Lie #1: God Is Whoever or Whatever We Want Him To Be

 

September 27, 2020                   NOTES NOT EDITED

LIES WE TELL OURSELVES ABOUT GOD

#1: God Is Whoever or Whatever We Want Him to Be
Exodus 20:1-6

 SIS: Rather than deal with our responsibility to a Holy and Righteous God, we create safer, more manageable deities in our own image.

I’m absolutely certain our nation has problems—serious problems.  I’m ever further convinced a significant source for these problems is the American Church.  In a recent poll a few years ago (and matters are no doubt much worse today), a prestigious firm discovered that of our 50 major denominations in the United States, only slightly more than half the pastors believed the Bible to be the Word of God.  For some mainline denominations, such as United Methodists, less than 17 per cent of senior pastors had a biblical world-view. Not even 1 out of 5!

 If the church is so far from the truth as expressed in the Bible, is it any wonder our nation has now thoroughly descended into chaos and debauchery?  Same-sex marriage is legal and gender is optional. Sexual diseases are epidemic, abortion is a national shame, half of all marriages end in divorce, cities are becoming war zones with drive-by shootings, rioting, and looting.  Corporate corruption is common-place?  It is not because America has become an “atheistic state,” but because we have become a “polytheistic state” with everyone creating god in their own image.

 We consistently lie to ourselves as a nation and say, all is well, when the well has been poisoned by lie after lie.  Our biggest lie, our grose luge as it was called in Hitler’s Germany, is that “God Is Whoever or Whatever We Want Him To Be.”  Man indeed seeks to create God in our own image.  What we create, we control.  That is a basic principle in life with of course a few exceptions. But, the hierarchy of power seems logically to flow from Creator to created, and not the other way around.  So, that is why no doubt, man has made so many attempts to "created God in our own image." A god we create, we control, for it is no god at all.

I remember a man sitting on the sidewalk with a dog in a box.  On the box was a sign that said, “Talking Dog For Sale:  $5.”  A woman passed by and noticed the man and the sign.  She asked, “Can he really talk?”  The man scowled at the dog and said, “Say something to the nice lady.”  The dog said in a polite voice, “Good morning, Ma’am.”  The woman was shocked.  She said excitedly, “Why would you sell a talking dog for only $5.  The man quickly replied with a note of disgust in his voice, “Because, you can’t believe a thing he says!”  I see a parallel in our world today.  We have a bunch of “talking dogs” on T.V., but you can’t believe a word they are saying.  As Christians, we must always seek the truth, “not just an entertaining message from talking dogs.”

Our nation has feasted on lies.  Our nation has failed to count the cost for such a “grose luge,” or “Big Lie.”  The Lutheran Church of Germany believed the “Big Lie” of Hitler and we know the devastation and loss of life that brought.

 The “lie” was the Devil’s first and continues to be the Devil’s most powerful weapon in his on-going battle against Yahweh. Jesus called the Devil, “the father of lies” (Jn. 8:44).

 Yahweh’s very first commandment downloaded onto a tablet by Moses was: “You shall not have any other gods before me.”  How far we slipped from our glorious heritage of faith first delivered to Israel. But Israel rejected Yahweh and Yahweh’s Truth.  They accepted instead, a lie, just as Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden.  Believing a “lie” always brings death and destruction, and ultimately will bring the very end of this world as we know it.  The Word of God says that in the End Times, a characteristic of culture will be, “they believe a lie” (2Thess. 2:11).  We, in America, are revisiting the culture that ancient Israel found herself in when God gave the nation the Ten Commandments.   We live in a time when people will believe in anything and stand for nothing! 

 And, just watch the firestorms of chaos on the nightly news and you will see in vivid color the consequences of believing a “lie,” and especially believing a lie about Who God is.

 Jesus said, “you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  (Jn. 8:32).  To know the Truth is to know freedom.  To believe a “Lie” is to be shackled by sin and shame.

 As Christians, we have been set free by the Truth.  We do not have the privilege of believing what is convenient; and, let me say, understanding that God is “holy” is not convenient.  In fact, knowing God is Holy has been called, the mysterium tremendom by Rudolf Otto.  Indeed, if man were ever to create a God, a God as Holy as Yahweh would never be our creation. Creating a more manageable God more suited to our sinful, rebellious hearts would be, and is, our course of action—but it is an act of other foolishness for no other God exists than the God of the Bible, the Almighty Creator.

