Soiled Saints

-We are now in the home stretch of our series “Life in HD.”  Today we talked about having a global impact with others, and how that begins in our area.

-I recalled some stories of engaging at Passion ’07, notably the guy who wouldn’t let go of Adam’s hand, and the guy who would not let go of the idea that we (not our group but the 22,000 people at Passion) were ignoring his pleas and his plight.  While I only had 3 bucks to give him, I gave it.

-But we as a church are in danger of doing the same thing that guy thought the Passion-goers were doing to him; to a world in need around us.  All of us can feel like that guy.  But we feel like we can’t do anything.  Too small the problem is too much.

-I mean, consider the following:

1,000,000,000 people don’ t have access to clean water.

Every seven seconds somewhere in the world a child under five dies of hungner.

1,000,000,000 people around the world live on 1.00 a day.

2.5 billion people live on 2 dollars a day.

40% of people in the world lack basic sanitation

1.6 billion people have no electricity.

1 billion can’t read or sign their name.

Most of the world doesn’t own a car.

158,000,000 children around the world have to go to work every day just to survive.

2 children are sold into slavery every minute.

300,000 children in the U.S. are at risk every year for commercial sexual exploitation. -U.S. Department of Justice

600,000 – 800,000 people are bought and sold across international borders each year; 50% are children, most are female. The majority of these victims are forced into the commercial sex trade. – U.S. Department of State, 2004, Trafficking in Persons Report, Washington, D.C.

An estimated 14,500 to 17,500 foreign nationals are trafficked into the United States each year. The number of U.S. citizens trafficked within the country is even higher, with an estimated 200,000 American children at risk for trafficking into the sex industry. – U.S Department of Justice Report to Congress from Attorney General John Ashcroft on U.S. Government Efforts to Combat Trafficking in Persons

There are open sex slavery cases in all 50 States. An estimated 10,000 sex slaves exist in New York City. – Red Light Children Campaign

An estimated 2.5 million children, the majority of them girls, are sexually exploited in the multibillion dollar commercial sex industry – UNICEF

Investigators and researchers estimate the average predator in the U.S. can make more than $200,000 a year off one young girl. – NBC Report by Teri Williams

27 million slaves around the world.

Child trafficking is a 12,000,000,000 dollar per year industry.  Yeah, you read that right, that’s ‘billion’ with a B.

-This can be so overwhelming that we look at the news, shake our heads, mumble a five second prayer “God bless the poor” and go back to our me-centered lives.  We think we can’t do anything, so we paralyze ourselves into non-activity.

-We are but one family that makes up one church in one city in one country.  But our country…….

We spend nearly 125 billion dollars on fast food.

We have 20 percent of the worlds’ wealth.

Americans use 4-600 liters of water a day.

Americans throw away 14 percent of the food we purchase.

The average teenager spends 150.00 a week.

49,000,000 diapers are used and thrown away in the US every day.

American spend more annually on trash bags than nearly have the world does on all goods.

80% of American adults are high school graduates.

Yet with Great blessing, comes great responsibility.  And the church is most responsible!!  What if there was a way we could make a difference?  How could we?

Our main point today was this:  -take your cues from Christ in providing hope and help to a hurting world.

-We know love by looking at Jesus.

-He cared for body and soul.

-He provided help (temporal) and hope (permanent.)

-We need to do likewise.

-Should we Lay down our lives  literally and figuratively like 1 John 3:16 states?  Yes.…..

-We live in a ME society….it takes discipline to focus on others.

-This is not to earn our right standing before God…it’s proof of a transformed heart though.

PIPER:  Love is the overflow of joy in meeting the needs of others.

-How does this impact you?  What do you need to change to be in a position to be change?

-How will you take your cues from Christ to bring help and hope to a hurting world?

So what can we do?  Well for one, we can pray.  Specifically:

-God Wake Me:  up to the needs around me.

-God Shake Me:  by the devastation I see

-God Break Me:  of being a consumer towards being consumed.

