Nov 16, 2009

Why WE are HERE — The Mission of the Church in the Grass

Part Three — Here to be the Aroma of God in the Neighborhood & World

Let’s pray…

It’s funny how people interact with you once they know you are a pastor or some other kind of “churchman.”

I have a day job of shooting photos at a newspaper. Like I’ve said before, it brings me into contact with the socially upper crust and the people that society has rejected. I see the best and the worst in people and — across the board — God has given me the ability to put people at ease.

A lot of times, when they talk with me, they let their defenses down and the real them often times comes out. This is the only way to get a good picture. If they’re putting up a facade, it shows.

Anyway, as people relax and they become more genuine, some of the roughest characters let very tender words slip out, while some grandmothers and politicians could make you blush with the things they say, And I’m a sailor’s kid, I’ve heard (and said) it all.

What’s funny, or odd, or at least interesting is that it is usually soon after a person lets a filthy remark go, or gossip, or something similar, that someone who knows me will come up and ask me how the church is going.

What happens next is a hilarious and sometimes awkward amount of backpedaling on the other person’s side of the conversation.

If they had been cursing, they start using words like heck and darn and, if they’d just been badmouthing a person, they will oftentimes start to say things like, well, I guess he’s not all bad, I guess we all need forgiveness sometimes.

Anyway, it’s weird.

And, when that person comes up and asks me about the church, I am always releaved that I didn’t join in on the gossip or say something ugly or undignified. Believe me, it is still possible for me to do that and I am always watchful of that kind of behavior in my life.

And here’s the thing: Regardless of my title or position, I should, as an adopted child of God, bring an air of godliness into situations and relationships. I should bring a presence of peace and joy and encouragement.

Really, we all have a presence, good or bad, that we bring into an environment. Am I right?
It’s that way people would describe you by your everyday demeanor, or how your attitude and words and actions have defined you.

If you can’t see how you come across think about your boss, or your parents. When they walk in a room, they bring a presence don’t they.

I talk about my brothers a lot. When they come into a room, they own that room, they are funny, they are engaging and they have a spark to their personalities that is contagious.

Anyway here’s where we’re going: In the last two weeks we have been talking about our mission, we’ve been talking about why WE are here. Why we, The Church in the Grass, is here. What’s our mission?


In the first week we talked about the first part. Presenting God’s message of salvation, that is being Gospel centered, Christ centered in everything we do.

Then we talked about the importance of a church family. We said and we continually say, that once we have accepted Jesus as our Savior we are adopted into the family of believers.

And we talked about how that adoption makes us a part of the universal church (every Christian everywhere globally). And the local church, where we plug in as part of a congregation like this one or one that you might be a part of somewhere else on Sundays.
Tonight, we’re moving into the last part of the mission of our church, which says:
Our goal is to present...the proper expression of God’s love into the world...

When we say our mission is to present the proper expression of God’s love into the world, that’s not to say it is only the mission of our church, of the church in the grass. It’s what we are all called to, what we are designed for as Christ followers.

Now, before we go on let me give credit to Pastor Ron Grubb, he was our pastor in Lancaster, Ohio, at Lancaster Community Church, that is where I received my ordination. I consider Ron to be one of my mentors and this topic is what I would call close to his heart. So a lot of this corresponds with what we heard from him on a fairly regular basis for the two years that we lived in Lancaster.

The Bible teaches and we believe that if we have truly been saved, justified, made right with God by the shed blood of Christ on the cross, and if we have truly plugged into a local family of believers and we are growing deeper in our faith through the study of the word, obedience to the word and by living lives together in gospel community, then this third part of the mission should just happen as a by-product.

Here’s what I mean, please turn in your Bibles to 2 Corinthians 2:14-16a:

Let’s break this down a little bit: You see Paul lays out that it all starts and ends with God.

In other words, he’s acknowledging that God leads us, not through our own way, but through Christ and not for our own recognition, but so that God may be recognized.