 God, Himself, outlines what we should believe and how we should behave.  Let’s read that truth together this morning:   Ex 20:1-6

 1 And God spoke all these words: 2 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 3 "You shall have no other gods before me.  4 "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand [ generations] of those who love me and keep my commandments.

 For life to be worth living, we must discover the truth and be willing to stand up for the truth, even if it means we must pay a high price for our stand.  This morning we are going to look at one of the Lies We Tell Ourselves about God.  The number one lie people believe is that God is Whoever or Whatever We Want Him to Be.  This lie causes man to create gods that are safer, and more manageable than the Holy and Righteous God of the Bible.  These false gods make no demands on those who create them.  In fact, those who make these gods control these gods.  I call them, the god’s of My. They are god’s that suit our needs and salve over our conscience.  

 We prefer the god of My Health and Wealth.  We prefer the god of My Feelings. We prefer the god of My Preferred Gender.  We prefer the god of My Favorite Pasttime.  We prefer the god of My Emotional Experience.  We prefer the god of My Childhood Religion.  We prefer the god of My “Whatever I Want or Need God to Be.”  We prefer any God but Yahweh, the Holy Creator, that demands our holy, passionate, devotion and service.  We prefer any God but the God of the Bible.

 The one common trait all these “My gods” possess is this: they are all created by man in our image.  These “My gods” are completely “opposite” from the God of the Bible.

 God, Himself, defines and reveals His character to us in the Bible largely through His decrees.  Here is what God tells us about Himself in the opening verses of Exodus 20:

 1.  My God is Sovereign and Self–Existent (v2)

 2 "I am the LORD your God,

It is amazing to me that children have no problem believing in the God Who is the Creator of everything while supposedly learned men have the pompous audacity to debate His existence.  Someone has said, “Men who are amazed that God created the earth in only six days seem to have forgotten that there were no theologians, politicians, and lawyers around to complicate the process.”  This is why the Bible says we need to come to the Lord with the faith of a little child – humble, inquisitive, innocent wanting to please. 

The foundational issue with God’s nature is that  God IS everywhere. And, He’s been there all the time.  There has never been a time when God did not exist.  It is illogical to even ask the question, ‘Where did God come from’ because God is the source of all there is.  Everything that has being, received it from God.  Because there is stuff that exists that is “not” eternal, there must be a “Creator” that exists that “IS” eternal.  Since all of human experience proves that “from nothing nothing can ever be made” then it is logically necessary that “since there is something rather than nothing” God, whomever or whatever we call Him, must exist.

 Notice verse two.  The construction is very important.  God declares that His moral law and expectations are based upon His BEING, or His Unique Status in Creation.  God does NOT say, “I became.”or “I would like to be” the Lord and God.  God declares, “I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD.”  This verb construction is called the verb of being.  It states a matter of fact. The construction is “emphatic” pointing out God’s unique place in creation as the “self-existing One.”  The personal pronoun I is added to the verb meaning “I am.”  Literally it says, “I, I am.” The fact is: He has no beginning and no end.  God simply “is.”  Unlike anything in all creation, God is “self-existent.” “I am” is the same name that God gave to Moses before Pharaoh.  It is the same name Jesus used with the Pharisees (Jn. 8:58-59). Jesus uses this same “emphatic form, ego eimi, I, I am” when He declares,

⁵⁸“Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I, I am.” ⁵⁹ So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

Jesus delared He was the “Self-Existent One,” which meant Jesus declared, “I am God.” The Pharisees considered this blasphemy, an offense punishable by death.  This idea of God’s Self-existence, and therefore Sovereignty, is the most important concept in philosophy and theology to understand.

Nothing IN this world can be the cause OF this world.  This would be a logical absurdity, like proposing a “square circle.” The fact that anything exists logically necessitates that something always existed (something eternal) to be cause for what came into existence. It is the axiom in philosophy, “Ex Nihilo, Nihil Fit, from nothing, nothing can be made.”

God is the Prime Cause that explains everything else.  Therefore, as Creator, God controls everything—and I mean “everything!”  This unique status of God in all creation makes Him “sovereign.”  Simply stated, sovereignty means, “God has the right and the power to do anything He pleases and anything He does is right.”  This includes the right to give life and the right to take it away.  This includes the right to bless and the right to curse.  This includes the right to reveal Himself, and the right to hide His glory from us. There is no court of appeal when God hands down a decision.  He is the Supreme Court justice of the universe.

