Hope Church LV Sermons
Intimacy Over Activity
Well, this year marks a very significant milestone, if you will, in my life. It has been ten years now since God placed a very distinct call on my life that I was to be a pastor and that I was to serve Him in the local church, through the local church, and give my life to the gospel ministry. And as I think back over the past ten years, there have been a lot of things that have happened. I've been able to serve in great churches in Tennessee, in the state of Alabama, and of course here in Nevada. I've been able to see hundreds and thousands of people come into a relationship with God. I've been able to travel the world and see God's activity among the nations and all types of different aspects of God's kingdom I've been able to be a part of in a really cool way. I've been able to see people disciple, people understand what it means to walk in a relationship with Jesus. And it has been an extreme honor over the past ten years to see all of those things happen. But I can honestly stand here before you this morning and say that I have never been as excited about an upcoming year in ministry as I am about 2011 at Hope Baptist Church in Las Vegas, Nevada. As I've thought over the past week about all the major elements that are going to be a part of our church this year, I got extremely excited. And we don't normally do this, but I've kind of made a short list of some major milestones that are going to be taking place this year in 2011 for us as a church. One of those is that this September, we're going to celebrate our tenth birthday. It blows my mind to think that it has been a decade of ministry, God accomplishing his mission through this local fellowship called Hope. And we give him all the glory for a decades worth of changing us, of changing our city and of touching nations for his glory. But this year we're going to celebrate our tenth birthday. Another significant milestone this year is that we are going to be launching a second campus out of our church in another city. We're going to be launching a second campus of Hope Baptist Church in Boulder City, Nevada. We're going to be able to take the DNA of this church, the core values of this church, the structure of this church and plant it in another community and see more people come to Christ, more people become a part of this fellowship, new ministry started and we're excited about an opportunity to engage that community. Another significant milestone this year is we've been given the honor of leading and hosting the Southern Babis Convention Pastors Conference that's going to take place in Phoenix, Arizona last year. Pastor Vance was elected the president of this conference, which means that our church gets to lead this conference and speak into the lives of thousands upon thousands upon thousands of pastors in our denomination this June. What an honor for us to be able to take our DNA, the teachings of this church, the reason that we believe the church exists and leverage that to disciple pastors across North America and connect them with God's kingdom activity among the nations. What an honor. Another major milestone that is going to take place this year is we're going to open up a new campus here on the south end of Las Vegas. You know we have secured the 15 acres, we're beginning construction and at some point this year we're going to be moving on to a new launching pad, a permanent home for us in this part of the city that we can begin to see people discipled, people's lives change, send people out all over the world from this specific launching pad that we're going to be moving into this year. Another major milestone away God has positioned us as we are ready more than ever before to send people with global partnerships and to send people all over the world to engage in God's kingdom activity, to touch more nations, to train more pastors, to see more things happen on a global scale than we've ever been before. And that's going to be happening this year, another component that I'm excited about is our preaching calendar for 2011. Myself and Pastor Vance and our team, I believe God has led us to some significant sets of scriptures, books of the Bible, sections of scripture that we're going to be teaching this year at this church and we're going to be changed because of it. And I am so excited to see God's word unpacked over the course of this next year within this community of faith. One other milestone I'm excited about is just our local ministries. We are positioned more than ever before, ready to make a difference in our city. We have more people within our church who have had God stir in their heart a desire to start ministries, to feed people or to love people or to shelter people. Different ministries all across this city that are ready and waiting to engage in what God is doing in Las Vegas this year. And there's other things that right now we don't even know about yet. Doors that God's going to open up, that we're going to have a chance to be a part of, to engage in, to see God blow our minds with new opportunities and with new platforms. And I share these things with you, not to say that the DNA of our church is to be about events or to be about major milestones or leading conferences or opening up new campuses. That's not the essence of it. We know that the goal is to know him. And out of intimacy with him, he accomplishes these things through us. But I show this to you to say, God has given us some very significant platforms of influence in this upcoming year. And we need to be ready for him. We need to be excited about what God is doing in and through this church. But our involvement in these things, whether it be a new campus or leading a conference or global opportunities or teaching the Word of God or local ministries, for us all hinges on us understanding one principle. And our understanding of this principle will determine how much we're involved in the things God has put before us. Because God's going to