Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Well, good morning, Christchurch.
[00:00:04] I'm feeling a lot better this week.
[00:00:10] Anybody remember the joke? Yeah. Okay. Took an ibuprofen?
[00:00:16] No. I am so thankful Doc got the chance to be out here and just share a good word. And I was at our Columbia Station campus. It was a fun Sunday, but I am glad to be back with you. I'm Ran, and I'm glad to celebrate such an amazing milestone as a church family.
[00:00:39] Seeing the ground broken and machines out there and just God moving this project forward is so encouraging to me and so exciting. And as Jess said, I promise as soon as we can, we will get everybody out there once we get a drive in. And I'm hoping and praying maybe by late summer we'll be able to do that and we'll be able to celebrate out there. And I think that will be really, really cool. But we're gonna celebrate today. Amen. And we're gonna thank God and we are just gonna prepare for the future that he has for us. But let me open us in prayer and then we'll get into it. Father, thank you for today. Thank you for what it means. Thank you for, Father, doing this impossible work.
[00:01:28] It is only by you and for you and through you, and we pray it all would just glorify your great name.
[00:01:36] Bless us today as we look at your word and as we think about it.
[00:01:40] Speak to our hearts, Lord, as each of us need to hear from you and draw us near to Jesus Christ.
[00:01:50] Would you, Lord, just bless us in this season. Prepare us for all you have ahead. And would you also help us to just take these moments to say thank you for all the great things you've done?
[00:02:02] And we pray this in the great name of Jesus.
[00:02:05] Amen.
[00:02:07] Well, yeah, I like that saying, where it's like, these are the good old days.
[00:02:13] Something along those lines. You know what I'm talking about? And kind of the idea is that you can be in a really special season in your life, but you don't recognize it until later.
[00:02:25] And you're sort of like, ah, that was really cool. I wish I would have had the perspective on it that I have now, I think a little bit. When Allie and I first got married, we lived in west park and we lived in a double, and I loved this double. I just thought it was cool. It was really old. But, you know, it was like, not nasty old, more like character old. You know what I'm saying? At least to me.
[00:02:48] And the Metro Parks were right there. We could walk right to the Metro Parks. We'd walk there all the time. I love that my aunt lived beneath us.
[00:02:57] That was fun for the most part. No, I'm just kidding. I love you, Aunt Rhea.
[00:03:03] And soon, when we moved in, Allie's brother had just gotten married and him and his wife moved in just around the corner.
[00:03:10] So it was like this cool little season where there was a lot of family around. And it was just kind of a really fun time. We didn't have three kids then, so a little more energy, you know, little better.
[00:03:26] I love them. Don't look at me like that.
[00:03:29] But, you know, it was a special time. That's all I'm saying.
[00:03:33] And sometimes you don't always recognize you're in like a special moment and you don't always maybe see how unique it is. Cause life changes and things, people go different directions, and that's just sort of the nature of life.
[00:03:50] But today I want us to notice we are in a special moment. Church.
[00:03:57] God is really doing something special in our church. Something that he has privileged and blessed us with.
[00:04:07] I remember years ago just kind of having a sense that God wanted to lead us out from where we were at South Abbey and to a new place and started going on that journey. But it just seemed like crazy to me.
[00:04:24] Impossible.
[00:04:26] And there's so many stories along the way. And you'll hear them all if you haven't at least 200 times. I'm not gonna rehearse them all today. But there are just so many roadblocks, so many things. And then to be where we're at now, church is truly a miracle.
[00:04:43] It is truly God and it's special.
[00:04:46] And we gotta celebrate. You gotta celebrate every milestone along the way. Cause life is too hard.
[00:04:52] And you need to enjoy and celebrate and squeeze all the gratitude out of em you can.
[00:04:59] And I'm so thankful. But this is also about us, not only recognizing the special season, but also preparing for the next one and looking ahead and say, all right, God, you're not bringing us here for just no reason. You're bringing us here because you want to do something special through us that glorifies your name. And so I want to talk about both those things today. I want to talk about acknowledging what God is doing right here and now and also preparing for what he has ahead. That sound good to you?
