The Resolved Church is a Church Plant (3 Parts)
July 21, 2007 12:15 pm Sermon-Series, Mark, Sermon-TextsA three part sermon series addressing the story of The Resolved Church, what it means to be a church plant, how a church plant happens and what the vision and goal of The Resolved Church is. The first sermon is titled “A Man, a Mission, and Calling.” The second sermon, “The Resolved Church Must Die” and the third sermon, “The Resolved Church Must Live,” work with Mark 8:24-38 as they relate to the gospel and being a church plant. These sermons were originally preached in July of 2007 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.
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THE RESOLVED CHURCH IS A CHURCH PLANT SERIES (3 PARTS)
THE RESOLVED CHURCH IS A CHURCH PLANT SERIES - PART I
:: The Resolved Church :: July 1st, 2007 :: Pastor Duane M. Smets
A Man, a Mission, and a Calling
(various texts)
Introduction
What I want to do today is share my personal story. I have never done here at this church because I am sensitive to our general overemphasis on personal experience and I want God’s Word to be the chief determiner and foundation for what we believe.
So let’s begin with Scripture, because if there is not a framework in Scripture to support what me doing such a thing in telling you my story…than it really is meaningless. Everyone has their story and thinks that just because it is a story and it is their story then it is right, but that’s not true.
Let’s look at 3 scriptures. Romans 1:1 “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.” Throughout Bible God sends a dude. Noah, Abraham, Isacc, Jacob, Samuel, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, the other prophets, John the baptist, Jesus, the twelve disciples, and Paul. That’s how he works…he sends a dude.
Notice the word “called” Here in Romans 1:1. In the book of Acts we read about Paul’s story. In that story Paul receives an visible and audible calling. The other twelves disciples also had physical and audible “calls.” We don’t know about Old Testament prophets and leaders whether they had audible callings or not (Samuel did and Jacob had a dream). But regardless the point is that there is a calling which happens.
And this is important and very relevant for your life. What are you going to do or be. “Callling” is the biblical paradigm. It is not what will make you money and what will make you happy. That is not the paradigm for who you are and what you are supposed to do in this world. What you are called to do is the question. You’ve got to figure that out.
Listen to Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” You see God is the designer. He is the uncaused cause of all things (cosmological argument) and he designed everything intricately woven together in his universe so that it all works in unison in an amazing way. My baby Adina Rain who is growing inside my wife…there is a calling on her life. There are callings of all types…doctors, plumbers, computer techs, and preachers. And there is a calling to lead a mission. That’s Jeremiah here. And that’s me too. I’ll share that in a minute.
One more Scripture first, Colossians 4:17 “See that you fulfill the ministry that you have received in the Lord.” Once you have a calling there is a responsibility. And there are two sides to this: one, if you are called to the ministry you can’t do anything else (like Jonah in the Bible, you can’t run away from it) and it breeds a commitment in you which perseveres through waned passion and failure. You turn out like metal forged in the fire. The other side is that if you are not called to do a particular thing and it is just something you want to do, you will never be able to do it and will be miserable the whole time.
Okay, so since we can see that having a calling and story and a responsibility before God is something the Bible endorses, I think I am safe ground to tell you my story. I don’t like talking about myself…my goal is always to elevate God and His Word. So my hope is that in telling you some of the things that have formed me that you would not think about me being something great but would think about your own life and what God may be calling you to and that you would be excited about serving him in your life.
Body
My dad is an evangelist. For over 30 years now he has been driving and driving and driving. Going all over the US and Canada to preach at different churches. This is how I grew up. I would be in school for 3-4 week and gone for a month to month and a half while we were on the road. My mom would get my school work from my teachers and we would do school while on on the road. Being in the car that much time is what made me a good reader, because there was nothing to do, so I just read anything I could get my hands on. In 4th grade began to hate it. I just wanted to play school sports and be normal.
I finally convinced my parents to let me go to public school in 7th grade and start staying with friends of the familiy while they were gone. At first I was excited to be in public school and thought I would be this little evangelist and tell everyone about Jesus and it would be awesome. But I soon found out that it wasn’t cool to carry your Bible around everywhere. J So I quit doing that and started getting into fights. My freshman year of high school I smoked weed for the first time. And my life just took a turn and I started just doing my own thing.
God wasn’t even an issue for me. I got into skateboarding and snowboarding. I would do anything to be accepted. Life at home started to suck. I felt like God was shoved down my throat. I would cuss out my parents, get into physical fights with my dad, fights with kids at school. Anger just welled in me. By the end of my senior year in high school I started dealing drugs.
Things were getting intense. I started doing acid and other drugs. Things started freaking me out. I was seeing demons. I was snowboarding all the time and wanted to go pro. The truth is I wasn’t good enough. A sponser convinced me to go to college because I had good grades. So I looked up surfing and snowboarding schools and ended up at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego because I could live in a dorm that was right on the water and my parents were cool paying for it since the place was a Christian school.
Then something happened toward the end of my senior year. I have a sister who is 4 years younger and she started getting in trouble. One night I was home and she and my parents had been in a fight and my parents turned to me and asked me what I thought they should do. I thought it was ridiculous that they were asking me, and when my mom asked why…I just decided to tell them all about my life. Until that point I had always been afraid of what would happen if my parents found I was a drug addict. But neither of them yelled at me at all…they just cried and told me they loved me.
I felt so bad I told them I would go to counseling or rehab. So I did. When I was done me and my friends bought an ounce and went camping. But there was the beginnings…the beginnings of the gospel preparing to take root in me.
So I went away to school at Point Loma and I met some guys who were smart, had fun, were interested in the thigns I was interested in, and they loved Jesus. I had been pretty internally torn up and knew my heart was a mess. So one night all by myself at like two in the morning I prayed and ask Jesus to do whatever it was he was supposed to do. And something happened in me that night. Overnight I quit everything that was supposed to be bad and started reading the Bible, which eventually just made me proud…but it was good during that time.
