Amen. Good morning again, everyone. It's great to see all of you here today. Welcome, Smyrna campus! We love you guys. Glad you're connected there.
Everybody that's connecting with us online, we're so happy to have that connection with you, especially when we have, like this week, so many people traveling with fall break and all the schools in our area. We've got a lot of people taking a trip this week, and we pray for your safety as you travel. We're glad you could still connect with us online even while you're traveling.
We are continuing a series that we've been in for a long time now. Since April, we've been going straight through the book of Exodus. So if you've got your Bibles with you, or pull it up on your smartphone or your tablet, we'll be looking at Exodus 38 to start with today, and then we'll be looking at a few other passages. If you don't have a Bible with you, we're going to put the words up on the screen, the scriptures up on the screen for you so you can follow along there. But I really love to see you in the words, so let's get in the Bible together. Let's look at it together as we study God's plan and purpose for our lives.
Close to seven months now, we've been going through the book of Exodus, and we've seen this theme that's repeated all the way through. Remember, everything in Exodus is foreshadowing. It's looking ahead to what God's plan and purpose is overall, even for us today. We see this theme that God has this amazing plan that He's working, and it's for our good. This plan is actually for our good. He wants us to have good things in life, the best things, the best life we can have, and it's for His glory. So if we are living out the life He wants us to live, it brings glory and honor to Him when we do that.
So those two things are closely connected together in God's plan for restoring the creation that has been put under the curse because of sin. He's wanting to bring healing and bring it all back together, reconcile everything back to Himself, and that's part of that plan that He's been working the whole time.
There was a monk, a great philosopher, and a minister that were walking down a country road, and they came up on this young farm boy. As soon as they came up on that young farm boy, a chicken walked across the road, and actually the conversation came up: "You know, why did the chicken cross the road?" The monk said, "It's the destiny of the chicken to seek its own path." The great philosopher said, "Its action teaches a lesson in the ways of nature, much like life itself." The minister said, "It's because it follows the plan of our maker under His divine rule." The young farm boy said, "Well, actually, it's because I left the door open on the chicken coop."
See, when it comes to understanding the nature of things, human beings have really tried to figure this out on our own and in our own existence, in our own understanding, and getting to know ourselves. When in fact, the real approach we need to be taking to figuring things out and knowing how life works is we need to not try to see it within ourselves, but see it in our relationship with our Creator. That's what really defines life—like it's supposed to be lived, like God designed it to be lived.
And we've been talking about what it means. In Exodus, we see this part of the plan where we see what it means to be a distinct people among other people on earth. God was transforming these people that had been slaves in Egypt for hundreds of years, and now He's brought them out of that darkness. He's bringing them into the light of His promises, His provision, His presence, and His power. He wants them to experience all of that, so He's transforming them into being the people that He wants them to be—set apart as a distinct people in all the world.
And set apart for a purpose, for a reason, is so that the nations around them would look at them, and they would see through them and in them their God as the one true God, the one who has this plan to deliver us and reconcile us back to Himself. So here in Exodus, we see that it's teaching us that, as you look ahead, right? That was foreshadowing what God was doing even in the world today. When you look ahead, it's teaching us that Christians are people that are called by God out of the darkness of sin and this world into His marvelous light.
He's teaching us that Christians are people who operate in and by the presence and the power of God Himself. That should separate us out from the rest of the world, from all the other people of the world. It's that we're living differently than they are based on different beliefs and different commitments and different values that we hold that we learn from God's Word. And so He's making us—making our lives—lives that are lived in His presence and by His power.
And there are distinguishing marks that people who live in the presence of the power of God will have in their lives, and He's revealing that in Exodus as He looks ahead to His plan for the church. He has revealed, as we saw the last couple of weeks, that His people should be distinct—distinguished by our generosity, that we be a generous people, that we have generous hearts.
Now, you don't have to be a Christian to be generous. There are people who aren't Christians who are generous, right? We talk about that a lot, but we don't have to be a Christian to be generous. We talked about that, but we are generous for a purpose, for a mission. Again, it's because we understand all things belong to God. We're stewards of those things, and we want to manage them well for Him, for His glory. You might remember the plan: it's for our good, but it's also for His glory. And if we're being generous like we need to be, it's going to give glory to God.
Last week, we also looked at the fact that one of the distinguishing marks of the distinguished set-apart people of God is that we are a people of the Word. We are a people of justice. We are a people of love. We are important, and we share with one another the three pillars of the distinguished set-apart people. God gave the people in Exodus His Word. He revealed it to them through Moses, and then Moses wrote it down, and God gave them the tablets of stone with the commandments. He's making sure they have access to being able to hear and know what God's Word and will is through His Word.