We are in Christ, we are reflecting Him, or as the passage says, we are spreading His fragrance EVERYWHERE. Moving on…

What does this mean? How are we the aroma of Christ to God? What’s the aroma of Christ? Well if you look through the Old Testament, the nation of Israel had an elaborate sacrificial system designed to cover their sins and make them right with God for a time.

What this passage in 2 Corinthians points us back to is the burnt offerings of the nation of Israel. For example in Leviticus 4:27-31 these instructions are given:


And we are taught in the book of Hebrews, chapter 10 that Jesus is the perfect, once and for all sacrifice. All of the Old Testament sacrifices pointed to Him and He became the sacrifice that was perfectly acceptable and complete and pleasing to God.

And now 2 Corinthians 15 says:

How can this be? First by taking on the righteousness of Christ. His righteousness was placed on us when He took our sins at the cross. When God looks at us He sees His son’s righteousness and His son was the pleasing aroma.

But also, this is a daily part of our walk once we are saved. It is a natural effect of true salvation.

In Romans 12:1, Paul says:

And the writer of Hebrews says in 13:15-16:

So we become the aroma of Christ to God by first taking on His righteousness, that is in Salvation, then in our sanctifying walk with the Holy Spirit daily, throughout our life.

And, getting to the point of our mission at the Church in the Grass, and truly, or mission as Christ followers everywhere around the world, the aroma that we produce, the air of godliness that we produce THROUGH CHRIST, will be evident to all.

Back to 2 Corinthians again:
That includes everyone we come into contact with everywhere at any and all times, they are either in the saved or perishing groups.


This goes back to the teaching from the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus told us that if we become peacemakers and become recognizable as children of God, that we should then expect the same reaction that He, the actual Son of God, experienced (Matt. 5:9-11).

And this is what we talked about when we talked about His teaching on the salt and the light of the world (Matthew 5:13-16). Some people are going to be drawn out of the darkness toward the light and others will run away from the light.

But here’s the thing, if we are truly following Christ we will have no more control over reflecting God into the world than a flame has control over shining light or a flower has control over producing its sweet smell. It just happens. It just is. We simply bring the fragrance Jesus into everywhere we go.

So what are you bringing into the environment, what “aroma” are you giving off? You might say to yourself while listening to this message. Ken, I think I produce the aroma of Christ here, at church; but EVERYWHERE? I’m not so sure of that.

If that’s where you are, I understand. I was there too, and on some occasions I still wrestle with this.

The fact is we all smell like something. And if we find ourselves giving off the sweet smelling sacrifice here at church and during our prayer time and maybe when we are on a mission trip or doing service work then that is great.

But if that’s where it stops, if we take on the smell of the world, so to speak, when we go back into the “secular” places, than I think we are suffering under one of two delusions.

First, we may be buying into the secular and spiritual divisions that our culture likes to create. Let me make this clear, for the Christ follower, there is no division. In the workplace, with our friends, with our family, in traffic, at the grocery store, in the voting booth and at home alone, we are spiritual beings, connected to God by Christ.

In Ephesians 4:1, we are called to live lives that are worthy of the calling we received, or as Philippians 1:27 says worthy of the Gospel of Christ.

In every conversation, in every business decision, in every parenting choice, in every interaction with a non-believer, we frame it all up in our hearts and in our minds with the Gospel and ask ourselves is this word, action or thought a sweet smelling sacrifice.

And finally, if it is not an aroma of life found in Christ, I suggest we might look in the miror a little longer and remember what we see.
Here’s what I mean, James 1:21-25 says:

If you are not producing the sweet aroma of Christ, if you find your life still has a very worldly stench. If you are having a hard time in helping us fulfill the mission to present the proper expression of God’s love into the world, may I suggest that there is still some un-repented or unrecognized sin in your life that needs to be dealt with.

That sin needs to be confessed, needs to be laid down at the cross.

That repentance is part of our daily sacrifice of our bodies in Romans 12.