-What if we cut the fast food bill in half and redirected that money to ministries that helped and gave hope?

-Imagine how many Compassion kids we could help.

-Or Star of Hope (local Houston shelter).

-Or……….well, you name it.

-We must engage our world with actions that point to Jesus.  We’re not just trying to make the world a better place before people go to hell.  But we are doing actions based on the gospel.—

Scripture passages used today.

¹⁶By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. ¹⁷But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? ¹⁸Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.  I John 3:16-18

¹⁴What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? ¹⁵ If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, ¹⁶ and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? ¹⁷So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.  James 2:14-17

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you?     To act justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.  Listen! The LORD is calling to the city—  and to fear your name is wisdom—  “Heed the rod and the One who appointed it.” Micah 6:8-9

NEXT:  The long-awaited series begins:  the people who have influenced my life.

Jason

Session Eight: Greg Surratt

-GS: Youth ministry wasn’t my calling. Got fired three times, once from my dad’s church.

-GS: Discouragement is the occupational hazard of what we do. (ichabodglorydeparted.com listed Greg as the 6th worst teacher)

-GS: It’s okay to sit on the pitty potty as long as you don’t sit long enough to get ring around the hiney.

1 Corinthians 15:58.

-GS: 1. base your preaching on the spilicty of the Gospel. 1 Cor 15:1 If you take your stand on anything other than the Gospel, you complicate things and narrow your target.

-GS: God loves you and everyone has a wonderful plan for your life.

-GS: If you target sinners you’ll have more on your plate than you can say “Grace” over.

-GS: There’s a difference between dangerous and edgy.

-GS: Walk humbly in bold power…the power of Jesus.

-GS: 2. Base your confidence on the fact that God has chosen you.

-GS: We didn’t believe in pre-marital sex growing up because it could lead to………dancing.

-GS: 3. Base your hope on the face that you are a part of the winning team.

-GS: God gives us (all of us) the victory through Jesus Christ.

-GS: Story of guys who were decoys in a huge battle in ww2. These guys didn’t know that they wouldn’t make it….but they were on the winning team. God knows the role we’ll play.

Session Ten:  Chris Hodges:  Internal Motivations

-CH:  People to Chris, “Man, you’ve got five kids you must really like kids.”  No…I really like my wife…..that may be the problem…

-CH:  I was a professional Christian.  I learned how to get it right on the outside.  I know how to “do this.”

-CH:  There is no substituting of what goes on inside a person.

-CH:  The gospel is not about us doing more and trying harder.  It’s about transformation.

-CH:  if you give behavorial-style communication, don’t forget the underlying foundation of gospel-transformation.

-CH:  It’s human nature to prefer religion.  It’s easier.  Do this, follow that, you’ll get this and that.

-CH:  John 14:  Jesus says if you love me you will do what I command.  ……no.  you you love me…you’ll do what I command…it’s a byproduct.

-CH:  Don’t teach people to be faithful, lead them to become faithful.  That’s a huge difference.

-CH:  Man….I’m a C student from Louisiana…and we’re 50^th in everything anyways….so imagine that!

-CH:  Don’t think about what you are doing think about what you are becoming.

-CH:  2 Scriptures:  Hebrews 8.  We won’t write it on tablets of stone we’ll write it on hearts.

-CH:  Matthew 23.  When Jesus confronted the religious he confronted what was going on inside them.  Look at verse 27.

-CH:  A drowning person doesn’t need to know the greek word for lifesaver…they NEED one.

-CH:  Maintain a healthy inside.  Focus on three internal motivations to monitor.

-CH:  1.  Loving Life.  Enjoy the “now.”  2 Corinthians 6: sorrowful yet rejoicing.  Check your attitude.

-CH:  Do I love life?  Do I love today?

-CH:  2.  Loving People.  I know pastors who love the crowd but hate the person.  They rush out to the green room.

-CH:  “Pastor, I don’t want to bother you…”  Stop right there.  Look, I cashed out, took a 60% paycut to NOT BE LEFT ALONE.