At first I was a graphic design major at Point Loma and in my second semester of first year in art classes and began to realize my life was not mine. I began to think I was wasting time. I was reading my Bible and seeing that life is about what God calls you to. And I began to wrestle. I didn’t know what to think, I didn’t want to be my dad, preahers are weird…so I decided I was going to figure that out and that the way I would do that is fast and pray. So I didn’t eat for five days and at the end I went out to these cliffs that overlook the water and I expected God to visible manifest himself to me. I kept waiting for a burning bush or something…but it never happened. J What did happen is these two words that kep pounded in my head, “trust me.” So I changed major to religion and began to start learning Greek, so I could read the Bible. And when some of my friends and parents friends starting hearing about what was going on with me I started getting all these speaking engagements, where people would want me to come talk about God and my life.
The first time I ever preached was the summer of 1997. It’s been ten years now. I was the most horrible sermon you ever heard. But even from that first sermon God began to show me my heart and desire to be an evangelist, someone who brings people to the Jesus. My next year in school I met amy, which was just about as good as getting to know Jesus. J After 2 years of speaking engagements I decided to settle down a little bit and became the youth pastor of the San Diego Foursquare Church.
I started to figure out that the religion department at PLNU was kind of whack because I was trying to teach my youth group kids about jesus and my professors are telling me that doesn’t matter. I found out that most the religion professors there are pluralists open theists. So I figured I better go on and get some more training in the Bible, since most of my education at PLNU was in philosophy.
So I went to L.I.F.E. Bible College in San Dimas, CA. But I soon found out they were a little weird there because they wanted me to speak in tongues all the time. The positive thing was I got to take a class on nearly every book of the Bible and not all the professors were crazy.
In 2001 I got married to the hottest girl I had ever got to go out with me. Amy has been an amazing support as long as I have known her. When I was a youth pastor and she moved an hour and half after the first year, she drove down each week for youth group for an entire you. When I was a college pastor we literally lived at the church in an apartment that was connected to the building. Now I am a church planter and has stood by side and is now having my children as we seek to plant our feet in this city. Amy is a Godly woman and comes from a Godly family.
After my time at the Pentecostal Bible college I learned that one’s experience cannot be the ground of what is true and became interested in apologetics. So I went to one of the top schools in the world for apologetics, Talbot School of Theology and did a M.A. in theology and became a college pastor at the same time. I wrote my master’s thesis on the NT Evangelist because I figured I better find out what that is if that is what I was ultimately supposed to do with my life.
In 2004 I had been a college pastor for two yeasrs and Amy and I decided to take break from ministry and began to think about planting a chuch. I read a book by a named Mark Driscoll, heard about the Acts 29 Movement and that they wanted to plant a church in PB. So after a few nearly a year of preparation and planning I said we would move back down to San Diego and start a Bible study and see what happened.
That was in April of 2005, 2 years ago. I started the church with a friend from seminary named Justin Bragg. Part of the requirements to become part of Acts 29 was going to a bootcamp and personal interview. There we met two guys who were thinking about starting a church as well. They were not quite ready so we invited them to come help us out. One of the guys was married, and so we let them live with us for awhile until the guy had an affair and denied his faith. I tried to reach out with gospel which was returned with lies about me and my wife and a pretty serious death threat.
In the beginning we thought we were going to start the perfect church. Everybody else had been doing it wrong and we were going to do it right! We’re excited about mission and making friends with non-Christians so we could introduce them to Jesus. But somehow “mission” got turned into puking for Jesus, people doing drugs, sleeping with people they were not married to…it was a mess. It was not the gospel. And it took a year and half to weed that junk out. Recently I told a pastor friend of mine that we basically just started over this January. So in many ways you are part of a brand new church.
Here is my confession. It is easy to point the finger at other people and all the things that have gone wrong. It is much harder to point the finger at myself and my sin of not leading. God has called me to be a leader and not leading strongly is rebellion against God. It is a gospel heart issue that God has been dealing with me about.
Now I am here and I am leading this charge and my plea is for you to follow me. I don’t hesitate to say that now. In 1 Corinthians end of 10 & 11:1 Pauls says, “I do not seek my own advantage but that of many that they may be saved, follow me as I follow Christ.” I will be 29 yeasr old next month. My first chlid is on the way. Build a familiy with me. In the past I have had a false humility. A pride in my education. But today I stand before you humbly. Billy Graham once said this, “humily is strong, not bold. Quiet not speechless, sure not arrogant. Humility is not denying the power you have it is realizing that the power come through you not from you.” I am nothing but God’s. I am just God’s called messenger.
I am a man on a mission. I have a calling to fulfill before the Lord. I believe God has called me to plant The Resolved Church. I mean it. This church is my life and I am giving my sweat and my tears for it. I will do whatever it takes to see it succeed…to see a church that is built on the gospel that is going to reach souls for Jesus.
Here is my goal. Number 1, build a church for my family. Number 2, to build a church that is about God’s glory and his gospel and souls. Number 3, to revolutionize a city. Number 4, to turn the world up-side down. How are we going to do that? It starts with each one of you. With your participation in the gospel. I will happen not with a see what happens attitude but I will do this attitude. Being part of Jesus’ church is what we need. We need humble repentence and we need to follow Christ with our whole hearts with him as our whole hope.
Conclusion
Here are some plans. We want to be a church planting church. That begins with people coming to the gospel. We have some friends up in Northern California who helped start this church and they want to do it again. Each one of us needs to keep working and to work hard at building this church, The Resolved. I want to challenge you to take this summer and think and pray about who you are, what your story is, what God’s calling you to, what the things are holding you back, and then make some resolves. Perhaps you are called to the ministry…Have you ever wondered?
We are The Resolved Church. In 1 Corinthians 2:2, Paul said, “I resolved to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” We need to be a resolved people. Resolved to have the gospel take root. Resolved to have the gospel change us. Resolved to repent. Resolved to follow Jesus and to plant his church in this city.
Let’s pray.
