“I WILL BUILD MY CHURCH”

This thought is dedicated to the Ekklesia... the called out ones... the mystical assembly of all the redeemed... “The Church which is His Body.” Ekklesia must be understood two ways in scripture, the Church “big C”, just described, and the church “little c”, the individual assemblies of the redeemed gathering together at any point in time. These churches make up “The Church.” The Church is the leaven of the Kingdom of God, ceaselessly spreading God’s Kingdom through the dough of humanity. Stripped to its spiritual essentials the church functions as a purveyor of God’s Kingdom through “the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry”, which builds up the Body of Christ. The “work of ministry” is the enterprise of each member of the church who are “joined and knit together by what every joint (i.e., person) supplies” to work effective when “every part (i.e., person) does its share”, growing spiritual maturity as it builds itself up in love. Equipping the saints covers a lot of ground including teaching/mentoring spiritual growth, empowering to minister, encouraging ministry, providing a forum for ministry development, and providing essential help including facilities, equipment and resources. Individual ministry is identified, developed and released within the sanctuary and nurturing environment   of the church, moving out into the marketplace as spiritual leaven when it has matured.

 Every member of every church has a personal ministry... something to contribute to the Kingdom of God, for we were “created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” When these personal ministries are quenched and grieved rather than nurtured, ignored by a misplaced focus on rigid liturgy and the “One man Show” syndrome, spiritual growth of the church ceases as an attainable reality. Notice the key adjective modifying growth... spiritual, we are not just talking about getting people into a building here. The real measurement of church effectiveness is not church size... quality trumps quantity every time in God’s Kingdom, but rather the effectiveness of the equipping of its saints for the work of ministry. Why do people become so prideful and elated simply from getting humans into a building?  Man driven church growth becomes a stronghold that burns out pastors while filling the pews with lukewarm Self-centered “Christians” that God has already said He will spew out of His mouth. Focusing on church growth... size, rather than growing spiritual maturity through the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, is simply a prideful form of Godliness that denies the power of equipped saints to leaven the world.

“FOR THE EQUIPPING OF THE SAINTS

FOR THE WORK OF MINISTRY

FOR THE EDIFYING OF THE BODY OF CHRIST”

  (Matt. 16:18; Eph. 4:11-16; Eph. 2:10; Rev. 3; 16)

“WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM”

In Matt. 16:13-20 Jesus asked a question that strikes at the very heart of our perception of God: “Who do you say that I am?” Who is God to and for us?  Have we professed and proclaimed who God is?  Have we declared His role in our life, in the church’s life?  Jesus prophesied that the entire church would be built on Peter’s revelation that Jesus is the Son of God.  God’s church – his body – is built upon the image the saints have of Him.  This view is the very bedrock of our authority.  Confidence in God comes when we understand two things: Who He is, and who we are in Him.  And confidence is faith in the powers and reliability of God -- full trust based on certainty -- in spite of any apparent evidence against it, recognizing His ways are above our ways. Understanding who He is – His nature and attributes -- will upgrade our image of who He wants to be for us. And, this in turn will shape and change who we are in Christ... for we become what we behold.

As a start we can meditate on some of the labels scripture applies to our Lord to extract what they mean to us personally: *Savior *Redeemer *Sanctifier *Good Shepherd *Lamb of God *King Of Kings *Lord Of Lords *The Great I Am *Comforter *Servant *Lion Of Judah *Prince Of Peace *God Of War *Righteous Judge *Holy *God Almighty. And , of course, Abba Father, for our Savior is, in the great mystery of the godhead, also God, our loving Daddy.

Look now at some of the attributes of our Lord: God is independent and self-completing, beyond measure, all-powerful, the embodiment of perfect goodness, infinitely loving, our provider, the only source of perfect peace, just (righteous, fair and equitable),  unique and incomprehensible holy, the healing remedy for mankind’s brokenness, self-sufficient in His own sufficiency, all-knowing, ever present everywhere all the time, inexhaustible merciful, infinitely compassionate, sovereign over all, infinitely wise, infinitely faithful, full of grace, the God of all comfort, and the source of all blessings.