-CH:  If you don’t love people you can’t fake it.  They’ll know it.   1 Thessalonians 2

-CH:  Do I love people?

-CH:  3.  Loving God.  Love vs. being in love.  Do I love the work of the Lord or the Lord of the work?

-CH:  Do I love God?

-CH:  People will give you reasons to not like them.  Love people.  Hate Satan.

-Imagine me being the president. And Jesus appears at my bedside and said “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.” What would I ask for?

– What about you? What would you do if you knew that God had this situation in complete control? How would you react?

-God is inviting us to:  Look at the situations as  invitations to intentionally talk with God about it.

-We looked at Matthew 6:5-13

-Jesus said “when” you pray, not “if” you pray.

-His example of prayer is in the middle of a three-part look at giving, fasting, and praying, three things the American church doesn’t do enough of.

-Jesus isn’t condemning the action of public prayer, just the attitude behind it at times.

-These guys have received their reward.  They’ve basically chosen 50 cents rather than 50,000 dollars.
-heard and approved by man:  50 cents.

-heard and rewarded by God:  50,000 bucks.  (and more)
-How tragic that they would rather hear one of us say “you nailed that prayer.”

– Pagans thought they could manipulate God through repetition.

-God knows what I need before I ask. Then why ask? We are the ones who need it. Shows dependence and an opportunity to share His answers.

-AND: We’re told to. Jesus tells us. God tells us.

-“Our Father”: Indicates an intimacy enjoyed with God by ONLY His children. (Abba)

-“In Heaven”: Sovereignty of God. Indicates transcendence of God. Shows us that He is in control, and although close to us…..He is way above us, and is our way of indicating our respect for Him. This is no Valero-God we can pick up like a Coke.

-“Hallowed Be Your Name”: Literally “may your name be Holy.”

-Make your name more holy to me because I can’t make it more holy.

-“Your Kingdom Come : -May we recognize your reign. May your will be prized here like there.

-GOD: DO YOUR WORK AND DO YOUR THING. Life-change.

-“Your Will Be Done”: -May heaven come to earth.

“Give Us” -Daily physical needs. Shelter/food.
-If God knows what we need then why pray?  Umm…because he said so and you love him.

“Forgive us” We have a debt. Gospel.

-Confession: Forgive us. Biblical confession: Agreeing with God about sin.

-Confession is to see sin as God sees it, with the result being a desire to repent and change.
-If you aren’t willing to work at forgiving others you are playing God and you are in sin.

“We are not bound to trust an enemy; but we are bound to forgive him.” Thomas Watson…..(Body of Divinity, p. 581)

-Can we imagine if God only forgave us as much as we truly forgave others?

-“Lead us” -Temptation: testing…keep us from circumstances that would tempt us to sin.

-“Deliver Us” -Evil or evil one. Depend on Him for deliverance from the evil one.

-Within five years we will either shut the doors or storm the gates. What do you want?

-What will make the difference between us shutting doors and storming the gates of hell?

-PRAYER.

T’was a good day, complete with heavenly sound effects.

Jason

Session Five:  Mark Deymaz:  why you should and how you can build a multi-ethnic church

-MD:  Multi-ethnic must happen if we are to be faithful to the Gospel.  It’s the kingdom on display.

-MD:  If the kingdom is not segregated than why on earth is the church?

-MD:  92.5% at the turn of the 2000’s are segregated.  The rest have an 80/20 split.

-MD:  John 17:  Jesus prayed for us to be one.

-MD:  There is a “hina” clause section:  If they will be one…..there are two guaranteed results.

-MD:  If God had to persecute the church to get them to obey do you think He will spare America?

-MD:  Antoich church staff:  Barnabus from Cyprus, Simeon from Niger, Lucius from Cyrene, Manean from Judea, and  Saul of Tarsus

-MD:  Ephesians:  1:  Unity with the Father  2 Unity with other believers.

-MD:  You don’t need to evangelize the Trinity.

-MD:  It’s not about my preferences it’s about His.

-MD:  Paul died for racial diversity.

