Do you know why we’re here?

Abraham did.  Joseph did.  Moses did.  Jesus did.  Paul did. 

God had a plan, and all these people are examples of people in Scripture who fit into that plan and knew it. 

Do you know why you as a person are here?

Do you know why East Point as a congregation is here?  What is our purpose?  What is our mission?  What, as a church, are we trying to do?  Do we have a unified vision of where we fit in God’s plan?  In case we aren’t sure, today we’ll start looking at what our mission should be according to the Scriptures.  And when this series is over, we should be able as a congregation to begin talking in detail about what our mission looks like in our community and how that gives great meaning, purpose, and direction to each of our lives.

Knowing your mission is critical.  You’ve heard the saying, “If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time,” right?  So we know that we need a purpose, goals, an idea of what we want to become and achieve.  But it isn’t enough to start with what we want. 

“Mission was not made for the church; the church was made for mission–God’s mission” (Christopher J.H. Wright, The Mission of God, 62).

God isn’t just giving us something to do to keep us occupied.  In Lk 19:10, Jesus said, that he came to seek and save the ________ [lost].  He didn’t come to babysit the saved.  Now, it’s true that he did spend a whole lot of time with those we might call the saved, but what was he doing?  Was he babysitting them?  No!  He was preparing them, training them.  And for what?  For a mission.

Here, at the very beginning, as we work through a process of understanding what our mission is, it is essential that we hear this point clearly:  our mission is not church-centered; it is God-centered.  That’s a huge difference.

That means that we don’t set a course and pursue a mission like companies, corporations, and civic groups do.  We don’t pick a goal based simply on our wants, needs, or even our strengths.  Someone else plots our course for us.  And who do you think that is?  [God]

We the church are not a corporation, a civic club, or a sports team, even though we have some similarities.  The bible more often describes us as a family.  And that is helpful, because in the days of the bible, families had leaders.  And God is the Father of our family.  And He anointed a leader who sets the agenda and maps out a path for his family.  It’s not me, it’s not the elders.  It is Christ who God made head of the church.  (Eph. 1:22-23; 4:15; 5:23; Col. 1:18; 2:18)

And why did God do that?  Why make Christ the head of the church?  So that we’d be led in the right direction.  So that we will reach the goal.  Isn’t that what a leaders does?  And what is the right direction?  Not just toward heaven but toward God.  It’s not just about a place to go, but it’s about the created rejoining the Creator.  It’s about being part of God’s new creation when he shares his richest blessings with all his faithful children.  It’s about being part of the great victory of God at the end of days. 

We know there will be a great victory by God over sin and death.  We have faith in his power to do what he’s promised, in large part, because we believe that our God is the Creator of all things.

God defines the mission for his people.  And if we want to understand God’s mission, then we must begin by understanding what it was that God was doing “In the beginning.”  Look with me at Genesis 1:1-2:3 (read vv. 1-5, summarize the rest, and then read 1:26-2:3)

Why did God create the cosmos?  Why did God put us here?

If you read the next two chapters in Genesis, you learn that God walked and talked with the people he put in the Garden, in that great paradise.  God wanted to live with us and to share his blessings with us.  Many people think that God wants people to fall down before him for eternity singing his praises.  And so they have this unfortunate, incorrect view of what would be a self-centered, ego-centric God.  And that’s not our God.  Our God is the one who walked and talked in Eden with his people.  He knew them, he loved them, he provided for all their needs. 

But we also know for those first chapters in Genesis that those first humans sinned.  They were cast out of paradise and out of the presence of God.  And it looked for awhile like God’s mission to live in an intimate relationship with his people, sharing with them his great blessings, like that was all over. 

But God wasn’t finished.  God was just getting started in his mission.  He wasn’t willing to give up on us.  He loved us too much.  He’d made us, and we were his.

And so the great narratives of the Bible tell us about how God continually fought this battle to bless us and to overcome our failings.  How God’s promises weren’t always believed, how humanity was all too often faithless, and yet how God was always faithful.  How he never forgot his covenant promises to people like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, David, and then to a teen-aged girl named Mary.