Because His people, in order to be the distinguished set-apart people that He wants them to be, need to be living by a different set of standards, a different way of living that will distinguish them. And that's found in His Word. That's where that's revealed. So when the Word is revealed, when the Word is spoken, when it's written and read, all of that is calling them to come under that Word and the authority of that Word and the teaching of that Word willingly from our hearts, wanting to obey what that Word is telling us to do.
Because we know, remember the plan? It's for our good, and it's for His what? It's for His glory, right? God wants both of those things. And so He teaches us in His Word how we can have the good that He wants us to have at the same time giving Him the glory that He is worthy of.
So we are going to see today one more distinguishing characteristic of the set-apart people of God. And that is that God wants His people to be a people on a mission, on purpose. There is a rhyme and a reason to His teachings. There is a deeper reason. It's important for us to hear the Word, to believe the Word, like we talked about last week, and then to do what? Obey the Word. Those three things. We need to do all three of those things in order for us to fulfill the mission that God has called us to as His people.
So let's pick up again in Exodus. We're going to start with a few verses in chapter 38 if you want to look there with me. I'm just going to start reading in verse 21. I want you to follow along and guess how to pronounce these names that I'm going to try to pronounce, okay? You just take your best guess because that's what I'm doing, all right? Here we go.
These are the amounts of the materials used for the tabernacle, the tabernacle of the covenant law, which were recorded at Moses' command by the Levites, under the direction of Ithamar, son of Aaron the priest. Bazalel, son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, made everything the Lord commanded Moses. You following me so far? You got the names? No, you don't. Here we go.
All right. With him was Aholiab, son of Ahishamach, of the tribe of Dan, an engraver and designer, and an embroiderer in blue, purple, and scarlet yarn and fine linen. The total amount of the gold from the wave offering used for all the work on the sanctuary was 29 talents and 730 shekels, according to the sanctuary shekel.
The silver obtained from those of the community, you could go on and on here. Listen to all these figures that you get, all right? They counted in the census was 100 talents and 1,775 shekels, according to the sanctuary shekel. One beck of per person, that is half a shekel, according to the sanctuary shekel, from everyone who had crossed over to those counted, 20 years old or more, a total of 603,550 men.
The 100 talents of silver were used to cast the bases for the sanctuary and for the curtain, 100 bases for the 100 talents, one talent for each base. They used the 1,775 shekels to make the hooks for the post, to overlay the tops of the post, and to make their brands. The bronze from the wave offering was 70 talents and 2,400 shekels. They used it to make the bases for the entrance to the tent of meeting, the bronze altar with its bronze grating and all its utensils, the bases for the surrounding courtyard and those for its entrance, and all the tent pegs for the tabernacle and those for the surrounding courtyard.
How many of you glazed over while I read through that? Yeah. So you might be thinking, what's the big deal? This is actually repeating something that was already given to us earlier in the book of Exodus. We talked about this a little bit last week when we talked about being a people of the Word. There are several reasons that not only is this included the first time, but it's repeated the second time.
The reason it's there the second time—there's probably more that we don't even know, but some that we can see clearly here—is, first of all, it's very detailed. Why is that a big deal? It's because God wants obedience even to the small things. You see, the small things put together make up the what? The large things. People are always saying, "I want my life to be better," and they just want some big spectacular transformation to happen.
And here's how lives are usually transformed: little changes consistently practiced over time. That's how you end up with big changes. You pay attention to the details, to the things that may seem unimportant, and you're like, "Well, I don't know what's going on in the moment, but if God says it needs to be this way, we decide we'll do it that way." Why? Because He's God, and He's got a plan that's for our what? Our good and for His glory.
So if He wants good for us, then even the little things matter because the little things added together make up most of our lives. That's why the little details are important. And God in Exodus has shown them all these little details that He wants them to be obedient to, and when it's repeated again here in Exodus, we see that the people are doing it according to even the small details that God gave them. They're doing exactly what God commanded, and using the exact measurements, the exact amounts, the exact way of doing it. They're following God's plan for the tabernacle here.
And as much as that may not seem like a big deal to us, that's establishing them in their hearts and transforming them in their thinking to think, "If God says these things, if He teaches these things, there's got to be a reason for it." There's more to it than just measuring it exactly and making sure we put it together exactly like He said. He's getting our hearts right with a submission and a willingness to be obedient people to what He's teaching us to do here.
On in chapter 39, we get into the making of the priestly garments. Next week, we're going to finish up the series in chapter 40, and all of this is pointing ahead to God wanting to make a people set apart for Him. And if we're going to be set apart for Him, it means that we understand the importance of everything God teaches us to do. We don't just pick and choose the parts that we like or the parts that we agree with.
Last week, I mentioned a quote by Francis Chan: "If I run across something in the Bible that I disagree with, I immediately have to assume that I'm wrong," because God's going to make a people set apart for Him. And if we're going to be set apart for Him, even if I disagree with it, that's how God can see if our hearts are really being transformed.