 All that God is He has forever been and will forever be in unchanging perfection, existing uniquely beyond and above His created universe. He is infinitely wise, always acting for our eternal good which is to conform us into the His nature. In this transformation our good and his glory are inextricably bound together. God is our intercessor before the Father and the master of our lives. We live and breathe and have our being under His Banner. As individuals and as the church body we need the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus to overwhelm our hearts, so we can declare with Peter, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

WHO IS GOD TO US…

AND FOR US…

GOD IS… THOUGHTS ON THE NATURE OF GOD

* He has an immense, immeasurable and eternal compassion.  His compassion is

  always greater than our sin.

* He is whole heartedly passionate about us.  We consume His thoughts.

* He is scandalously forgiving.  His mercy burns as it destroys shame.

* He has unbounded patience, unending goodness.

* His love is so compelling ... it heals us.  It strips away all our pretense and restores us

  to happiness.

* His grace is the Empowering Presence within that enables us to feel good about

  ourselves.

* His mercy is His total favor given gladly to the undeserving heart.

* He is the kindest person to have ever existed.  His goodness is so outrageous and

  shocking ... it is actually disreputable to the religious minded.

* He is enthusiastically fervent in His pursuit of us.

* He is amazingly humble and gentle but also a powerful Warrior King who loves to fight

  and who laughs at His enemies.

* He has a fabulous servant spirit, needing no title, status or position but joyfully sets an

  example of simple heartwarming slavery.

* His love is enthralling.  It captivates and commands us to be the same.

* He delights in listening to us and helping us.

* His love is designed to overwhelm all things especially fear, shame, low self esteem.

* He loves being trusted.  He is delightful and astonished when we use our faith.

* He will never keep a record of our sins or failings.

* He is our Prince of Peace - we are not allowed to worry anymore.

* He is our provider so we need not be anxious about our needs.

* He has mercy that can never be properly understood or articulated ... just

  experienced!  The only way we can explain mercy is by being merciful ourselves!

* Jesus the Redeemer gives us value in the eyes of the Father.

* He sees and speaks to our potential.  He both protects us and releases us to fulfill all

  that he wants us to see and know about ourselves.

* He gives us the fruit of the Spirit as His provision for the integrity of our lifestyle.

* He gives us His very own life, character and nature.       

* He is never affected by our performance - His love is constant.

THE EMPOWERING PRESENCE WITHIN

MAN IS A WORSHIPER

In a tropical rain forest a tribal chieftain bows before a crude figure fashioned   from sticks and stones bound together by jungle vines.  In St. Louis the CEO of a major corporation spends all day Sunday with a group of wealth power brokers, conspiring how to drive stock prices up.  Somewhere in Asia in a fantastically ornate temple a young man burns incense before a lavishly decorated Buddha.  At a gym in Denver a man moves from pose to pose, admiring the mirrors’ reflection of his years of grueling training and drug use.  In the heartland of America, a small group of locals meet in an unobtrusive building in a small Nebraska town to sing and pray together. On the ninth tee a Miami golfer trashes his clubs in a fit of golf-rage. A minister in Dayton slips silently into his study at 2:00 A.M. to Google the sensual desires of his heart. In New York a grossly overweight lady spends her day with her best friend... junk food. A group of LA high school kids meet their suppler in a parking lot before hitting the rave party circuit.  A man in the suburbs of Detroit spends the entire morning meticulously washing and waxing his foreign-made sports sedan, while his teenage daughter spends hours in a poster-plastered room listening to CDs by her favorite rock superstar.  In Seattle a lady spends three hours meticulously primping and grooming herself before leaving for work.  All of these people are worshiping.

Man is a worshiper by nature whether we acknowledge our worship, understand that we are worshiping, or recognize the object of our worship as deity, we all worship something.  The Apostle John called our idols Lust of the Flesh... Physical Appetites, Lust of the Eyes... Material Appetites, and Pride of Life... Emotional Appetites. The object of our worship may be money, possessions, career , goals, ideals, hobbies, talents, education, power, position, prominence, control, desires, pleasures, goodness, self-esteem, our body, sex, drugs, food, other people, thrills, etc., - we all worship something: The question is...

WHAT ARE YOU WORSHIPING???