[00:05:36] Two of you? All right, we'll go with the going crowd, but I'm going to start @ephesians 3. Allie, could you hand me. Is my water over there?
[00:05:46] Drying out up here.
[00:05:48] Thank you. Give Allie a round of applause.
[00:05:54] Ask my wife by the way, if that was. I'm allowed to do that.
[00:05:58] But let's look at Ephesians 3, and we're gonna start at verse 8. And this is the Apostle Paul writing. And here's what he says. He says to me, though, I am the very least of all the saints.
[00:06:16] Now, Paul's name in Latin actually means, like, small or least.
[00:06:22] And so there's kind of many people think, a little bit of a play on words here. Paul's like, hey, not only does. Not only am I small and my name means small, but. But I am truly before God. I'm the least.
[00:06:34] I'm the last one God should have picked. Anybody ever feel like that? If you do, you're in good company. Cause that's what the Apostle Paul says. I'm the very least of all the saints. But this grace was given to me to preach to the Gentiles, or that's just a fancy word for the nations.
[00:06:58] So Paul says, I'm the very least, but God picked me.
[00:07:03] We were standing in line at recess, and there were all these studs ahead of me.
[00:07:10] And God's like, I'm gonna get this little knucklehead over here.
[00:07:14] And Paul said, God gave me grace to take the good news of Jesus to the nations, to the whole world. Paul said, God has picked me to do that, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages. And God, who created all things, so that through the church, that's you and me, guys. Through us, the manifold, the multifaceted, the multidimensional wisdom of God might be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Jesus Christ our Lord.
[00:08:09] Now, here's what Paul's saying. He's saying, listen, when I look at my life, God has made me into a certain type of man by his grace.
[00:08:23] Paul said, my life is defined by the grace that God has given me. And he said that grace has given me a purpose.
[00:08:36] And my purpose is to preach to the nations the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ.
[00:08:44] In other words, Paul's saying, I know who I am, I know what I am, and I know what I'm meant to do.
[00:08:53] And when you can answer those questions with clarity, that's a real helpful thing in life.
[00:08:58] Paul says, I know who I am, I know what I am, and I know what I'm meant to do. God's grace has made me into who I am today.
[00:09:11] And it has sent me into this world. And I want to talk about these two realities. And first I want to talk about God's grace in Paul's life. Paul says, I'm the very least, but grace was given to me. Now here's what's fascinating about the Apostle Paul is that we read about his story in another New Testament book called the Book of Acts.
[00:09:37] And when we find Paul, Paul is as against Jesus Christ as you could be.
[00:09:45] This is Paul's starting point. Paul literally wants to wipe the name of Christ off the face of the earth.
[00:09:55] And he is willing to use any means he can to do it.
[00:10:00] This is where this guy's starting at you with me.
[00:10:04] And Christ shows up to him.
[00:10:07] And Jesus says to him, paul, why are you persecuting me?
[00:10:14] Then he says this line, he says, is it hard to kick against goads?
[00:10:21] Now I don't know if you've messed with goads anytime lately, but what a goad was. It was like a spike that was on the back of a cart or whatever a load bearing animal would be pulling.
[00:10:37] And so it's kind of, it was a way to keep them pulling it in the right direction and to keep them obedient. You know, kind of like a shock collar today. Something along those lines. When I was first married, Allie made me wear one of those. And anytime I said something dumb, I got shocked.
[00:10:56] But the wound got so severe that we had to just.
[00:11:02] Yeah, it didn't work, obviously.
[00:11:07] Can we have some fun today or are we just going to be, we going to be stiffs all day?
[00:11:14] But this was meant to keep the animal in line. And so every time the animal would kick against it, it would get, it would get jabbed, it would get spiked with it. And so the more you resist it, the more painful it is. You see how that works? And what Jesus has said to Paul, when Paul was running the exact opposite direction, he said, paul, the more you run from me, the more it hurts you.
[00:11:44] Is it fun to kick against goads? Like, aren't you tired of this?
[00:11:48] Can I get an amen on that? The more you run from God, guess what? The more it hurts your life.