Look deeply into the Word of God for yourself, meditate on it day and night as we are called to do, let it seep into the core of who you are and as Jesus commands, obey His words.

Don’t just hear them or know them in your head, do what you’ve heard so that your usefulness in the Kingdom movement may go unhindered.

Let’s pray...

Listen, If you’ve been stirred to confess something or you need prayer, then please don’t leave until you’ve had a chance to do that. That is why we are here as a family.

If you are good, go in peace, remember the reason you are here in the world this week. To be a sweet smelling sacrifice.
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Why WE are HERE — The Mission of the Church in the Grass

Part Two — Here for the Family

Let’s pray…
Okay, if you are a visitor with us tonight, you have come in at a great time. You want to get an idea of what we’re about? We’re going to unpack that, some this week and more next week.

Let’s start by picking up the flier that was in your seat. It has the time and location and our name and all of that, and if you look there, you will also see our mission statement. It reads:


Last week we talked about the first piece of this mission statement, we talked about how we try to allow every message that we preach here to marinate in the Gospel {unpack}.
Tonight we are going to move on to the second piece of our Mission, the mission of the Church in the Grass.

Our goal is to present...the importance of a church family...

I was going to start this sermon out by talking about family. Blood relation family; aunts, uncles, moms, dads, brothers, sisters, cousins and all that. You know thanksgiving is coming, so I was gonna talk about how you are either longing for the day when everyone gets together, or you wish you could run away and stay as far away as possible.

I’m a person who sometimes can’t wait to see them and sometimes within five minutes, I’m looking to escape. Am I the only one?

Anyway, I scrapped that idea of comparing the family of God to our blood relation families, because I believe that sin and the brokenness of the world has fractured the family so much that now it is more of a hindrance to the picture God’s design than a help.

For example, I know some of your stories, so I know this isn’t the case across the board, but some of you might look to your earthly dad and say, if God is supposed to be my Father like that, then I don’t want anything to do with Him.

Or, you see the Bible calling fellow believers brothers and sisters and you look to the sibling rivalry that may have gone off the rails in your life and say, no thanks.

So instead, I’m going to say this. No matter if you had the worst father, or the best daddy, or even if you never knew the guy, get all that out of your head. And if you have a Brady bunch family or if your family could fill a year’s worth of Dr. Phil shows with all their dysfunction, get rid of that picture too.

Instead, look at it this way; that the message of God’s salvation that we talked about last week (and every week) is the message of reconciliation. It’s the message of fixing all that was broken by sin; the message that everything will be brought back into His perfect framework — His perfect design.

Everything.
That’s true for your heart, your sin soaked spirit, and that is true with the concept of family. Everything is made new through Christ.

Now, when I was preparing for this message, I found so many great scriptures about the family of God, which is our model, that I finally had to just stop looking, otherwise we’d be here all night.

Here’s the points, if you are going to tune out, wait until I’m done with this little list. God willing, this is what we’re going to cover tonight:
— When we come to God we are adopted into a family, the church.
— When we are adopted into that family, the church it is both universal and local.
— When we are adopted into the family of God it is for our benefit. But also,
— When we are adopted into the family of God it is for the benefit of all the other family members and most of all
— Our adoption into this family is to, by the power of the Holy Spirit point us and other people toward the true perfect Father God, and His Son, Jesus Christ.

So, we’re going to be flipping through the Bible quite a bit tonight. I’m going to go fast though, so if you want you can just jot down the Scripture references and look them up later.

Let’s start at the beginning,
Gen 1:26-28

And then the Bible fleshes this out more in Gen. 2:18-24
18 The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."
19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.
But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

23 The man said,
"This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called 'woman,'
for she was taken out of man."

24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

Do you see what was happening? If you read the creation accounts carefully you’ll see a rhythm there.
He said let there be…and it was good, and He said let there be…and it was good, and He said let there be…and it was good, until He got to man, until He got to the one creation that was made in Their image.