 Now, turn the fact of God’s sovereignty upside-down.  It means, you and I have but one “right or duty” and that is to do what pleases Almighty God. You will never experience life in the fullness that God wants you to experience it, if you do not embrace the mystery of His self-existence and submit to the power of His Sovereignty.  Life’s burdens are too heavy to rest upon the flimsy foundations of god’s we create in our own image and for our own delights.  No, there is only one sure foundation for faith, it is a relationship with the self-existent, sovereign God of the universe.

So, what application does this have for us? A man is a fool who does not seek out the favor of the Self-existent Sovereign of the Universe.  It is the very height of stupidity to worship a false god created in our own image created in our own image and our own liking.

 The true God Sovereign and Self-existent.

 2.  My God is Jealous and Exclusive (v5)

 3 "You shall have no other gods before me.  4 "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,

 We err greatly when we forget that God is a jealous God and will not share Himself with anything or anyone.  We bring down His wrath upon us when we steal time or treasures, or our affections from God and give them to the false gods such as the god of Pleasure, or Feelings, or Whatever.

 The Psalmist realized that God was a jealous God and would not tolerate any competition for His affection.  The Psalmist declares:

 “If we had forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a foreign god, would not God search this out?  For He knows the secrets of the heart.”  (Ps. 44:20,21)

 The word, “JEALOUSY” in the Hebrew language is related to the word, “anger.”  In some Arabic forms this word means, “to be very red,” as in “boiling red hot lava.” The worship of false gods made in our own image, causes the anger of God to boil against us like no other transgression.  Moses warns the people as they stand on the edge of the Promised Land:  Deut 4:23-24

 23 Be careful not to forget the covenant of the LORD your God that he made with you; do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the LORD your God has forbidden. 24 For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

 The man on the streets, and even the man in the pew, and certainly the men who call themselves leaders and scholars, are not very “careful” with how they speak of God, today.  Anne Lotz (Billy Graham’s daughter) recently said, “America is shaking her fist in the face of God and we must repent.”   The open rebellion we see rampant in American life today is causing God’s anger to boil.  If we do not repent, the boiling cauldron of the wrath of a jealous God is going to consume us like fire.  No doubt, Moses was recalling what happened to those ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.  They were consumed completely by the fire of God’s jealous anger because they were worshiping gods that pleased them and doing what pleased them.  Sin kindles the fire beneath the boiling cauldron of wrath until the stench of our sin is more than God can tolerate.  The result is sure,  eternal, and horrible judgment!

 During the 9 1 1 crisis there was a national religious meeting in the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.  The opening preacher, a woman, was commending the fact that all religions had come together to share the message of the love of God – Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and the list went on.  Well, my friend, God is not well pleased when we put false gods on the pedestal He alone should occupy.  This kind of ecumenical nonsense will not bring God’s favor – My God is a jealous God and such worship will only incur further wrath – and His curse upon our nation. 

 The wrath of God is already being poured out on a nation that has incited God to anger because we are fooling around with the harlots of false gods.  We give our time, talents and treasures to every pursuit but the pursuit of holiness and we wonder why generation after generation of families experience the curse of God.  God says He will visit the “idolatrous iniquity of a father unto the third and fourth generations.”  Parents who fail to give allegiance to the one True and Living God and pursue the false gods of “me-ism” bring a curse upon their children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren.  Why?  Because, children DO BECOME our parents!

 Friend, the Bible declares, “It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of a jealous and angry God.”  Thank God, HALLELUJAH, He is not only Sovereign and Jealous, BUT

 3.  My God is Loving and Merciful (v6)

 but showing love to a thousand [ generations] of those who love me and keep my commandments.

 We are all slaves to sin.  We are all subject to being held in bondage and forced to do the will of another.  That is, if we have not been delivered by God.  You are either a slave in Egypt or a sojourner on the way to the Promised Land.  We do not deserve any better than to serve the tyrannical taskmaster of sin making bricks without straw.  But, God in His infinite mercy, and for a reason that escapes reason, takes mercy upon us.  He delivers us through the mighty miracle of salvation from a life of sin and to a life of bliss.  Look again at v 2:

 2 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery

 This is the most significant event in the life of the Jews. This is the event that they look back to when they have found themselves in great trial and persecution.  They recall that God had delivered them in His great mercy before, and will deliver them again.  Everyone needs and Exodus Experience.  Everyone needs to be able to look back to a day and time when God’s infinite love and mercy burst upon them and released them from the bondage to sin.