accomplish his mission, whether we're involved or not. But he's given us a chance to be a part of it. And our involvement in that hinges on us understanding one principle. One life-changing reality that I want to give you this morning as we begin. And here it is. What I want us to remember is we move into a new year filled with opportunity. Everything that God desires to do in and through our lives. We will accomplish out of the overflow of our relationship with him. Because I got to be honest with you. When I see a list like this, the flesh in me, the get it done in me says, let's get to work. Show me the list, show me the stuff that needs to happen. Let's start preparing for all these things today because I'm ready to jump in. And here's what I have to realize. My best effort is no good here. And everything that God is going to do through us to train pastors all over the world, to speak into the life of our denomination, to teach the word of God, to engage in ministry here in this city will be accomplished out of a result of us experiencing intimacy in our relationship with him and we can't forget that. And as we move into a new year, we can't forget that. Because if we do and we begin to think that it's about the stuff, it's about the list, it's about the event, then guess what? We're going to operate with a distorted perspective. And that's not healthy. Because a distorted perspective says, all right, here's the things we're going to do this year as a church. Here's our list. And these are the things that as we move throughout the year, we're going to do. And here's the scary part. If we think we're big enough and smart enough to do it, God will let us. And we'll go through it and it'll get done, but here's the problem. It won't bring glory to God and it won't have impact on eternity. And I don't know about you, but when the dust settles at the end of 2011, I don't want to step back and say, look, here's all the stuff we did that didn't impact eternity. But if we begin to drift from this relationship principle that everything he wants to do in and through us, he will do out of the result of our relationship with him. If we forget that, we'll operate with a distorted perspective. But if we can cling to this principle this year and realize and apply that it's all about the relationship, how we see these opportunities is different. Because if we understand the relationship principle, here's what we see. We see that God has entrusted these platforms of influence to us. And they are simply his invitation to watch him at work. And that perspective takes all the pressure off. It takes all the pressure off trying to figure out all the strategy and all the do's and all the don'ts and it allows us to simply focus on the relationship and obey God as He leads us. Big difference. And so this weekend for us, I wanted to take a weekend and just kind of lay that principle down because here's the deal. There have been dozens and dozens and dozens of communities, of ministries, of churches, of organizations who have had a whole list of amazing platforms that awaited them. But unfortunately, as we read throughout history and we read the scriptures, we see example after example after example after example of ministries and churches and communities who set into the year where all these opportunities await and they forgot the relationship principle. Because of that, because they forgot that relationship principle, that it's all about the relationship. They're intimacy with God suffered and their involvement in God's activity was limited. And one of those examples that I want us to explore this morning is in the Old Testament book of Micah. So if you would take your Bible and turn to Micah chapter 6, and there is no problem this morning if you need to look in the table of contents because you don't know where that book is, Micah is a minor prophet in the Old Testament. He was a man who spoke to the nation of Israel on behalf of God. And what we're going to read this morning is an account of that. The book of Micah is really broken up into three major messages. Micah comes to the people of Israel and Micah one and two and he talks about judgment and he says, listen, you can't just do what you want to do and there are not being any consequences. There will be judgment for your sin and he lays that down in the first two chapters. And then in chapters three through five, he begins to talk to them about a Messiah and about a promised one who is Jesus who would come and rescue God's people from their sin. And then in chapter six and seven, Micah lays out a strong challenge to the nation of Israel about them trusting God for everything. And we're going to be reading here in Micah chapter six verses six through eight. And Micah has began this strong challenge to the nation of Israel telling them, listen, you need to turn to God and you need to trust him. He's bigger than your problems. You can trust him. He loves you. He desires a relationship with you. And then I want to read verses six and seven, unpack that and then I want us to look at verse eight for the rest of our time. In verse six, the children of Israel come back to Micah and say, okay, God wants a relationship with us. We're to get right with God. Here's what they say in verse six. With what shall I come to the Lord and bow myself before the God on high? Shall I come to him with burnt offerings, with yearling calves? Does the Lord take delight in thousands of rams, in ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my first born from my rebellious ex, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? They basically say, what do we got to do to please God? What is the list of stuff? What are the things that we need to offer? What needs to happen for us to finally please God? Is it offerings? Is it sacrifices? Is it giving him our own son? What do we need to do? And then Micah comes back in verse eight and here's what he says. He says, God has told you, oh man, what is good? And what does the