Strengthening the Kingdom

Message Transcription

Well, we're in week two of our mission series called Kingdom Mission as we anticipate Mission Sunday, our big Sunday. That's coming up here in just a couple of weeks, May 7th, where we're going to try to raise some money to support the incredible mission work that's happening here in Lubbock and around the world. You get to hear a little snippets of what's going on in and around our mission partners. And so we want you to be thinking about that, praying about that, and anticipating how you might be able to partner with us financially. But as Holly reminded us, not just our money, but our very lives, our talents, our time, our energy, our resources, all that we can bring to bear on God's amazing kingdom work that's happening these days. We know that the mission that God has called us to has been a mission of ours for the last 133 years. In fact, it's borne out of this vision that the elders have given to us as as God's people here at Broadway at this time, in this place. Every mission effort that we have is going through this new rubric, if you will, and introduced it last week. It's our our vision to partner with God in his reconciliation of all creation, that we recognize God's at work in the world. He has been. He will continue to be. And he's inviting us to partner with him. In fact, Paul would go so far as to use the language of ambassadors that he's tasked us to be an ambassador of his kingdom into our daily lives.

And so we want to live on purpose with that. And so how we try to do that, we've tried to break it down a little bit to to make it simpler for us to remember. Our mission then is we want to be the kind of people, the kind of church to encourage and equip every believer to pursue God, build community and unleash compassion to be the kind of church that comes along each and every disciple of Jesus and and invites us to go deeper with God in our one on one relationship with him, but also in our relationships with one another. And then from that, to turn and look into our world and say, God, how are you inviting us to partner with you at sharing your kingdom this kind of life together with those who are far from you? We have places all over the world to do that. The the elders have challenged each and every ministry to help us put some hands and feet to that vision and that mission. And so right after church today, in fact, you're going to have an opportunity to walk through the fellowship hall and right out here in the garden room and hear about all the different ministries and how they're trying to live this out. Missions took that challenge and they put some new wording to what they're about. And they said, well, our our vision as a missions committee is we want to engage partners in God's ministry of reconciliation locally here, regionally and internationally.

And what that will look like then for us practically, how are we going to do that? We're going to have this mission. Mission statement to glorify God by supporting the establishment, strengthening and multiplying of Christian ministries and churches around the world. So that's kind of our foundation. That's where we're going these next few weeks. We're going to talk about how do we establish, how do we strengthen, how do we multiply? We began last week by looking at that first one, establish we went back to Jesus commission that he gave on the side of a mountain to his disciples, some who were really struggling with faith, struggling with doubt, struggling with can this really be true? And others who seem to have it all under control, who seem to be ready to embrace it, He says these words. All authority on heaven and earth has been given to me. So you go. You go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And then he leaves them with this promise. He says, And surely I am with you always, always, even to the end of the age. It's a pretty amazing passage, a pretty amazing statement. This commission, it's for everyone. Everyone has a place. Everyone has a role, he says.

You doubters, you go to, you keep embodying, trying to live out the kingdom. This mission, this life in the world in which you live in the places where God puts you. And it's for all people that you will lock eyes with someone this week that Jesus did not die for. As Curtis reminded us that he was not raised back to life for, and that he has a purpose and a plan for. And so we want to be people who live on mission, who are intentional about establishing kingdom opportunities, being a little kingdom outpost in our life, that Jesus wants every one of us to cross a border. For some of us, that may mean crossing a hallway, a door threshold in our own house. Others, it may be a neighbor. Walking across, crossing a street, crossing a sidewalk. For others, it may be a city in others. Still it may be a country. How is God inviting us? Inviting you to step across a border, to establish God's kingdom in your life and in the life that he's given you to live. This week I want us to pick up the second value, and that's the value of strengthening. You see, Paul believed that Jesus promised that he would be with us always. He believed that was really true. In fact, you don't have to look very far. You can just turn through your New Testament. In fact, most of it is made up of letters that Paul or Peter or other missionaries who had helped established kingdom outposts in different regions of the world at that time letters back to them to encourage them, to challenge them, to strengthen them, to exhort them on how to live as kingdom people, as Jesus followers in their in their day, their time and in their place.

Paul he wrote this to the church in Ephesus. He would say, I pray that out of Jesus glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through the spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love may have power together with all the Lord's holy people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. And to know this love that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to the measure of all fullness in God. To the church in Colossae. He would say it this way for this reason. Since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all wisdom and understanding that the spirit gives so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way, bearing fruit, in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might, so that you may have great endurance and patience and giving joyful thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the Kingdom of Light.

