The Gospel: The Best 11 Minutes on the Web

This is an incredibly powerful video explaining what the Gospel is. It is also a great image of how the power of truth set to music and video can be multiplied. Hollywood knows what they are doing. My only reservation in the video relates to "Satan's legal right" over us. The implication could be taken that Jesus' death paid him off, though I doubt that is the intent. "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him" (Romans 5:8-9).

We Are Not Competitors!

I am still living off the blessing of CareFest '11. Not only are there thank-you notes still on my desk, but my ears are still ringing from what John shared in his 5-minute talk. John pastors a different local church about 1.5 miles away and has been there 30 years. His honesty about his journey is inspiring and instructive. Although a bit long to read, I share his powerful thoughts with you. Some of the details have been left out to help preserve privacy.

In God’s Church, He has assigned me to a place called _____ Church. I am really happy to be with all of you today. Part of my happiness comes from a thing called the Renovation Center, which has been happening for about 18 months. And I was a little surprised on Monday in an Elders’ meeting at our church to learn that some of my Elders don’t know what the Renovation Center was. I felt a little embarrassed, so what’s gone wrong so that they don’t even know about this really neat thing that is happening.

So I want to make sure that all of you know so that you can tell your Elders what is happening. For the last 18 months, the pastors the churches listed on the program folder have been meeting about twice a month. We have been studying together and thinking about what the church is. And that has beautifully transformed my thinking about what the church is. I just want to take a few minutes to tell you about that before we leave this morning to out and serve.

I hesitate to ask, but would you stand? I want to read three verses, make a couple comments, and tell you the journey of the Renovation Center that has filled me with just a different sense of what the church is.

This is the first use or one of the first uses of the word church in the book of Acts.
And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word (Acts 8: 1-4).

I am happy that we are together because I think even our being together can help us do a course correction on what we think the church is. You and I together can so easily slide into thinking that the church is Sunday services. We say things like “I am going to church on Sunday.” Or we just slide into thinking that the church is a beautiful building and we say things like “I am going to go to a meeting at church on Monday night.”

Or we slide in to thinking that the church is my church. So our being together adjusts that, so also do the three verses I just read for you.

By the time this great persecution was happening, there were already several thousand believers, followers of Jesus, in the city of Jerusalem. And my imagining is that they were meeting in various homes throughout the city. That does a course correction on what I think about the church, because I have wrong thoughts about the church too.

One of wrong thoughts I’ve had about church is – and I would really rather not tell you, but here it is – I’d have to say in the 90s and maybe into the 2000s, I tended think of other local churches as competitors. So for example, a number of years ago when _______ Community Church did not have a building and they came and asked about using our building during the week. We said “no” to them in the end, partly because of schedule, but partly because I saw them as a competitor.

So when [other big churches] came into our area, I was afraid. I was afraid of losing people, more people to them. Competitors.

When I think about the church at Jerusalem scattered in various homes, I cannot imagine them competing against one another. Instead I just imagine them rejoicing in every home where there were 20 or 30 people who are declaring themselves to be followers of Jesus. I can imagine them supporting each other.

So we churches in this area, we are God’s church, all of us together. And you are acting that out by being here together today. We are not competitors.

And so they were scattered on this day. Obviously, we don’t scatter worship services and we don’t scatter buildings. So what was scattered that day was people. The church is God’s people. They were scattered. And the reality is that wherever we are scattered for whatever reason, we are still God’s church, we are still his people. So scattered for safety or jobs or school or for family reasons, wherever we are scattered, we are still God’s church; we are His people representing Him.

It says that Saul began to destroy the church going house to house dragging off men and women. Interesting. Even in our homes we are the church. Men and women. Even in our neighborhoods, we are God’s people.

So I know this is true. Some of you are neighbors right where you live, though you go to different local churches. Do you realize that with those other followers of Jesus in you are neighborhood, you are the church? You are God’s church in that neighborhood! I’m wondering what God might want you to do in that neighborhood as God’s church.

So our being together this morning and being together with other pastors in the Renovation Center has really shifted for me. We are not competitors! So my heart goes out to the other local churches….

We are not competitors! We are connected. We are all God’s people in this region. So wherever we go, wherever we live, in our workplaces, in our homes, in our neighborhoods, we are God’s church representing Him as we go telling our growing experiences with the living Jesus.

And so today, we are going to get scattered and go out serve in teams. As we go, we are God’s people. Going out into this community, serving very basic needs the way Jesus did. I think of some the needs that He met – there were huge things – but then sometimes He did simple things like feeding them lunch. That’s pretty basic. So we go and spread mulch. Pretty basic. But it’s a way to love in our community where schools and nursing homes and families are really strapped in this economy. So we take our Sunday time and go out there representing Jesus as the people of God, being His church. I am really happy to be with you. I am happy to be serving with you as God’s church today.