[00:11:57] The path away from him is destruction. It's not life. You with me?
[00:12:03] And Jesus says to Paul, said Paul, we done with this yet?
[00:12:08] Are you done kicking against goads? This isn't working for you or for anybody. You with me on this?
[00:12:15] And that's how he begins with Paul. And here's what is beautiful about this. And here's What I love about Christianity, Christianity is not the story of the little engine that could.
[00:12:30] You with me, it's not like, you know, oh, yeah, we're just. We're kind of the underdog, but let's just keep chugging along, chugging along, and we'll just kind of persevere and get through it. As someone said, it's not the little engine that could, it's the train wreck that can't.
[00:12:47] I like that. Amen. And that's Paul. Paul wasn't even close to going the right direction.
[00:12:53] It wasn't like God was like, oh, Paul, I see some hidden potential in you.
[00:12:58] Let's pull that out. No, he was kicking against goads going the wrong way. And Christ interrupted his life.
[00:13:07] Christ invaded his life and said, no more. Not today. We're done. I'm bringing you home whether you want it or not.
[00:13:18] And thank God we have a God that is willing to do that for us.
[00:13:22] And Paul says, when I look at my life, it's grace.
[00:13:27] It's grace that Christ met me.
[00:13:30] Christ could have said, you're done, buddy.
[00:13:34] That's it. Game over.
[00:13:36] He would have been right. He would have been just.
[00:13:39] He would have been holy in doing it. But Paul says, this all is grace. But Paul also knew that the grace that was given to him, it prepared him for the purpose that he now has to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ to all the nations. See, God, grace, it invades our life. It changes our life, and it also prepares us for the life that he has and the purpose that he wants to do through us.
[00:14:15] Now, this is something we have to understand about God's grace. When Paul was converted to Christ, and after that moment, he became a follower of Jesus. And Paul tells us that after that time, he went away for three years into the wilderness of Arabia.
[00:14:37] Now, scholars try to figure out, like, where exactly he went.
[00:14:40] No one can really nail it down. He went off the grid, and he went for three years.
[00:14:48] And I imagine during those three years, he thought a lot.
[00:14:52] I imagine during that time, he prayed.
[00:14:56] I imagine during that time, he sought God in a way he never did before.
[00:15:03] And during that time, God was preparing him for how he would use him in the coming years.
[00:15:13] And here's what I want you to know.
[00:15:16] Grace leads us into preparation before it leads us into purpose.
[00:15:23] And seasons of preparation are usually not fun and not the season you want to be in.
[00:15:30] Like, I love training montages and movies where you get, like, anybody. Like, that's one of my favorite parts about the Rocky Movies like, you just watch that. That's all you need. Amen. That's the best part. Because, you know, they're. You know, they're like they're facing their inner demons. They're sweating.
[00:15:52] They're becoming a transformed person. They're letting go of that old identity and stepping in new. Right? That's what the whole training montage represents. Amen.
[00:16:04] But it's fun to watch on a movie that lasts for, like a minute.
[00:16:09] But it's not fun when you're the one training.
[00:16:13] Like, that's not fun. Trading's fun to watch on a short montage on a movie. It's not fun to do every day.
[00:16:19] You're like, I'm waking up early and I'm seeking God. Day after day, I'm taking one baby step at a time towards becoming the person he wants me to be. See, that's not as glamorous as the little clip, but church, that's where we really become people that God can use powerfully in this world. You with me. And part of grace is allowing God to shape our souls. I love how the apostle Paul says this in second Timothy. It's one of my favorite verses. He says, in a great house, there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable.
[00:17:08] Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the Master, ready for every good work.
[00:17:25] Hear what Paul is saying here? He's saying, God will use your life as much as you're willing to let him cleanse your life.
[00:17:37] You hear that?
[00:17:39] As much as you're willing to let God prepare and grow and mold your soul will be the degree that he uses your life. You with me on this?
[00:17:51] That the more I'm willing to just go before God and say, God, I want to be a vessel in your house that you can use however you want and for whatever purpose you want.