 We talk about “addiction” a lot in our society: addiction to drugs, addiction to drink, addiction to sex.  Psychologist like to say, “once an addict, always an addict.”  But, I say there is deliverance in the mercy of God.  We do not have to go back to Egypt.  God’s mercy delivers us from our addiction to “me-ism” that leads us to follow false gods into bondage rather than respond to the love of God that in his great mercy delivers us from the shackles that bind us to the whipping post of sin.

 I love to go back to God’s words from Paul to the young pastor, Titus.  The Apostle declared,

 “He [that is God] saved us, not because of righteous things we had done but because of His mercy.  He saved us through the washing of rebirth, and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our savior.”  (Titus 3:5-6)

 God is NOT whoever or whatever we want Him to Be. He is not the god of MY image.  No, it is exactly the opposite.  I am the image of My God.  My god is not the petty gods created by the cleverness of man.  He is the self-existent, sovereign, jealous, loving God of the Bible.  Anything less than this is a false god.

 The great Puritan preacher, Matthew Henry said generations ago: “Whatever is esteemed or loved, feared or served, delighted in or depended upon, more than God, that (whatever it is) we make a god.”

 Today, you have that same choice.  You will leave here serving somebody. 

 There is a cost to serving the One True God – but there is a far greater price to pay for rejecting Him.

 We cannot get around our duty and devotion to God by creating other gods that are more manageable.  God IS Who He IS, and we err eternally when we fail to give Him the allegiance He deserves.

Reset Code: 2551

 

September 20, 2020                   NOTES NOT EDITED
Reset Code: 2551

Proverbs 22:3; 27:12; 1Chron. 12:32

 SIS—The Covid Crisis has signaled a “new normal (abnormal)” for our country going forward and the church must change and adapt to position ourselves for more effective ministry in the midst of an uncertain future.

 A few years ago a couple from Ohio were going to spend a vacation to the Carribean Islands.  They knew the weather was going to be hot so they were planning accordingly.  The wife had a business trip she could not get out of and was going to meet her husband in a couple days.  He flew to the destination first to make arrangements and would meet his wife after her business trip. When he reached his hotel, he decided to send his wife a quick email. Unfortunately, when typing her address, he mistyped a letter and his note was directed instead to an elderly preacher’s wife whose husband had passed away only the day before. When the grieving widow checked her email, she took one look at the monitor, let out a piercing scream, and fell to the floor in a dead faint. At the sound, the grieving widow’s family rushed into the room and saw this note on the computer screen:

Dearest Wife, Just got checked in. Everything prepared for your arrival tomorrow. P.S. Sure is hot down here.

 Typing in the wrong email address or reset code can cause a lot of trouble and unnecessary anxiety. That’s why I’ve spent a lot of time praying and studying to make sure I heard God correctly when He gave me the “Reset Code” for positioning our church to come out of the Covid Crisis better prepared to meet the challenges that will surely follow.

 Before I outline the meaning of the numbers, 2551, I want to speak a bit about “change.”  A “reset” for our church will require “change” in order for us to effectively position ourselves for ministry in the months and years that lie ahead.

Peter Drucker is perhaps the best-known, and certainly most prolific writer in the area of business management and executive leadership.  Drucker wrote about adapting to change in “The Effective Executive (1967).”  He said, “We can already see the future taking shape. But I believe the future will turn in unexpected ways.” How much of an “unexpected turn” has the Covid Crisis been.  I don’t think Peter Drucker could have imagined just how “unexpected” 2020 would be.  Drucker goes on to say, “The society of [the future] will be very different from today’s society. . . . To survive and succeed, organizations will have to become change agents. The most effective way to manage change successfully is to create it.”

 If we, as a church, want to “survive AND succeed” in ministry, and in fact thrive in ministry in the years ahead, we must not only embrace change, we must “create it.” We must get ahead of the curve.

It is at this juncture where our church is facing a drastically changing society, that the Bible becomes evermore important and instructive for us.  The Bible tells us, warns us actually, “A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions. The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences” (Prv. 22:3; 27:12, NLT).  Solomon repeats this warning twice in the Book of Proverbs.  We must take special note of this warning, and many others in Scripture, as we change our ways to meet our changing world.