THE RESOLVED CHURCH IS A CHURCH PLANT SERIES - PART II
:: The Resolved Church :: July 15th, 2007 :: Pastor Duane M. Smets
“The Resolved Church Must Die”
A Theology of our Hearts
Mark 8:34-38
Mark 8:34-38
34 And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? 37 For what can a man give in return for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
Introduction
Read text and pray. Father God this is your book, Jesus this are your words, we are here today as your people and have come to worship you and ask that by your Spirit you might learn from this passage of Scripture, be affected deep in our hearts by it, and be caught up into action for the sake of Jesus and his gospel as we await his coming. Amen.
Here’s what going on to try and catch all of you up. It’s summer so that means vacations, and travel, and school is out, and that often means missing Sundays. And that is okay, I’m not complaining (too much). God rested on the seventh day to teach us about rest, Jesus modeled that principle as well by frequently going away into the mountains to get away, and so I believe God likes and loves vacations. It is just hard if you are a new church plant because you start to feel like some kind of freakish cult when there’s like 15 people here. So I promise you we are not, I’m not going to start drinking blood and playing with snakes or anything. J
So, here is the deal. Three weeks ago I finished our fifth and final sermon of the “No Condemnation in Christ” series looking at Romans 8:1-4. Then the next week, I did something I really don’t like doing anymore but I shared my personal life story and some of the experieniential aspects of why I believe God has called us to start The Resolved Church here in San Diego. Then last week my good friend Bobby Key, came and preached for me because I was out of town doing a wedding. I listened to his sermon online on Monday and was pleased to hear that God used him to minister to many of you in a deep way. That brings us to today and here is what is up with the next few weeks.
I’m going to take two more weeks off of Romans before we return and start the next series called “Walking According to The Spirit.” Today, I want to preach a sermon about death and us dying and Jesus from the gospel of Mark. So it should be a really exciting and happy day today. J Then next week we might do something really crazy and preach from a passage in the Old Testament, maybe. There are a few reasons I want to take two more weeks before we go back to Romans. One is, God has been doing some deep work in my heart that I just cannot ignore because it not only has to do with me but all of us and who we are as a church. The other reason is because we are approaching a critical stage in the life of our church.
Two weeks ago I wrote this for our weekly church email (we sent it out again this week just because I wanted to make sure all of you got a chance to read it). Here is part of what I said,
“The Resolved Church is really in a do or die spot. We must grow or we will perish and I don’t mean that lightly. The reality is at this point in time The Resolved Church will not continue if I am not its pastor and for me to continue being our pastor we must grow numerically for a few reasons. One, I will die inside if souls are not saved. My heart is to see souls be saved and God has not called me to just start a cool church, he has called me to create a strong refuge in the city of San Diego where sinners may run into its safety and be saved by Jesus our Lord. Two, I believe we are in danger of becoming like those people in Isaiah 6:9-11 who God said would get fat hearts by hearing and knowing the word of God but never putting it into practice to the point where God destroys the city. The city that has begun in The Resolved Church and the city I dream will become a strong city within the city of San Diego, will be removed by God if we are not living lives that are pleasing to God and lives that are winning souls into God’s kingdom. The simple truth is you get good teaching at The Resolved Church, I make sure of that. But we are in danger of getting fat on it. Three, our money will run out. Gary Warkentin, my father in law, who is The Resolved Church’s financial administrator, told me that for the past few months we have been between $400 and $500 dollars below budget. At the end of June, our church bank account had about $13,000 dollars left in it but if we consistently have to dip into those funds then money will eventually run out and we will have to close our doors. I say that not to scare you but to hopefully spark the fire that is in me in you. It is a fire that will do anything short of selling out on the gospel to make this church plant happen.”
So today I decided to title my sermon “The Resolved Church Must Die.” What do I mean? Here is how I want to answer that. First, we need to do some work with this text in Mark so that we make sure that it is God and his Word and Jesus teaching that is driving us and not our own clever ideas. Second, there is a connection with what Jesus says here and an overall theme in the Bible concerning our hearts even though Jesus doesn’t use the word “heart” here. And then third, I want to talk openly and honestly and practically about what that means for each of individually and together for this church.
Exegeting Mark 8:24-38
Okay, so let’s look at some stuff in Mark 8. Here is what is going on in the book of Mark. Mark was the first gospel, the first compilement of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. It is also the shortest and is action packed. Mark’s favorite word other than Jesus is “immediately.” First this happens then that, then Jesus says this and then he does that. It is one of those page turning books if you sit down and read it from start to finish.
Here’s where we’re at in the book in Mark 8. It’s a little more than half-way through the book chapter wise but it is toward the end of Jesus life story wise. Jesus has just performed this crazy miracle where there are like 4,000 men plus their women and children, so probably easily over 10,000 people, that’s almost the size of the Sports Arena. And Jesus takes seven loaves of bread and three fish and somehow gets all these people to bring these empty baskets to him and he prays a prayer and when he is done praying all the baskets are full of bread and fish. And so everybody eats and when he is done there are 7 baskets full still filled with food.
After that, the crowd is pretty hyped up about Jesus and are following him around. Jesus performs another miracle healing this blind dude and then I suppose Jesus figures he needs to thin the crowd out or something because he calls them together and he gets real serious and begins to tell everyone that he is going to suffer and die and then three days later rise again and he tells them what that means for people if they want to follow him. And that is where we pick up the story.
Read verse 34. Let’s look at that phrase “deny himself.” It doesn’t mean only men here. The possessive “self” here is not meant to be gender specific but to probe at one’s individual identity. So the question is what is Jesus getting at?
Back then they did not have this highly developed and generally accepted psychological system like we do today of “self” like we do today. Today we have: self-actualization, self-awareness, self-concept, self-disclosure, self-efficacy, self-esteem, self-harm, self-help, self-image, self-monitoring, self-realization, self-talk and a whole host of other jargon constructed to aid our humanist attempts to try and understand the human person apart from God.
For the first century person, the “self” was highly connected to who one’s family is. What their heritage was, who their parents parents, what country they were from, what their family’s religious background was. So Jesus was doing something quite radical in challenging the individual person.