He promised Abraham that through his seed all nations would be blessed.  He promised Moses and Joshua that he would gather together a people for himself.  He promised David that his descendents would forever rule on his throne.  And he promised Mary that these great covenant blessings would be fulfilled through the baby that would soon be growing in her womb.

The bible tells it like this… Luke 1:26-33

Do you hear that?  It’s the mission of God!

And after Jesus was conceived and then born, “And when the time came for their purification…. (reading Luke 2:22-38). 

Here he was, the Messiah!  The one who would save his people and bring the Gentiles into the household of God!  The one who would bring to completion the covenant promises of God.  The one who would save us and give us hope and purpose and mission.

A mission that John, the gospel writer, knew had begun long before Jesus was born into the world.  John knew that even Jesus’ mission was not his own but one that had been initiated by His Father in the beginning.  And so like the opening verses of Genesis, the book of beginnings, John begins his gospel like this…

            “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

            There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.

            The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

            And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.”  (John 1:1-18 ESV)

Jesus came to bring God’s mission closer to completion.  His coming has brought us one giant leap closer to a full, unhindered life with God as it was intended in the beginning of creation.  And in his life, his ministry, his death, his resurrection, and his current reign at the right hand of God, Jesus indeed shows us the Father and helped make clear while in the flesh the purpose and mission that he entrusts to us and to all people who follow God. 

In the upcoming weeks, we’ll flesh this out and see what specifically it means to carry on a mission initiated by God for the blessing of his creation.

Jesus came to us and died so that we could go to God and live.  If you want to join God’s mission, you must begin by being born again.  You must have a new beginning, and you can have it by faith in Christ.  Come and repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins.  Come now as we stand and sing.

Baptized

Jadyn’s “No, I don’t wanna get baptized!” statement in the swimming pool….

She knew that the word “baptize” means going under the water.  Our English word “baptism” is an anglicized version of the Greek work baptisma which does mean to immerse, to dip, to plunge, but the practice of baptism in Christ’s church involves a lot more than someone simply getting wet.

Christendom at large has taken a rather simple, straightforward practice and really muddied the waters, and there are all sorts of misunderstandings taught in various churches today about what baptism is, what it means, what it does, and who it’s for.

I want to take our time this morning to give what I hope will be a clear overview of what baptism really is.  I’ve wrestled all week with how to present this material, and I’ve settled on a pretty simple approach.  I’m going to read to you a number of NT passages about baptism, and I want you to listen and think about what they mean.  And as we look at these, I’ll put a list up on the screen summarizing what these Scriptures tell us about baptism.

As I go, at the risk of distracting myself, I’m going to invite you to text your questions to me (200-7780) or to write them on the back of a white card in front of you so I can read them later.  And I want you to come and talk to me if you have additional questions or want to study more about this critical element of coming to faith in Jesus.

• I’m actually going to begin with the kinds of things you will often hear me say about baptism:

Baptism is something we submit to in faith because Jesus did it and he specifically commands us to be baptized to become his disciples.  Baptism is a work of God that, through His mercy and grace, indentifies us with the death and resurrection of Jesus, cleanses us from our sins, seals us with His Spirit, and joins us to His bride—the  church.

• Matthew 3, Mark 1, and Luke 3 all say that Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan River.
• Matthew 28:18-20… Baptism is commanded for all who would be Jesus’ disciples
• Titus 3:4-7 and Colossians 2:11-12… Baptism is not a human work that earns salvation!  We put our faith in “his own mercy” and in “the powerful working of God”!
• Romans 6:3-11; Colossians 2:11-14… Baptism is an identification with and a joining with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus
• Galatians 3:26-27… Baptism is putting on Christ through faith
• 1 Peter 3:20-21… Baptism is a vehicle which saves us through the resurrection of Jesus Christ
• 1 Corinthians 6:11… Baptism results in sanctification (God makes us holy, purified, consecrated) and justification (God declares us free and renders a favorable verdict)
• Acts 2:1-41… Baptism is for the forgiveness of sins and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit
• Acts 22:6-16… Paul was told to wash away his sins in baptism, calling on the name of the Lord
• Acts 19:1-6… Baptism must accompany our belief in Jesus in order to receive the Holy Spirit
• Ephesians 4:1-6; 1 Corinthians 12:12-13… Baptism is a marker of our unity in the body of Christ.