-MD:  3 exegetical pillars:  Prayed for by Christ, Explained by Luke/ Prescribed by Paul.

-MD:  This is not an option.

-MD:  How do we build multi-ethic church?

-MD:  You can’t just sit around and pray all day that a different type ethnicity can come into your church and like it.

-MD:  There is a difference between assimilation and accommodation.

-MD:  the homogenous unit is not biblical.  It’s practical.  It works.  But it’s not biblical.

-MD:  Why does the best man for the job look just like you?

7 core commitments

-Embrace Dependence

-Take Intentional Steps

-Empower Diverse Leadership

-Develop Cross-Cultural Relationships

-Pursue Cross-Cultural Competency

-Promote a Spirit of Inclusion

-Mobilize for Impact

For the rest of this week, I’ll be posting my notes from Innovate Church so you can (partially) experience what I had the privilege of experiencing.

Tomorrow, I’ll try to have a double post with a Sunday summary and an IC notes posting.  I will then come to a series I’ve wanted to do on people who have influenced my life.

Onto the notes from Ed Stetzer.

Session Five:  Ed Stetzer:   Secret Sins and Spiritual Power

-ES:  We didn’t go to church, but we were Catholic, and the church we didn’t go to was Catholic.

-Galatians 5:

-ES:  are we living Gospel-centered, repentance filled lives?  Hey we aren’t warlocks or whores, but do we lust after a bigger church or hate our elders or commit adultery in our hearts?  Problem.

-ES:  Sin saps spiritual power and kills the spiritual power of your church.  Names like Swaggert and Bakker and Haggard roll off of our tongues too easily.  Yet the sin that hurt them destroys us….we’re just not as known.  CNN and Fox can speak of them…but how do our neighbors speak of us?

-ES:  If Satan can not compromise our beliefs he is happy to settle for compromising our character….

-ES:  Truth spoken from a compromised life is like looking at a light behind a curtain.

-ES:  Gospel:  something we get over rather than live in.  Now I get to live a good life and try harder.  Wrong.

-ES: Gospel-centered life is cross-centered, responding with quick and ready repentance.  It’s not “think better thoughts….”  It’s think biblical thoughts.

-ES:  This life takes pride from us.  Four principles:

-ES:  Secret sins are only secret for a short time.  It will give rise to death.  Your sin will catch up with you.

-ES:  If you don’t come to repentance, God will bring you to repentance…and in the process will free you from your pride, involuntarily if necessary.

-ES:  Four principles:  1. Sin is not a pet to tame.  It is a beast to slay.

-ES: 2.   Private sin can deliver the community of faith to public defeat.

-ES:  Faith rises to boldness, sin rises to weakness.  Get broken or God will break you.

-ES:  3. The church’s toleration of sin distracts it from the mission it’s called to.

-ES:  When you tolerate sin you aren’t being loving you are being naïve.

-ES:  We have 8000 members at our church, but the FBI can’t locate about 3000 of them on a given Sunday.

-ES:  One of the reasons the American church has been sapped of spiritual power is the unwillingness of her to confront sin.  They don’t practice church discipline.

-ES:  We need to hang out with more sexually immoral people…….the un-Christians.  Not Christian sexual immoral people.

-ES:  Sin will hinder the mission.

-ES:  4.  A return to God’s mission begins with repentance to God’s standard.

-ES:  Francis quoted Piper, so I’m quoting Calvin.  I’ll quote MacArthur and it’ll be 1^st 2^nd and 3^rd John, the three horsemen of the Calvinistic apocalypse.

-ES:  “the human heart is an idol factory.”  John Calvin

-ES:  Sin grows.   It takes you further than you want to go, costs you more than you want to pay, keeps you longer than you want to stay.  ES saw this on Ted Haggard’s page.

-ES:  God is more holy than I can imagine and I am more sinful than I can know.

-ES:  The Christian life isn’t moralism.  Moralism kills the effects of the Gospel.   This Gospel is not something we get over it’s something we live in.

