Transcript

Where Are We Going

Proverbs 29:18
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Pastor Randy Smith

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It's important to follow the right directions:

Consider the time the Department of Interior identified certain migratory birds in the United Stated with metal tags reading, "Wash. Biol. Surv." - abbreviations for Washington Biological Survey. It wasn't long before the code was changed after a farmer from Arkansas wrote the following letter to the department: "Dear Sirs, I shot one of your crows, My wife followed the cooking instructions attached - she washed it, boiled it and served it. It was the worst thing we ever ate."

It's also important to go in the right direction:

In November 1975, 75 convicts started digging a secret tunnel designed to bring them up at the other side of the wall of Saltillo Prison in northern Mexico. Five months later, guided by pure genius, they tunneled up into the nearby courtroom, the exact place in which many of them had been sentenced. The surprised judges returned all of them to jail.

Overall, it is important to know our desired outcome and choose the path that will take us in the right direction:

One day Albert Einstein was riding train. Everyone in his car recognized him and knew who he was. Prior to the train leaving the station, the conductor made his routine inspection to ensure that each passenger had their tickets. The conductor noticed Einstein fumbling through his things, in his pockets, and papers. When the conductor reached him, Einstein admitted that he had lost his ticket. "That's no problem Mr. Einstein," the conductor replied, "We know who you are." Einstein responded, "I know who I am too, but I'm looking for my ticket because I do not know where I am going!"

As we commence the New Year, we need to ask the question, "Where are we as the Grace Tabernacle going, and how do we plan to get there?" When there is no direction, we are like a rudderless ship, a jellyfish drifting in the ocean, a leaf tossed here and there by the wind. Without direction we minimize our potential, accomplish very little, divide over perceived expectations and do what is right in our own eyes. All of God's great movements have had vision, purpose and direction. And each of these movements have had leaders who humbly communicated these principles to the people. What is our purpose in 2007? Aim at nothing, says the maxim, and you will hit it every time.

The last two sermons were very devotional in nature as we studied how to abide in Jesus Christ. This morning we will get more philosophical. I have chosen to reserve a Sunday morning for this material because I believe it is crucial for all of us to be on the same page and be heading in the right direction. Understanding and heeding this material today will maximize our potential and preserve our unity tomorrow. So please listen carefully. Please provide your feedback. Please support the vision. Please contribute your time, treasures and talents so 2007 may be a year of purpose. After we invest so many resources, I believe both you and God would like to say we have accomplished something worthwhile.

So what is the purpose of the Grace Tabernacle? I believe the best way to answer that question is to divide the question into two parts. First, we must begin by asking what is God's purpose for the church? Our Lord loves the church that He purchased with His own blood. He is extremely concerned about what happens in the church. Doubtless we need to believe, therefore, that He would give us some clear guidelines in His Word. And He has! As the Proverb states, "Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint; but blessed is he who keeps the law (Pr. 29:18 ESV). We must go to His Word and keep His Word when seeking our direction. Second, considering God's general guidelines, how do we believe He is specifically calling us to achieve His goals here at the Grace Tabernacle?

The purpose of the church and our implementation of that purpose here at the Grace Tabernacle - that's the purpose of this sermon. After the investment of your precious time this morning, it is my goal that all of you will know, understand and hopefully support the direction of the Grace Tabernacle.

Starting with a very general perspective, God's purpose for the church is the same as His overall purpose in all that He does. In a nutshell, the main purpose of the church is to bring glory and honor to God. It cannot be stated any clearer than 1 Corinthians 10:31. "Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."

Obviously there is nothing we can do to make God more glorious, but it is our responsibility to reflect His glory and make it known. It is our responsibility to realize that He is the epicenter of everything we do, and everything we do must be sifted through the grid of His approval. This means that God at the Grace Tabernacle takes precedence over our decisions, our ministries and yes, even our people. In order to honor God, the will of God as it is revealed in the Scriptures will always take priority over the will, feelings and desires of the people. We hope the will of God will prevail in all of our hearts, but when there is a conflict, the most loving and most proper thing to do is allow the will of God to prevail as difficult and as harsh as that may appear at times. This mentality distinguishes us from every other institution. And this mentality that stands for God's glory is the primary purpose of the church.