[00:18:09] The more that grace will prepare us for his good work. You with me on this. Now. Today, I hope you get that beautiful coffee mug. Did you see that yet? That thing is sweet.
[00:18:21] And I got a little early access to them. It holds coffee really well, too.
[00:18:28] So far.
[00:18:30] So far, no leaks in sight. But if you do, just bring it back, I'll give you a refund on it. Just kidding. They're free. You can. But anyway.
[00:18:42] But these. Caught. Now imagine.
[00:18:45] See, here's what Paul's saying. He's saying, look, you're a coffee cup. In the kingdom of God, a coffee cup.
[00:18:53] Sit in the cupboard and say, I wonder what Chet's gonna pour in me today.
[00:19:00] Starbucks cold brew, protein shake, water.
[00:19:07] It doesn't need to worry about any of that. Cause that's my business. Amen.
[00:19:12] How God uses your life, you don't need to worry about.
[00:19:16] You are made for him.
[00:19:18] You're made by him. Purpose is his business.
[00:19:23] Preparation is your business.
[00:19:25] If that coffee cup should worry about anything, it should say, do I have any little gunk in here that the dishwasher didn't get out.
[00:19:38] Right? You ever pull something out of it and you're like, man, what's that, like, thing that's stuck there? Or is that just my dishwasher?
[00:19:48] You got to go back in. Amen.
[00:19:50] We got one more cycle.
[00:19:54] Y' all aren't with me today.
[00:19:57] You're making me work hard.
[00:19:59] I get it.
[00:20:04] What were you talking about?
[00:20:07] Quit distracting me this morning.
[00:20:11] Purpose is God's business. Preparation is yours.
[00:20:14] Grace prepares us.
[00:20:16] And I would say in this season, in this season, some of us, we need to memorize those verses in second Timothy. We need to bring those home with us. We need to pray over those.
[00:20:30] And we need to say, look, Lord, I give you my life because you have redeemed my life by your grace.
[00:20:36] And I want my life to be everything you want it to be.
[00:20:43] And if there's some gunk in this cup, which there is in all of our cups, then help me, cleanse me, make me more usable for your purpose. You with me on this.
[00:21:00] And that's our concern. That's our business.
[00:21:04] Here's the beautiful thing.
[00:21:06] And then God will use you as he sees fit.
[00:21:09] God has a purpose.
[00:21:11] That's his role.
[00:21:13] And God says to Paul, paul, here's what your purpose is. Go and preach the good news of Jesus to the nations and present yourself usable to me. Paul said, it's grace that has done all of this. And he says, and here's.
[00:21:31] Here's what I'm here for. I'm here to bring the good news of Jesus and church. I would say that I think we can confidently assume that that was Paul's purpose.
[00:21:45] It's also our purpose as a church today.
[00:21:52] Why are we here? Why are we building a new building? Why are we doing what we're doing?
[00:21:58] Where are we going to sweat it out in this gym this summer?
[00:22:04] And the simple answer is, so other people will know. Jesus Christ.
[00:22:10] That's it.
[00:22:12] That we are here as a church so that we can be part of God's eternal Plan to help the communities around us, the people around us, and to help ourselves to know the riches, the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ. I love that line. The unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ.
[00:22:37] So I think if we're honest, the human soul is impoverished, isn't it?
[00:22:44] If we're honest, there's a lot of poverty in the human soul.
[00:22:49] There's a lot of poverty in humanity. I'm not talking about financial poverty. I'm talking about all other kinds of poverty.
[00:22:59] There is the poverty of sin and shame and lostness and despair and hopelessness and on and on. There is all kinds of that. But Paul says, but for every poverty, there is a unique, rich richness of Jesus Christ that he brings to that place.
[00:23:22] That Jesus Christ has all of the things that we need to bring life and change and hope to the human situation. Paul says his riches are unsearchable.
[00:23:37] Every day I can say something new about how great he is.
[00:23:43] Every generation can speak in a fresh way about how awesome Jesus Christ is and how in him he is fully adequate for all of the human need.
[00:23:56] And what I want us to realize, church is that this is our opportunity to do that.
