PETRA S PURPOSE Lester Zimmerman Ephesians 2:17-22 This morning I want to look at our purpose as a church. Why do we exist? What was in God s heart in establishing this work and in drawing us together in this place? What is our mission or assignment as a group of people? What is our unique purpose? Why has God lead you and I to be a part of this church family? For those of you who are new to Petra this will give you a good window into who we are. For the rest of us it is important to revisit our core values and the assignment God has given to us. In the Bible the church is described as a family or household made up of people of all races, build around Jesus Christ to carry out his mission until he returns. Although we are a large church we like to see ourselves as a family. God is our father and we are his sons and daughters which makes us all brothers and sisters. Whether you are married or single, young or old, we all share in God s family. Our relationships are nurtured in smaller groups but we all share a common purpose together. READ Ephesians 2:17-22 God has brought us together from many different places and he is building something special with us. We are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. This is a powerful truth. God wants his church to be characterized above all else by his living presence. Not just Sunday morning gatherings where we experience his presence but wherever we go during the week we carry the anointing of his presence to witness, love people and pray for people so they encounter his presence through us. We carry the fragrance of Jesus. Petra began in 1983 with a clear mandate from God. We do not see ourselves as better than other churches. We simply have our own unique calling to fulfill. We believe God needs all kinds and sizes of churches to reach all kinds of people and to bring forth his fullness. No one church has an inside track on God. So we take the posture to honor and be a blessing to the other churches around us. Together we advance the kingdom in a region. We also partner with the Hopewell Network of Churches as our spiritual covering. Over the years we have defined some core values to lead us and a Vision Statement that helps us keep our focus. It reads - Empowered to bring Jesus love, healing, and hope to the world. We live in a world filled with broken and hopeless people. In fact that describes all of us at one time or another. Our mission is by the power of the Holy Spirit to take the love of Jesus and his healing ministry of hope and freedom to those around us.
Let me give you four words that describes the DNA of Petra. Four words that describes the Core Values and anointing that rests on this church. These four words are: (Four Core Values) Grace Holy Spirit Healing Harvest (Let me expound a bit on these Core Values) GRACE God has called us to be grace givers in the midst of a culture with much legalism. We take a clear unapologetic stand on Biblical truth. We believe in the full inspiration and authority of Scripture but we choose to apply the word with grace. Truth without grace is harsh and does much discredit to Jesus. Jesus was full of grace and truth. The Core Value of Grace enables us to accept people as they are and gently love them toward Christlikeness. Grace enables us to focus on the direction people are going rather than their present faults. Grace enables us to not argue over secondary teachings but to keep our focus on the primary truths of scripture such as salvation in Jesus alone. We give grace for people to have varying convictions on things the scripture is not clear about such as the unfolding of end time events. Grace enables us to trust the Holy Spirit to work change in our hearts instead of a list of rules. HOLY SPIRIT A deep reliance on the Holy Spirit is another core value of our church and leaders. We can plan and strategize but we know it is the Holy Spirit that changes lives and brings growth. Included in this value is the value of prayer. Prayer is vital to all we do. Prayer is more than asking God to bless us and help us. It is part of developing an intimate relationship with him. We welcome the empowering work of the Holy Spirit into the life of every believer for personal victory and power to witness and serve. We encourage everyone to pray and receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit as a distinct impartation apart from salvation. We practice and believe that all the gifts of the Spirit are needed in the church today if we are going to do the works of Jesus as he commanded. In Acts 1:8 Jesus said the Holy Spirit will empower us to be witnesses locally and globally. The Holy Spirit is helping us to touch our community through local outreach efforts and to touch the world through our global missions program. We are blessed in seeing the Holy Spirit call and empower people from Petra to go many places in the world to share the good news of Jesus.