You see if we are made in the image of a Triune God, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, than like them we are designed to live in community with one another. It is true from the start, we need one another. And not just other people milling about on the same piece of real estate. No, we need family.
Okay, so that’s the beginning, then what happened? These two decided that God didn’t have their best interests at heart, so they disobeyed him, they did the one thing that He forbade, they ate the fruit and sin entered into the world and broke EVERYTHING, we’ve been over this.

So what’s God do? He starts setting aside people to point redemptive History toward Jesus.

In Gen 6:18, God sets aside Noah, yes we all know that, but not just Noah, his family also. If God wants to repopulate the world, He isn’t doing it with one lonely guy.

Later in Gen. 12 God set’s aside Abram, He pulls Abram out of his old family, and sets Abram up to be the patriarch of a new people, a new FAMILY, that would continue a bloodline, down through the ages to Jesus.

Okay, so fast forward to Jesus, He comes on the scene, and He doesn’t just zap into the world, isolated from everyone else. Instead He is born into a home, with a flesh and blood mom and a step-dad and eventually with siblings. He’s born into a family.

And He grows up and He is baptized and He starts His ministry and this is where we see something different happening.

You see from Adam and Eve, through Jesus and the people of that time, everything was traced to bloodline, are you from the tribe of Judah, of Ben, of Ruben or Levi? Who are you with?

But as Jesus taught and as He made a mark in the land, He caused waves. And, as we see in the Sermon on the Mount, He said, some people are going to reject His message.

And that is not just going to be true when we encounter strangers or co-workers or next-door neighbors with the Gospel, some of those who reject the message of Jesus are going to be our own flesh and blood.

In Matthew 10:33-36 Jesus says:

Jesus tells Nicodemus in John 3, it is not the family that you are born into that will determine your eternity, but the family that you are born again into. And listen, some of you have already experienced this right?

Some of you come to Christ from totally pagan backgrounds and you’ve been mocked or scorned or even excluded from your birth family because Jesus has transformed who you are and the Holy Spirit is continuing that transformation.

And some of you are like me and you haven’t been scorned or shunned off, but each day that you walk closer with Jesus, you feel that much farther out of touch with the family that raised you. And they still love you today but they don’t understand you.

And each time you see them dealing with the consequences of their sin and when you see the path that they are on that leads to death and Hell it grieves you. You want to shake faith into them, but you can’t get them to see it and the divide grows and grows.

Faith will divide. If you’ve felt that truth already, I know how much that hurts first hand. And if you haven’t felt it, I’m sorry to have to tell you that day is coming.

But, you and I, we, have a Savior who knows how this feels.

Mark 3:31-35 shows us a glimpse of the division in His own life because, before the death burial and resurrection, Jesus’ family just didn’t totally get it.


And that’s where we are tonight. No matter what your past looks like, no matter how you were raised and no matter who raised you, when you come to Christ, you are adopted into a new family, the family of God. And this new family trumps what we had before.

Now, let me put on the brakes and make this clear. We are not teaching that you need to leave your family, shave your head, and join a commune, alright?

A lot of cults twist this around and actually use the Scriptures to coerce very impressionable people to come into their cloistered little societies and it almost always ends very badly. Jesus is not saying abandon your family ties and join a cult.

He IS saying that there will be people in your family who will tune you out or even kick you out because of your faith.

But you don’t run for the hills, you stay where you are and pray, pray, pray that they might also receive the adoption and salvation that you have received through Christ.
You pray that your brother might become your brother in Christ, amen.

Okay, you’ve come to Christ and that means you’ve been adopted into the family, which is the church. That is the church universal and the church local.

In other words, when you are adopted, you are then connected through the Holy Spirit to every other believer on the planet. So the struggles that you see in the missionaries lives should grieve you as much as your own struggles.

And when you see another group of Christ followers experiencing success and deepening in their faith, than you should be rejoicing and praising God for their blessings.

We see this kind of rejoicing for the universal church in nearly every letter from the Apostle Paul. Let’s just look at 2 Thessalonians 1:1-4 as an example:

This is why I have very little patience with churches who act like we are in competition with one another. Listen, if church A is bringing the people to the Lord, we all rejoice! If church B needs help, we come together because it is a common need.