This word “deny” is an interesting word translated from haparneiomai in Greek. It means reject or disown. After Jesus died and rose again and the church got started many people started becoming Christians and that was such a radical deparature from their family’s beliefs and heritages that many Jewish families would try and manipulate and control their children and they would hold funerals for their family members if they became Christian as if to say, if you follow Jesus then you are dead to me.
Speaking to such situations Jesus says, in a passage in the gospel of Luke that if anyone wants to follow him they must be willing to leave their father and mother and brothers and sisters behind. If anyone wants to follow him, wants to be a Christian, they must “deny themselves.” Would you be willing to leave your family for Jesus?
And we are a whole step removed from that because most of us don’t even value our families too much in our culture. Rebellion against your family’s wishes and values is almost cherished as virtue. Romeo and Juliet are our heroes and parents are just seen as old and ignorant. When we think of who we are and our identity we most often do not think of our families do we? We think about our jobs or our musical tastes or our clothing style or our bank accounts.
Jesus knew that. Jesus knows and understands our rebellious hearts and so he takes it a step further and clarifies what he means by “deny.” “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Take up his cross. There is a picture for you. A cross. Death. We don’t have a universal picture for death like they did in the first century with a cross. Maybe an electric chair or a gun but that just doesn’t quite cut it. A cross is such a vivid illustration of suffering and death. Essentially Jesus is saying here if you want to follow me you are going to have to die.
Did he just mean physical death, like how a lot of the early Christians were tortured and killed for being Christians? Well, maybe, I think that is certainly included and we’re going to talk a ton about suffering when we get into the latter half of Romans 8. But I think Jesus means more than just physical suffering here. I think he means the heart behind it. Let’s read verse 35-37, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul?”
You see, Jesus is talking about life and one’s view of it and what one pursues in it. What is your life about? What do you pursue? We could spend a whole ton of time here. What it means to try and save your life but lose it…what it means to lose your life but save it. We’ll come back to that because I want to talk about the “soul” for a minute.
A Theology of our Hearts
“Soul” in Greek is Psyuche. It is where we get the word psychology from. Modern psychology only showed up about 60 years ago after Freud and Carl Rogers began to captilize on this word which now dominates the scene. Before that it was pastors who people went to for the care of their soul. Today everyone goes to a psychologist or a psychiatrist. Jesus, here is the chief psychologist, the chief counselor. Isaiah 9:6 calls him the “wonderful counselor.” And here we see him at his best. Jesus asks us, “What can one give in exchange for his soul?”
My second point and subtitle for my sermon is “A Theology of our Hearts.” There’s a few reasons for that. One, I already said is that I think Jesus is trying to get at the issue of our hearts here. Two, is the word itself. Often times the Hebrew word for heart, Leb (Leh-v), gets translated as soul, because the soul has to do with one’s very being, the inner drive and identity of a man from which the whole of his moral life springs from. That’s why Jesus said the greatest commandment, the commandment behind all the commandments, is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength (Mk 12:30).
The third reason, I want talk about a theology of the heart is because Bobby hit on it last week, and there is a connection between what he said and what I am saying today. Listen to Ephesians 4:17-18, the text he preached on, “Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.” I think here in Ephesians, Paul is saying the exact same thing as Jesus, that trying to save your own life, is living life apart from God, in which you forfeit your soul because it is hard.” That is the danger.
Here is the deal, all through the Bible there is a theme that everything is about our hearts not loving God before and above everything else. Jeremiah 17:9 says “the heart is decietful and wicked above all things.” Think about it with me. We lie because our hearts thinks that if we do so we will get ahead somehow or to cover something up. We get anxious or angry because our hearts want to be in control and want things to go a certain way because we know what is best. This is a deceptive one. We may be harsh and rude and it is because we are resentful and not loving because our heart things have not gone right and we have somehow been wronged.
Or it can be much sneakier. I might be able to use some big words and be very passionate in moments but then secretly get in my car and in my head be muttering and gritting my teeth and cussing up a storm. Did I win by not saying anything. No. I’ve got a jacked heart.
Or how about the opposite. Some people are just tempermentally sweathearts and seem very non-judgmental, very tolerant and accepting, but that has nothing to do with loving God, it is because they have no self-control in their own life, are always breaking promises, and have not real peace or joy that does not sprong from their own misgivings. Worry is a big one. Why do we worry? It is because we don’t love God. Humility, a heart that loves God really believes He knows what we nedd. Anxiety and worry is arrogance because we think we are sure of what must happen for our joy.
I’ve been listening to a preacher lately named Tim Keller, he is the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian church in New York City and some of these things I’ve been saying are things I’ve just stolen from him because I can’t say it much better. He said something in one of his sermons that hit me hard and I can’t stop thinking about it. So let me quote him directly, he said, “The main problems in our lives are the things we want too much, that we want more than Jesus (repeat).” Proverbs 4:23 says, “Guard your heart for out of it flow the issues of life.” Let me just stop and ask you, how is your heart?
Dying to Live
This is the deal. Let’s talk about “Dying to Live.” It sounds like an old Aerosmith or Bon Jovi song. J Dying to live, the Bible’s perspective is that the only hope for our hearts is Jesus, for him to save us, everthing else is us just trying to save ourselves by letting our wicked hearts lead us all over the place. The Bible’s perspective is that our old, bad, hard, heart has to die and Jesus has to take it out and change it and transform it by killing it and giving us his heart.
Listen to Ezekiel chapter 36. In it God prophesies about how he will act in the future and show himself as God and save the people, he referring to Jesus, and he says, ” I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes…and I will be your God (Ez 36:26-28).” This is the key issue. Whether we are going to let Jesus be Lord of lives, be our God or not. Martin Luther said as we have before that all sins are a breaking of the first of the Ten Commandments, “Thou shall have no other gods before me” because every sin is a sin of our hearts valuing something or someone else as god in our lives, it is all connected.