-ES:  If you aren’t preaching the Gospel in every sermon you are teaching people to live by works and not by faith.

HESS:  it is scary to find my total identity in Christ.  That means no more idols.  No more battling unbelief.  Do I really think He is enough?  Acceptance/approval/wanting the stage and finding my identity in that/

Here are some notes from Francis’ talk at the Innovate Church ’09 conference in Lynchburg, Virginia this past week:

-FC:  It’’s hard for me to read the Word not for a message but for me.

-FC:  2 timothy 4:

-FC:I’m not an emergent guy.  I believe in this book!!!

-FC:  We need the Word now more than ever.  PREACH THE WORD!

-FC:  preach the word when it’s not popular.  When it costs you people.

-Hey Francis, who are the guys who you most admire and respect who build into your life?

-His response:  The elders of my church.

-The questioner was stunned.  No megachurch pastors?  No other guys in other cities?

-Francis:  No.

HESS:  Wow.  that’s convicting.  In a deep way.  I am very sorry to Richard, John, and Lee.  I repent.

-Acts 4:13:  ….now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished.  And they recongizned that they had been with Jesus….

-FC:  Funny, now we’ve got more education than ever and more scared bold-less people than ever.

-FC:  People are scared…….and don’t believe they can walk across the street and share the gospel with their neighbor.

-FC:  We need courage, God-centered, God-driven courage.

-FC:  the longer I’m in the church system I get more insecure, not courageous.

HESS:  May it never be of me……..any more.  I can relate to this more than I should or want to admit.

-FC:  as a jr. in high school, I called every sr. I knew and told them about the gospel.

-FC:  as my education grew, my boldness shrank…

-FC:  I deal with insecurity.

HESS:  Wow…..even he deals with it?  This both assures me (I’m not alone) and alarms me (doesn’t matter how big or small the church is….I’ll always have to slay this dragon).

-FC:  We must exegete (pull meaning out of the Scriptures) not isogete (read meaning into the Scriptures)

HESS:  While I’m going to educate myself (by God’s grace), I must never ever replace “being with Jesus” with education.  These guys in the early church were “with Jesus.”

-FC:  I was talking to a mormon….”so the whiter you are the more pure you are?  I’ve got nothing against white people, my wife is butt-white…”

-FC:  Do you mean to tell me you read this book over and over again and would come to the conclusion and say “i need to pray a prayer and ask Jesus into my heart?”

-FC:  What would we come up with if we started with Scripture FIRST?  Sure, read and learn in community.  Sure listen.  But we should do the same things we are asking the cults to do……which is start with Scripture.

-FC:  If I started with Scripture, what would I say is the essence of being a Christian?

-FC:  people who follow Christ should actually……….act like Christ………

-FC:  In all our study, let’s make sure we don’t miss the obvious.

-FC:  Do we need childcare becasue we studied Matthew 25 or because of just us capitulating to culture?

-FC:  If you were trapped on an island and had read about the church for a long time, and then went to one in America, what would you expect to see?

HESS:  I’m afraid the islander would get disappointed and disillusioned.

-FC:  I wasn’t thinking about love in the service, I was thinking about a killer sermon and a great worship team.  WE MUST GO BACK TO SCRIPTURE!

-FC:  What are the things that are most dear to the heart of God?  I must do those things.

-FC:  What about the Holy Spirit.  If you are on an island and read the Bible, what would you walk away with?

-FC:  When someone rises from the grave and tells you something…………..you listen to that person.

-FC:  The early church was unstoppable.  Yet, today’s church is so stoppable.

-FC:  Have we forgotten about the Holy Spirit?

-FC:  Courage comes from knowing God is with you.

-FC:  We loved the stories of courage:  David and Goliath, Daniel and the Lion’s Den, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fire, Elijah and Mt. Carmel:  Where’s your God is he going pee?

-FC:  the prophets of Baal didn’t walk away going, “Elijah is awesome….”  they said, “The Lord He is God!!”  The glory didn’t go to Elijah.  The glory went to God.  When was the last time someone came to your church and left going….Your Jesus?  He is God.  I know now…He’s the real one.