As if in the details, even if we don't understand why or maybe even disagree with it, we're still willing to submit and follow His teaching, follow His way for us, because that demonstrates the lordship of God in our lives, the rule of God in our lives, the sovereignty of God over us.
And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. Our lives—everything they're doing here—God's commanded them to do earlier in the book of Exodus, but here He's helping us see, as He follows through and they follow through with the obedience, we're seeing that those little things that God is telling them to do and those little things that they were doing, they're all part of the mission God has for His people.
We'll read about great conquest and things like that in history. We usually just read about the victory part of the conquest and we celebrate the victories. But friends, you don't get to the victories without the little things being done ahead of time to get there. That's how you get to the victories. It's those day-to-day, sometimes very ordinary things that God says, "Live life like this," that lead us to the great victories that He wants us to experience in our lives.
And if we leave out the little things, it sets us back from getting to that place where we have those victories that He wants us to celebrate and enjoy because He has a plan for our good and for His glory. So if that was true for Israel, if He's giving them these minute details to follow and they need to be obedient to that, and we see them doing that, we know that God's got a plan for them. The mission is to transform them into the people that He wants them to be, right?
So that's part of the mission, and the ultimate goal of that mission is for the nations around them to come to know Him as the one true God. So if that's a foreshadowing of the church—and we believe that it is—everything in Exodus was looking ahead. If that's a foreshadowing of God's plan being fulfilled in our lives today as the church, when I say the church, what am I talking about? Us! We're the church—not an institution or building; it's the people. We're the church.
If He has a plan for us as His people today, for the church, we need to see the church this way: as a community of the people of God that are on mission for God. Right? You're not just here by random chance, and we're not just here to attend church services. We're here on a mission. The time we have on this earth is all designed for us to be on mission while we're here for God.
And the mission is not "get rich or die trying." That's not the mission. He's got something better because if you get rich and die trying, you're still going to be what? Dead. And you're going to be lost if that's all your life was about. It's not evil to be rich; that's not the point. The point is, what are you giving your life to? What is your mission? Let's define the mission of what we're supposed to be doing while we're here with the time that we have on this earth.
Well, if we're a community of faith on a mission, if we forget that, right? If we lose sight of the mission of God, we're going to be losing sight of that. If we lose track of that, bad things are going to happen. We're going to fall short of accomplishing the mission, which means we're going to miss out on the part of God's plan where it was for our good as well as for His glory. We're going to mess that up if we get off mission, if we don't do everything in light of the mission that God has for us as His people.
Now thankfully, God gives us clear teaching on how that's supposed to be lived out. All of Exodus, we've been learning about that, and we're going to be living out that. But in the New Testament, under the new covenant in Christ, this plan for the church is clearly spelled out in a lot of places. I want to look at one in specific and spend a lot of time there today. I want you to turn with me to 1 Peter chapter 2. We're going to pick up in verse 9 because it connects directly to Exodus, this series we've been in the whole time. I mean, it is clearly a direct connection to Exodus and what God's plan was for the Israelites. Remember, that was a foreshadowing. Here's the fulfillment of what was being foreshadowed there in 1 Peter 2, beginning with verse 9.
He says, "But you are—who's he talking to there? Us! He's talking to the church. Who's the church? Us! Okay, but you are a—what's that word? Chosen people. A—what's that? Royal priesthood. What's next? A holy nation. God's special possession. Okay, what for? That you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. He said, 'Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.' Dear friends, I urge you as—what's that word? We struggle with that one. We really get attached to this place like it's our home, but if we're the people of God and His plan for His purposes today, what are we actually here? We're foreigners and exiles.
So he says, "I urge you as foreigners and exiles to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul." He says, "Here's how you live this out: live such good lives among the pagans." And we get all hung up on the word "pagan" like it's so awful and negative and tearing people down. That's not what pagan is. Pagan means somebody who's not in this place, and that's not what pagan means. It's the plan of God because they've chosen not to be part of it, okay? That's the pagan world. They've rejected it; they're separated from God and God's plan and purpose.
All right, live such good lives among the pagans that though they may accuse you of doing wrong—get a lot of that, don't we?—they may see your good deeds and here's the ultimate purpose: glorify God on the day He visits us. First of all, he's reminding you that he's coming to visit us. We don't know when. If anybody tells you they got it figured out, you need to stop listening to them. They don't have it figured out. Nobody knows the day or the hour, okay? Don't buy their books; don't spend money on their videos. They don't know. Stop doing that. The Bible makes it clear that nobody knows.
He'll come like a thief in the night. Thieves don't usually call you up and set up an appointment, right? Give you all the signs to know when they're coming. They don't do that. It'll be in a moment, the twinkling of an eye. We'll be not knowing when it's going to happen. But he says when he comes to visit, what he wants to see from his people is that we've lived such a good life—the life that he's called us to—a life worthy of our calling that even if they wanted to criticize the church, they have to admit we lived something better than what they lived out—a lifestyle and a way of doing things that was superior to what the world was trying to tell us to do.