Paul, in Romans said the same thing, he said our hearts have to be circumcised, cut open, and that one can truly know God is inwardly by the heart that embraces Jesus (Rom 2:28-29). Let me explain this to you. The default mode of the human heart, is religion, self-salvation. Religion, self-salvation, says I obey therefore I am accepted, so you and your wicked heart keeps control. No one can ask you to do anything. You do what you want when you want to. And if it doesn’t work you have the right to feel hurt and mad. The gospel of Jesus says you are accepted and therefore you obey and your heart belongs to God and you do anything he asks because it is the only for for true hope and joy. Your life become his and his to direct and you get the joy of having him work in you and you trust him for everything.
Let’s go back to Jesus and our text in Mark 8. I said we come back to it. So let’s listen to Jesus again. “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul?” We have got to die. We have got to give away our life. We have to lay down and surrender and give everything to Jesus for his and his gospel’s sake.
The gospel of Jesus Christ says he died for us so that we might truly die to self and receive new and perfect life from him. The gospel says the punishment for our wicked hearts was dealt with by Jesus on the cross and because he did it now there is hope for us. We do not have to suffer the eternal consequences of hell nor the present experiences of failure. The gospel freely admits that I can’t do it. But Jesus can and did and because of him there is hope because he promises to impart that to us if we turn to him.
Dying to live. I’ve been asking myself this question. How do I die to self so that I might live. I’ve really been taking this to heart. I began to ask myself, if it is true that “the main problems in our lives are the things we want too much, that we want more than Jesus” and if it is true that’s a heart issue, then what is are the things that bother me most and why. And here is what I came up with. See how deceptively and wickedly the heart works…
You know the think that frustrates me most, the thing that gets me more worried, more angry when it does go right, more sad when when it fails? This church. The Resolved Church. Here is the thing, this church is my life, my identity is so caught up with it. I have put my heart and soul into this thing. I wrote the doctrinal statement, I designed the look and the feel of this place, those who are here and who are with us are those I have reached out to and discipled and preached to. I, I, I. My problem isn’t that I don’t like church, it that I love it. I love it too much. The Resolved Church in many ways has become my God.
When I realized that I was horrified. What do I do? Does that mean we quit? I think it means this, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” I think it means The Resolved Church has to die in my heart, where it’s success is the basis of my love and approval with God. It means I have to die to anything that I want more than I want Jesus himself.
What do you need to die to in your personal life? How about in regards to this church? I think what God has been teaching me means something for all of you as well. Church is people. That’s you. The Resolved Church, every one of us must die to this thing. We have to let this church go as our home, our solution, or our preference. The only hope for our lives and for this city is the gospel of Jesus Christ, not the perfect church. I think that means that each of us have to die everything this church is to us that is not a love for Jesus. He must be front and center. And Jesus asks for everything. “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
Here is the picture. Heaven is real. Hell is real. Eternity is at stake. And Jesus is coming back. He is all about his gospel and it is our only hope for soon one day he will return, not dressed in peasants clothes but in the full array of his divine kingship. The book of Revelation says that when Jesus comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels he will be dressed in a bright shining white robe with edges dipped in blood. He will come on the clouds riding a white horse and there will be peals of thunder and he will have a shining sword and he will call for his church and all those who have truly loved him will be caught up with him, and we will watch him as he creates a whole new heavens and earth.
That is what is coming. And it may not be far off. Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is at hand. When you’re God two-thousand years must not seem like a long time. The time is drawing near and Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever…he is still all about the sake of the gospel and how we treasure it and spread it through his church. Jesus is all about his church and he is all about this one if we will have him as first in our lives, otherwise he will kill it with the quickness of his hand.
Application
I began this sermon reading you part of my letter to us as a church and telling you about what kind of season I believe we are in. I believe Jesus wants The Resolved Church, what I see happening is what has needed to happen, him come and take his rightful place in the throne of our hearts. He is doing that in my heart and I have heard some great stories lately of what he has been doing in yours.
For The Resolved Church to continue and to grow healthy and strong we will have to die to self. The Resolved Church must die. Whether that means dying to your job, your kids, your husband or your wife, your boyfriend or girlfriend or your desire for one, or all your plans or your future…it means everything. We are going to have to sacrifice everything for Jesus and the sake of his gospel.
Here is what I am calling for. I concluded my journal entry by saying this, “Here is what I am calling us to do. One, each person of The Resolved Church needs to take it a little more seriously. I need for each of you to pray and to try and think of one thing, that you personally can do, to improve the strength and stability of our church. Two, I want each person to try and think of one person or one family you would call or meet with and tell them about our church and ask them to come over and try and help us build this thing and get it off the ground. If they are already involved in another church or are kind of sketched, ask them to commit until December and if after then they are not into it then cool, no worries and they will have hopefully got some good experience in being a part of a church plant and maybe even helped it to really reach a point of stability. Three, I want you to really pray. Pray for souls and partners and money. Be telling people about Jesus and inviting them over to dinner to do so. Please call each person you know who is a Christian, whether it is a family member or a friend and share with them about our church and ask them to regularly pray for us and maybe even partner with us financially. And if you are not giving yourself, start. Four, follow me. I say that with all the true humility that I can muster. I am attempting to lead an example of gospel heart repentance. I am calling you to follow me in that. My heart is more consumed with love and passion for Christ than it ever has been before and I do not hesitate to say as Paul, follow me as I follow Christ.
I love you all and believe if we as a group truly lay down ourselves before the foot of Jesus’ cross and desire him and his church more than anything else then we will see him work in a way we never truly dreamed possible.
For the sake of the gospel,
- Pastor Duane
Let’s pray.
THE RESOLVED CHURCH IS A CHURCH PLANT SERIES - PART III
:: The Resolved Church :: July 21st, 2007 :: Pastor Duane M. Smets
“The Resolved Church Must Live”
A Theology of Mission
Mark 8:35
Mark 8:35
35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.
I. The Missio Dei - Glory Driven
II. Jesus Centric - Gospel Centered
III. Cultural Incarnation & Transformation - City withn the City
Introduction
Read text and pray. God your Word is a precious gift. As you have breathed air into this world so that we might have oxygen and live, so you have breathed life into these words that by them we might truly live. Descend today in these moments in a way that we as a group and as individuals might grasp who you are what you are about. Amen.