If you think we are in competition you are not paying attention to how many people are still out there, lost and hopeless without the Lord.

That’s why Jesus told his crew, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” (Matthew 9:37)

But, now let’s zoom in a little closer. Where are we in all of this, what about the local church the congregation that meets here on Wednesday nights or the churches that gather on Sundays all around the county; what is the distinctive feature there, of the local church?

Simply put, it is like the difference between your immediate and extended family. Do you love your great uncle Charlie? Sure, but he lives two states away and you only get to see him about once every two or three years.

That’s how we are as we get look outside of our congregation and into the larger (universal) body of believers.

You see, it is in this local setting that we grow together and all of the “one another’s” of the New Testament come to find their meaning.

Can we love other Christians around the world? Absolutely, but how are we to wash one another’s feet like Jesus commands us to do in John 13:14 if not in a local, intimate setting?

How are we to greet one another with a holy kiss (handshake or hug is fine there) as Paul instructs us to do in Romans 16:16, if we’re not meeting together one to one or in small groups (explain small relative to worldwide)?

How are we to wait for one another when we come together for communion as instructed in 1 Corinthians 11 if we’re not talking about a local congregation?

How do we practically live out Galatians 6:2 and carry one another’s burdens?

How do we know a person well enough to spot when they might be falling away and back toward sin? How can they know us enough to see when we need to be corrected?

These “one another’s” can only happen when we are growing as a FAMILY together.

We are here to encourage and equip one another for the works of ministry and to stay on the narrow path that leads to eternal life. We are together as the local church body to point one another and to be pointed ourselves toward a closer and more intimate walk with God.

We are to share together in a community that resembles the triune God, always giving and receiving love from one another.

Look, there is so much more we could talk about, but it is getting late, let me just encourage you and push you a little bit before we go.

Whether you are a part of this church or another church on Sunday.
Do not think that this gospel centered, God centered family life just happens by coming to church, and sitting in a chair or a pew and listening to somebody proclaim the Gospel.

As Larry Crabb says in his book The Safest Place on Earth, we are going to need to turn our chairs and start looking people in the eye.

We are going to have to start growing horizontally as well as vertically.

Do we want you to know more about Jesus each week, absolutely, but you can’t really live what you know if you don’t start sharing yourself with others.

Sharing your joys and your hurts, your triumphs and your struggles; until you begin to trust others enough to open up and be vulnerable, the true family that we have been designed to be for one another will never come to be.

But, once we do let people in it will be in these moments of intimacy and vulnerability that we may see God work through the other members of the church, and where He can work through us. Building one another up together.

Now, some of you may say, “No way! I tried to do this before and I was hurt. I was betrayed by the people I trusted. Never again!”

I will answer that with a heartfelt apology, God knows we Christians have had a habit of getting in the way of Jesus’ purpose for us here in this life.

But, a bad experience at a doctor doesn’t make you decide to never go back does it? What about if a supermarket is dissatisfying? You don’t write-off shopping do you?

If you’ve had a bad experience when you’ve gotten close to people before, don’t let that be the reason that you never get to have the joy of a good relationship — One that God designed for you.

And also remember that we are all works in progress, one of us may let you down as we walk this out together,

You may let someone else down, but that’s no reason to throw out close church family relationships.

It’s an opportunity to grow in our sanctification, pouring out the same love and forgiveness and faithfulness that our Savior, Jesus Christ poured out on us.

Like I said, when we are adopted into the family of God it is for our benefit. It is in the intimacy of a local church, where we get to know others and we allow ourselves to be known that we really do grow together.

But also, listen. Bob Hicks was talking to his church up on the hill this weekend about service and he made it very clear, a message that we all need to hear: It’s not all about YOU.