Not because we were superior, but because God gave us a superior plan to follow—something better than what the world was saying about how we need to live our lives that brought better results than what the world's way would bring and how we live our lives. So that makes us a distinct people set apart for Him.
Well, I want us to look more deeply at understanding what we just read in 1 Peter 2. It finds its roots in how God's people understand themselves in light of His laws and His rules and His grace that we see in Exodus and through the rest of Scripture. So I want to give you my outline real quick, and I'm going to go through these fast, okay? I'll give you the outline, fill in the blanks, and then listen again really closely, okay? I'm going to tell you three R's. We're going to look at relationships, roles, and reputation. I like to use alliteration; you know that about me. It helps me remember stuff; maybe it'll help you remember stuff too. Relationships, roles, and reputation—three R's.
All right, so let's dive in. The first one is relationships. If we're going to be the set-apart people of God, then it is centered in relationships. I talked about this before. Remember last week, people are always saying Christianity is not a religion; it's a relationship. Well, that's both. Remember, it's both of those things. Relationship is the religion is based on and centered in the relationship we have with Jesus. It's both of those things. You don't have to have just one or the other.
And when it comes to relationships in His Word with Israel and all the way through with the new covenant with the church, we see this about relationships: they are both vertical and horizontal, and both are important to God. Vertical means this way—our relationship with Him. That's where everything starts, right? Our relationship with Him is centered in what Jesus Christ has done for us. But how do I think about myself? If that's the relationship I have with Him, then it changes everything about my life.
If I really believe that's the relationship I have with God, here's what it does: it changes how I think about myself. Now I understand I'm going to belong to God. I'm not my own; I'm His. My life is His; my money's His; my family is His; all my stuff is His. All that I have as an owner is not really mine. I use the term "owner" like it's mine, but actually, the real owner is God, who owns all things, and I'm just the manager of what He owns.
Now think about what changes in your life if you understand that you are not God; you don't own all this stuff—He does. It'll change everything about how you think about life, the value you place on stuff, the value you place on relationships, the value you place on material possessions. It changes everything if you understand that you are not your own; you're bought with a price—the price of the blood of Jesus.
Now it changes because it flies in the face of the air we breathe in 2024 because in America in 2024 and in much of the world, because of the influence of America primarily, people are living like the breath of life is the stuff of life. That's what we're living for instead of the relationship with God. And so our decisions are being made based on how this will affect us.
How will it affect my ability to get the stuff? How will it affect my ability to get the promotion? How will it affect my ability to get the power that I want to have? How will it affect my ability of me being able to live where I want to live and have the stuff I want to have—the house and the car and the clothes and all the stuff? We're all living life like that's what it's about now. Not everybody; certainly, there are exceptions, and I'm grateful for that.
But the majority of people in America don't have the ability to live like that. That is life for us. But if we understand that we're not God and that we don't own anything, even ourselves, then it changes the decision-making process of how we're going to live out our lives, and it reorders priorities in our lives.
And it gets into these kinds of next horizontal relationships, right? It starts there. If we can get that one right, then it changes the horizontal relationships with each other. And I love how He does this. I just want to take a moment on this because Lakeshore—I love Lakeshore's example of this as a church, and this is a God thing. God’s done this; none of us made this happen, but God has brought this about.
Here's what He does: He goes straight at race and ethnicity and socioeconomic status and nationality in 1 Peter. He addresses these things that we are trying to identify with in America today and says those aren't supposed to be your identity. You are supposed to have a totally different identity as a person in the world today if you belong to God and have that relationship right with Him.
Now here's the thing: here's what He does in the very first sentence, 1 Peter 2, verse 9: "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation." Right away, he talks about race. I want to talk about it for a minute. In case you haven't noticed, I'm white. I'm real white. I've been white all my life, and I have to fill out forms. They have boxes to check, right? What race? And they'll either say white or they'll use a fancy word for it, which is what? Caucasian. That sounds important—Caucasian.
And well, we've got companies that will get you to spend hundreds of dollars to trace your ancestry, right? And there's nothing wrong with that. You want to find out your history and the history of your people and all that, so you do that. But what has happened is we live in a world today that makes my identity marker my race, and it does it for you too because when you fill out that form, you may have a different one. It may be that you are Hispanic or Latino; it may be that you're African American, right? Whatever it is, whatever box you have, it's going to be a different form. It's going to be a different form you have to check.
That becomes your identity marker. But it's not just on the forms, right? It's all over the place. We have award shows set up—the Latino awards, the African American awards. Then you got awards for whoever just gets thrown in the bunch, right? Like us white folk, we got one. It's not just for whites, but we get to be part of that one, right?