HEALING Another Core Value of our church is the ministry of healing. Not just physical healing but healing in every area of our lives and relationships. Before Petra began there was a prayer group laying a foundation of prayer for the new church. During this season of prayer God spoke a word that this church would carry an anointing for healing ministries. And that word has come true. God has made Petra to be a safe place for people to find healing in various areas of their lives. We have seen a significant amount of physical healings and inner healings of the soul. We have a variety of healing related support groups, ministries and counselors. Cleansing Stream, a 7 week interactive course has become a cornerstone healing ministry that we encourage everyone to go through because we all have areas of brokenness in our lives. We live in a sinful world which has left its scars upon all of us. The good news is, Jesus is healing these areas in the safety of other wounded healers who love us. We also encourage everyone to connect to a small group as part of their growth journey. We grow and find wholeness in the context or relationships. We have a variety of small groups that you can plug into depending on your season of life or interest. HARVEST Another primary core value is reaching those who have no relationship with God. When Jesus referred to people who were not walking with God he referred to them as the harvest. He told us to pray for more people who would be willing to go into the harvest and reach people with the good news. The Bible says the number one mission of Jesus was to seek and save the lost. He has handed off this mission to the church. So this should be the number one priority of every church. We ask each ministry to budget and include outreach as part of their ministry to help us stay outward focused. Each pastor is also encouraged to be serving somewhere in the community. Having grown up on a farm I knew I couldn t just sit in the barn and pray for the harvest to come in. We had to do the hard work of going after it. God never intended the church to be a retreat center but a place of harvest. We will have all eternity to retreat and relax. Now is harvest time. Let me tell you the story of Petra s beginning: Some have heard this before but is important to remember the prophetic mandate that is on this church. Prior to starting Petra my wife and I were pastoring in inner city Baltimore. After a period of time we decided to take a short break from ministry to regroup and moved to this area which was my wife s home area. Our intention was to go back into city ministry in a year or two where we sensed a great need.
We attended the Hopewell Congregation in Elverson Pa during this time and I got a job in the hospital. We attended a small group from Hopewell in the New Holland area during this time. The Hopewell Congregation was experiencing a powerful move of God and as people were driving in from outside areas they started planting churches in those areas. The Pastor came to me one day and asked if I would take the small group in New Holland and plant a church with them. My inward initial response was I am not interested at all. I had no desire. My feeling was there were already too many churches in the county and many of them were only half full if that. If God was going to use me to plant a church I expected him to send me to the city where there was a much greater need. We had grown to love the city. But I said I would pray about it. That seemed like a spiritual response to the pastor. One day as I was laying this before the Lord with my rational excuses of why it was not a good idea, God gave me a vision that broke me and changed my unwilling heart. I am not given to visions so this really got my attention. It was like I was seeing this movie in my mind and in the vision I saw a broad flat valley and I knew immediately in my spirit it was New Holland. I was living in Terre Hill at the time and it was like I was looking down over the valley. As the vision unfolded I began to see lots and lots of barns. No houses, no cars, no trees. Just a lot of barns. Totally puzzled I ask God what this meant. He simply responded. I NEED MANY BARNS FOR MY HARVEST. And then the understanding came. The barns were churches for the harvest. I was saying there are too many barns but God was saying I see something you don t see. I see a coming harvest and I need more barns for what is to come so the harvest is not lost. Completely humbled I said Ok God if you need another barn for the coming harvest I will build you a barn. I will pull a team together and we will plant a church. The Lord then gave us the name Petra which is a Greek word for rock which refers to Jesus as the Rock or foundation on which we are building. Here s why this story is so important. The reason for Petra s existence is to reach the harvest. Part of that is having good programs for our children and youth and other ministries but our main focus and calling is the unchurched around us. The great challenge in church life is to keep from becoming internally focused on our needs, wants, and desires. In our consumer-oriented culture, it is so easy to view the church as the place where our needs are met instead of the place where we partner together to reach the world for Christ. I often think that in any given church service God is more concerned about the seeker who may be sitting there than how great the preaching and worship is and how smoothly everything flows.
We need to keep the main thing the main thing which is reaching the lost around us. If we lose our focus on the harvest around us, we have lost the reason for our existence and our anointing to a large degree. That is a warning I carry in my spirit and share with those coming after me. Conclusion: Now here is the exciting part. If God has called you to be a part of Petra, he has called you into this vision of reaching the lost. It means he has something for you to do here. You get to be a part of something amazing God is doing. There is miracle after miracle that has brought us to where we are today. There are many more miracles and even greater things that are yet to come and you get to be a part of it. The best is yet to come! Let s keep the faith, keep the unity and keep doing the works of Jesus until he comes. Blessing: May God help us remain faithful to the call upon this church May we be grace givers as we hold up the banner of truth May we go into the harvest in the strength and power of the Holy Spirit and. May we continue to walk in unity so we are a safe place where many find healing.