek to live in gospel centered community. What this adds to it is that we are fully aware that we are messed up and you are messed up and we do not hold back our acceptance of one another based upon being or messed up or the times that we mess up.
Do you see the freedom in this? There is no need to impress or perform. The analogy is we are free to wear our sweats and hoodies and slippers around the house. Communing with people is one thing, but hurt can come and come deep when it is not gospel centered. When it is not gospel centered, we are guarded and hold back our vulnerability and thus it is not real community.
I encourage you to engage in real community. I encourage you to think deeply about the relationships that are the most comfortable or healthy or vital to you. What characteristics are true of those relationships?
Point 2 a gospel centered community example
LOST SPOILER ALERT
This weeks Lost episode documents it perfectly. The episode is called Dr. Linus If you do not know Lost and Ben Linus, first off I pity you and second this will be irrelevant to you. But you can watch it anyway because there is background given. The scene I want to direct you occurs at 34:35. Ben has come to complete grips with his awful nature and says that he is going to join Locke because he is the only one who will have him. Ben is repentant about who he is for the first time in his life. He is really broken. The response of the one who has been pursuing him is, "I'll have you."
There is so much to this scene. So much about the gospel and repentance and idol worship and a struggle for power. But what is also here and demonstrated brilliantly is gospel centered community. Broken people who have done very hurtful things to each other, yet there is acceptance.
Simply put you were not meant to be alone. We were all meant to be in community. Community is is not a neighborhood. The root word of community is commune. When I use community in this context, I mean that we partake of life together and we partake of each other as we do life. You are meant to live this sort of communing life with people.
There is more though. As North Church, we seek to live in gospel centered community. What this adds to it is that we are fully aware that we are messed up and you are messed up and we do not hold back our acceptance of one another based upon being or messed up or the times that we mess up.
Do you see the freedom in this? There is no need to impress or perform. The analogy is we are free to wear our sweats and hoodies and slippers around the house. Communing with people is one thing, but hurt can come and come deep when it is not gospel centered. When it is not gospel centered, we are guarded and hold back our vulnerability and thus it is not real community.
I encourage you to engage in real community. I encourage you to think deeply about the relationships that are the most comfortable or healthy or vital to you. What characteristics are true of those relationships?
Point 2 a gospel centered community example
LOST SPOILER ALERT
This weeks Lost episode documents it perfectly. The episode is called Dr. Linus If you do not know Lost and Ben Linus, first off I pity you and second this will be irrelevant to you. But you can watch it anyway because there is background given. The scene I want to direct you occurs at 34:35. Ben has come to complete grips with his awful nature and says that he is going to join Locke because he is the only one who will have him. Ben is repentant about who he is for the first time in his life. He is really broken. The response of the one who has been pursuing him is, "I'll have you."
There is so much to this scene. So much about the gospel and repentance and idol worship and a struggle for power. But what is also here and demonstrated brilliantly is gospel centered community. Broken people who have done very hurtful things to each other, yet there is acceptance.
Two Points:: Thursday March 4
I have been thinking a lot about prayer in the last few days. So I wanted to make two points this week about prayer.
Point 1: Pray with Importunity. Read Luke 18:1-8 Jesus said, "Ask you will receive...seek and you will find...knock and the door will be opened." When Jesus is teaching about prayer he is always teaching us to be persistent.
::Don Carson says, "In prayer, we are like naughty boys who ring the door bell and run away."
::Andrew Murray says, "God trains us in the school of answer delayed. To teach us perseverance, he does this."
::Isaiah 30:18 says, "Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him."
::Read Psalm 130 here
All of these things are pointing to teaching us to wait on God, to pray with perseverance. We live in 2010 America and we want things to happen quickly. Comfort is important to us. As we learn these lessons of prayer not just in a scholastic way, but also in a practical and personal way, we learn to depend upon God.
We also learn that comfort for today is really quite over rated. This life is not about you and your comfort. Each day can be seized to attempt to bring more comfort or for deeper communion with God. Prayer can be a great teacher of this truth.
Point 2:Prayer is based on God's promises. Read Jeremiah 29:11-12 Many times we read Jeremiah 29:11 and get all excited about the promise that is there. We put that on coffee mugs and bumper stickers. But verse 12 brings more to the table. Meditate on verse 12.
I have heard people ask if God is all knowing and all powerful , isn't prayer redundant or what is the point of praying if God does what he likes? Terry Virgo said, "Praying not redundant, it is motivation to seek God. God's statements of promises are invitations to move."