In the Old Testament, God revealed His glory by making Himself known to the people. He manifested Himself to Adam and Moses directly. Later He manifested Himself in the Tabernacle and the Temple. Ultimately, now, God has manifested Himself in His Son, the final Word, Jesus Christ. "He who has seen Me," said Jesus, "Has seen the Father" (Jn. 14:9).

This is the purpose of the local church. That through Jesus Christ the glory of God might be revealed to the world. Contrary to what some believe, the Holy Spirit is not to have center stage. The Spirit came, says John 15 and 16 to testify of Christ (Jn.15:26; 16:13-15). The local church is to give Jesus Christ "first place in everything" (Col. 1:18). Two chapters later in Colossians 3 we read, "Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father" (Col. 3:17). God's goal is that He be glorified. We glorify the Father by exalting the Son.

So how do we exalt Jesus Christ?

Though Christ, the Head of the church is in heaven, He has chosen to spiritually dwell within His people. He has chosen to use the church, His Body, to function and minister in His physical absence. It should therefore be our goal as the church to allow Christ to accomplish His purposes through us. As He worked during His earthly ministry, He now uses us as His hands and His legs and His mouth. So in an ultimate way, God is glorified when the church exalts Jesus Christ and allows Him in us through the power of the Holy Spirit to minister to others. Paul in Ephesians said basically the same thing. "To (God) be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever" (Eph. 3:21).

So how does Christ minister through us?

Again generally speaking, I believe we can divide His ministry into two categories: Inreach and Outreach.

First, inreach. It is the primary goal of God that each person who professes Christ be greater conformed to the image of His blessed Son. In other words, it is God's number one desire that His children grow in Christlikeness and He will use whatever means at His disposal to accomplish that objective.

In Romans 8:29 Paul said, "(God) predestined (us) to become conformed to the image of His Son" (cf. 2 Cor. 3:18). He told the Colossians, "We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ" (Col. 1:28). He told the Galatians, "I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you" (Gal. 4:19). As believers are developing in Christlike character, Christ is magnified in their lives (Phil. 1:20-21).

This is our goal at the Grace Tabernacle. We are not first a social club or political organization or theological think-tank. We are foremost to be an environment that God can use to increase His holy image in the lives of His children.

Therefore the primary role of any pastor is to teach and pray and model whereby God might use his efforts to lead the church in this direction. And once the church is pursuing God as their chief desire, the faithful pastor is to then to "(equip) of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ" (Eph. 4:12). His job is to train and admonish and encourage the believers to be useful participants in the kingdom of God.

The second way we serve as Christ is outreach. As you know Jesus came to share the good news that through His death sinners might be reconciled to God. In the same way, it is our responsibility as Christians to understand the Gospel and faithfully share it as Christ's ambassadors (2 Cor. 5:20) with a lost world teetering on the precipice of hell. In His Great Commission Jesus said, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Mt. 28:18-20). Every time we share the Gospel, regardless of the results, we exalt the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 2:15).

So what are we seeking to produce here at the Grace Tabernacle? Spirit-filled Christians who glorify God by exalting Jesus Christ through faithfully using their time, treasures and talents as they edify the church and reach the lost with the Gospel. Or put another way, according to our Constitution: "The purpose of the Grace Tabernacle is to glorify the God of the Scriptures by promoting His worship, equipping and maturing the saints of God, while declaring the Good News of salvation to everyone in our whole area and around the world all to the praise and honor of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Now I would like to spend the remainder of our time this morning discussing the specific ways we plan to achieve these goals here at the Grace Tabernacle. Again, after this message, it is our goal, without being militant, to have you clearly understand the direction we wish to chart. We wish for you to know how we plan to put feet to our mission statement, following the guidelines as they are revealed to us through the Holy Scriptures.