• notice Peter’s application of Joel’s prophecy about “calling on the name of the Lord”
• even John’s baptism was one of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3)!

But, some will object based on Ephesians 2 and Romans 10.  Let’s see what Paul, who himself was baptized for the forgiveness of his sins, said in his letters.

• Ephesians 2:1-10… I fully agree and preach that we are saved by grace through faith as a gift of God.  But as I’ve already said, being baptized is not a work.  It is not something I do to earn my salvation.  It is a passive act of faithful obedience.  God does the work, I just allow myself to be buried in and then raised up out of the water.

• Romans 10:5-13… notice that this is the same letter where Paul already said that we are united with Christ and receive his grace in baptism.  Here in chapters 9, 10, and 11, Paul is emphasizing that we do not earn our salvation according to works of the law.  His emphasis is on belief and confession that come from the heart rather than simple law-keeping.  But Paul would never say that obedience is unimportant.  And belief/faith must be active to be real according to James 2.  And even Jesus said that those who love him will keep his commandments!  And what did Jesus command just before he left the earth to join his Father in heaven?  To “go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that [he commanded us]” (Matt. 28:19-20).

I know that there are others who focus on Romans 10 or Ephesians 2, but they sadly fail to recognize that overwhelming evidence that even Paul who wrote those passages was himself baptized and himself taught that baptism is what unites us to Christ.

I don’t agree with only a part of what Paul said.  I agree with all of it.  We are saved by grace through faith.  But we don’t receive God’s gracious forgiveness of sins until we’re in Christ.  And the way into Christ is to join him in his death, burial, and resurrection.  And the way we do that, according to Scripture, is by being baptized in water.

The time comes when every one of us has to respond to God in faith–not the faith of our fathers or mothers or grandparents, but our own faith based on our own reading and understanding of Scripture.  If you have questions, please ask so we can study this together.  We’re talking about salvation.

And if you’re ready now having heard the truth from God’s own word, then come and repent of your sins, confess Jesus as Son of God, and be baptized into him for the forgiveness of your sins.

 What does the Bible say about baptism?

• Matthew 3, Mark 1, Luke 3
• Matthew 28:18-20
• Titus 3:4-7 and Colossians 2:11-14
• Romans 6:3-11
• Galatians 3:26-27
• 1 Peter 3:20-21
• 1 Corinthians 6:11
• Acts 2:1-41
• Acts 22:6-16
• Acts 19:1-6
• Ephesians 4:1-6 and 1 Corinthians 12:12-13
• Ephesians 2:1-10
• Romans 10:5-13

What do you say? 

Should you be baptized into Jesus Christ according to the Scriptures?

It is being reported all over the Internet that Iranian “Pastor” Youcef Nadarkhani–a Christian–may be executed as early as today for his refusal to renounce Christ (see this link).  Iran, a strict Islamic state, has been persecuting Christians for longer than any of us have been alive.  Notwithstanding their presence at the United Nations and their frequent denials of human rights abuses, the Muslim leaders of the Iranian government are likely to kill Mr. Nadarkhani because of his faith.

We know that this kind of persecution exists, even though we don’t see it here in the United States.  Sure, we may experience ridicule or slander or ostracism at times because of our faith, but we don’t have to live in fear of losing our lives.  At least, not yet.

