‘Unwritten” - Natasha Bedingfield
No one else
Can speak the words on your lips
drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
drench yourself in words unspoken
Live you life with arms wide open
Today is where you book begins
The rest is still unwritten
------------------------------------------------------
Today is where YOUR book begins.
Over the last 5 weeks in this series, ‘Finding GOD on your iPod’ was a creative way to share with you the structure of our church, FOCUS*. The same structure just so happens to also be the keys to living a successful life.
The structure is based on 2 scriptures:
The first one is called ‘The Great Commandment’ because Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment in the law was and this was his answer.
Matthew 22:37-39
'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'
The second is called the great commission because this was Jesus’ directive to use, his call to us...
Matthew 28:19-20
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”
Those 2 scriptures show us how to live a purpose-driven life as well as a be a part of a purpose-driven church.
A healthy church is one living out the 5 purposes in those 2 scriptures - a God-driven life consists of those 5 purposes. So let me make it clear that when I refer to this purpose driven life I am actually talking about 2 different things
1 your individual life
2 the church body, which is in itself life
Based in these 2 scriptures we can see that the 5 ingredients to being purpose driven are clear - let’s break them down:
-Love the Lord your God - Worship - iWorship
-Love your neighbor as yourself - Ministry/Service - iLove
-go and make disciples - Evangelism - iShare
-baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit - Community/fellowship - iConnect
-teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you - Discipleship - iLearn
Our goal at FOCUS* is to learn together how live out these 5 purposes. In everything we do - we want to see these 5 purposes overlapping each other.
Our focus is not to grow a church - that isn’t what it’s about - our focus is to have a healthy church.
We can measure whether this life called the church body is healthy by looking at these 5 purposes, or systems, in the same way that seeing if or physical bodies are healthy by looking at the 9 body symptoms.
In our own body make-up - we have 9 central systems that govern the body, nervous system, circulatory system, muscular... respiratory... skeletal... and so forth...
(Joe and some of you may have seen that at the
‘Body Worlds’ exhibit)
When all are functioning we are in balance. What happens if just one begins to falter?
We get out of balance, become unhealthy
We stop either growing or functioning properly
To live out a purpose driven life we need to have all 5 purposes, or you could even say systems, functioning:
So we say:
A great commitment to the Great Commandment and the Great Commission will grow a great church!
or
A great commitment to the Great Commandment and the Great Commission will grow a great person!
How do you see yourself living out these 5 purposes?
Maybe 1 or 2 real well?
Maybe not any really?
No matter where you see your life today, no matter where you are on this scale today - you CAN move forward -
you CAN live a purpose-driven life. Just like the final line in todays song - the rest is still unwritten
Let me show you how this works. We already established that there are 5 purposes or systems that have to be in place to see a healthy, purposeful life. But let me take it a step further and say that these purposes need to overlap - intertwine - they are dependent on one another. To see even 1 system functioning at it best means that the other 4 systems would be functioning also. In some cases, systems will fail without the support of another system. For example, you absolutely cannot love others as yourself until you love God with all you’ve got first.
Neighbor = those you are in contact with throughout your day
Give example of v.b. tour. and drive home
Ask: What would you do in that situation? How would you feel about helping?
Is it fair to say that on your own you could not love them enough to desire to help them? I’m sure most of us would say that we would struggle a little here. Our struggle is evidence that we need a Godly love that accepts and forgives. It reaches out to those we may not normally want to reach out to. So you can see that loving God with all we have really is a prerequisite to loving others as ourselves.
I believe that when we apply the prerequisite and we truly fall in love with God, we seek to get to know Him and then we grow in love more and more - then loving others will come much more naturally to us. In the same way, when we begin to see others with a Godly perspective, which the closer we get to Him the easier that becomes, we can’t help but to have a desire to put into action The Great Commission.
The first thing the great commission calls us to action on is to ‘go and make disciples’. This is evangelism. It is simply telling others about Jesus. Sharing your experiences with Him. Sharing His love and what He’s all about.
Our desire to share Jesus with others is a direct reflection of our ability to see people through a Godly perspective. To know that each individual is created by, and deeply loved by, our God spurs in us a desire to love them to.
The great commission leads us on a journey then with people. It says first go and make disciples/to evangelize and then to baptize. I like this one because it emphasizes community and fellowship. It demonstrates the need for one another. Can you imagine someone attempting to baptize themselves? We really do need each other. Time and time again God’s Word reiterates our need for one another:
Heb 10:24& 25And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.
25Let us not give up meeting together, ... but let us encourage one another.
James 5:16 Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed.
John 13:34 Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another.
Job 42:11 All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him.
Job 16: 5 my mouth would encourage you; comfort from my lips would bring you relief.
Provebs 12:25 Worry weighs us down;
a cheerful word picks us up.
This one sums up what we can be to one another. This is what Paul and Timothy wrote in a letter.....
1 Thessalonians 2:11-12
You saw with your own eyes how discreet and courteous we were among you, with keen sensitivity to you as fellow believers. ....With each of you we were like a father with his child, holding your hand, whispering encouragement, showing you step-by-step how to live well before God, who called us into his own kingdom, into this delightful life.
Man that’s community! with keen sensitivity to you as fellow believers. ....With each of you we were like a father with his child, holding your hand, whispering encouragement, showing you step-by-step how to live well before God
Actually as mentioned before, this scripture shows the overlapping of the five purposes because you can see how it naturally flows into the last purpose that says ‘ teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you -’. Listen to how clear it is in vs. 12....showing you step-by-step how to live well before God.
These purposes are our roadmap to health. Individually and corporately. We are called to be a people that absolutely love God. And not because we have to - nobody, including God, wants to be loved like that. But instead we love God because of who He is. We take action to get to know Him. To learn more and more about Him, and to grow deeper and deeper in relationship with Him. And as we do, we develop a love for others that spurs us on to the other 4 purposes of service, evangelism, community, and discipleship.
You know as we looked through some of this scripture today some of you may have paused right in the beginning. Right when we hit ‘ 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' You might feel like you love the Lord but you realize maybe that you love Him because you are suppose to. Because you’ve been taught to - because you are obliged to. But with all your heart, soul and mind.....maybe not. Coming to this place and reconciling it is the first step to the rest of life. It is the prerequisite to everything. In our song it is the main verse:
Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words
That you could not find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions -Let it go - come to a place of full acceptance. A place of love for God that is truly with all your heart, soul, mind.
And then I think the song really demonstrates what happens next, ‘ Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else’. No one can feel your emotions, dictate your life, you make your decisions and only you choose to let God in. And then what?
‘ no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten
Let your book begin today. If your here and you are thinking - yep - that’s me. I want to love God with all I’ve got - this is your beginning.
Pray
If your here today and you know you’ve got the number 1 step down but your feel like you could use a little help with steps 2-5, join the club. We all need a little reminder every now and then to remember what it’s all about. Are you allowing others to speak into your life and are you speaking into others? Now matter how successful you are with these 4 purposes, as the song says, the rest is still unwritten. Every day is a new day to learn something new as we grow in the Lord and to impart something new as we encourage those around us. Let’s pray together that God would illuminate areas of our lives that he desires to work in, in a greater way. And let’s commit together to be a people who are dedicated to and partnering together in living purposeful lives
No comments:
Post a Comment