 Another passage that instructs in the art of “perceiving societal change and making preparations” comes in an obscure list of “warriors” in the Book of 1Chronicles.  After many years of avoiding a confrontation with King Saul, Saul has died and David is about to be crowned king at Hebron.  A mighty army totaling over 300,000 soldiers was being assembled from the tribes of Israel.  The number of warriors from each tribe is listed, “From the tribe of Judah: 6,800 . . . from the Simeon: 7,100. . . from the tribe of Levi: 4,600” and so on down the list until we get to verse 32. There we read this about the tribe of Issachar:  “From the tribe of Issachar, there were 200 leaders of the tribe with their relatives. All these men understood the signs of the times and knew the best course for Israel to take.”  Notice that from the tribe of Issachar we see the selection of leaders, not warriors.  We see men chosen who can “identify the issues, challenges, and dangers of the present times and formulate a plan to meet those changes effectively.”  We need to be like the Tribe of Issachar and “discern the changes taking place and formulate a new plan.”

Today, we are “RESETTING OUR CHURCH.”  I will unpack the meaning of the Reset Code, 2551, that will guide us in ministry for the months and years to come. This massive reset will be as radical as the change from a manual typewriter to a Macbook Pro.  This sermon is a lot of information in a short period of time.  This morning may  seem like you are taking a drink from a firehose.  But, stay with me and you will see it is actually a very simple plan.

2551 refers to our Organizational Structure, Our Personal Development, Our Corporate Development, and Our Mission.

1.  First the number “2”:  Our Organizational Structure.

 About 313 AD (Edict of Milan), Emperor Constantine did something that “clipped one wing” of the Church and prevented it from continuing to fly.  Emperor Constantine took what had been an illegal religion, Christianity, and made it the religion of the Empire with favored status.  With this favored status came a new “building boom” and cathedrals designed for worship sprang up all over the Holy Roman Empire.

For over three hundred years prior to Constantine the Christian church had exploded in numbers without any “formal” buildings we would call, “churches.”  Instead, this massive movement met primarily in small groups in homes.  Small group gatherings were the “norm” of church life—the hub around which everything in the Church turned.  On occasion these small home groups would gather in fields, large houses, or anywhere that would hold their large numbers.  These large meetings were full of praise and celebration.   The Early Church was like a two-winged bird—one wing was comprised of small intimate home groups.  The other wing was a larger gathering full of praise and celebration.  The major emphasis, however, due to both design and necessity, was on small group gatherings.

Constantine and the ensuing building of “cathedrals” designed for large groups changed the emphasis of the Early Church.  A focus on large group gatherings in specialized buildings crippled the church and the explosive growth of the early church has never been reclaimed.  The Church became a one-winged bird or a one-winged airplane, to modernize the metaphor.  A one-winged bird or a one-winged plane simply cannot fly. 

The Scriptures speak of this “two-winged approach” to church life.  The pattern is repeated three times in Acts almost word for word.

Acts 2:46  Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple complex, and broke bread from house to house. Again, in Acts 5:42, Every day in the temple complex, and in various homes, they continued teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah. And yet once more in Acts 20:20, and that I did not shrink back from proclaiming to you anything that was profitable or from teaching it to you in public and from house to house.

 For far, far too long the main focus of the church organization has been on the Sunday morning large group worship service.  For years, Sunday School and Small Groups have worn thinner and thinner until now they are virtually non-existent in most churches.  God’s plan is for us to restore balance to the two-wings of our ministry program and put a greater emphasis on the Small Group Ministry of our Church.  As part of our “Reset” we are going to put a much greater influence on small, intimate, gatherings primarily in homes.  We are going to restore the small group wing of church life.

 2.  The first “5” in 2551 refers to:  Personal Development

 For well over 80 percent of a church membership in the overwhelming majority of churches, the only identifying mark of a Christian salvation experience is “attending worship once a week.”  For many church-goers, attendance is not even once a week.  I will say something that might sound shocking but it is most certainly true:  if the only mark that identifies you as a believer is your name on the roll of a church and your occasional attendance at a weekly worship service, you are in danger of spending eternity in hell.

This is what Jesus said about being a disciple, or follower of Him.  Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Lk. 9:23)

 I’m going to quickly survey five basic identifying marks of a true, cross-bearing believer from the Gospel of John, chapter 15.  These are “basic, daily disciplines” that should be the habit of every true believer. I call them the Five Holy Habits. Let’s stroll through John 15 to see these habits.  Sin leads to bad habits. Salvation must bring new habits.

