Kennystix's podcast
Treasuring Christ Together: North Campus Expansion, Part 1
Bethlehem is on the brink of finalizing what will probably be the most significant structural change in her 133-year history, namely the purchasing and making permanent of a multi-campus approach to one church on several sites, namely the purchase of the building that you may look at on page six. In fact, I invite you to go to page six with me so that I'm sorry it's not six, which page is it? Twelve. You just need to lay your eyes on this building because it represents something. It isn't the something, but it represents the vision that we're going to talk about this morning. So you see a picture, then you see the location at I-35 and Highway 10. You see 350 parking places at the bottom, and if you were to tool around in here, you'd see a $5.6 million price tag on the building, and you would see another million and a half plus to turn it into a church. And so you can do the math and see what we're about to embark upon, but far more important than the dollars is the turn this represents for us. We've been experimenting with it since October of 2002, and you have been the guinea pigs. And I thank God for you and your remarkable responsiveness to this vision of a North campus here in these rented facilities, which Lord willing, within five or six months, we will never enter again, but rather have our own 24/7 site for the North campus, and then a West, a South, an East, and if you can dream big enough, more. Treasuring Christ together is not about the North campus. It's about multiplying campuses and planting churches. This happens to be one. And so it gets a special attention now in these next several weeks, but oh, that our minds might be big enough to get around what God may be pleased to do. Lord willing, April 28th, it's a Wednesday night, Wednesday a week, you and all of Bethlehem will vote on whether to purchase that site and move ahead with the build out. The earnest money has been paid, as you heard from Kenny, the vote of the council has been favorable. Drawings are on the table. Estimates come tomorrow and will be available to you on Wednesday night this week. And so we will devote the entire Wednesday connection to your questions and expanding our explanation of the vision and interacting about its implications. And so I do hope that all of you will come on Wednesday night at 630 downtown to be a part of this discussion. My aim this morning is to put the expansion and the multi-campus vision of Bethlehem Baptist Church in a biblical and theological framework. And thereby, I hope and I pray, inspire you and recruit you to give your life to this vision. And since that vision is big and asking people to give their lives to it is big, let me pray now that God would come and help me. Father, I ask that as we move into this passage of Scripture and through it into a further and deeper understanding of treasuring Christ together, you would help me to speak in the power of the Holy Spirit and in accord with the Word of God and thus in sync with where you are taking us. I feel a very heavy burden to be the representative of the elders here to try to mobilize 3,000 folks to dream with us in accord with your Word and by your spirit of what you might be pleased to do in the coming decade. And yet I am happy to wear this mantle this morning if you would come and help me. And I ask that you would work in your people downtown as they are watching this sermon that I gave last night by video and us here as we interact in living flesh and voice, that you would come and give vision to your people. Lift us up out of our small thinking and our small dreaming and grant us to attach our lives to something bigger than our families and bigger than our homes and bigger than our businesses. Oh God, grant that there would be a linking together of treasuring you together with tens of thousands of people. Now open your word to us. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. The reason I said give your lives to it probably was brought to my mind most immediately by an experience last week. A young woman, a junior in high school downtown came up to me after the service and she was from Virginia, not Virginia, Minnesota, but Virginia, the state. She was here with her parents looking at schools to attend when she graduated from high school to see what college she might go to. They visited Bethlehem while they were looking around. And I said to the three of them, "Why are you looking in the Twin Cities?" And in chorus, the three of them said, "Because Bethlehem is here." So looking Northwestern and looking at Bethlehem and looking at the schools around. And it struck me that that shouldn't be as rare as it is probably, that choosing where we go to school and where we work and where we live probably should be connected with the worshiping community, where we love the Word of God, where we love the praises of God's people, where we love the doctrine that is taught, where we love the mission for the world, where we want our children to be brought up. It just hit me. Why is that so rare? Why do we choose a job, a neighborhood, a school, and then hope we can find a church? That's really strange when you read the New Testament and realize that marriage