Point 1: Pray with Importunity. Read Luke 18:1-8 Jesus said, "Ask you will receive...seek and you will find...knock and the door will be opened." When Jesus is teaching about prayer he is always teaching us to be persistent.
::Don Carson says, "In prayer, we are like naughty boys who ring the door bell and run away."
::Andrew Murray says, "God trains us in the school of answer delayed. To teach us perseverance, he does this."
::Isaiah 30:18 says, "Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him."
::Read Psalm 130 here
All of these things are pointing to teaching us to wait on God, to pray with perseverance. We live in 2010 America and we want things to happen quickly. Comfort is important to us. As we learn these lessons of prayer not just in a scholastic way, but also in a practical and personal way, we learn to depend upon God.
We also learn that comfort for today is really quite over rated. This life is not about you and your comfort. Each day can be seized to attempt to bring more comfort or for deeper communion with God. Prayer can be a great teacher of this truth.
Point 2:Prayer is based on God's promises. Read Jeremiah 29:11-12 Many times we read Jeremiah 29:11 and get all excited about the promise that is there. We put that on coffee mugs and bumper stickers. But verse 12 brings more to the table. Meditate on verse 12.
I have heard people ask if God is all knowing and all powerful , isn't prayer redundant or what is the point of praying if God does what he likes? Terry Virgo said, "Praying not redundant, it is motivation to seek God. God's statements of promises are invitations to move."
Two Points::Thursday February 25
Point 1: I have quoted on several occasion the book "A Praying Life" by Paul Miller. It is one of the best reads I have found. Each page is filled with gospel centered thoughts about prayer and very practical. Life sped up for me for a while and I did not read it much, but I have picked it back up and found this gem today.
He is talking about the role of prayer in parenting when he says, "Until we become convinced we can't change our child's heart, we will not take prayer seriously." That is not a truth that is only applied to the area of parenting. Many time we do not pray because we are not yet convinced that we can not take of our problems and the problems of others.
I have learned this in my own life and as I pastor people. My first reaction is to apply my skill set to problems to "fix" them. It is only when I am unable to "fix" the problem that prayer becomes the option. I am focused in my own prayer life to pray first.
Point 2: I like to listen to sermons on my way to my new insurance job. I have 25 minutes or so in the car and I have found a good way to redeem that time is to listen to sermons on my iPod instead of wasting that time listening to sports radio. Today I listened to this sermon.
The manuscript of the sermon is here. I put in the manuscript so that you might be able to wrestle with the points more than just hearing it.
The reason that I post this on here is that I have been in contact with some people on places like facebook and in everyday life who are not involved in a church, but consider themselves to be Christians.
Let me be clear about two things. First, your salvation is not tied to your being engaged at church. Church involvement or membership is vital to the Christian life. The sermon details the reasons for that well. Second, I am not saying this to get you to come to North Church. I want you to be involved in any church where Christ is preached and the gospel and scripture are honored.
Many who are Christians and are not involved in churches are in the place they are in because of past involvement with churches or because they reject their own need to be involved. If this is you I want to ask you to read the sermon I linked on here with an open mind. We are all in need of authority in our lives. The church is an organism that God created for that purpose.
He is talking about the role of prayer in parenting when he says, "Until we become convinced we can't change our child's heart, we will not take prayer seriously." That is not a truth that is only applied to the area of parenting. Many time we do not pray because we are not yet convinced that we can not take of our problems and the problems of others.
I have learned this in my own life and as I pastor people. My first reaction is to apply my skill set to problems to "fix" them. It is only when I am unable to "fix" the problem that prayer becomes the option. I am focused in my own prayer life to pray first.
Point 2: I like to listen to sermons on my way to my new insurance job. I have 25 minutes or so in the car and I have found a good way to redeem that time is to listen to sermons on my iPod instead of wasting that time listening to sports radio. Today I listened to this sermon.
The manuscript of the sermon is here. I put in the manuscript so that you might be able to wrestle with the points more than just hearing it.
The reason that I post this on here is that I have been in contact with some people on places like facebook and in everyday life who are not involved in a church, but consider themselves to be Christians.
Let me be clear about two things. First, your salvation is not tied to your being engaged at church. Church involvement or membership is vital to the Christian life. The sermon details the reasons for that well. Second, I am not saying this to get you to come to North Church. I want you to be involved in any church where Christ is preached and the gospel and scripture are honored.
Many who are Christians and are not involved in churches are in the place they are in because of past involvement with churches or because they reject their own need to be involved. If this is you I want to ask you to read the sermon I linked on here with an open mind. We are all in need of authority in our lives. The church is an organism that God created for that purpose.