 ❶WORSHIP.  Jn. 15:5 says, “I am the vine;  you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit,  because you can do nothing without Me.”  A heart of worship means that Jesus Christ is the absolute “love our Your life” and everything you are, everything you have, and everything you do is devoted to serving Him.  Worship means that a love for Jesus captivates “all of you for Him all of the time.” This certainly involves church attendance with praise and singing but worship is much more than our actions—worship is the attitude of the heart.

 ❷BIBLE STUDY. Jn. 15:7a says, “If you remain in Me and My words remain in you.”  The word, remain (or abide) paints a verbal picture of building a house in which you live.  A true believer is continually building upon his or her Scriptural knowledge through a daily quiet time, weekly Scripture Memory, personal and group Bible studies, and of course the “devotion to apostolic sermons.” 

 ❸PRAYER.  Jn. 15:7b says, “ask whatever you want and it will be done for you.” Notice in verse 7 the connection between the Word of God and effective prayer.  When we have a strong foundation in the Word of God, it empowers the words of our prayers—“ask . . . and its done!”

 ❹FELLOWSHIP.  Jn. 15:12-13 says, ¹² This is My command: Love one another as I have loved you. ¹³ No one has greater love than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends.  We are commanded to develop deep and meaning relationships with other believers that are so deep that we would give our lives for those in our church family.  Not much chance someone would give their lives for someone if they don’t even know their name.  Fellowship means to “share everything considering nothing as yours alone.”

 ❺EVANGELISM.  Jn. 15:8 says, “⁸ My Father is glorified  by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be  My disciples.”  Fruit is not ornamental, but instrumental. Fruit is the part of a tree that brings into being other trees.  Many people can count the number of apples on a tree, but here God is asking us to count the number of trees in an apple. Are we bringing new disciples into the Kingdom? We we all know we need to do a much better job with this discipline.

That’s the Personal Development Plan that will guide how we evaluate whether or not we are personally growing in the Lord.  These are the Five Basic Disciplines of Christian Discipleship

 3.  The second “5” in 2551 refers to:  Corporate Development.

Just as the Bible outlines a plan for our personal development as believers, God’s Word outlines Five Basic Functions in the Corporate Development of Our Church.  These are summarized in the portion of Scripture we call the “Great Commission.”  We fulfill the Great Commandment by following the Great Commission.  Let’s look first at the Great Commandment.

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Mt. 22:37-39)

 As a church we fulfill this Great Commandment through Five Functions summarized in the Great Commission, Mt. 28:16-20. 

 ❶EXALTATION.  Mt. 28:16-17 says, “¹⁶ Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. ¹⁷ When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.”

 We’ve already looked at “worship” as part of our PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT.  It is also an essential element of our CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT as a church.  From a heart fully and passionately devoted to Jesus as Lord, we EXALT Him when we gather as His children.  EXALTING Jesus simply means we have put Jesus on the throne of our lives and we have crucified our self on the cross.  Our life becomes, “Christ-centered,” and our worship is all about Him and all about His glory.  The Bible tells us that we exist to EXALT Jesus Christ.  Eph. 1 tells us twice that we exist to bring praise and glory to God (vv. 6, 14) :

 Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, ¹⁴ who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory”

 Praise can mean, “to shine like a light.”  It could literally be translated, “sparkle for Jesus!”  So, how’s your sparkle these days!

 ❷EVANGELISM.  Mt. 28:18-19a.  The greatest form of EXALTATION for Our Lord is to “go preach the gospel.” As we saw with our PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT, evangelism is also to be a significant function in our CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT.  I’ll say more about this in a moment.  But, mark this down:  “a church that is full of disciples who are not growing personally will never be effective evangelistically.”

 ❸EDIFICATION.  Mt. 28:19b.  baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  To edify means to “knit together, build-up, or connect.”  Baptism is the act of “assimilating a new believer into the full fellowship of the church.”  It means to weave someone into the fabric of the fellowship.  Just like when a thread breaks on a woven cloth it leaves a hole, so when a believer does not fully assimilate into the life of the church they leave a hole.

 ILLUS:  Eddie didn’t leave no vacancy.