is going to end in the age to come. Father-child relationships on earth can't compare to the father-child relationship this way. Brother-sister relationship in nuclear families can't compare to what is going to be an everlasting brother-sister relationship. It's really strange that we American Christians say, "Work, neighborhood, school. Oh, I hope I can get a good church." That's really strange when you stop and think about it. So their presence here to look for a school where this young woman could be folded into a family of believers they believed in is not as strange as it should be, and it caused me to think why not call a people to give their life to a vision of multiplying campuses and planting churches and multiplying hundreds of missionaries that would be supported by this network of campuses and churches. That is not strange. The opposite is the strange thing that we are so secularized, so individualized that we don't even think in those terms. Let's go to the Word of God to let God speak to us this morning. I've chosen the text for my effort to try to make the vision of TCT a little more understandable. 2 Corinthians 8, verse 5, verses, there are 10 observations I want to make. You need to know how frustrating this is for me and how difficult and how happy. I would love, I would just love to spend time walking through this booklet with you. I would love to take every page and preach on the page. I love what's in this book, but I would betray my calling and what you expect of me and why you love Bethlehem if I were to preach from this book. So the book goes aside and we open the text and there are 10 things that I want you to see. And here's the situation. Paul is writing to Corinth. Corinth, you know, is at the bottom of the Grecian Peninsula down there with Athens. Up at the top is Philippi and Thessalonica. That's Macedonia. He's going to talk about these Macedonians. He has already done in Macedonia what he's now doing in Corinth or to Corinth. He has taken a collection for the relief of the saints, verse 4. The relief of the saints, probably the saints in Jerusalem who are having some kind of crisis and they need help from the treasuring Christ together. Church is out there in the empire and he's out there getting money for the saints in Jerusalem and he's already done it in Macedonia and something happened in Macedonia that just blew him away. And therefore he uses Macedonia as an example to stir up the Corinthians. Now all I'm doing this morning is drawing you into this and saying, you're the Corinthians now this morning. And I'm going to describe the Macedonians for you because Paul meant for the Macedonians to inspire the Corinthians to be radically different kinds of people than they are. And that's what I want to happen here. So I have 10 observations about these amazing Macedonians. And my prayer is simply, we become that kind of people. If we do, TCT will take care of itself. Just come and get the details on Wednesday night that I'm not going to talk about this morning. Verse 1, we want you to know brothers about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia. Observation number 1, I'm just going to number these one to 10 and accumulate them. Observation number 1, what happened in Macedonia that you are about to see happened because grace came down. You see that? We want you to know brothers about the grace of God that was given among the churches of Macedonia. Everything I'm about to say flowed from grace. We are a church thrilled with sovereign grace. And I say sovereign grace here because this is not simply remembered grace at the cross. This is future and ever arriving grace bought by the cross. Paul arrives, he preaches, he says, come on, let's love the saints in Jerusalem and grace happens in tremendous life-changing power. And that's what it'll take in this room now. And all over this church, if this kind of people are to come into being, that's observation number 1. Verse 2, "For in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part." Four observations in that verse. Observation number 2, accumulating from number 1, "in a severe test of affliction." This means, that little phrase, "in a severe test of affliction" means when grace arrived, it brought with it more trouble, not less. When grace comes into a community and turns that community upside down, it doesn't have fewer troubles, different ones probably, but not fewer. Affliction did not go away, affliction increased when grace arrived. Do not interpret the afflictions of your life as the departure of grace. It is a signal probably of the arrival of grace. Observation number 3, "in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy." Now there's the mark of grace in affliction. This joy is not rising and falling with the departure of affliction or its arrival. It is there in and through affliction. That's the amazing gracious thing about this joy. That's the kind of church I hope it's to be, because as long as we have life on this planet, there will be pain in this church. Sickness and marital breakdowns and children going haywire and community strife and global situations to be fretting about or praying about and squabbles in the church over how to do this or that. It'll always be here. And if our joy