Lord require of you? What to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. The nation of Israel made a huge mistake. You say they forgot that they were God's people and they begin to think that in order to please God that it was all about the doing, it was all about the stuff, it was all about the works, and I believe from verse eight this morning we can see two major components that will give us a right perspective as we enter into a new year of walking with God and knowing him and a new year filled with opportunities to engage in God's kingdom activity and straight out of verse eight I want to give you those two components this morning. First of all, the first component of a right perspective and really these are foundational principles of the Christian life, the first one is this, I do not have the ability to please God. I in and of myself do not have the ability, the capacity, the resources to be able to please God, the children of Israel thought they did. They said how much, should it be a thousand animal sacrifice like Solomon, should I present my child like Abraham, what do I need to do to please God, how much stuff would please him? And like I said, you can't. He says he's made it very, very clear what he requires and it's righteousness, it's holiness, it's perfection and then he uses a two word phrase that is very significant in this passage. He says he has told you, oh man, now this word man is not used to specify the gender of the audience, it's used to communicate that the person he was talking to was a human. It was a low species, it was mankind, you see I believe Micah, one of the children of Israel to realize very, very quickly who they were and who they were not because they thought for a moment that by the offerings or by the sacrifices or by their good works that somehow God would be pleased with them and Micah says remember something. You're a man, you're a human and you do not possess the ability to please God. We see all over the world from religion, people who by their praying or by their giving or by their actions think I'm doing this with so much passion not out of devotion to my Creator but because I think this is what's going to make him happy and I want you to know something this morning it will never be enough. It won't, we can never offer to God what he desires or what he deserves because in and of ourselves we do not have the ability to please God and I have people all the time who ask well why? You know Travis I got a lot of good stuff going for me. You know I've got my rhythm of how much money I give and I've got my certain clothes that I wear that make me look good and I've got my house and my possessions and all these different things. Why is that not enough for God to be pleased? Well I want to give you two reasons why not. Two reasons why our best effort on our best day no matter how much it shines, how good it looks or how good it is why it will never ever ever please God and here's the first reason our best effort will not please God because we're broken. Our best effort the best we can muster on our best day is not pleasing to God because as humanity, as mankind, as a low species we are broken and regardless of what our ego says regardless of what we feel like we have been scarred and stained because of our sin and it has set up a barrier between us and being what we were intended to be when God created us. And that's important to realize we are a broken people and some people hear that and say okay that just means I need to try harder and if there's a gap between what I am and what God wants then I'll just make up the gap by what I do but you have to understand we can't. We can never offer God righteousness we're never going to be good enough. There's not enough stuff that we can do and we all struggle with this but we will never please God no matter how much we do or how great it is because as humanity we're broken. We're sinful and we have a barrier set up between us and a relationship with God but there's another reason our best effort will never please him. Our best effort is not pleasing to God because we're broken but also because we're weak. We're fragile the Bible says our lives are but a vapor. We're here for a few moments and then we're gone and as weak humanity there's nothing we can do to change our spiritual condition. We don't have the power we don't have the authority we do not have the resources to love people the way they need to be loved we don't have the authority the power of the resources to help someone spiritually we cannot do any of those things because you see when you lay out categories we fall in the category of human not God not divine not great but human and as humans we are broken and we are weak and we do not have the ability to ever even on our best day please the God of heaven and our flesh hates this our flesh does everything it can to try to get us to cover up our flaws and how we're broken and how we're weak and it tries to get us to say things and do things and buy things that maybe in some way will shelter the fact that these things are true but I believe in our heart of hearts whether it's us here in Las Vegas people in the Middle East people in Australia people all over the world regardless of how much we try to do to cover up this reality we know in our heart of hearts we are not what we were meant to be and there's something else out there John Eldridge said this in his book Waking the Dead any honest person knows this we know we are not what we were meant to be most of the world religions can occur on this something needs to be done but the usual remedies involve some sort of shaping up on our part some sort of facelift whereby we clean up our act and start behaving as we should Jews try to keep the law Buddhists follow the eightfold path Muslims live by the five pillars Christians try church attendance and moral living it never works and it never will for heaven's sake we've given it several thousand years you'd think we've gotten somewhere