Youcef Nadarkhani may be released, or he may be killed, but we must watch.  Every Christian should pay attention and take notice of what is happening as around the world, false religions rise up as the devil masquerades as an angel of light in order to deceive a naive world (2 Corinthians 11:14).  Yes, Islam is a false religion.  No matter how nice some of its adherents are, and no matter if Muslims live as good citizens in their host nations, any religion that denies that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah, the Savior of the world–such a religion is false and will fall under the condemnation of God.

And so again, we must watch and pray for Youcef.  I don’t know anything about his specific beliefs or understanding of Christian doctrine.  But he stands as one who professes faith in Jesus, and so he stands where we or our children might someday fall.  

In our Wednesday night class at East Point, we’re studying the New Testament book called Hebrews.  It is a book written to people who aren’t sure that it’s worth maintaining their faith in Christ.  The world was too anti-Christ, and that means those Christians were feeling the stress of being separate and distinct.  Their businesses, their positions in their communities, their homes, their families, and even their lives were potentially in jeopardy unless they would walk away from Jesus.  Persecution was real for them.  Persecution is real for Youcef.  Persecution may one day be real for us.  And so we study and discuss the applications of Hebrews in order to remember the unsurpassable greatness of Jesus the Christ and to prepare ourselves for the ugly realities of a world that kills those who worship One who was killed for them.  

So watch what is happening in the world around us.  We don’t respond with hatred, violence, or retribution.  Instead, we pray for our enemies (Matthew 5:44) and ask that God will bless them with open eyes and receptive hearts so that they might come to know the truth of God’s love for them.  And while we pray for our enemies, let’s also pray for Youcef and all the others like him who stand to potentially lose their lives for faith in Jesus.

Dear God, please give us faith and courage to stand in days of trial.  Please be with Youcef and his family and with all other Christians who live with the threat of persecution.  We pray that their lives will be spared and that the gospel will be spread through their stories.  We are encouraged by their examples of faithfulness, and we pray that you will make us ready to withstand whatever storms are coming in our lives.  May we never take our eyes off of “Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 11:2).  We have only one Lord:  Jesus Christ.  We offer our pray in his name.  Amen.

Those who take their own lives, if they leave a message behind, often speak not of anger or frustration but of hopelessness.  Most people can deal with trouble and keep fighting even if they experience abuse or divorce or bankruptcy or the loss of loved ones.  But when people reach the point where they feel there is no hope for something better, they begin to give up.

If we think about it, I think we’ll find that this is true in our spiritual lives as well.  Every one of us knows that we have lots of problems and too many scars from the infection of sin in our lives.  That’s the human condition.  But when we have faith and hope, we are able to fight back against the corruption of sin, and we believe God can make us well again.

Some people, however, don’t have this kind of hope.  They might believe in God and in the resurrection of his Son, but they feel too inferior and too worthless to expect God to have compassion on them.  They know their weaknesses, they believe they have absolutely nothing to offer God, and so they give up hope for any spiritual renewal.  And that’s not just sad, it’s tragic.

It’s tragic, because the denial of hope is one of the devil’s most successful ploys.  But we have an answer.  It’s real.  It’s incredible.  And it’s available for you.  God has given us the antidote for hopelessness.  And Sunday morning (Sept. 25, 2011) at East Point, I’m going to share it with you.

Bring your friends.  Bring your family.  Bring everyone you know who has given up, and may the loving power of God change their hearts and give them hope.

Good Monday, everyone!  It seems like it’s been really busy lately, but since when is that news?  Most of us seem to feel like we don’t really have time to spend time the way we’d like to.  We’d like to spend more time with family and friends.  We’d like to prioritize more time for prayer and worship.  But we have work or school and activities the kids are involved in, and there are only so many hours in the day.  So we have to make choices.  Hard choices.

Stephen Covey has written a lot of books about time management and leadership, and in his book First Things First he advises his readers “to live, to learn, to love, to leave a legacy.”  He says we neglect to do many of the things that are really most important to us, because we spend too little time preparing and too much time reacting to life as it happens.  I think he’s got me pegged.

But we can do better if we stop to think about what really matters to us.  If you made a list of the “most important” things in your life, what would it contain?  Family, friends, God, …?

