Sermon Notes 7-24-2016

Sermon Series

The Rants of a Cowboy Preacher!

What is Discipleship?

Matthew 28:18–20 (NLT)

¹⁸Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth.

¹⁹Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

²⁰Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Jesus command his disciple to go and make new disciples! So what does it mean to make disciples and what are disciple anyway???

Let’s dig in and find out what it means and how we are to disciple each other???

What is a disciple??

·      Simply put it is a converted unbeliever.

·      It is anyone that follows Christ

Acts 14:21 (ESV)

²¹When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch,

A misunderstanding in the church

·      A disciple is someone that has like hit the second stage of knowledge

·      Or someone that is mature in their faith

·      This is a misconception

·      A disciple is simply a follower of Jesus

·      At any stage in there walk after conversion

Acts 11:26 (ESV)

²⁶and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians.

·      Everybody that was converted to Jesus was a disciple.

·      Everybody that was converted to Jesus was a Christian.

·      Disciple was, in fact, not a favorite term for Christian as time went by, it seems.

·      Paul never uses the noun or the verb “disciple.” In fact, neither the noun disciple or the verb make disciples occurs anywhere in the New Testament outside the Gospels and Acts.

·      So I think what is important is not the terminology, but the reality.

·      People need to become Christians and people need to be taught how to think and feel and act as a Christian.

·      That is, a disciple, a follower of Jesus, one who embraces him as Lord and Savior and Treasure.

·      We for some reason in the church have come up with catch phrases to build a social order

·      There is no social order we are all brothers and sister in Christ

·      We all have a role to play and we all have a place

·      No one is better or worse than the other

·      And we must understand these basic theological terms and understand we all matter to Christ

·      No denomination is better

·      No one is seen different in Gods eyes

·      And that’s why Christians should be colored blind

·      We should not see social status

·      We should not see ethnicity

·      We should see Gods children!!

Discipleship is a whole other thing!

John Piper

“Every Christian should be helping other believers grow to more and more maturity. That is making a disciple.

And every Christian should be seeking to get help for themselves from others to keep on growing. And that is also our discipleship. And every church should think through how they will grow every person in their church.”

·      Discipleship is the growing in knowledge of who Christ is and following his commands and teaching.

·      Discipleship is our growing in Christ and teaching others about Christ

·      It’s being mentored and mentoring someone

Everyone is capable of mentoring someone

·      We have to lose the idea of classes of Christians

·      I don’t care how new to Christ you are there is always some newer that you

·      There is someone that can benefit from your help

·      Someone needs you to hold them accountable

·      So stop saying I can’t help anyone and start helping

·      It’s amazing how much you grow in Christ when you help someone else!

So what does the bible say about discipleship?

We encourage

Hebrews 3:12–13 (NIV)

¹²See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.

¹³But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.

·      We encourage one another

·      We do life together

·      We hold each other accountable

·      We watch out for one another

·      We live life together

·      So that we don’t fall to sin

Too often I get the phone call after the sin has occurred

·      I’m drinking again

·      I have a porn addiction

·      I have cheated

·      And the list goes on and on

·      But if you were walking with others

·      Living life with others

·      You might have avoided the sin all together!!

We teach each other!

Acts 18:24–26 (NIV)

²⁴Meanwhile a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures.

²⁵He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spoke with great fervor and taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John.

²⁶He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately.

·      I love this scripture!

·      They taught each other

·      They bold shared the gospel

·      They worked together to further the kingdom

·      There is no reason why some of you can’t meet together

·      Learn together

·      And learn from each other

I will help and so will others in this church, if you have friends in this church and you don’t study and share scripture because you don’t think you can we will help. Its powerful sitting around a table with friends, and a bible and share and learning form Gods word!

We feed others!

2 Timothy 2:1–2 (NIV)

¹You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

²And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.

·      We find a mentor and we mentor others

·      We should always be looking to learn from someone and teach some one else

·      This is a grass roots mentality

·      Its organic

·      It’s the way God designed all of nature

·      Just look at the animal kingdom

We hold each other accountable and never give up!

Hebrews 10:24–25 (NIV)

²⁴And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds,

²⁵not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

·      We walk together

·      We hold each other accountable

·      We love each other

·      We form tight relationships inside the church

·      We weave the church in to our daily existence

·      We don’t get too busy and let life get to hectic to find time to regularly meet with our brother and sisters!!

Sermon Notes 7-17-2016

Sermon Series

The Rants of a Cowboy Preacher!

Its time to look in the mirror

  

So let’s get to it and see how we fair on the 5 most common mistakes churches make!

I am going to read you bulliet points and then asses how we are doing in this area!

1. Church’s Think cheap

·      Too often in church, leaders carry a dollar store mindset.