-FC:  My fear:  We can be more like the prophets of Baal than Christ-followers.  We can have great worship “experiences” without worshiping God.

-FC:  Think….He, the Holy Spirit….is in you.  Do we feel silly preaching sermons about the OT guys that we loved as kids because we’re “all grown up” now?  We should return to child-like faith then.

-FC:  I want to be an 85 year old man who thinks he can still take down the giants like he could when he was a kid.

-FC:  Other people want you to live a boring life because they live a boring life and your life is convicting them.

-FC:  Who are the three boldest people on earth post-Jesus?  Peter, John, and Paul.  yet they asked and prayed for boldness (acts 4:29, Ephesians 6).  We need boldness.

-PN:  Are we comfortable inviting people to our church?  If not……..

-PN:  We protest the sins that we aren’t committing but will we protest the ones we commit?  For example, we can protest homosexuality yet more than half of America’s pastors are obese.  Do we protest obesity?

-PN:  The quickest way to be irrelevant is to try to be……….relevant.

-PN:  We get mad at lost people for acting like………lost people?  How stupid is that?

-PN:  Congress, government….they aren’t the true movers and shakers.  The church?  Now that’s what I am going to move through and shake up.

–

-PN:  The world is not afraid to ask for your church’s money why should you be?

-PN:  2.  What are the barriers that stand in our way?  Some people don’t want the church to grow….and they are in the church!!

-PN:  Here’s how you know you have a vision for God…..you’ll make people mad.

-PN:  I’ve never met an atheist or agnostic I don’t like…but there are some Christians………

-PN:  The church is a body.  If you close the back door………you will have some problems…….and we’ve got some constipated churches!!!

-PN:  The older brother was disrespectful.  “Look you” is not a term of endearment.

-PN:  Kneel before the cross and tell the world:  there’s room for you too!

-PN:  The older brother refused to change.

-PN:  The church must be willing to change. Acts 1: 120 people.  By Acts 3:  3000 plus.

-PN:  The older brother was jealous.  So to contrast that:  Celebrate other churchs’ success.

-PN:  Rick Warren:  “You don’t count numbers?  Do you count the offering?”  Numbers matter.

-PN:  When you discredit others you will take credit for yourself.  Get ready for God’s hand to go away.

-PN:  The older brother didn’t understand what he had access to.

-PN:  Same God, same power.  Do we understand that?  When we make church growth a formula, we are telling God we don’t need Him.

-PN:  We can prepare for a move of God, but we can’t plan it.

-PN:  3.  What do we want to celebrate?

-PN:  The older brother worked for the father not with the father.  Huge difference.

-PN:  People don’t care about reaching people, but protecting what’s already been done.

-PN:  the problem with a lot of conferences.  Too much “inspiration” and not enough revelation.

-PN:  If you don’t have a vision you are not a leader.

-PN:  The only way we get a vision is to spend time on our face and in the Word.

-PN:  We need less religious professionals and more men submissive to God’s Spirit.  We spend too much time wrestling with church folk and not enough with God.

-PN:  Another word:  effort. The father threw a party…which took effort.

-PN:  “That music’s too loud”  Well, you are going to hate heaven.

-PN:  When is Jesus coming back?  I don’t know.  Neither does Jesus, He’s too busy reading the Left Behind series!!

-PN:  Regular Saturday night “Sermon” specials dishonor the call of God on our lives.  We must put the effort into it.

-PN:  Sunday morning should be the best hour of the week.  (JH:  In our case…85 minutes:) )

-PN:  The church won’t reach people if deacons argue over 100 vs. 50 watt light bulbs.  Vegas reaches more people than the church, yet we have a God who can provide.

-PN:  If it’s God’s will it’s God’s bill.

-PN:  The problem is that the American church; They stick the kids in the basement with a woman who knew Moses.

-PN:  The only people who get mad on a sermon about giving are the God-robbers.