Good morning. Last week, I preached an important sermon for us as a church called “The Resovled Church Must Die: A Theology of our Hearts.” Today the title of my sermon is “The Resolved Church Must Live: A Theology of Mission.” We are in a critical stage of this church plant where we will either become a true and lasting expression of Jesus’ church or whether we will become a failed attempt at that.
I do not believe God intends for us to fail, but that is dependent upon each of us dying to self and having Jesus as our all. If that happens then we will as the Psalmist says, “Not die but live and proclaim what the Lord has done (Ps. 118:17).” That is what today’s sermon is about, how we will live.
There is a life Jesus intends. He says here that whoever loses his life will save it. If you lose your life you will live. How? Jesus says here it is by losing it to him and his mission, the gospel. “Whoever loses his life for my sake and for the gospel’s will save it.” This is a big claim. Jesus says everything is about him and the gospel. In the very beginning of this book, The Gospel of Mark, Jesus shows up on the scene in the first chapter and the very first thing Jesus says is, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the gospel.” Huge, huge claim. The time is fulfilled, all of history is about the time of Jesus, he comes, announces himself and says everything, all of life is about him. Losing life for Jesus and the sake of the gospel.
What I want to do today is look at how this purpose of Jesus begins with God himself, how it spans all of Scripture, and then works itself out in cultures and cities.
The Missio Dei - Glory Driven
The Missio Dei. Missio Dei is Latin for Mission of God. If there is a God then what is he about, what is his mission. Here is the answer, himself. God is all about himself. He is the most self-centered, self-focused, self-enthralled, being in all of existence and that is a wonderful truth to us. This is wonderful for two reasons.
One, if any of this stuff ever came from somewhere, and I think it did, whether it came about in an instant in a big bang or over billions of years, it had to come from somewhere, it had to be started by something, God. And to make such an elegant, beautiful, complex, design-saturated, colorful, organic, living and breathing world exist you really are quite an incredible being and it is the most right thing of all for you to be all about yourself. You see we know it is wrong to be self-centered and self-enthralled for us, because we suck. I’m not that cool. I cannot make color. I cannot create math. And on top of it I am a moral failure. It is the most right thing for God to be all about himself. One who is perfect and exceeding in every regard.
The second reason this is a wonderful truth to us is because it tells us that life is not about us. That is good for us to know. Your life is not about you. Your life is worthless and meaningless and bankrupt and sad and angry and a wreck when you make it about you. We were not made for ourselves, we were made for something greater. You were not made for you. You were made for God. And if you can get ahold of that and lay down your life and lose it. Then your life will begin to be about something great, something greater than you ever dreamed imaginable.
So the Mission of God. Let me give you a Scripture. We have Jesus here in Mark saying everything was about him and Jesus was pretty clear about him being God, but we’ll get to that later. Right now let’s back up a little bit and hit up the Old Testament. That’s those Dead Sea Scrolls that are on display at the Museum here in San Diego. This is Isaiah 43:6-7, “I will bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”
Hear those words, sons and daughters, people from everywhere among the earth, were created for God’s glory. God is a God about mission. He is on a mission of calling and drawing people to himself. He began this in the garden of Eden, with the first man and woman, when he called them, “where are you.” Then he called, Noah, and Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Samuel and Esther, and Ruth and David and the prophets and a whole host of people. And he is still doing that today. He is calling each one of us unto himself. He is calling you and I. A people whom he formed and made for himself.
You see, the human heart is made for one great and grand object, God himself. And anything less than that is idolatry. Our problems are not just bad habits or flaws or us being the victims but they are always because we have something on the throne of our heart other than God. And we continually fall into this idolatry. This is what I said last week, that anything where you are not finding joy, where you are unhappy about something, you will find idolatry in your heart. Wherever or whatever the thing is you want or think you need that you are not getting…that thing is your god. The problem of our heart is that we want to be God ourselves, but we are not. There is only one.
The book of Isaiah continues a few verses later, “…may you know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed nor shall there be any after me. I, I am the LORD, and besides me there is no savior (Is 43:10-11).” God is about himself and he calls us to himself and designs us to call others to himself. For him humanity was made.
That is where we begin. We began this church a little over two years ago with the first and foremost concern of ours being that this would be a church about God and his glory. Those two words up there on that banner, “glory driven” mean a lot, they carry a lot of weight behind them. They characterize our motivation in our ministry, not to act out of guilt or to abuse grace but cherish God’s glory first (some of you haven’t gotten that yet).
This church is about God and he is our motivation for everything. It is our desire and drive and chief endeavor to be encapsulated with him. So the first answer, to how we will live, how we lose our life to save it, is by realizing that our life is about God and his mission to glorify himself. So our life will only have any meaning, any hope, any answers and any true joy if we are caught up with him and his mission. God calls us to his mission.
Jesus Centric - Gospel Centered
My second point for this morning is “Jesus Centric - Gospel Centered.” By “centric” I just mean center. We get that very clearly in Jesus words here from Mark. “Whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” Let’s talk about the centrality of Jesus and then we’ll talk about his centrality in our mission, the gospel’s sake.
All of this book is about Jesus. From beginning to end. Jesus. At the end of the Gospel of Luke. there are two guys who are taking a trip to a place called Emmaus from Jerusalem. About seven miles, so probably like half a day’s journey or something. They are walking and talking as the cruise down the road and they hook up with this guy who starts walking with them and he asks them what they’re talking about. And so they start telling the guy about Jesus and how he died on the cross in Jerusalem and how he was buried in a tomb but now the tomb is empty and it is this crazy mess and now no one knows what to think.
Then the guy starts talking to them and he says, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself (Lk 24:25-27).” This dude turns out to be Jesus, he must have had a hood on or something for them not to realize it. When they do realize it, they start freaking out and so Jesus takes off and then they say, “Did not our hearts burn within while he talked to us on the road, while he opened the Scriptures (Lk 24:32)?”