 ❹EQUIPPING.  Mt. 28:20.  “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  How much knowledge of history do you think you would have if you have been studying it for ten, twenty, thirty or more years?  Do you think you would be an expert?  So it should be for church members who have been Christians for ten, twenty, thirty or more years.  They should be “experts” in the Bible.  And yet, so many are still “babes drinking milk and not eating meat.”  (1Cor. 3:1)

 ❺EXPANSION.  Mt. 28:20b.  “to the end of the age.”  Any living thing that is healthy will grow. A healthy church will continue to expand her ministry beyond the walls of the church, the streets of the city, and into every corner of the world.  A church that is not expanding is dying.

 Now, let me tie all this up into one beautiful bow.  The most important number in this Reset Code is the number

 4.  “1.”  Our mission and Purpose.

Here’s where the proverbial rubber meets the road.  Jesus had one mission in His life that He left us to complete:  “Save Souls.”  Everything we do and every dime we spend must be directed at one single mission:  “Saving Souls!”  A church that is not seeing souls saved is like a oil refinery that uses all the oil they produce to keep the machinery running that produces the oil.  No oil ever leaves the refinery.  Or, a church that is not seeing souls saved is like a shoe factory that operates night and day but never produces a pair of shoes.

Evangelism isn’t one thing among many things that a church does—evangelism is the “Main Thing.”  Without a passionate, all-consuming drive to see souls saved, the church is nothing more than a “Religious Country Club restricted to members only.”

Jesus went out of His way to reach a man despised by the community in which he lived.  He was the First Century equivalent of an IRS agent. He became rich by cheating his own countrymen.  He was hated and considered a “vile, ugly sinner.”  His name was Zacchaeus.  Not only was he a vile sinner, but he was short.  So short that when Jesus was passing through town, Zacchaeus climbed a tree to get a glimpse of the travelling preacher and healer the whole town was talking about.  Jesus spotted this chief of sinners in the tree and said, “Hurry and come down, I’m going to have dinner with you today.”  Jesus took time to love whom the world despised.  All the people in town murmured because Jesus entered the house of such a hated person.  Here’s what Jesus told Zaccaeus (Lk. 19:9):  “Today, salvation has come to this house.”  Zacchaeus was gloriously and wondrously saved and became a devoted follower of Jesus.

Winning souls was the very purpose for which Jesus came into our world and died on a cross that should have been our death for our sins.  Jesus made it very clear what His purpose was and what the purpose for the church should be.  In Lk. 19:10 Jesus said, “For the Son of Man has come into the world to seek and to save that which is lost.”

That’s the mandate and mission for the Church Jesus is building.  If we are not “seeking the lost and leading them to salvation.” If God loved the world—an ugly, rebellious, vile sinful people—then, we should also love the world. We are God’s first responders.

As we Reset our Church to position ourselves for effective ministry in a world that has been forever changed, we must make God’s priority our priority—“seeking and saving the lost.” As I said, we are God’s First Responders.

Let me share a story that is a bit comical, but also deeply profound. Tori Matthews was an officer with the Southern California Humane society.  One particular call she had was recorded in the Arizona Republic Newspaper February 2, 1995.  She received an emergency call that a little boy’s pet iguana had been scared up a tree by the family’s dog.  I feel from a branch that hung over the family pool.  Not be a Galapagos Sea-going Iguana, the lizard sank like lead to the bottom of the pool.  Officer Matthews arrived at the scene and dove into the pool with her net to retrieve the limp lizard.  She later told a reporter what was going through her mind.  “Well, I’ve done CPR on a person and on a dog, why not an iguana?”  So, she locked lips with the lizard.  She went on to say, “Now that I think about it, it was pretty ugly animal to be kissing, but I didn’t have the heart to tell the little boy his pet was dead.” How did the story end?  The lizard revived and made a full recovery.

Now, how does this apply to “making soul-winning the driving passion of our church in this present RESET?” Well, Officer Matthews didn’t see an ugly, waterlogged lizard.  She saw a creature that was deeply loved by a little boy.  How much more should we be driven to rescue those perishing in sin when we realize that God loves the world so much that He sent Jesus Christ, His only Son to die on the cross so we could live forever with Him in heaven when we die?  God loves sinners enough to die for them—shouldn’t we?

 Our plan for a RESET is as simple as “2 5 5 1.”  But, none of this will matter if we do not develop a passion for see lost people saved.

The road ahead for our world is in many ways “uncertain,” but for a church RESET with God’s code for ministry, there’s nothing “uncertain” about OUR future.