has to rise when that goes away only, we will be a sad church. But if we have this grace in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy. So affliction is severe and joy is abundant. Get those together in your life. Get those together in your life. Severe affliction, abundant joy, in the same life, at the same time. Observation number 4, "in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy, and their extreme poverty." As if affliction weren't enough. Grace, as it comes down, in power has not taken away their poverty, at least not yet. This is a good verse to use against the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel. This says, "You come to Jesus, things go and go well for you and your business is going to immediately prosper and you'll be able to buy rings on your finger and a nice new suit and get a new car and live in a new neighborhood and have a boat and several houses and take long vacations." That kind of gospel is abominable. We want nothing to do with it. My goal in this church is to get you to have less not more. Did you read that article on Sudan in the paper yesterday? You got families in Sudan a mile away from the well and they have these three choices. Send dad to get the water and he gets shot. Send mom to get the water and she gets raped. Send the kids to get the water and they get kidnapped. What's your choice? I read that. I was like, "I want treasuring Christ together to make a difference in Sudan and if it doesn't, I can't live it." If we don't breed people in Malm's view who have a longing to go to Sudan, figure that out, brains to figure that out, spirit-given risk-taking passion to move around the world where there's pain and pour our lives into our wealthy, wealthy, wealthy lives into it. I'm not eager to get you to prosper. Believe me, I am eager to get you to become the kind of people who make lots and lots and lots of money and live really simply so that you can have the spectacular joy of meeting 10,000 needs in this world. There is no joy like living simply and giving tens of thousands of dollars to meet people's needs. And all we're doing, I pray, all we're doing, is planting another seed bed for that kind of person, planting another launching pad for that kind of mercy and that kind of mission. I was so happy to hear some of the speeches that were made last Monday night to the council that swayed them from five opposed to four in favor. Speech is about the Columbine high school anniversary is coming. We as a church care about kids. We think we can have influences in this community that'll take violence and take racism down, not up. Oh, I love that kind of argument and may it be true. Observation number four is they're poor still and they are now observation number five in a severe test of affliction and their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty. Here it is. Have overflowed. This is observation number five. They've overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. Amazing. Aren't these people amazing? They get grace. And in response to grace affliction increases. Poverty doesn't go away. Joy abounds and they pour out their little poverty, stricken giving lavishly for the sake of the relief of the saints in Jerusalem. That's the kind of people I am preaching, living, leading, under God to produce. What care I, what kind of house you live in as long as it's getting simple so that you have more to give. Oh God, guard us in America from money. Yeah, I said money, not just the love of money. Jesus said it is hard for a rich man to get into the kingdom. He didn't say it's hard for a man who loves money to get into the kingdom. He said it's hard for a rich man. Therefore it's dangerous to be rich. All of us in this room are rich. And therefore we are in danger. And here's the danger. The danger is this, in America once become needs. A need to have a place to park my whatever. I need a hanger. I need these 10,000 accoutrements to care for my 10,000 things. Need, need, need growing out of want, want, want. That's our danger. That's our danger. I tell you, if we lived what we ought to live and gave as we ought to give, we were walking out of an elder meeting a few weeks ago and we were gulping at sticker shock. And somebody said, what if it costs nine million? Can you get your arms around that, John? I said, add a zero. Only half joking. I would, I would love to go on a little detour here about what $90 million might look like in 18 years. But I'll save that for maybe Wednesday. Pray that God would protect us, me, me, pray for me. You pay me well. I try to put governors on my life. I regard both my salary and all the books that I write as incredibly dangerous. You understand that, don't you? To have access to money is dangerous. It's so deceives. It's so corrupt. So I pray. When I pray for you, you know, I pray with regard to money. I say, Lord, prosper only those who treasure Christ above all things and have the most open hands to the poor and to the church. Don't prosper the others because that would be deadly for them. Verse three, for they gave according to their means as I can testify and beyond their means of their own free will. Observation number six, the phrase beyond their means, they gave according to, we understand that. You