Christ Community - Cause Cause - To Make Disciples

Transcription

1 Christ Community - Cause Cause - To Make Disciples Our Primary Cause... Foundationally, our Cause is Christ Himself. The Ephesian believers were reminded/rebuked of this by the Lord in that they had been doing a lot of great things but had left their First Love Christ... Once this has been established, the Lord will empower His people to accomplish the activity He desires to take place. That foundational activity is love... o Servant oriented Love toward each believer and a Compassionate oriented love toward every unbeliever. Christ is our Cause...and out of this flows our mission...which is His heart...the rescuing of the lost...the Great Commission Charles Colson - The Faith We worship God because God is worthy of our worship. The church glorifies God on earth, and this is a primary means by which we participate in God s life. When Jesus said the gates of hell cannot stand against His Church, He was foreseeing the people of God, drawn into unity with God and each other through worship, spilling out of our meeting places to spread the Gospel and righteousness... We worship God in our churches so we can follow Him in the world. I believe Jesus Christ is the answer to every individual, church and or societal problem we face... I believe the greatest threat to ourselves, to this church and to the society at large is Pride, religious or rebellious.

2 When we take on the idea that we can in and of our own strength, goodness, ability etc DO the things of God, we immediately place ourselves in a position of Pride Warren W. Wiersbe on II Cor Their major emphasis was that salvation was by faith in Christ plus the keeping of the Law (see Acts 15:1ff). They also taught that the believer is perfected in his faith by obeying the Law of Moses. Their gospel of legalism was very popular, since human nature enjoys achieving religious goals instead of simply trusting Christ and allowing the Holy Spirit to work. It is much easier to measure religion than true righteousness. Flesh is activated by the Law Romans... The greatest obstacle to the working of God in and through His people is His people walking in sin rather than in the power of the Holy Spirit. o Gossip o Unforgiving attitudes o Self sufficiency o Selfishness o Sexual immorality & or fornication o Idolatry o Divisions & factions o Lack of faith o Etc... The Great Commission Matthew 28:19 20 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. The Great Commission is to Make Disciples o Equipping and Evangelism

3 Equipping Believers: Equipping For Pastors/Elders to guard a Word oriented, Christ centered environment for the fitting, mending, repairing and or building up of each individual member (disciple) of the Body of Christ to do His Will. Heb Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, 21 equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Equipping readies one to be used of the Lord to win others to Himself Equipping leads to the understanding of a believer of full reliance upon the Lord and His leadership as well as power within the believer to accomplish the activity the Lord leads in... Equipping is to launch not to Insulate in God s timing and in His power Robert E. Coleman - The Master Plan of Evangelism It is only the Spirit of God who enables one to carry on the redemptive mission of evangelism. Jesus underscored this truth early in relation to his own work by declaring that what he did was in cooperation with the Spirit of the Lord.... Jesus was God in revelation; but the Spirit was God in operation. He was the Agent of God actually effecting through men the eternal plan of salvation. Thus Jesus explained to his disciples that the Spirit would prepare the way for their ministry. In this light, evangelism was not interpreted as a human undertaking, but as a divine project which had been going on from the beginning and would continue until God s purpose was fulfilled. It was altogether the Spirit s work. All the disciples were asked to do was to let the Spirit have complete charge of their lives.

4 Evangelism... Making Disciples is not simply deepening someone, although this is an important issue as in the Lord s statement, Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you But in order to have a disciple to teach there must be a Disciple, which means Evangelism Salvation In other words, to make disciples is first bringing someone TO the CROSS becoming a Believer, then FROM the CROSS the Maturing of the Believer So, Equipping is an environment where a Willing Believer, a disciple, is Deepened in their relationship with the Lord and in His Word, so as to be tooled properly to follow the Lord into the arena of the Harvest into the Field Robert E. Coleman - The Master Plan of Evangelism It is time that the church realistically face the situation. Our days of trifling are running out. The evangelistic program of the church has bogged down on nearly every front, especially across the affluent Western world. In many lands the enfeebled church is not even keeping up with the exploding population. All the while the satanic forces of this world are becoming more relentless and brazen in their attack. It is ironic when one stops to think about it. In an age when facilities for rapid communication of the gospel are available to the church as never before, there are actually more unevangelized people on the earth today than before the invention of the horseless carriage. We have been given the ministry of Reconciliation... 2 Corinthians 5:18-19 Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

5 Proverbs The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, And he who is wise wins souls. Main focal points for Hoffmantown... 1) Individuals To Grow in Christ... 1 Peter 2:1 3 Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, 2 like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, 3 if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. 2) Family... God s ultimate discipleship environment How are we supporting the biblical family...? a) Fathers and Mothers loving and serving one another b) Spouses and their relationships with one another submitting to one another Wives to their husbands LEAD and Husbands to their wives NEED c) Children learning obedience and submission to authority Ephesians 6:1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 3) Community... a) Supporting our local ministries b) Evangelizing our neighborhoods c) Influencing important influential hubs 1. Gov/political sphere 2. Military 3. Schools