(First paragraph modified & expanded thought of Jack Hayford)

“LOOKING UNTO JESUS”

“Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us”: The verb of which besetting is the participle form means to surround with hostile intent, to set upon, attack, assault on all sides, to constantly assault with persistence. In the expression besetting sin, the word “besetting” carries the added meaning of chief, principal or primary, a sin to which a particular individual is particularly susceptible. In the life of every saint there is a “besetting sin”, one to which, on account of our constitution and life circumstance, we are peculiarly susceptible and most easily and most frequently fall. Besetting sin ensnares... traps, and can tower like a mountain between a child of God and their Daddy.

There are many besetting sins: *Slothfulness is spiritual or emotional apathy, neglecting what God has spoken... spiritual laziness. *Worry is habitual refusal to trust God... unbelief by another name. *Coveting is to allow one’s desires for the things of this life to override their passion for Godliness... idolatry in its purest form. *Pride is an inflated sense of one's personal status or accomplishments, inordinate Self-esteem and Self-reliance breeding dependence on Self rather than God.  *Gluttony is habitual over-indulgence, over-consumption of anything, a loss of control to Self. *Fear: an absence of God’s perfect love, fearing anything more then we fear God. And the list goes on. We all have besetting sin(s), it’s the sin we hate to love; to think otherwise is to be in Self-denial.

Saints, we all have a death to die, a race to run, and a crown to receive, all of which will require great faith. Therefore let us strip off and throw aside... discard, our besetting sins and every unnecessary encumbrance, “looking unto Jesus.”  Faith manifested itself in Jesus – the supreme model of the faith way of life -- who leads us in faith and in whom faith finds its perfect embodiment. It is in this sense that Jesus is “the author and finisher of the Faith”: He modeled perfect faith – absolute dependence upon and implicit trust in God -- in His life and death, leading us in our walk of faith by example.

By His unerring life of faith Jesus made a way to God for those that follow Him, “The firstborn among many brethren.” As “Prince of life” and “The beginning of the creation of God”, Jesus is “The first fruits of those who have fallen asleep”, “The firstborn from among the dead”... the originator of the resurrection. “All things were created through Him and for Him ... and in Him all things consist.” Our dependence upon and trust in God releases the power out flowing from His resurrection, enabling power to overcome our besetting sins. And in this we should rejoice...              

“IF WE SAY THAT WE HAVE NO SIN,

WE DECEIVE OURSELVES...”

(Heb. 12:1-4; Acts 3:15; Rev. 3:14; 1 Cor. 15:20; Rom. 8:29; 1 Jn. 4:18; Matt. 10:28; Col. 1:16-18; Phil. 3:10; 1 Jn. 1:8)

“THEREFORE... LET US... (2 Cor. 7:1)

“THEREFORE, HAVING THESE PROMISES”: The Apostle Paul is speaking to the church at Corinth, to the brethren... saints... Christians, and to twenty-first century saints as well. These “promises” are found in the preceding verses: That God would dwell in us and walk among us, that He would be our Father and we would be His sons and daughters.

 “BELOVED, LET US CLEANSE OURSELVES”: “Therefore, having ... let us”: This construction imposes a condition on receiving God’s promises. The condition is that we cleanse ourselves. Note who is doing the cleansing... We are!

“FROM ALL FILTHINESS OF THE FLESH AND SPIRIT”: We may look pretty good to ourselves, but to God our flesh and spirit are filthy... vile... nasty... obscene... sordid... disgusting. Remember, Isaiah likened man’s righteousness to filthy menstrual rags. 

“PERFECTING HOLINESS”: The purpose of our self cleansing is to bring to maturity our holiness... that we would be a “Holy temple in the Lord ... holy and without blame” For God has “predestined us to adoption as sons.” Holiness is not an option! It is a command: “Be holy, for I Am holy.” God is holy...  like Father... like Son… like son.

“IN THE FEAR OF GOD”: If love doesn’t motivate us... fear should! “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

“And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”

“THEREFORE YOU SHALL BE PERFECT (HOLY),

JUST AS YOUR FATHER IN HEAVEN IS PERFECT”

(2 Cor. 6:16-18; 7:1; Is. 64:6; 1 Peter 1:15-16; Eph. 1:4-5; 5:27; Is. 64:6; 1 Cor. 3;16-17; Heb. 10:31: 1 Jn. 3:3; Matt. 5:48)