understand that. I have this much money. I can give this much percentage. I understand according to my means. What does it mean to say they gave beyond their means? The Greek is beyond their power. Got any ideas? It must mean they took some inadvisable risks. And what else can beyond your means mean? But I'm taking some risks that other people are saying, you can't. That's what the word means in Greek. Can't. I'm doing what I can't do with my money. Now, I am not going to turn that into a pastoral mandate. Let's all act foolishly. However, I am going to say, you pray about that verse and see what it means for you. It's got to mean something. Paul did not put that in the Bible for nothing. They gave beyond their means. I don't know what that means for you. But I just want to say it's not in the Bible for nothing. Therefore, go home and get on your face and say, for me, for my family. In relation to Sudan, Moundsview, Phillips neighborhood, my neighborhood, my lifestyle, what does that mean? Observation number seven. They gave of their own free will. That is, they were uncoarced. They gave of their own accord. Put it simply, they did what they wanted to do. Nobody made them, do it. Which is why we're not in this particular funding effort over the next months and years. We're not trying to grab anybody saying, we know what you make. You give this. We've never done that. It's just not in sync with the spirit of 2 Corinthians 8 and 9. The Lord does not like giving. That is under compulsion. He likes a what-giver. That means somebody who likes doing what they're doing. If you don't like giving, don't give. It is spiritually worthless. Which leads to the amazing verse 4, and I named the sermon after this verse, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints. Now picture this. Grace has arrived in Macedonia and affliction has begun, probably persecution in some form. Poverty did not go away. Instead, joy overflowed, and liberality was not only now, I see observation number seven, free, but observation number eight, passionate. What could be the situation that would call forth words like these? They begged us earnestly for the favor or the grace of giving more to the relief of the saints. What situation calls forth a sentence like that? I can only think of one. Paul was telling them, don't give anymore. You're poor. You've given enough. That's what Paul had said. Why else would they start begging him? Please let us give more. If Paul went there to collect money, they don't need to beg to give money. He says, that's what I'm asking you to do is give money. So under what circumstances would they start to beg to give more money? And it's at a circumstance where Paul says, stop giving money. This is a strange group of people. This is what grace does. This is why we should all, not only Wednesday morning at six thirty, but on our faces, be praying for grace, because when grace comes on to people, people get really weird, really crazy. They don't fit in America anymore. They are strangers and sojourners and exiles and refugees on planet earth that think about money in the most odd, peculiar, strange ways. Please let us give more. I know you took an offering last night. I know that we're poor, please. I mean, I don't know any other way to handle verse four. Come to me at the end of the service if you do, and I will fix it in the next service. Observation number nine. Let's read verse five. And this, this what, this giving, this incredible, afflicted, poverty-stricken, joy-based, passionate, begging, giving, this, not as we expected. Oh, there's more. It gets better. But they first, they gave themselves first to the Lord, and then by the will of God to us. So observation number nine is this giving for the relief of the saints is not unrelational. It's not mechanical and impersonal. There are two massive relationships accompanying it and underneath it. And notice the order first before they gave any money and before they had any human relationships of deep and lasting significance, they gave themselves to the Lord. They said something like, here comes the grace of God opening, forgiving, cleansing. And they say, I'm not my own. I was bought with a price. I am yours. Have at me do with me as you please. I am not my own property, all that I own, all that I think, all that I feel, all my family, all my things are yours. Just tell me what to do, and I will happily be your servant, your steward, your trustee forever. That seems to be what's going on in these words. They gave themselves first to the Lord so that out of that came the giving, observation number 10, and then by the will of God that gave themselves to us. There's such a longing in this church for relationships. Please don't be naive. Please don't say the problem with relationships is that the church is too big, 3,700 people in church last Sunday. That's ridiculous. That's absolutely ridiculous. As soon as your church gets over 20 people, you got relationship problems and you have to choose which of those 20 you're going to hang out with. None of this big church stuff, that is not the issue. The issue is us, all of us, and whether we will seek out, find, and love a half a dozen, a dozen people with all of our hearts. And say to them, I am yours. Everything