Think of that. Jesus claims that everything in here is about him. How is that? It is the story of the gospel. God created a people for himself, people fell and have ever since, so Jesus comes to redeem people and restore all things through himself, the perfect man and perfect God who dies for our sins and rises again securing glory for those who turn to him. That is the gospel, the dying and rising of Jesus and how that applies to everything in this world and our lives.
The gospel says, there is something you should do, there is a right way to live and do things. But you can’t do it, you are a failure, I’m a failure. But there is one who did not fail, Jesus, one who did it all and did it on our behalf. And if we believe in him we will begin to be able to do it to. That is the gospel.
So think of the Old Testament. Think through this thing with me. Jesus means something specific, when he points out himself. I think what Jesus showed them is not all these secret hidden codes that no one had ever seen. He wasn’t like, oh look here where it talks about the tower of Babel, I am a tower. No. I think Jesus point was the Bible is not about us but about him.
A few weeks ago a friend of mine was telling me how he never hears anybody preach from the Old Testament these days and he was suggesting that only kids get to hear those stories in Sunday School. It made me want to start preaching from the Old Testament. When he said that, the first story I thought of was the story of David and Goliath. Now is the story of David and Goliath about us and how we face giant problem in life and we can overcome them. I don’t think so. I think it about how Jesus took on the only Giant who can really kill us, sin and death and he was victorious and his victory is given to us.
Jesus is the true and better Adam. Adam disobeys in a garden. Jesus obeys in a garden. Jesus is the true and better Noah. Noah saved a people from destruction by the wood of a boat. Jesus saves people across all time from eternal destruction by the wood of his cross. Jesus is the true and better Abraham. Abraham left his home and went to the land God called him. Jesus left his glory in heaven and came to us. Jesus is the true and better Joseph. Joseph sat at the right hand of the king and used his power to save his people. Jesus sits at the right hand of God the father and uses his power to interecede for us. Jesus is the true and better Moses. Moses spoke on God’s behalf and talked to God for the people. Jesus is the Word of God and speaks directly to us. Jesus is the true and better David. David won many victories and became the people’s king. Jesus won all our battles and becomes our king. Jesus the true prophet, the true priest, the true king, the true sacrifice, the true lamb, the true bride, he is the temple, the glory over the cleft of the rock, the snake lifted up in the desert, the rock that water springs from…Jesus is everything. The Bible is not about us, it is about Jesus who is for us. Do you get it?
Whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. This is how The Resolved Church will live, by seeing Jesus in everything. That is what that second phrase on that banner is about, gospel-centered. That the gospel is at the center of everything we are, say and do. The gospel has to become the lens through which we see life and if you can’t see how the gopsel applies in your life and your situation then your not understanding the gospel. Dying and rising. Our death, Jesus life. Hope and joy for pain and failure. Jesus.
The reason why we work. The way we work. The reason why we make friends. The reason we spend time with friends. The reason we play. The reason we fight. Everything is about the gospel. The sake of the gospel is everything. I’m afraid sometimes that you might begin to think that Duane is just all into the church because that is his job. No, I am all into the church and the gospel because Jesus is everything. And I am saying that is what your life is about to. To be all into the gospel in everything. Your chief worry and care and concern in your life ought to be the gospel.
Cultural Incarnation & Transformation - A City within the City
How does that work? How does that play itself out? What the heck are you talking about? Let’s talk about culture, “Cultural Incarnation & Transformation - A City within the City.” This is how God’s mission, of bringing glory to himself by drawing everyone to him through Jesus all the time, this is how that happens.
It has to do with culture. What is culture? Culture is this stuff…clothes, hairstyles, music, entertainment, general ways of thinking and living and talking. For the kids at my work, it’s blue bandanas hanging out of blue dickies. For the girls in La Jolla it’s Luis Voiton bags and World Religion Jeans. For the indie rockers, it’s Converse all-stars and skinny pants. For the IT guys it’s nice cars and a nice watch. For our parents and grandparents, its investment funds and retirement clauses. For San Diego, it’s being late to everything and always being tan. For the whole west coast it’s believing whatever you want and making up your own religion because whatever you want to choose is right for you. Culture is the way one acts and dresses and talks.
Culture. There is good stuff and bad stuff in it. How does the mission of God, the sake of the gospel work. It works with culture. Look at Jesus. He is the eternal son of God and he enters into the world in a particular place and time and he lives and works. Jesus used a hammer. Jesus wore a robe. He went for walks, went fishing, and went to parties. Jesus knew and understood that culture was important. That not all things in culture are bad and that by entering into it and embracing it is the only way the bad parts of it can be transformed.
Two verses, there are two verses I want us to look at. One is Jeremiah 29:4-11. Let me set this up for you first. Israel, the people of God have been taken away from their homeland by the Babylonians. They come to Babylon and when the get there they set-up camp outside the city and don’t go into it. Some false prophets rise up and start saying things like, the Babylonians are wicked, don’t have anything to do with them, keep yourself separate. But then the word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah and he says this,
“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, declares the Lord…For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
Here is what I want you to get from that, go into the city and build a life and partner with the people. Did you hear that? Go in. Plant gardens, have kids, seek the welfare of the people as you live among them. Here was the debate. What if we lose our identity? The answer was don’t lose your identity, stay strong but go into the city. People in the city need to hear Christians and see them live.
This is the mission of God, the sake of the gospel, how he does things. The other verse I wanted to read is Isaiah 49:6 where God explains his purpose, “I will make you a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach the end of the earth.” God’s design, is that we would go into the nations, the cultures and be lights, sharing his salvation, the message of the gospel. It’s called contextualization. Example of shooting range today.
So there are two prongs: keeping one’s identity with the mission and the message of the gospel and then entering and partnering with the city and it’s culture. And there are dangers on both sides. I’ve seen it. You can try so hard to make friends and be accepted by the culture that he message of the gospel gets lost and nobody can even tell that you’re a Christian because you never talk about it and there is nothing in your life that looks any different. The other side, is that one goes into the city, but they don’t have anything to do with the city and just hang out with their Christian friends from their Christian church because they don’t want to get contaminated by all the bad that is out there. Too much cultural accomadation or too much cultural withdrawal. Both those ways are wrong and are not the gospel.