[00:24:03] This is our moment where as a church, we get to.
[00:24:11] To make Christ known as best we can in this generation, in this time.
[00:24:18] See, I'm really excited about this new building.
[00:24:23] But a building is just a means to an end. You with me?
[00:24:28] This is the church right here. It's you and me.
[00:24:32] A building is a tool.
[00:24:34] It's a helpful tool, but it's not what actually matters.
[00:24:39] What actually matters is how we use it, what we do with it, and that Christ is proclaimed above all. You with me on this?
[00:24:48] See, I'm excited for a lot of aspects of the building.
[00:24:53] I'm excited for air conditioning.
[00:24:57] I'm excited for garage doors.
[00:25:02] Some of you have heard me talk about these.
[00:25:05] It's going to be a really awesome space to serve and to share Christ. But sometimes we tend to think that the church is like a cruise ship.
[00:25:15] I've only been on one cruise, and it was awesome.
[00:25:20] One of my favorite things was, you can order chocolate chip cookies at any hour and have them delivered.
[00:25:29] When I found that out, it blew my mind.
[00:25:34] I still think about that some days.
[00:25:38] I was like, this is amazing.
[00:25:40] But you know what the purpose of a cruise ship is? That everybody that's on it can just have as much fun and eat really good food and do kind of nice things. It's all about, like, having these beautiful amenities.
[00:25:54] And sometimes we think well, oh, that's. That's what the. The church should be. You know, this. This place where I can just get spiritually fat.
[00:26:06] Thank you, Tina, for that laugh back there. That.
[00:26:11] But I like to think about the church more as, like, an aircraft carrier.
[00:26:16] And it's a place that we come so we can be refueled and sent out.
[00:26:21] It's a place that we could come. We say, all right, Lord, what are our marching orders?
[00:26:26] What ground can we take for your kingdom?
[00:26:29] What good fight can we fight in so the world can be more of what you want it to be? I like thinking about it more that way.
[00:26:37] So, yes, an aircraft carrier. It's nice if it has ac and we'll have that.
[00:26:44] But the point is what we see, the purpose of it. And as we go into the future church and as we take these next steps, man, let's celebrate it, let's enjoy it, but let's not miss the forest for the trees.
[00:27:00] This is about the unsearchable riches of Christ being made known. Amen. This is about people being baptized.
[00:27:08] This is about marriages being healed. This is about people finding their spiritual family. This is about people using their gifts for God's kingdom and finding a purpose they didn't even know they had. And this is about God being glorified in a special way, in the way that he wants to do through you and me.
[00:27:33] And so this is a season to say, yes, God, thank you for this grace. This is grace. This is a privilege. We are in a special season. God. God has given us a great honor.
[00:27:47] And the way we honor him is preparing ourselves the best we can for what he wants to do. You with me on this.
[00:27:58] And so, church, let me just leave you just with three thoughts today. Three challenges. Number one. How do we do that?
[00:28:06] Well, for some of us, it starts with opening our hearts to Jesus Christ.
[00:28:13] Some of us, maybe we hear the words that Jesus said to the apostle Paul. Is it hard to kick against goads?
[00:28:21] And our whole life, God's been in pursuit of us, and we're kicking, and every time we kick, it hurts a little bit more.
[00:28:30] But somehow this is just the dynamic that we're in.
[00:28:35] And I want to call you into a better dynamic.
[00:28:39] There is a great God who sent his son to die for you.
[00:28:45] In him is forgiveness, his hope, his redemption is new life.
[00:28:51] And the Bible says all we have to do is receive. It is trust in him, is confess that he is Lord. Believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead and we begin a new life with Him.
[00:29:05] And for some of us, that's what we need to do. We need to just. We need to see the unsearchable riches of Christ in our own life, in our own situation.
[00:29:15] And we need to receive Christ.
[00:29:18] And then you need to get baptized.
[00:29:20] We're going to have an amazing baptism in a couple weeks.
[00:29:28] My favorite Sunday of the year, going to the Jordan River, AKA Lake Erie, and wading into those holy waters and celebrating God's work in people's lives.