See, Paul believed deeply in Jesus, promised that he would be with them, and in doing so, he would give his spirit. He would send his spirit to empower his people to live the kind of kingdom life that he's called them to. And it was an amazing promise. We want to be the kind of people like Paul who strengthen our ministry partners, number one, and the way Paul did most often, that was prayer. How many times do we read Paul saying, I've been praying for you and here's what I've been praying. We want to be a church that prays for the strengthening of our mission partners. The next couple of Sunday mornings right here in this room, our adult Bible classes are going to gather together and you're going to hear from our liaisons. You're going to hear from some of our mission partners about the work that's happening there. But you're also going to get a chance to meet some of those liaisons. So as you're thinking, how can I pray for how can I strengthen those who are far away? We're going to connect you with their liaison who hears about everything that's going on in their world, in their life. They can give you up to date, up to the minute prayer request opportunities. So be thinking about that. I invite you to come and join us for that.

Not only do we want you to be praying for those mission partners, we invite you to be praying for our church, for each and every one of us, that we would live on mission, that we would be God's hands and feet in our community. And 2019 you heard me talk some about the power of prayer. And I started a little habit I picked up from a friend of mine and it's called the 806 Prayer. 806 is our area code. So I just set a little reminder on my phone that every day, every night at 8:06 p.m., an alarm goes off. And it just reminds me to pray that God would transform our city and that we would be God's hands and feet, that he would use Broadway as his hands and feet. So I've been trying to pray that prayer as faithfully as I can each, each and every day and invite you to join me in that prayer. Perhaps God's inviting you to pray for our city. Maybe you want to set an alarm for yourself. Maybe you're quiet. Time is in the morning. Mine tends to be more in the evening, wherever it may be. We invite you. Would you help us strengthen our ministry partners by praying for them? But that's not the only thing. The only way that we're committed to strengthening our ministry partners. Paul would say to the church in Rome, I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong.

That is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith. To the Thessalonians, he would say So when we could stand it no longer. We thought it best to be left by ourselves. In Athens we sent Timothy, who is our brother and co-worker in God's service and spreading the Gospel of Christ to strengthen and encourage you in your faith and so that no one would be unsettled by these trials for you know quite well that we are destined for them. May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father. When our Lord Jesus comes with all His holy ones. You can hear Paul's heart for these churches that he has helped to establish his longing, his desire to be with them and to strengthen them. It's powerful. He wants them, as Jesus called them to be, These lamps, these shining stars who shine out the light of God's amazing love and power in their lives. We want to be the kind of church that does the same thing. We want to be the kind of church who encourages our ministry partners. What this means is we don't want to be a church that just sends money. Now, money is important. Like I said, we're going to be asking a couple of weeks for $130,000 that we have designated and seen.

This could be used to incredible, incredibly great ways to further God's kingdom in the world. But more than that, we want to be the kind of people who encourage the lives, the hearts, the churches that we get to partner with. Paul's heart here. He longs to see these churches. He wants to be with them. He's praying that God would allow him to be. And he says that we could mutually encourage one another with our faith. So one of the most powerful ways that we strengthen one another is by the sharing of a common faith. And when I'm feeling weak and struggling to get with a stronger Christian or brother or sister who can encourage me and vice versa to say there's nothing like the power of knowing you're not alone. And Jesus reminded his disciples on that mountain, You're not going to be alone. But not only that, he called them to go together to be a community of people together. We're not alone. We want to be the kind of people who, as Paul told the church a little later in Thessalonians, because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the Gospel of God, but our lives as well. Not just the gospel message, but our very lives. We want to be that kind of church who strengthens our mission. Mission partners through prayer and with our presence, our encouragement.

But not only that, through partnership. You see, this brings us to the passage Clayton read for just a minute ago, and it's a letter that Paul wrote to Philemon. Some of you may know the background of the history and we won't have time to get into all of it. But Philemon was a recent convert. He'd probably been converted by Paul somewhere, maybe in Ephesus had returned back to Colossae, where he was living Now. He was a man of influence, a man of money and wealth and power, which in that day often meant he held slaves. He had slaves that worked for him. Now we hear that, and especially in our day, we'd given our history of our country and the the terrible nature of that, we kind of recoil from that. And Paul and and Philemon today, that was about as natural as having electricity. They couldn't imagine their life happening without it. But Paul's not going to leave that message just simply as that. And if you have time, I invite you to go back into and read how Paul engages with Philemon as he talks to him about a slave who's run away and now Paul is sending him back and we won't have a chance really to dive deep into that today. But what I want us to do is to look at how does he lay the foundation for what he's about to say. What is. What is Paul? Reach out to hold on to as he's about to give Philemon a challenging task, he says this.