So we separate them out—all these identity markers, and they're usually based on race. Identity markers—you see somebody get a great achievement, and they'll say, "First Latino to do that," right? "First Black person that did that." So we're always identifying the marker of race in our country. But God says my primary identity marker is not my race. I'm white; I'm not less than that, but I'm not more than that either—not when it comes to race. I'm more than that because of something else.
It's because I'm part of the chosen people, the royal priesthood, the holy nation that has—there should be now my identity marker for who I am. You see, I am a son of God, a child of the King. He's built the race of people that transcends what we identify as races. It transcends what we identify as the ethnicities of this world. He's identified us as a called-out people from all of that to be a set-apart one people together in the kingdom of God.
And this game they're playing with us of all the division of identity, racial identity politics and things like that, you're letting Satan tear apart what God is wanting to bring together. You chosen people together. And you know who He called? People from all nations, all tribes, all tongues to come together as one in Christ.
I'm so thankful that here at Lakeshore, we don't do this perfectly. We mess it up all the time, but we've got all races—almost all ethnicities. We've got over 20 countries of origin represented in our church family. They've come from all over the world together in the body of Christ here at Lakeshore. We set out to go to the world with the gospel, and God said, "I'm going to help you out here. I'm going to bring the world to you."
But you see, other churches have that same opportunity, and they just don't take it. We're still surrounded by Black churches and Hispanic churches and Asian churches and all that just set apart for those groups. And God is saying what I wanted to do is bring you together as my people and give you a new identity as my people.
That doesn't just happen; it has to be a work of God. The government tries to break unity by just throwing everybody together in the same building or the same program or whatever, and that hasn't worked well. We still have all the separation, all the division, all the anger, all the bad things happening because it only happens through a transformation based on the relationship we have with God through Jesus. That's how this transformation happens. It won't happen any other way.
And so we've got to stop allowing the world to put this marker on us about who we are based on our race. We've got to start taking on the identity marker of being children of God—men and women who belong to the chosen people group that God has called together out of all nations, all ethnicities, all races, all tongues, all tribes. He's bringing us together as His people.
God does what human beings cannot do. He transforms these identity markers and says, "You're more than those things. You're more than your race. You're more than your socioeconomic status." Look what He says: "You're a chosen people, a royal priesthood." He's saying everybody that comes into this nation, into this people, inherits all that is God's.
We're no longer divided by economic status, our social status in our community anymore, in our neighborhoods, in our schools. We are identified as part of the royal family because of our relationship with God through His Son, Jesus. So all that God has—guess what? All of His children inherit all that is His. You will tell me how big your house is; I'm not impressed. I've got a mansion that God has a room ready for me up in heaven.
I'm not going to live for that stuff because all of that stuff is less than what God wants for us. Less than the identity God wants us to have. You can be the most accomplished person in your race, and it won't matter in the kingdom of God. It won't matter a bit if you don't have the identity marker of being in Christ. That's the only identity marker that really matters in eternity. I'm a white guy—big deal. Am I in Christ? That's the important thing. That's the most important thing.
So if that's true, if that's the new identity God wants us to have, and stop identifying with all these other ways the world's dividing us up, then what are our roles as those people? That's the second thing, right? The roles. And the roles are really twofold according to this passage in 1 Peter 2. We are to proclaim or declare, and we are to abstain. I use "proclaim" because it rhymes with "abstain," but it doesn't matter. I like rhyme, and I like alliteration, so that's just me.
We are to declare the praises—listen—that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. We declare the praises of Him who has done this amazing thing for us. Well, you think about it. You think, "Well, I don't know exactly how He got me out of darkness into the light." What does that mean? It means that you were once an enemy of God, like I am. I've been, and we lived under the curse of sin, and the power of God is in us, and we live under the curse of sin, and the punishment for sin is death, and the consequences of sin are destruction.
He called us out of that into His marvelous light. It's the light of truth; it's the light of His Word; it's the light that leads to the life that He wants us to have. And Jesus said, "I am the light of the world." That's where you find the light. And so He's called us out of darkness; He's calling us into this marvelous light. And so our response to that is to do what? Declare praises to Him for what He's done.
And then He says we are to not only proclaim; we are to abstain. From what? From sinful desires. You know what the Bible just said about you and about me? We have some base-level urges and instincts that if you give in to them are very destructive. That's true for every human being on the planet. At the base level, in the flesh, under the curse of sin, we all have these instincts—these base instincts that if you only follow those instincts, they will lead to pain and suffering and destruction.
If you just let them rule your life, and we see it played out over and over again all around us in culture every day—people that just live by the base instincts and urges that we have in the flesh. Yes, it's sexual, but it's also greed; it's also apathy. It's all those things that the flesh would be inclining us to do. And so we have to do that, and we have to do that to live like right. When we just let those things rule, it takes us down to a lower level than what God is calling us up to.