Sure, some lists might include things like football or fishing or scrapbooking or gardening or whatever it is you enjoy, but shouldn’t all our lists have at least family, friends, and God?  And if we have these three loves in common, then shouldn’t we be able to help each other find ways to put these things first in our lives?  I certainly think we can.  In fact, if we’re wise with our time, we can find ways to nurture relationships with family, friends, and God all at the same time.  Right?  Of course!

And so the secret is creating opportunities–or making use of opportunities created for us–wherein we can spend time with family, friends, and God all at once.  Some people are able to do this naturally and without much help.  Others of us need to hear some ideas and be pointed in a good direction.  So, here are a couple of ideas that might help–that is, if you are serious about making choices that allow you to put first things first in your life.

1. Come to Bible class and bring your friends.  If your class is boring, try speaking up, participate in the study, and be part of the solution.  We don’t use teachers who are unwilling to have good discussions, and most teachers would prefer not to lecture.  And if you feel like you really don’t have much of a relationship with the people in your class, make an effort or bring your friends to class with you.  Classes can make time for prayer and fellowship as well as study, so just let the teacher know what you’re looking for and what you need. 

As a way to help build more community among our young adults at East Point, we’ve created a new class just for people from college age through their thirties.  This is a fantastic opportunity to come and get to know others in similar life situations while also learning together about God and his will for our lives.  Plus, as we get to know each other through class, we’ll have all sorts of opportunities for more fellowship and other activities.

1. Join a Sunday night small group.  We are still in the planning stages, but in the upcoming weeks, we’ll be talking more and more about ways to be part of a small group of people (about 10 adults plus their children) who commit to ministering to one another.  If we really want to place greater emphasis on time with family, friends, and God, there’s not a better way to do it than through small group ministries.  Again, we’ll be sharing a lot more information about this opportunity in coming weeks.  In the meantime, please keep this ministry in your prayers.

I hope that you will commit to being part of a Bible class and a small group.  Everyone is welcome and invited.  God calls each of us to grow toward greater maturity each day, and that’s so difficult to do if we don’t prioritize the things that are really most important.  Have a great day and week.

God bless,

Patrick

Sometimes, worship seems to be an adults-only exercise.  We use big words or archaic words (like that one) and do things maybe without thinking about whether or not the children in the room understand much of what’s going on.  Of course, there are some things we talk about that their young minds aren’t able to grasp just yet.  But that doesn’t mean that they can’t understand any of it!  And so at East Point, we’re taking the first Sunday every-other-month to have a special focus on worshipping in a way that helps our children understand what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. 

This Sunday morning, we’ll ask all the children from first through sixth grade to come and sit in the first few rows as worship begins.  The teens will sit with them, and our worship time will still be God-centered, but it will have a distinctive kid-focus.  The sermon will be divided into short sections, and each section will be surrounded by relevant songs which all aim to focus our thoughts on our salvation and our mission which both come from God thanks to the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ.

If we want our children to know God and to grow up into faithful followers of Jesus, then we have to start teaching them now.  By our words and our examples may we always point them to the Father.

Hope to see you Sunday!

God bless,

Patrick

Hey, everyone, I hope your week is going well so far.  If you were here at East Point on Sunday, you may remember that we talked about how Jesus’ daily life was hectic most of the time, and we saw how he was willing to keep ministering to people nonetheless.  Tonight as you do whatever you do on Tuesday evenings, take a minute to remind yourself that God ALWAYS has time for you.  ALWAYS.  And as we saw from Mark 2 where Jesus forgave and healed the crippled man, God is able to heal us completely.  He cares about our physical wounds just as he cares about our spiritual sickness, and he will give us everything we need to stay in a healthy relationship with him.