The gospel is incarnational and trasnformation. The gospel holds the message dear. The gospel means “good news.” It is news. News is always shared. You must tell people about Jesus. There is a famous saying by Saint Francis of Asissi who said, “Preach the Gospel at all times and if necessary use words.” He was wrong. He did not understand that if you do not use words you cannot preach the gospel. It is words about who Jesus is and what he has done. It is news that you respond to. It is not advice. Advice is just counsel or a good idea. News is what comes by announcment about what has already happened.
So we hold the message dear. But we partner with the city and live lives within it. Non-christians need to see you dying and living for the gospel. The best way that you can show we don’t believe in a religion but in Jesus is to repent. Tell of your faults and failures and how Christ has not failed but succeeded and on your behalf. And the show how it is changing you. If all people hear from you is that you think you are better than them because you have Jesus you are not preaching the gospel but the law. And the law kills. The gospel is that I am more wicked and more loved at the same time. You got to invite people into your lives and let them get to know you so that they can get to know the gospel that is at work in you.
Non-Christians need to see Christians who inhabit their city but they are different. They need to see people who are radically like them but also radically different. They need to see people who are racially diverse but get along. People who create art and music but create with a grasp of truth and meaning. They need to see people who love to play but don’t overplay but getting drunk and wasted all the time. They need to see people who are comitted to Jesus church every week instead of just going whenever you feel like it. Non-Christians need to be able to see what it would be like if they were a Christian and that comes from you. Spouting off verses from the Bible isn’t going to do that for them.
We need to work and play together. Think about three big things: sex, money, and power. Non-Christians will not believe our love unless they can see a people who really love eachother non-sexually. Non-Christians need to see us work hard but not just so we can get rich but use our money for God’s kingdom, we need to be giving people. Non-Christians need to see you not always fighting for higher and higher positions of power and when you get that position abusing it. They need to see humility and someone who lead like Jesus as a servant.
Our goal is a city within the city. In the book of Acts, the apostles always went into the cities because they understood that culture comes from the city and that is the place where the gospel could be unleashed. In the first century the gospel spread from Jerusalem throughout all Israel and then throughout all of Europe and then beyond. In Acts 17:6 it was said that they were “turning the world upside-down.” That is my heart and my vision to see the world turned upside-down once again. It has happened in a few stages in history. There was a great gospel revival with the reformation era. Then there was another one with the great awakening of Jonathan Edwards.
We are living in a time like the first-century more than every before. Pluralism runs rampad, travel is easy, technology is increasing, and people are becoming dissillusionned with the world and all the information and how big and confusing it all is. And a grassroots gospel movement can do amazing things in a world like that. Cities are strategic. It begins with cities. San Diego is a strategic city, if I could just get some of you to stay here long enough.
Here is my challenge, let’s follow Jeremiah’s advice and Jesus and the Apostle’s example and go into the city and build houses, build lives here and seek to really make an impact with the gospel. It means this for you. If you were planning to be here one year, double it, stay two. If you were planning on two, stay four. If you were going to plan on being here for five years, make it ten. If feel you have to leave then fine, we love you and may God bless you. But I urge you stay, see the opportunity.
My long-term vision and goal for The Resolved Church is that it would become a powerful force in this city and then become a platform for ministry across the rest of the nation and then out unto the world. I want build a big strong church together with you. (explain picture of a werehouse for our church building). Solid people. Church is people, that is what it means. Giving their time and money…their very lives for the mission of the gospel. I want us to be a church that is glory driven, gospel centered, and is a city within this city. As we grow it is my prayer that we would begin to as a church, operate businesess in this city that embody our same glory driven, gospel-centered values.
We could have all kinds of businesses from bike shops to banks, from construction companies to hair salons, where the way we work and run things is different. Where we truly become a city inside this city but we have bridges, our lives, where people can crossover and see how different and how better life with Jesus as king is.
Conclusion
Let’s conclude this sermon. Jesus said, ” For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” The sake of the gospel is at stake. What are you going to do about it?
The call this morning, is to make God first in your life. To make his mission your mission, to give him all the glory and live for him. If you don’t really know God, you know you are the god of your heart and have never given your life to Christ, know you can do that today. Jesus stands before you and offers himself. All of your faults and failure and deep rooted wickedness and maybe even bitterness against God were taken care of by Jesus on the cross. He died to punish all those things in himself and offers you free forgiveness and friendship and hope of deep heart change. Embrace him today. If you feel that desire in you now, that is God giving you faith, so use it and turn to Jesus this morning. You can express that by taking communion with us and I am always available for prayer at the back.
For those who claim to know Jesus, let me ask you if you are living your life for him or for yourself. If you know you are living your life for yourself, give up and give it away. Lose your life for Jesus and the sake of the gospel. Make intentional friendships with people with the goal in mind being the gospel. It isn’t about church or religion it is about Jesus. You got to invite people into your lives and begin to work on long-term gospel development in sharing with them every opportunity you can.
People are hurting and they need Jesus. If you’re hurting today and you need that healing tender touch of the master’s hand. Know that he loves you and stands before you today offering his unconditional love. We are about to take communion. Think of Jesus perfect life, lived for you, that you might have hope and peace and joy in your life. Think of Jesus death, died for you, that the penalty of sin might not fall on you but instead give you everlasting life in heaven. Jesus love and grace is infinite. There is no sin too great no problem to big that Jesus does not care about and cannot deal with this morning.
Turn to him and and receive his love and build your life on the gospel.
Kids, today’s sermon has been about how all of your life, your whole life long, is always to be about God. God made you to live life with him. And the way you do that is by loving Jesus. And your friends need God in their lives to. So you need be nice to your friends and play with them so they see that you love Jesus and then they will want him in their lives too. That is the gospel, that Jesus died for you and rose again and is alive today so that when you mess up, you can know that Jesus loves you and can forgive you, so you can start all over again. And that is something that everybody needs.
Let’s pray.