It brings us down to the level where sin begins to rule instead of righteousness. Think about how precarious that situation is all around you in our culture, and it was true for the Israelites in the land they lived in. It's been true throughout all of history. People have always lived in the midst of people all around them who do say we should let those instincts and urges rule our lives. That's how they're living, and they're calling us to be part of it with them.
But remember, God's got a plan that's for our good. So if those things were for our good, why wouldn't God tell us to live by those things if they were really for our good? So here's the bottom line: it's really this: do we trust that God's telling us the truth about those things? Because if He is, then we're not going to let them rule anymore. By the power of God and the presence of His Spirit and the teaching of His Word, we're going to start making changes where we abstain from those things that He says are sinful and wrong and destructive and painful and that brings suffering into our lives and the lives of the people that we love.
We're going to make a different decision now, and that's part of what's going to set us apart, right? It's our relationship with God, which means we follow different roles for life than the rest of the world. Our lives are meant for a different purpose than to just go along with whatever the world is telling us we ought to do. Those things He says actually wage war against our souls—not things we should embrace, not things we should just say are okay and accept as welcome into our lives anymore if we want to be the set-apart people of God.
Our relationships and our roles, when we start getting them the way they need to be—or even if we don't—here's what happens: they establish the third R, which is our reputation in the world. Our reputation in the world, and in the world, it really comes down maybe to two main categories in Scripture here: our reputation within our own family and the church, and our reputation without outsiders in the community as the people of God.
We're being put together by God, formed as a people into a community of faith that has given the mission of proclaiming His excellencies and abstaining from fleshly desires. And then we begin to live day to day, even in the ordinary stuff. We begin to live embracing the teachings of God, applying them to our lives, being obedient to what we're being taught and what we're being taught and what we're being taught and what we learn in His Word.
Now, you don't always—you know, none of us starts out knowing everything God’s will is for us, knowing everything God’s Word says about how we need to live life. None of us starts out with all of that. But here's what we start doing: when this relationship is established, as we start doing this, if we learn something new that God says we should be doing this and we're not doing it, what do we do? We start doing it. And if we learn something new that God says, "Oh, this is not healthy for you; this is not good for you," then what do we do in response? We stop doing those things.
You see, it's the day-to-day decisions like that. As you learn, as you grow, as you understand more, you make those changes along the way, and that's what changes your life. It's the day-to-day growth of making the changes to getting rid of the way of the world and embracing the way of God, and that begins to distinguish us and set us apart from the people around us and the nations around us that we're living in.
When we start proclaiming the greatness of God and we start abstaining from fleshly desires, we begin to live those daily decisions that He wants us to live. We embrace living lives in such a way that even those who hate us would see the distinctiveness of our lives and find something beautiful about it. Isn't that amazing? They see something that is so good, even if they want to try to tear it down, they can't because it's so obvious the difference that it makes in people's lives when it's lived out the way it's supposed to be lived out.
Well, how does that look? Well, it looks like a marriage that reflects the relationship between Christ and His church. That's what marriage is designed for by God—to reflect the relationship that's between Christ and His church. He's clear on that in Scripture. So we work hard on our marriages to be the husband and the wife that God's called us to be.
Now here's the thing: I need to do that as a husband to be the husband I need to be. I don't get to control anybody else in that relationship, but my responsibility is to bring my husband role in line with what God teaches for the husband. If you're a wife today, it's your role to bring your wife responsibilities and role in line with what God says the wife role is to be in Scripture.
If I am a parent, then you see what God says about being a parent, and you begin to learn to do parenting the way God says to do parenting. And you know what? When we start making those decisions, like in generosity, we see they see generosity in us that supports the church and the work of the church and empowers the church to do what God's called it to do. When they see that we are proclaiming the truth, but not out of hate or a desire to tear people down, but we're proclaiming the truth in the love of God, and we're proclaiming the truth in the love of God, and we're proclaiming the love of Jesus, and they can feel that even when they disagree with it, you see, it starts setting us apart from other people in other cultures in the world as a distinct people among the nations around us.
And that's God's plan. It's for our good, and it's for His glory that we be those people. But there must be a commitment, and God provides this for us in Scripture. There must be a commitment to a place where I'm going to be serious about pursuing God with a people who are also serious about pursuing God and what God is calling us to. And He established the church to be that. That's the connection for us as a people.
You see, we can't be a people if we're not together as a people. He's not called us to be individual people; He's called us to be a chosen people group. That means we're connected to each other in this process, and the church is to be a chosen people—that place where that connection is. It's the body of Christ; it's the bride of Christ. It is what represents Christ in the world today as the church, which is us together as His people.
If we lose track of that aspect, then most times we lose track of the mission of the church. I think I want to close with this. There are two kinds of Achilles' heels, two fatal flaws or faults of how people currently view the church. I just want to get it out there because you need to hear it, and I need to be reminded of it.