When we are adopted into the family of God it is for the benefit of all the other family members. If you don’t connect, if you don’t get plugged in, if you don’t follow the design laid out in Scriptures, you are not only robbing yourself of growth, you are robbing your fellow Christ followers in the church

And you are not being all that God has called you to be.

Again, whether you want to be a member of our family here or if you go somewhere else on Sunday, stop just being a church member or a church visitor. Stop just taking what you can get without ever letting people into your life and without ever giving your time, talent, treasure and love for the building up of the family.

And take your rightful place as a family member as a brother or sister. That is why Jesus shed His blood.
We will close with the mission statement once again:

Our goal is to present God’s message of salvation, the importance of a church family, and the proper expression of God’s love into the world.

We’ll tackle the last part of the mission next week.
Let’s pray…
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Nov 5, 2009

Why WE are HERE — The Mission of the Church in the Grass

Part One — Here for the Gospel
Let’s pray...
To start off tonight, everyone pick up a flier, it states our mission as this:

"Our goal is to present God’s message of salvation, the importance of a church family, and the proper expression of God’s love into the world."

If you are wondering what was in my heart when I felt the leading to start a church in this area, this mission statement in the context of this area is what it amounted to. You’ve all heard the story, but let me remind you.

I was working down at the end of Walnut, taking pictures for the paper after another murder. This one was another beating death, and this time two people died and another was seriously injured.

The last murder was alcohol related, and this one was over drugs.

And this is no secret; this has historically been an area with high rates of domestic violence, neglect, addiction, and random crime.

Now, since the murders, some of the complaints have gone down, largely due to a neighborhood watch program, but still there is great need.

But, back to the day of the murder. I am covering the scene, there is a dead woman lying face down in the back yard of a house, there are cops everywhere and there are kids watching it all go down.

The neighbors are out side checking to see what’s happening and with all the chaos, all the confusion and all the disorder. The kids are just riding around looking at this scene as if it is simply normal life.

Just one more day with police tape, just one more day of watching detectives canvassing the area. Just one more day of the neighbors whispering the many names of men that could have done this violent crime, none of the names would be a surprise.

And before this, I knew I was being called into ministry, but I didn’t know where. And on that morning, I knew, this is where light needs to shine. This is where God’s glory must be proclaimed, this is where people need to hear that there is a better option for them in this life and that option carries with it a tremendous promise of restoration in this age and the next.

This is where I was called to start a church. And then very soon after sharing my heart about this, Andy came aboard and said he felt led to be a part of what was going to happen. And thank God for that. I simply don’t have the giftings that he does for the minutia of administrative work. He makes a wonderful right hand man, a wonderful Executive pastor.

And that is because, more than his talents at governmental paperwork, and accounting and the like, he has a heart that comes humbly to the cross and seeks to know God more through His word.

Then Ryan came along, again, this is a wonderful example of a person using their talents to honor God and lift up praise and recognition to the Lord.

And, of course, my wife has played a pivotal role as she manages the home front as I juggle family, school, church and a full time job.

And God has blessed this church, even this early on, with these committed followers of Christ who honestly are the ones who encourage me week in and week out month after month to continue.

Here’s what I mean; the first question that people ask when we get to talking about the Church in the Grass is, how many people do you have?

It is universal, if it’s someone at my day job, if it’s a pastor from another church, if it’s my mom, and if it is someone down here on Walnut or East street.

How many people?

And in that — in the fact that we ALL think about the numbers to one degree or another — it is easy for me to start comparing numbers and then find our value in that.

It isn’t much different than when a young girl sees a digitally altered photograph of a model and then looks at herself in light of those photos and begins to doubt her worth.

Of course we know that it is wrong to compare, but we all do it in one area or another. For you it may be when you look at other people who are more successful in the same career, for you it may be comparing your relationship to that of another couple, for you it may be comparing your child to one of his or her classmates. For you it may be comparing yourself to the way your parent did things, or the life your brother or sister is living.

And sometimes you are on the other side, right, sometimes you compare because it makes you feel better about yourself, you compare yourself to someone who has less, education, or money, or love.