For our children we seek to have loving teachers who are equipped to be biblical instructors and not babysitters. We expect our teachers to provide a safe and nurturing atmosphere, teaching truth in a way that is accurate and interesting. Our teachers are expected to achieve a high standard in personal godliness, lesson preparation and commitment to develop their skills as set forth by Pastor Russ. We desire their lessons to be challenging, but not exasperating and their crafts to be meaningful, but not boring. Our curriculum is to be biblically centered, theologically accurate, age appropriate and comprehensive whereby our children as they continually attend throughout the years will be educated in the whole counsel of God.

For our youth we desire to have a staff that provides not only instruction, but also their own lives for these teens. We expect them to be examples of mature Christian living that do not replace, but faithfully come alongside the parent in their awesome responsibility of raising an adolescent in the ways of the Lord. We expect their lessons to be centered on the Scriptures bringing forth truth relevant to equip teens for the challenging lives they face today. We expect their activities to be safe, fun and meaningful whereby they contribute to building relationships and reinforcing biblical concepts.

For the adults we plan to offer a variety of discipleship activities in a variety of formats that will help them mature in Christlikeness. We desire the pulpit to be the heartbeat to dissimulate biblical truth in a manner that is systematic, expositional and exhortative. We desire our men and women's ministries to provide instruction that handles topics distinctive to gender interests and provides fellowship that promotes encouragement and strong relationships. We desire Sunday school to equip our adults to meet the practical challenges of the Christian life through classes on marriage, parenting and Bible study to provide just a few examples. And we desire our Growth Groups, small in-home Bible studies to be another tool to develop relationships for accountability, encouragement and assistance all centered in a relaxed and interactive environment of studying God's precious Word together. We hope every adult will take advantage of these formal activities to assist growing them in their faith.

We also desire every adult to be informally engaged in personal discipleship. We hope each adult will make it his or her ambition to disciple someone in the church, life-on-life and likewise in turn be discipled by someone else. We want all of our adults to see the need to "reach up" and receive personal discipleship and be both willing and able to "reach down" and meet the same need for another in this flock. We hope all men will first and foremost minister to their wives and all parents first and foremost minister to their children, before they begin serving others outside their family.

We desire our music ministry to employ doctrinally sound lyrics and spiritually-filled individuals who will assist us in coming into the presence of our Holy God. We also expect these individuals to be talented and prepared without crossing the fine line and becoming performance orientated. We desire our worship to raise emotions high, only as they deeply contemplate the character and actions of God and not some superficial sentimentalism. We desire our church to consider the musical preferences of others as we employ hymns and moderns songs along with a variety of instruments that can be supported in the Scriptures. When making decisions, essence takes precedence over emotions and substance takes precedence over style. We wish to respect the freedom of worship expressions as long as they are self-controlled and not distracting to others. God must always be the object of attention, not a worshiper or musician who desires to thrust him or herself on center stage.

We want our inreach to witness a whole body of believers who know their spiritual gifts and seek to use their spiritual gifts for the common good. We desire to see our ministry positions filled, new ministries started and a general loving attitude prevailing, whereby we seek to place others needs above our own within this body. We want to see formalized ministries that seek to minister to new moms, the sick, the elderly, the financially needy, single moms and widows. We want to see informal ministries that are practicing the "one-anothers" within the church without any external motivation.

We want our outreach to employ a variety of strategies to get beyond our four walls and reach the lost for Christ. We desire the church to participate in sharing the Gospel at our churchwide-sponsored events such as the St. Patrick's Day Parade, Lake Como Day and the Seafood Festival. Also we hope each believer at the Grace Tabernacle will engage in personal life-on-life evangelism in their family, their neighborhood and their workplace. As a church we also wish to increase our participation in overseas missions through short-term missions trips and financial support.