The first one is this: this has been very common in America in history. Now it's changing some now, but it was pretty much the American church for years. It began to be viewed like a social club thing. You get together with people like you; you have activities that you do together; you have fun together. It's a nice social club to belong to. And in America, it used to be good to identify as being part of that social club.
It got you advantages; it made people think more highly of you. It even helped a lot of people get elected over the years to say they were part of that social club. They could get elected politically to different offices and responsibilities. They would be honored in their community because of their work in that social club—the good work that social club was doing, right? It was part of a social club kind of thing.
Now that's beginning to fade some, but something I think that's even worse has come in to replace it, and that is to do that the church is here to entertain me and my kids. For me to do a really good production, have really good programs, and make sure everybody stays happy with what we're doing—kind of like a social club, but not exactly. More like something you're paying your dues, and they're supposed to do what you want them to do for you.
It's kind of like we think we're on a cruise ship right now. In reality, we're on a battleship, but we think of it as a social club, and we're like, "Where's the limbo contest? Why aren't you guys doing that? What's the schedule for that?" Or, "Where's the rock wall to climb? My kids love climbing rock walls. If we had a rock wall here, my kids would come for sure, right? Put in a rock wall; you got space; put it in the lobby out there."
We're thinking, "Why don't you run a special program that I like? Like, I want to do a men's breakfast or a women's social or tea time or whatever." We want all the services that we think would make our lives better. We want the church to do that for us. You know what we're really here to do? Not entertain you.
Why don't you do the songs I like? Why don't you set the temperature more like what I'm comfortable with in the auditorium? We're here to train you for ministry—to do the works of service that God prepared in advance for you to do. That's why the church is here. That's why we have pastors and teachers, it says in Scripture, that are gifted and set apart to equip you for works of service that God prepared in advance for you to do.
That's why I'm in the role I'm in in the church. I like telling funny jokes, but it's not about entertaining you. I try to do that to get your attention because if I get you laughing, sometimes you'll listen. Not all the time; usually, you just remember the joke, but even then, all right? The calling on my life is to equip you to do the work of ministry.
Now here's what you have to know: I don't have a special dispensation of the Holy Spirit that you don't have. You have the same Holy Spirit in you that I have in me. Yes, I have a calling to a role, which is to teach and preach, but you have a calling through the gifting and the presence of the Holy Spirit and the power of the Holy Spirit.
You see, here's what I want you to catch: if you can just catch this part, that will change the world. The part you need to get is not—that's your role; it's not your preacher's role; it's not your leaders or your youth pastors at the church. We're here to help equip you to do that, but that's your role to do that. It's not up to me to go into your domain of influence and accomplish that for you. You are there to praise the excellency, proclaim the excellency of His grace. It's yours to do.
And you know how you do it? Listen to me: it's not as hard as you think it is. We make it way more complicated than it needs to be. Here's how simple it is: you have a story of what Jesus has done for you. Is it worth telling people about? Then talk about it! Share it with people! Let them hear about the goodness of God in your life.
So bring them to church so you can tell them. Well, if you get them here, they're going to hear some of it, but boy, they know you, and they see your example. They know your life. Why don't you let God use you to tell them the story? If you bring them here, I'm going to reinforce it, but you bring them here because you've shared your story. God met you somewhere; He saved you somewhere; He's done things in your life. That's how you do it.
And I keep letting my mind drift. Look at me: if we would get this, if we would just start doing this one thing, it would change dramatically the direction our world is going. It would turn things around dramatically—our schools and our communities and our places of business—if we would just be willing to be proclaimers of the goodness of God wherever we go, whatever we're doing, that we're not embarrassed by it, that we're not scared to share it, that we're not afraid of the consequences.
Well, what if they reject it? Well, they don't even have the choice right now, do they? Because you're not doing it. And if they rejected it, no worse off than they were before because they didn't have it. Then there's no harm that's going to come from it. There's only good that can come from this if we start proclaiming the goodness of God more boldly, willingly, consistently to the world around us.
God would use us in profound and powerful, and I believe miraculous and supernatural ways in our neighborhoods and in our homes and in our workplaces if we just started telling the goodness of God to the people around us. But studies show that the average church member has never talked to anyone in an effort to lead them to Jesus. And if they have, it's only been one or two people that they were really close to already.
Friends, God's plan is an amazing plan. It's for our good, and part of that plan for our good is for us to tell the stories. It's for us to share the good news. It's for us to tell of the goodness of our God to the people in the world around us. That's part of the plan that God has for our good. And if His people do this, it's not only that part of the plan that gets done; it's also for His glory because not everybody's going to respond. Not everybody's going to like what we're saying. Not everybody's going to come to know Jesus because we shared of the goodness of God.
But here's what's going to happen: there are going to be people—sometimes you didn't even expect—sometimes you had no idea what was going on in their lives—people who are hurting, and they're going to be people who are going to be lost, and they're suffering, and they've been covering it up the whole time. But when they hear about the goodness of God from you, because they consider you a friend and they trust you, they're going to give it some credibility, and they're going to at least check it out to find out if there's some truth to this.