[00:29:46] And maybe for some of you, you've given your life to Christ, but no one knows, and God wants people to know. We need to celebrate that because it is a thing worth eternal celebration.
[00:30:01] And you can sign up and, man, we can enjoy that. Some of us, we need to give our lives to Christ.
[00:30:06] Some of us, we've given our lives to Christ, but we still are letting all this nastiness live in the cup.
[00:30:17] And we need to humble ourselves and say, lord, I want to be a vessel of honor.
[00:30:23] You know, here's what Paul's saying. He's saying it's good to aspire to be used by God in the greatest possible way you can.
[00:30:32] You hear that Paul saying, that's a good thing to say. Look, I only got one life, Lord, and I want you to maximize it for your glory.
[00:30:43] Because here's what I'm finding out.
[00:30:45] Life goes fast.
[00:30:48] Tomorrow's not guaranteed this time. I can't believe I'm in my 30s now.
[00:30:58] Why are you laughing at that?
[00:31:01] I'm in my 40s.
[00:31:03] It's gone fast.
[00:31:07] And only one life will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last.
[00:31:14] See, what matters is that I keep giving my life and you keep giving your life, and you put it before God and you say, use it.
[00:31:24] And Lord, if there's anything in my life that is constricting the flow of your purpose, of what you want to do, clean it up. Lord, help me send the right people. Show me the way, and I will listen. Church. You pray that prayer.
[00:31:43] God will work. You hear that?
[00:31:46] God will help.
[00:31:48] God will shame. And we need to pray that as a church. God, this is a moment that you have given us.
[00:31:56] Let us be the best church we can be in this moment. Because here's what I know. There are untold people that right now, they're driving past that construction site every day, and they don't know the unsearchable riches of Christ.
[00:32:16] And God might want to use us to do that. So let's be as usable as we can. You with me on this?
[00:32:25] And Then lastly, maybe some of us, we've just kind of.
[00:32:29] We're in a place where God can use us, but we have a little bit of the Failure to Launch syndrome.
[00:32:37] You ever been there?
[00:32:39] We're like, amen.
[00:32:47] And we're at a place and God's at work, and we have. We have things to offer.
[00:32:54] God can do something powerful through us, but we're just holding ourselves back. You ever been there?
[00:33:00] You're like, I don't know.
[00:33:03] I don't know. Maybe, you know, once things slow down.
[00:33:07] Well, things never slow down.
[00:33:11] Let's just get rid of that.
[00:33:13] But maybe God has a purpose for you right here, right now.
[00:33:19] We are the body of Christ.
[00:33:22] If you are a follower of Jesus, you have a gift. You have a role, man. God has something unique through you that is incomplete without you. There's no spare parts in the body of Christ.
[00:33:36] He doesn't send extra wing nuts. Sometimes he sends nuts, but not. Just kidding.
[00:33:43] Jk, jk. Kind of.
[00:33:46] We're all a little bit crazy if we're honest. But God, let's stay on track today. You guys keep getting me off here, but God has a purpose for you. God has a calling. God has a giftedness. God has work.
[00:34:00] Your life matters. Your gifting matters, your calling matters. And sometimes God calls us off the sidelines and says, come on, I want to do something through you because I have a purpose for you and I believe church God will be glorified. Let's pray for that.
[00:34:20] Father, we thank you for all of your great eternal holy ideas.
[00:34:32] That, Father, part of your plan in the church, in us as the body of Christ, is to show your wisdom in the heavenly places.
[00:34:48] Father, all of this is for a bigger audience than we even know or can realize.
[00:34:55] Help us to see the great role, the great purpose, the great opportunity you've entrusted to us.
[00:35:03] Father, for those of us who maybe we're running from you and it's just creating more and more pain in our life with every step.
[00:35:14] Help us to turn to you for, Lord, those of us who you're calling us into deeper sanctification, help us to walk obediently with you and those of us, Lord, that you want to send forth into your mission, into your purpose, into your eternal plan.
[00:35:42] Would you make that clear and give us a willing heart and we ask for your blessings in all this, in Jesus, great name, Amen.