by now of course the reason all those treatments ultimately fail is that we have quite misdiagnosed the disease the problem is not our behavior the problem is in us as Jesus said for out of your heart come evil thoughts murder adultery sexual immorality theft false testimony in slander we don't need an upgrade we need transformation I do not have the ability to please God and left to myself I would spend eternity in that same circumstance and situation with nothing I can do to ever appease him and give them give God what he deserves and what he desires but because of the invitation of Jesus there is another option there is another path there is another way because you see Jesus invites us to change he invites us to walk away from our best effort and the best we can muster and all of our trying and he invites us to experience transformation made you're Ian Thomas said this in one of his books he says you can try to steer clear of sin avoid temptation you can need to try to be sinless but that is still you and you are still trying Jesus Christ was not holy because he focused his efforts on avoiding sin instead he refused to allow there to be any possible explanation for the quality of his life but the father as God dwelling in him as a man then he asked the question so whom do you want dwelling in you more of you or all of Christ that's the invitation to us as a broken and weak humanity Jesus has said you're never going to measure up you're never going to be righteous you're never going to do it so let me do it for you huge difference huge difference and where our first principle said this our first component of a right perspective says this I do not have the ability to please God here's the second component that we see here in the book of Micah only the life of Christ is pleasing to God only the life of Christ is pleasing to God he goes on to say he says God's made his expectation very clear you're a man what is good and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God I don't know about you but when I read the end of verse eight here's what I realize I can't do any of those things there's no way that on a consistent basis I can do justice or love kindness or walk humbly it's impossible for me but Jesus can and he did when he was on earth and if that is what his life demonstrated when he was on earth that's exactly what his life will demonstrate today through us Jesus meets the requirement Jesus can offer God righteousness Jesus can offer God holiness Jesus can offer God perfection and that's the beauty of the gospel that we have an invitation even though we don't measure up Jesus says let me do it through you and allow you to experience a relationship with God it's supernatural it's transformational to understand that principle because only the life of Christ is pleasing to the Father and he invites us to experience his life and therein we are pleasing to God later on in his book Major Ian Thomas said this and I love this quote I read it this week the Christian life is nothing less than the life which he lived in lived now by him in you we encourage you to write that down and she wanted a little bit because there's a lot in that he said this that the Christian life a relationship with God is nothing less than the life which Jesus lived then on earth lived now by him in you what a beautiful picture of the gospel and as Micah looked at the children of Israel he says listen you're a man your humanity you cannot please God but then he gives these characteristics that as God presses his life out through them through his strength through his wisdom through his patience through his life these things can be accomplished and as they're accomplished God changes us and we begin to experience transformation from the inside out and as we're transformed his life is made more and more visible through us now if you're anything like me I'm still trying to get my head around this stuff because it is much much different than what I grew up hearing I grew up in a context where I sat in a Sunday school classroom and the teacher had the role and he would say Travis did you read your Bible every day well no okay Travis did you bring an offering well no okay Travis how many people did you witness to this week well none okay and he would just go down the list and I walk out of Sunday school as a ten year old feeling like a failure I mean I'm at the lowest of lows because I think oh my gosh I'll never measure up to what God wants of me and then I hear this principle I can't I don't have to Jesus says he will do it through me major major difference and it stops us from all of our trying and all of our trying to measure up and feeling like a failure and messing up again listen did you know that God's greatest work in your life is the result of you being a failure the event of rescue that God performs in someone's heart who calls on his name by faith God rescues you and that is because we're all a bunch of failures but God loved us too much to leave us that way and he invites us into relationship in which we can be changed and I want to share a couple books with you that have been very significant for me that may be good resources for you as you continue to dig into this over the course of the year one of those we say all the time and it's called the complete green letters by Miles J. Stanford this is a book that I read on an annual basis because I just need these principles poured over me and poured into my heart and poured into my mind great resource another one I've quoted this morning and it's called the indwelling life of Christ by Major Ian Thomas great resource about these principles that we can't but he can so I would encourage you as you continue to navigate through these realities to do so well mica closes this passage in verse eight and it really gives us three expressions of the life of Christ three things that we can't do but that Christ in us can do and I want to give you those three expressions as we finish this morning the first one