And their lives will be radically changed forever when they come to know the goodness of God, when they taste the goodness of God for themselves because of you and your influence and your witness to them. Don't let this world intimidate you into shrinking back as a child of God for another day. Friends, our God is bigger than anything that comes against us. We can rely on Him.
Does that mean we won't suffer any negative consequences? No, we can't guarantee that. The early Christians suffered terrible consequences sometimes for sharing about the goodness of God and their trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior. But here's what you have to know: the Bible says that if you don't believe in Jesus as Lord, suffering of this world is not even worth comparing with the glory that our God has for us.
Let's pray. Father, we thank You for Your goodness, for Your presence, for Your power, for Your provision for our lives. Help us to be a people bold for You. May the world around us have no choice but to taste and see Your goodness as they interact with us because we so gladly, lovingly, willingly share of Your goodness every chance we get. It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.
If you're here today and you want to take that step of becoming part of a church family that is doing this and living it out daily, if you want to come to make a profession of faith and be baptized into Christ, maybe for the first time in your life, this is the time we offer you that invitation. Just come forward as we stand together and sing together. Won't you come?
While you have a seat for a minute, we want to share a couple of things with you. Here, come on up here. Yeah, step right up here to this microphone, okay? Tell everybody your name.
My name is Grace.
Grace comes today. We're so thankful that we have this connection here with a family that made the invitation and invited her to come and be part of the church family. Here she comes today to take that step of professing her faith in Jesus, being baptized into Christ. We're so excited for that.
Grace, our benefit, I'm going to ask you to come up here and say a few words about your faith. I'm going to ask you if you were to go that way. Tracy's going to greet you there and take you back and get ready to celebrate your baptism. We'll do that in just a few minutes. Go ahead and get ready for that.
This young lady comes with a prayer request. Tell everybody your name.
Yeah, so thank you, Mama Liz. I love you.
Oh, amen. Amen. Let's pray together.
Father, we thank You for the heart of this young lady who comes before You, recognizing You as the source that can help where there's needs. And we just pray for her brother who's incarcerated right now. Father, as bad as that is and as hard as that is, I pray that You would be at work through this time that he's there, that You would put people around him and put within his heart that desire to be drawn to You.
Amen.
Of that hand, so that when we try to pray for him, You in Your plan for his life, which is so much better than the path that he's been on, Father, help him to wake up to that, to realize that, to know that You are right there for him. If he turns to You and seeks You, You will welcome him in. May he take that step.
And Father, we thank You for the influence of her mom and the blessing that she's been for her. We pray You would bless her many times over for all that she's done. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.
God bless you. Thank you.
This time, Dr. Ed's going to come and lead us in a time of communion, and then we'll celebrate that. We love you so much and pray these things in Christ's name. Amen.
Grace, based upon your profession of faith that you do accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I now baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of your sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
You should still be celebrating, church! I love it when family members start bringing other family members and tell them about how good God is and how much it's important for them to be connected and part of the church too. And they help lead them there. That's what it's all about, and many of you are doing that, but all of us should be doing that, right? On a regular basis, helping other people come to know and follow Jesus along the way.
Thank you for being here today. If this is your first time, we'd love for you to stop by the information counter before you leave. We have a gift bag we'd love to give you. It's got a little more information about the church and a little gift in there for you.
If you'd like to worship through the giving of an offering, we have offering boxes available. One is in the back of the auditorium mounted on the post there. There's another mounted on a post in the hallway as you exit there. You can drop your offerings in the top slot of those boxes. You could also give online. Go to lakeshorechristian.com and click on the give tab there. It will take you to that page, or you can scan the QR code in your bulletin shell, and it will take you there as well, and you can mail in your offerings to the church office.
Each week in those bulletins, we have an insert. It's got an outline you can follow along with and take notes on. If you want to do that on Sundays, we'd love for you to do that. On the other side, there's announcements of activities that are coming up. We need more volunteers at the branch. We need help with our trunk or treat outreach event that we're doing. We hope you can help us out with that. There's a youth trip coming up. If you have high schoolers, you need to get registered for that, and we're coming up on our 50th anniversary celebration on November the 16th and 17th. We're excited about that as well. Hope you can be part of that. Invite people to come and celebrate with us for that.
Thank you so much for being here today. Let's all stand together. We'll close with a word of prayer.
God and Father, Your Word is just full of such great teaching that even when we don't understand it—and oftentimes we may not—if we would just accept it as a plan that's good for us, as for Your glory, and we would follow that plan. Father, we know that that's where not only are we blessed by it, but others are blessed. And others come to know and follow Jesus through us and the way You can use us. Help us to live a life worthy of the calling we've received in Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.
on Oct 13, 2024