In either case — whether to boost your mood, or to cause you to wallow in self-pity, comparisons are seldom helpful.

I bring up the size of the church, because — just to be transparent — this is an area I have to take to God over and over and over again. And each time I am brought back to Scriptures and I see the life of Noah, the life of Abraham and Sarah, the life of Joseph, the life of the disciples.

All these people were called by God to fulfill a mission. That in and of itself — a call from God to do anything — is a blessing. But for many of them, it never turned out they way they may have expected, and it always took longer than they thought it would or SHOULD.

And here’s where I, and I see this in a lot of other guys at our stage of church development, we see the churches that explode from the get go and we see that explosive growth as normal, and then we wonder, why not our church?

It’s like the high school athletes who think they are going to be the next Lebron, or the next Manning, or the next Jeter, or the next Woods.

We set these unrealistic goals and we come in danger of losing sight of what we are called to do. For that kid in school his mission is to pass his classes, and to make that enough of a priority in order that it helps his future, realistic aspirations.

For a church, our church or any church, our mission is, well, our Mission. It’s that mission statement that we read from the flier.

We are here to do what God has called us to do, in the way that He leads us to do it and to leave the results up to Him and not to compare ourselves with another church in another setting with another group of people with another calling on their hearts.

Does that mean that we don’t want to grow? Of course it doesn’t mean that. If we’re not growing, that means more people are not hearing the Gospel and that’s contrary to our goal.

What it does mean is that above all else, we come out here, we do everything that we do, in a desire to honor God with our worship and to be obedient to His call in our lives as a church body, as the Church in the Grass by carrying out our mission.

That way, we will be concerned as a group to bring newcomers into the fold, but we will not be discouraged or perplexed or frustrated when we have weeks with small numbers.

In other words we find our delight in God and in doing what He has told us and not in what WE think the results should be for our efforts.

If we lose sight of that, our efforts begin to be guided toward fulfilling our expectations instead of focused toward worshiping Jesus. And that can very quickly move us into idolatry. In case you’re wondering, that’s still a sin.

So what’s the answer? The same as it would be for the high school kid who wants to be the next superstar, we keep our eyes and hearts and minds on the mission at hand. And, if God graces us with something spectacular, we embrace it, but we never forget that ANYTHING He calls us to is a precious gift in and of itself, so we hold it close and pour our life into His calling.

In other words, we stay on mission. So with that in mind, we are going to pour into the mission. This is going to be a refresher course for us as to why we are here. It will, I pray, be an encouragement in our perseverance. And most of all it will refocus our hearts and re-aim our hands and feet to carry out the mission God has for us.

Let’s just look at the first part:
Our goal is to present God’s message of salvation...

Every week we get every message back to Jesus. Back to our desperate need for Him, back to His grace, mercy and love shown on the cross, back to the resurrection and the promise of His return.

We over and over and over again steer the conversation back to the command of Jesus for us to repent of sin, and to be obedient to His word, all because of His grace and because of our salvation — NOT — in order to earn our salvation.

So when we say, “Our goal is to present God’s message of salvation,” we are saying that our mission is to bring the Gospel.

The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Romans, saw the beauty of this. He said that he was called to be an apostle and was actually set apart or set aside for the Gospel, not for anything else.

He knew the Gospel was God’s story. The story of creation and the fall. The story of how sin fractured everything that God had created. The story of how sin was passed down from Adam to all of us and how, as we talked about last week, that sin held us all captive, enslaved to our corrupted nature.

Paul knew that the Gospel was the story of God’s hatred of sin and His wrath toward that which collided with His perfect design.

And Paul understood that the reason the Gospel was called the Gospel, or in Greek the yoo-ang-ghel'-ee-on, which actually means the Good News — The reason it was called the Good News and the reason Paul talked about it so much and so joyfully was that it is not only the story of Man’s death in the spirit because of the sin, it is also the story of the promise of restoration and redemption that God finally kept by sending his son, Jesus Christ, to live the perfect life.