he says here in the end of verse eight is to do justice and here's the expression Christ in me produces integrity Christ's life in me will produce integrity here's what this means this means that in every relationship and situation we are to be people who seek after justice we're to be people of our word we should treat people with respect we're not to use our resources our jobs or our privileges to take advantage of people and we can't do that on our own but Christ through us can produce a life of integrity a life of character you know words like blameless and above reproach aren't very prevalent in our culture but when we get close to the heart of God and we see his life pressed out through us we begin to understand that at the very essence of the life of Christ was a life of integrity here's a second expression we see there in mica chapter six verse eight Christ in me not only produces integrity but Christ in me produces compassion he says next not only to do justice but to love kindness this means that we are people of mercy we are people who are broken over the hurting Jesus is the most compassionate person in history and I believe as we draw into him as we experience into me see with him we will begin to care about compassion let me ask you a question does it bother you that there are people all over this globe right now who are hurting does it bother you that there are people in this city right now who are hurting does it bother you that there are people in this room right now and man they're hurting as we press into Christ and his life is pressed out through us we'll begin to care about that stuff and we will have a passion to see joy where there's pain and to see peace or right now there's sorrow that will be inside of us as his life is pressed out through us that's not us but it's him the third expression that we see here in mica six verse eight is that Christ in me produces humility the last thing he says here is that we are to walk humbly with our God we're to be people who understand listen it's not me as we move into a new year and we have so many opportunities that we should be excited about that we should pray about that we should prepare for we must understand if anything comes out of these milestones that brings glory to God and that impacts eternity it's not us it's him what an invitation let me give you one last key statement and then we'll be finished this kind of sums the whole thing up because I have a relationship with Jesus God lives in me through his spirit and invites me to live life out of the overflow of a loving relationship with him as he encourages me and counsels me and leads me by speaking intimately into my life as I seek him through this relationship I am changed before we move into a new year I want us to get that reality inside of our hearts we have a chance this year to see God do things among us that we've never seen before an invitation from him to join his activity to experience a deeper level of intimacy than we ever have before but all those things will happen as we press in to the relationship not focus on events or milestones or platforms we focus on him and as we know him he accomplishes these things through us I'm praying that it's a great year for us as a church and I'm excited to see all that God is going to do in and through us as we continue to fall in love with him let's pray we're going to take a few minutes now and just have some time of response and I don't know for you how these principles or this text has really landed on you this morning but I want you to take a few minutes and I want you just to think about your personal relationship with God are you someone here today who is lost sight of the relationship principle have you begin to think that your Christian walk is based on trying have you begin to think just out of the flow of life that everything you do is dependent on you everything that is accomplished in your life is dependent on you maybe you need to take a minute and just repent and ask God to align your perspective with the truth maybe you would just confess there where you are that you do not have the ability even on your best day to please God and pray for his life to be pressed out through you as you think about your year that's up and coming maybe you would just pray through some of those major things and pray that those things would be accomplished out of the overflow of intimacy with God you just take some time and pray about one of these milestones it's up and coming for us as a church pray that we don't drift from focusing on the relationship no matter how much we want to try harder or to do maybe you're here today and you don't have a relationship with God and what we're talking about today it's new news for you and today you want to ask Christ to rescue you just a minute we're going to have some prayer volunteers and pastors around the room and they're there because they'd love to meet you they'd love to share with you how you can embrace the invitation of Jesus to be changed not to religion not to a lifestyle of trying harder but to a relationship with God in which he presses his life out through you I'm going to pray for us and then we're going to stand and just have a time to respond through song maybe you want to sing along with our team maybe you just want to be still and listen for a few minutes but God in this time of response Lord would you would you speak to us Lord all of us in some form can apply what we're talking about today because God all of us wrestle with it and God it's a shot on our ego to say that we can never please you through our ability but God it is so refreshing to realize that you've invited us into a relationship in which you accomplish things through us so God as we have these moments and some of us pray some of us sing some of us listen God I pray that we'd be able to apply and be obedient to where you are leading us and what you are leading us to do we love you this morning Jesus [MUSIC PLAYING] I pray these things again.