Doctrinally, we desire to teach and preach the whole counsel of God without compromise. We do not desire to be controversial, but do base our doctrines on what we believe is the accurate teaching of Scripture. We expect all Grace Tabernacle members to uphold the cardinal truths of the faith such as the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the Resurrection, the Second Coming, the substitutionary atonement, lordship salvation and justification by faith. Our distinctives, not necessary to enter the kingdom of God or become a member of the Grace Tabernacle, are also upheld and presented in love in all our teaching avenues. We believe God's Word is inspired by the Holy Spirit and inerrant in its original writings. We believe God is sovereign over all things including the salvation of His children. We believe the spiritual gifts are distributed now in a way that differed from the Apostolic era. We believe in a literal six-day creation as it is presented in Genesis 1. We believe in church discipline not only to be implemented in love, but implemented because we love and seek to restore unrepentant individuals back to fellowship with God. We believe genders are equal in essence, but different in roles when it comes to leadership in the home and in the church. And we believe in baptism by immersion after an individual has trusted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. We also believe that being right on doctrine does not guarantee that we are right with the Lord, individually and corporately.

Overall, we desire to see people who are joyfully abiding and passionately pursuing Christ. People trained and participating daily in personal Bible reading and prayer. People engaged in the participation of the Gospel as they love the lost, share the truth accurately, refute critics and speak with gentleness. People with selfless attitudes who desire to serve others and promote the ministry of this church. Those who know their gifts and diligently seek to use them for the common good as faithful stewards. People committed to personal and corporate prayer. People who love God more than their money and desire to have greater rewards in heaven than on this earth. People who will stand for truth and not accommodate to the worldly spirit of this age understanding that truth defines love. People who are not lukewarm or fringe in their involvement at this church, but are immersed in the life of Grace Tabernacle activities. People who desire to fellowship with others from this church through both formal and informal settings. People who know how to have strong God-honoring marriages and make the grace-driven effort to achieve them. People who instruct and discipline and love their children according to the Scriptures. People who are guided by their biblical convictions and not their emotions. People who know how to uphold their convictions and still respect and honor the convictions of others. People who consider the church unity a greater good than their own personal desires. People who develop not only Christian heads but also Christian hearts. People whose lives give a good testimony for the Grace Tabernacle and Christianity. People who love to love God by obeying His commandments. People who manifest the fruit of the Spirit daily in their lives. People who are mature disciples of Jesus Christ useful to the Master to accomplish His purposes.

Who are we? We are not a seeker sensitive church. We believe we gather to equip the saints by teaching the Apostle's doctrine, but we are sensitive to visitors and passionate that those without Christ come to a saving knowledge of the faith. We are not a perfect church nor are we a church that will meet everyone's desires, but we are a church that can accomplish much by God's grace if we focus more on what we have in common than what may divide us. We are not a Charismatic church, but we believe there is much we can learn from these dear siblings in the faith. We are not a church that majors on the minors such as schooling preferences, dress codes and systems of eschatology, but we are a church that is willing to die for the core doctrines of the faith. We are not a Calvinist church, but we are the church of Jesus Christ that happens to teach the doctrines of grace.

Well, is there any question as to who we are or what is our direction here at the Grace Tabernacle? Once again, as our Constitution states: "The purpose of the Grace Tabernacle is to glorify the God of the Scriptures by promoting His worship, equipping and maturing the saints of God, while declaring the Good News of salvation to everyone in our whole area and around the world all to the praise and honor of our Lord Jesus Christ."

We need to be God-centered. Jesus Christ must receive supremacy for He is the One who ultimately owns, builds and shepherds the Grace Tabernacle. We need to be His humble vessels with a high regard for His Word that God will use to turn the world upside-down. And that won't happen unless we are in the center of His will and going in the right direction.