I hope you’ll remember these things, because we so often fail to accept the grace that God offers us.  We either consider ourselves unworthy and unsalvageable, or we don’t believe that God can do what he says he can do.  So here’s my challenge to you for the rest of the week:

Concentrate on the one biggest need or issue you’re dealing with in your life, and pray every day to God about it, and share it with a brother or sister in Christ and let them pray with you about it.  This can be a big thing or a relatively small thing as long as it’s something important to you.  And when you share it and pray about it with someone else, make sure that it’s with someone who doesn’t live under the same roof as you.  Now, it’s good to pray about these things with your family, but we also need to train ourselves to share and pray with those who make up our Christian family.

If you do this, you will be blessed, and the person who prays with you will also be blessed by the experience.  God wants a family that knows how to talk and pray together about things that are important to us.  And, don’t forget, they’re important to God, too.  He sees our troubles, he hears our cries, he knows our sufferings, and he comes down to deliver us (see Exodus 3:7-8).  How great is our God!

God bless,

Patrick

Okay.  So the picture doesn’t match the title of the post.  At least, not at first glance.

But think about how so many people do feel paralyzed and why they feel that way.  In my discussions with people, I find that a whole lot of people feel pretty overwhelmed by life.  I don’t mean to imply that they are necessarily depressed or ready to throw their hands up and quit.  But they’re often tired and feel run down.  They know that they have weaknesses.  They know that they sin.  And sometimes they seem to think that their constant motion and activity really isn’t getting them anywhere. 

Here at East Point, we’re arriving at the middle of my preaching series on Growing Biblical Community.  I’ve already talked about the cost of community and the commands to love one another, wait for (share with) one another, and comfort one another.  Some of you, no doubt, are still wondering how we can do this.  Sometimes it is about doing more than what we’re doing.  At other times its about replacing some of what we do with something even better.  And there are also times when we need to remember that God himself has shown us how to overcome the paralysis we feel in our lives. 

Jesus knew what it was like to be busy, and he was able to give people love, comfort, and hope without burning out in the process.  We can do this, too.  And when we’re feeling short of breath, we’ve got to remember that God’s Spirit will revive us.  I hope to make some of this clear Sunday morning.  Please keep me in your prayers.  I look forward to seeing you at East Point.

Patrick

One of the hardest things for American Christians to do these days is also one of the most essential things we need to learn to do for the rest of our days–love one another and live in true biblical community.

Anyone who has read the New Testament knows that the command to love one another is given to Christians over and over again.  We hear or read it so often that I think we sort of filter it out and fail to think about what that command really calls us to do.  It’s so well-known, we almost dismiss it in a search for something new and novel.  And we suffer for it.

Don’t we all get a little tired of being tired, stressed, fatigued, or even bored with the kind of life our culture pushes?  Haven’t we learned already that the constant accumulation of stuff and the never-ending attempt to reach the top have really just made us feel empty and ineffective?  Even in the church this can happen.  We look around and ask what we can do to better market ourselves and our product, when we’d be a lot better off if we worried less about marketing and more about living in a way that truly puts our product on display.

I know, it’s not really “our” product.  But love is the thing that our Christian community should display that exists nowhere else in the whole wide world.  The love we show one another in Christ is not merely an emotion, it is not self-seeking, and it does not ever fade away.  It is something unique that is given to us by God which can overcome all obstacles in the way of our living a life of faith that looks forward in anticipation of our full salvation because we live according to love.

If we love one another the way God intends us to, then we will not be able to keep from growing in genuine biblical community.  That’s exciting!  And that’s what we’ll be talking about this Sunday morning at the East Point Church of Christ in Wichita as we start this series on Community in Christ.

God bless, and I hope to see you Sunday!

Patrick

In the meantime, I came across a paper I wrote last December on the Church’s response to illegal immigration.  This is likely to be an important topic in the news as we get closer and closer to a new round of elections in the United States.  So, since everyone needs something to help them get to sleep at night, I’m attaching my article here: (just click on the link for a pdf version) A Christian Response to Illegal Immigration–research paper–Patrick Barber.  If you read it, come back and tell me what you think.  We could develop an interesting dialogue…

Thanks,

Patrick