He says, I always think, my God, as I remember you in my prayers, there's Paul praying again. Because I hear about your love for all his holy people and your faith in the Lord Jesus. I'm hearing about encouragement. I pray that your partnership with us in the faith may be effective in deepening your understanding of every good thing we share for the sake of Christ. Your love has given me great joy and encouragement because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord's people. Paul points to the ways that the gospel has changed philemon's life, the way that he lives, the way that he engages with others, the way that he treats them. He says. So much so that people are telling stories about how incredibly generous you are. They're telling stories about your amazing love that's just emanating out from you, how you treat people. Paul says it's encouraging the entire church. But not only that, it encourages me. It's encouraging my heart and my walk. It's an amazing thing to see. And Paul is going to call us to live in that same type of way. He's giving to people all around him. So then Paul says this verse six, and this is kind of the key passage. In fact, the key verse, if you read the rest of Philemon, he's going to keep tying back to this idea he speaks about in verse six, I pray that your partnership with us in the faith may be effective in deepening your understanding of every good thing we share for the sake of Christ.

Paul says Philemon. We're partners, brother. We're partners. In fact, that word that's translated, partner, it's often translated fellowship. It's the word koinonia. Some of you may recognize that word, but but it goes beyond just a strong relationship, he says. Like we're in business together. In fact, what Paul would say is all believers, all of those who believe in Jesus, that he died. He was raised back to life. And now he's empowered us with his spirit. He says we're all a part of the same family business. And so our success is his success, and his success is our success, and it's all God's success. He says we're partners together, and that something powerful happens when a couple of believers who have given their life to following out the gospel begin to gather together and to start working in the name of Christ. He says, new things start happening. Powerful things start to happen. So he's praying for me. And I pray that you would catch a vision for this life that you're living, that it would catch fire with more and more and more people. And what might God want to do in that? Will we be so committed to living that way that we too would become heart refreshers strengtheners of the mission partners that we have? See, that's our that's our desire as God's people here in this place at this time, that we'd be the kind of of missions, partners that we would pray for, those who were who are doing God's work, not just those far away, but those right here sitting next to you, to your left and to your right.

That would be the kind of people who would readily regularly encourage one another. We'd build each other up and love that. We would pray for each other for strength, that our knowledge would grow to become the kind of of knowledge that we see past just our own individual life. But how when God draws us together in relationship in community. That he begins to do incredibly amazing things, that our partnerships are something that that we hold dear to our heart. Church. Where is God inviting you to see how you could be a strengthener of our mission partners? Maybe it's strengthening someone in your workplace, another fellow Christian, that you just want to make a habit of going by and just saying, I'm so thankful for you. I'm praying for you. Is there something I'll be praying about? Maybe it's finding an encouraging word each day to speak to a sibling or a parent or maybe a coworker. A teacher. A student. Maybe it's finding ways to say, God, would you open my eyes too, to some other folks around me who are trying to live the way that I'm trying to live as well, following you. And would you use us together to do something that we couldn't do on our own? Maybe it's that 806 prayer.

God, would you keep transforming Lubbock? And would you open my eyes to see where you're at work and help give me the courage to go and be involved? Church We want to be that kind of strengthening partner. We want to help establish God's kingdom, but we also want to strengthen his kingdom. Next week, we're going to talk about multiplying. What does it look like to see that begin to reverberate and echo throughout our community? May God bless us this week as we seek for ways that we can be strengthened and strengthen others. Let's pray. God, thank you so much for your amazing and powerful love for us. Thank you for the ways that that you're challenging us to grow. And we hear that prayer that Paul offered to Philemon knowing he was going to ask him a hard thing, a challenging word. He prayed, God, that he would see whatever is asked of him in light of that partnership that has been created by those who share a common faith in Christ. God. As we finish our worship this morning, we're going to have a chance to walk around this building and see encounter the amazing ministries that have been going on at this church for a long time. Yeah, but you inspire us to get involved. Then I just give our money. God, certainly we want to give our money. But, Lord, even more than that.

You don't want to share just the gospel. We want to share our very lives. Oh, God, Would you help us to find our place to serve in the kingdom? Yeah. Thank you. For our ministry partners like the Harrisons and so many others. God, that we get to support. Lord. We also want to be people who live on mission here in Lubbock. And so, God, this week I know there will be an opportunity that's going to come up for us, a chance for us to be an encourager or a discourager. Someone who speaks life or someone who just continues in the speaking of death. God, would you help us to be people committed to life? The speaking words of life. Yeah. Would you help us to double down on our prayer efforts to believe in that promise, just like Paul did? That you are with us always, Always. And that you haven't called us to do life in community all by ourselves. But you've called us to do it together. And Father, would you help us to find ways to look for ways to pray for ways? Give us the courage to follow. When you open up doors for us to partner with other like minded believers. That we might see you doing a mighty work in and through us. Yeah. Thank you for the words of Paul. Thank you for these letters that instruct us and teach us and show us the way. Oh, God. Would you ready our feet? Strengthen us, encourage us. I pray in Jesus name. Amen.