Jesus — True to God’s will.
He was tempted, but never sinned.
He was all powerful – with all the power of the universe at His control, yet humble enough to take the form of a man who would eventually allow Himself to die on the cross to pay the debt of original sin and the sins of the world.

And through that death – Jesus saved me and you and saved ALL who would believe. He saved all who confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe with our hearts that God raised Him from the dead.

But that’s not the end of it! It gets better! (Sorry if I sound like I’m on an infomercial).

Paul understood, and we carry the same message, that the promise is only partially realized at this time, we have been justified by our faith in Christ, but there’s more, He is allowing us to co-labor with the Holy Spirit to draw more into the Kingdom until the day in which God has already determined to Come Back.

And on that day we will see our Lord, Jesus Christ, no longer the suffering servant, but the mighty and glorious and amazing King, who will once and for all make ALL THINGS RIGHT.

The Gospel is also the story of the new heavens and the new Earth where most importantly, we will once again see or God face to face in all of His Glory.

That was Paul’s message, and that’s what we see over and over in the Bible. And that’s what we are to bring to the world.

We are not ashamed of the Gospel, it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.

What else is there? Do we want to talk about relationships, yes, about finances and debt, yes! What about raising our children? Yes, what about missions and helping the poor? Absolutely!

But, when we read through the New Testament, every issue was seen and written about in light of the Gospel.
Why should we be good workers? Why should we love our wives passionately and sacrificially? Why should be hate sin? Why should we steward our money well? Why should we take good care of the earth, why should we encourage marriage? Why should we encourage the rights of the unborn babies to live? Why should we do anything? How should we look at everything?

We look at everything, we do everything here at the Church in the Grass to point people toward the Gospel, toward their need for a savior and to the one true savior, Jesus Christ.

We operate in every function, whether it is setting up chairs, passing out bibles, leading praise and worship or preaching, all through the lenses of the Gospel, and with every intention of bringing others into a saving relationship with our Father.

It is all about Him, It’s all about Jesus.
We remember Ephesians 2: 8-9

And, John 3:16


Our goal to share the gospel is not to force people to believe what we believe, it isn’t to have things our way and to be comfortable, it’s not – as we talked about last week to make the people around us morally more upright; though that is a byproduct of a regenerated, saved person.

No, the ultimate goal is to move more people out of the line leading to destruction and into the path leading to ETERNAL LIFE, basking in God’s love.

That’s why we as a church are here. Before anything else the Church in the Grass is here to present God’s message of salvation...

And here’s the thing, some churches don’t get back to the cross each week, some pastors don’t keep pounding the drum of creation, the fall, restoration and the eventual conclusion with the return of Jesus.

Some other churches do not do that. I am not in control of that. I am responsible for this church and those who sit under my teaching, and I never want to take God’s story for granted to where I don’t continue to preach it to you and to myself, because WE FORGET.

Let me show you what I mean. We’re almost done, but turn with me to Judges 2:6-11 {Unpack the history leading up to this passage – wilderness with Moses, new generation takes control of the Promised Land…}

We are not unlike the Israelites. We are quick to forget, we are quick to turn away from God when we forget about all of the great things that He has done for us.

And how do we forget? We forget by not telling our same stories over and over again.

One more passage and then we’ll be done. Please turn in your bibles to Luke 24:27.

Our job, the first of three parts to our mission statement, is to present God’s message of salvation. We do that by showing Jesus in every passage that we teach on, and we follow that lead from Jesus himself.

In His walk with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, how does our resurrected Lord teach them
That’s what He did, and that’s what we will do.

Next week we are going to continue talking about our mission. In light of the Gospel, in light of the instructions found in the new Testament we will talk about the importance of a church family.

And one more thing before we leave. If you are new here tonight, I know we might have put out some information that might be new or unfamiliar to you. If you have any questions or if you need someone to pray for you, please come up after I pray and dismiss the group and we’ll meet with you.

Let’s pray...
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