·      Get as much as you can for as little as you can and you win.

·      But do you?

·      What we miss is that cheap has a cost.

·      In fact, in the long run, it’s actually more expensive.

·      First, you end up with inferior products, whether that’s furniture, technology or even ministry (Here, leader…do world class children’s ministry on $140 a year).  

·      Cheap things break earlier and more easily, and you end up replacing them frequently.

·      So often, you don’t even save much money.

·      Paying church staff poorly is not only unbiblical, it’s stupid.

·      When you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

·      Do I think you should pay outrageous salaries to church leaders? Absolutely not.

·      But you should pay people a living wage.

·      Why do we want to underfund the most important ministry on earth? 

So how do we fair??

·      Not good!

·      We have always had a cheaper is better mentality

·      And we have paid that price several times

·      And I think we have carried that mentality in to our giving

·      We have done with so little for so long that we have a cheap mentality throughout the church

·      We have an unwritten expectation that the teams need to some self-fund themselves

·      We always look for the cheapest way to repair or replace anything

·      We need to work on this from the Top down!

Some stats:

Average budget for a church our size

$515,000

our budget

$162,000

Difference

$353,000

Average giving per-person

$26.00

Ours

$5.50

Difference

$20.50

2. Starting Late

·      I’ve been to numerous church services and events that regularly start late, after the published start time.

·      Why?

·      Maybe it’s just me, but that just oozes “Hey, what we’re doing doesn’t matter much…and we don’t really value your time.”

·      Some people got their kids up early, made breakfast, showered quickly and fought traffic to show up on time. When you start late, you dishonour all their effort.

·      I know some church leaders think they want to wait until ‘everyone is here.’ Well guess what? No matter what time you begin, people will always wander in late.

·      We had an ‘everyone shows up ten minutes late’ problem a few years ago. Rather than start late, we actually told people to arrive on time and then put some of the best, most creative elements in the first 5 minutes of the service.

·      When people showed up late, we told them “Man, it’s too bad you missed it.” That was it. We never apologized.

·      Guess what happened? We went from 30% of people being present when the service started to about 70% of people being present when the service started.

·      It’s amazing what happens when you provide great value on time. People show up.

·      The other 30%? Too bad they missed it….

How are we doing??? L

·      WE are horrible at this

·      We always start late

·      We don’t value your time and I appoligize

·      We need to all do better at this

·      Visit before or after service

·      But let’s all do better at being in our seats and prepared for worship!

And worst of all we dishonor God when we don’t value his time

Colossians 3:17 (NLT)

¹⁷And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.

·      We are not being good ambassadors of Jesus when we dishonor him by not starting on time!

3. Deciding It’s good enough

·      Even if you invest some money in ministry, too often we behave as though a moderate effort is good enough.

·      As Jim Collins has famously pointed out, bad is not the enemy of great (because that’s obvious). Good is the enemy of great.

·      A ‘good enough’ attitude can create a false sense of satisfaction, leaving a meaningful part of both your mission and potential unfulfilled.

·      We all should have a values that states ‘Battle Mediocrity.’

·      I love that phrase because first of all, ‘mediocrity’ names ‘good enough’ for what it is—massively unsatisfying mediocrity. Second, ‘battle’ is a call to arms. This is a fight, and mediocre has to die.

·      God didn’t decide his work was good enough, so why should the church? He gave his best. His all. He threw the full force of his majesty not just into creation, but into redemption.

·      Strangely, many people will give 100% to the marketplace, a hobby or their family, and then give 60% when they serve God.

·      Makes no sense. At all.

SO how are we doing

·      Actually not bad

·      Some of us need to check ourselves here

·      Are we giving our all in what we do for the church and the kingdom?

·      Are we serving well

·      Are we giving 100% to our “Yes’s”

Jesus gave His all!!

John 19:30 (NLT)

³⁰When Jesus had tasted it, he said, “It is finished!” Then he bowed his head and released his spirit.

·      Jesus served well!

·      He gave his all, for your salvation

·      Should we give our all to serving Him in the kingdom work we do!!

4. Choosing Easy over effective

·      Being effective as a church is difficult. Which is why it’s so easy for churches to settle when so much more is possible.

·      Being effective means you dig in when others retreat.

·      It means you ask the 11th question when everyone else stopped at ten.

·       It means you wake up early and sometimes stay up late trying to figure out how to do better.

·      It means you call out the best in people and ask them to bring their best energy, focus and skill to advancing the mission of the church.

·      That’s effective.

·      And it’s not easy. But it’s worth it.

How are we doing??