I have is at your disposal. If you need my house, it's your house. If you need my car, it's your car. If you need my snowblower, it's your snowblower. You need my time, it's your time. I have given myself up to the Lord. He sends me back into a body of believers to give myself away. I am yours unless you become the slave of all. You cannot be my disciple. Mark 8, 30, 9, 30, 10, 30. It's really plain. And out of that, giving ourselves up to the Lord, giving ourselves away to each other, flowed, unbelievable generosity. So, yeah, let's work at that. Let's be there. Let's pray toward that. Let's not bellyache about the size of this church. Let's realize that from 25 on, you got problems in relationships. And let's just solve the problems. Let's find the people and love the people that we can love. Let's have eyes for the people we don't know. When you walk out, hang out. Look for people you don't know. Talk to them. That's not a pastoral problem, that's your problem. When you go out, find people, love people. And pastors do the same by setting a good example. Well, 10 observations, and I haven't said anything except everything about treasure in Christ together. So, let me move toward a conclusion with applying all of this to the vision of treasure in Christ together. What's this grace that came down? That's the key, isn't it? Everything started in verse 1. Grace came, arrived, was given in Macedonia. And the result was that abundant joy rose and that joy spilled over in generosity. That's the pattern. Grace comes down, joy comes up, sounds like a song, and a river is created called, what do you call this river? I'll tell you what it's called, L-O-V-E. Grace comes down, joy comes up, love overflows. That's the Christian life. Verse 9 gives the answer as to what the grace is. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor so that by His poverty, you might become rich. I hope you know from these 10 observations, verses 1 to 5, that the word rich at the end of verse 9 does not mean houses, cars, clothes, and vacations. It's an abomination to give that verse that interpretation. He became poor that in Him, we might have more houses, more cars, more clothes, more luxuries. That is not what that verse means. And you know it's not because the poverty in verse 2 is severe, extreme. And it's all owing to triumphant grace in verse 9. These are the richest people on planet Earth in their poverty and affliction. So you should ask, well, what is the riches at the end of verse 9? The answer is in the verse. Let the first use of the word riches define the last use of the word riches. Let's read it again. You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, though He was rich. There's the first use of the word, yet for your sake He became poor so that you by His poverty might become that. What Christ had done as God, and He stayed God, He didn't lay aside His godness when He came, He laid aside the more immediate, precious, sweet experiences of joy in the presence of His Father and took a distance from Him and ultimately an absolute distance from Him. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That's His ultimate poverty and His ultimate riches was and will be restored to me the glory that I had with you before the foundation of the world. And we are now by this redemption being swept up into that riches. Psalm 16 and 11, "In your presence, God, is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore." You wonder what the pleasures are, the abundant joy in verse 2 that caused radical liberality. There's no doubt what it is. Jesus had come to earth to die for sins, purchase eternal life, an everlasting, ever-increasing joy. Grace had come down and opened their hearts to see this Christ and in His losing riches for their sake, He Himself became the riches of their life which is where we get division, treasuring Christ together. Christ is our riches Bethlehem. Christ, not money, not houses, not my precious wife and children are my riches. My riches are Christ. Else why did Paul say I count everything as loss compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord? Oh, for a church full of people who say that from their heart. Everything is rubbish compared to Jesus. Let me get specific as we close. We are Christian hedonists. At least we staff and elders are trying to bring everybody else along. And what we mean is this, we have discovered, and it's one of the best discoveries we've ever made, that when the Macedonians were so filled with abundant joy in all that God was for them by grace in Jesus, that they spilled over in radical generosity, not trying to save themselves from affliction and poverty, but spilling over for the good of others, their joy expanding itself into others. When we look at that, we have discovered that makes God look really good. You get it? Their joy in God spilling over for the good of others makes God look really good. And then we put it in a rhyme. God is most glorified in Macedonians when Macedonians are most satisfied in God. Or if you don't like that rhyme, try this one. We show God's greatest measure. Can anybody finish it? When he's our highest, say it. The key in the essence of Christian hedonism is simply this. You may not dare not and should not choose between