·      We used to be amazing at this

·      But unfortunately we are burning some folks out

·      We all need to get involved

·      Give our all and do what’s right not easy

·      Last night we had new blood in the church helping in big ways

·      We had people in the crowd from our church

·      And that is exciting to see

·      But there was only a fraction of the church body there to help and support one of our biggest outreach

·      We can do better and we must to survive, and make a difference in our community

What did Jesus do?

·      Jesus turned over tables

·      Loved on lepers

·      Played with children

·      Discipled misfits

·      Walked miles to serve

·      Feed thousands

·      And died for all

·      And easy was never an option!

Jesus never said it would be easy!

Matthew 10:16–19 (NLT)

¹⁶“Look, I am sending you out as sheep among wolves. So be as shrewd as snakes and harmless as doves.

¹⁷But beware! For you will be handed over to the courts and will be flogged with whips in the synagogues.

¹⁸You will stand trial before governors and kings because you are my followers. But this will be your opportunity to tell the rulers and other unbelievers about me.

¹⁹When you are arrested, don’t worry about how to respond or what to say. God will give you the right words at the right time.

Sermon Notes 7-9-2016

Sermon Series

The Rants of a Cowboy Preacher!

ALL LOST LIVES MATTER

I had a sermon all laid out, about the 5 most common mistakes churches make, but my heart hurts for our country and I had to put it to the side so that I could let God speak through me! So I will be brief, and to the point, and I ask that this week you be in prayer for our country and the families of all the victims of this senseless violence!

So how do we as a church start to reach our community?

First we must understand our role in the gospel

God gave us the freedom to live and act the way we want

1 Corinthians 9:1–5 (ESV)

¹Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are not you my workmanship in the Lord?

²If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

³This is my defense to those who would examine me.

⁴Do we not have the right to eat and drink?

⁵Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?

·      The beauty of the gospel and the God we serve is that we have the right to be free to do what we want

·      What sets us apart is that God gives us the free choice to love him and obey him

·      And what the world needs to see is us doing just that!

But if we love him, we serve him, and serve others to bring them to Christ!

1 Corinthians 9:19–27 (NLT)

¹⁹Even though I am a free man with no master, I have become a slave to all people to bring many to Christ.

·      We are to serve ALL people

·      I don’t care if they’re black or white

·      I don’t care if they’re gay or straight

·      I don’t care if they’re rednecks or yuppies

·      I DON’T CARE

·      It’s time to stop judging and start loving all people

²⁰When I was with the Jews, I lived like a Jew to bring the Jews to Christ. When I was with those who follow the Jewish law, I too lived under that law. Even though I am not subject to the law, I did this so I could bring to Christ those who are under the law.

·      We need to become all things to all people

·      I don’t care who you vote for

·      I don’t care what your education is

·      It’s time to put all that aside and start connecting with others!

²¹When I am with the Gentiles who do not follow the Jewish law, I too live apart from that law so I can bring them to Christ. But I do not ignore the law of God; I obey the law of Christ.

·      People in the bars need Jesus

·      People in the strip clubs need Jesus

·      People at work need Jesus

·      Your next door neighbor needs Jesus

·      Protestors need Jesus

·      White people need Jesus

·      Black people need Jesus

·      Democrats need Jesus

·      Republicans need Jesus

·      So stop looking down your noses and start sharing the Good news

²²When I am with those who are weak, I share their weakness, for I want to bring the weak to Christ. Yes, I try to find common ground with everyone, doing everything I can to save some.

·      We need to find common ground with everyone

·      And it starts right here

·      We have people from every back round

·      Every Education level

·      Some wealth some not

·      And if we can put our differences behind us

·      And show the world, God love everyone

·      We can change our community, one life at a time

·       

²³I do everything to spread the Good News and share in its blessings.

·      We need to be doing everything we can short of sinning ourselves to share the gospel

·      We can heal a community, a nation, a world

·      But it takes us to sacrifice first

It takes obedience to God and his word

²⁴Don’t you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win!

²⁵All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize.

·      It’s time to run to win

·      It’s time to Step out on faith

·      It’s time Stop worrying about cost

·      It’s time to Start thinking it terms of what will it take

·      It’s time to Start thinking in terms of what do I need to do

·      There was a time when this church went all out

·      There was a time when this church stepped out on faith

·      There was a time when we all pitched

·      Because we knew all lost lives mattered

²⁶So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing.

·      It’s time to get our focus back

·      It’s time to start walking in faith

·      It’s time to get back on mission

·      It’s time to stop taking the easy way path

·      It’s time to get the heart of God for the lost and wayward

·      Its time!

²⁷I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified.

·      It’s time to be disciplined

·      It’s time to do whatever it takes

·      It’s time to be on mission

·      It’s time to show the world Jesus is the only way!!

Close!

It’s time to realize all LOST lives matter!!