your quest for joy and God's quest for his glory. It's when we in the midst of affliction and in the midst of perhaps poverty, he is our treasure that his measure is made to look like what it really is. This is treasure in Christ together. We exist to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples. Treasure in Christ is the expression of that passion for God's supremacy. So, treasure in Christ together, this multi-campus vision of planting places where people do this is simply a subordinate statement of our overarching statement. We exist to spread a passion for God. That passion for God can be rephrased. I treasure all that God is for me in Jesus above all things. That's what a passion for God means in his supremacy. And that's what treasuring Christ together means. Therefore, the vision is this. We want over the next 10 years, I choose 10 just because maybe I'll be done in 10. And I want to be a part of this. I want to preach into this and do expository exultation into this while I have breath or until my mind goes bad enough that you whisper around and say he should really go home. So, as long as I'm thinking clearly and opening the Bible faithfully, I want to be a part of this. And what this is is a campus there, 2,000 people exulting in Christ as their superior treasure, so fully that they spill over onto their community with mercy and to Sudan with passionate radical missions. And then another campus. And then another campus. We think maybe 2,000 per campus. And oh, I have been doing some very exciting math last night with regard to money, but not another word about that. We close by simply pointing you to that and showing you something really exciting. Just take this with you when you go and pray about it. We had three options here. Everybody look at this with me. We had three options here for our people and we dropped the first one. You know why? The first one was I plan to up my giving to the budget by such and such a dollar in the rest of this year so that we can meet our budget. We dropped it because you're already doing it. I mean, we're stunned as an eldership. What's happening? You're giving now at the level that we prayed you would be what's God saying in that? We'll take that off the sheet. That's what he's saying first. Because now I have freed these people to do what they're presently doing and now we need a down payment. That's option number one. How much can we get in the next few weeks for a down payment? And the answer to how much this building is going to cost is we'll collect as much as we can up front for a down payment and we're going to borrow the next. If the borrowing raises questions for you, please read the last four or five pages of the booklet. We elders have wrestled for months to seek God's face and God's will with regard to short term debt. And we love the idea that the downtown nerve center base of operations campus is absolutely debt free. It's probably worth 30 or 40 million dollars down there and not a debt on it to free us to now do what needs to be done around the cities. And if it involves short term debt, we'll embrace that. You read it and see whether our biblical reflections are compelling. So we need a down payment and we're going to ask you go home, pray how much in a special offering over the next several weeks can you give? And then we need to create a stream of income if you don't come up with 5.6 million dollars. Which I do not have the faith to believe that you will. And I don't regard myself as a sinner for not at this point believing God for the upfront giving of 5.6 plus 1.5. Whatever. I don't know what God's going to do. I'm just at peace that if you take this home, talk it over as a family or as a single person, talk it over with God. He'll show you what to do on line one, help with the down payment and line two, help with the stream of income. And that's all I'm asking you to do this morning is pray. When do these need to be back? I don't know. We think we can probably get a 45 day extension so that the actual deal closes in a few weeks, maybe June. But the sooner we close it, the faster they go to work on it, and the quicker we stop paying around here. So I'm not sure what the best way to do it is. So come and help us think about that Wednesday night. Close with this. Pray earnestly, treasure Christ above all things and give His God leads. Let's pray. Father in heaven, I thank you for this people and what you have done in their lives. What an amazing thing that Bethlehem, the multi-campus reality has been giving so generously that our missionaries are funded and the bills are paid and the staff is supported and the ministry in the city and in the suburbs carries forth. I want to thank you publicly for this people. And now, Lord, as we dream together about treasuring Christ together, would you come? If affliction has to come, we will accept that. If poverty is involved, we will accept that. But what we will not do without is joy in Jesus. He's worthy not to be satisfied in Him is a sin that we lay hold on you for and say, "We must have the joy of your salvation. Restore it to us that we might spill over in radical generosity for the mission and the ministry and the mercy of this church." I pray. Through Christ, amen.
John Piper | Watch Now