At the beginning of the year, David was the new pastor of an in-house church consisting of fifty regular worshipers. In that year the church grew to two hundred fifty. The congregation purchased land and built a church building. Life was good.
Lakeside's accomplishments in the year 2006.
At our church this year, Lakeside, 2006 also has been a very good year. We have had twenty baptisms, ten of which were adult baptisms. This is more baptisms than have ever occurred in one year in Lakeside’s history. In addition to the baptisms twenty-three persons transferred their memberships from other churches to become members at Lakeside. Attendance broke past three hundred on two separate Sundays in November.
In October our Greater Good Sale gave our congregation triple benefits. First, we raised over ten thousand dollars to benefit Inner City Mission, Beer L’Hai Roi Women’s ministry, and Haitian Christian Outreach. Second, we sold items which were worth twenty five dollars for twenty five cents, enabling the persons buying the items to purchase quality merchandise at bargain bin prices. Third, all of us were able to recycle our old things and clean out our closets.
Our congregation filled a semi-trailer truck full of food in our Hauling Off Hunger campaign to benefit the residents of Inner City Mission and those persons who depend on Kumler Neighborhood Ministries to supplement their food budgets.In 2006 Lakeside experienced amazing generosity from our members. We burned the mortgage on this building, taking only five years to pay it off. We supported other ministries and missions around the world.
Our youth took a mission trip to Haiti, participated in the Christ in Youth conference with numbers greater than those of much larger churches, and had great enthusiasm and participation in the youth groups Revolution and Gravity.
Jon’s sermons were biblically sound and always right on the money. Did you know that Jon is working on his doctorate? You can see his intellectual growth every Sunday in his sermons. The sermons reveal his own growth. What was your favorite sermon series? Mine was "Meet Jesus". And my favorite sermon was just a couple weeks ago, the one on the beatitude which says, "Blessed are the pure in heart."
God spoke to us in classes and small groups. There were fifty regular participants in Life Groups, forty people in Life Tracks, and forty other persons in small groups. Our congregation has wonderful stories of transformed lives. And so we at the end of 2006 say, "Life is good".
The young pastor David makes a resolution.
Let’s get back to my story about the young pastor David. As the new year started, David was doing some thinking. He was watching "The Late Show." During the show he heard the question, "Do you have any idea just how much time you are allowing your brain, and therefore your life, to be influenced by someone else?""How much time do I spend in front of that screen every night?", he wondered. "A couple of hours, at least. What would happen, Lord, if I sold that television set and spent that time praying? What would happen if I spent two hours every single night in prayer?" It was an exhilarating idea! David would substitute prayer for television and see what happened.
His mind raised some objections. He was tired at night. He needed the relaxation. He needed the television to keep in touch with popular culture. But in the end, David sold the televison. He learned to pray. And because it’s hard to pray for two hours solid, (Have you ever tried it?) he added systematic Bible reading. He gave prayers of petition and prayers of praise.
Worthy goals for 2007.
Like David, do you have some goals for 2007? I started looking for someworthy 2007 goals. I did an internet search of Mygoals.com and 43things.com to find some good goals. The top five goals from 43things.com were to be happy, fall in love, write a book, lose weight, and stop procrastinating.
Other goals included exercise regularly, be my child’s hero, learn to ride a horse, drink eight glasses of water a day, learn to play the piano, give blood, save money out of every paycheck, be less shy, reduce, reuse, and recycle, quit smoking, be on time, organize my closets, play golf more often, learn origami, and be honest and truthful.
I have my own favorite goals already set for 2007. I want to touch more people more deeply, have people over for dinner more often, read great books, pray more, get out of debt, learn Italian, honor people, laugh heartily, help others less fortunate, and fall more in love with Jesus. I also want to read the Bible through, tell my wife "I love you" more often, tell my family "I love you" more often, figure out what I want to be when I grow up, learn to prepare ten great meals, learn CPR, think less and do more, and really live. Really live.
Our goals can produce radical change in us.
David’s decision to sell the television produced a radical change in him. The more time he spent with God, the easier it was for God to speak to David. One night he was feeling a little stir crazy, so he was up walking around as he prayed. But his eyes caught the picture on the cover of Life Magazine. There on the cover was the picture of seven members of a New York gang who were on trial for murder. David experienced God’s love for them and felt compelled to go to New York to the trial so that he could share the good news of Jesus with them.
That moment changedDavid's life. He went to New York. He disrupted the court proceedings. He was handcuffed and escorted out of the courtroom. His picture was all over the New York newspapers. And those pictures in the newspapers gave him acceptance on the street.
He shared the message of Jesus with gang members and addicts. He founded a program called Teen Challenge. The purpose of Teen Challenge was to share the gospel, provide a place to live for gang members who had changed, and to shape new lives to live for Jesus Christ. Now, forty-six years later there are approximately four hundred-twenty Teen Challenge Centers worldwide.
We should honor God first, like David did.
What should be the 2007 vision for Lakeside? We should honor God first. And then we would see lives transformed by the power and love of God. A second vision for our congregation is to help people love God passionately. This passion would beevidenced by seeing them live Spirit-filled lives, loving and caring for one another, and influencing the world around them for the kingdom of God.
What would be a worthy goal for each of us individually? The scriptures say that Christ’s love compels us. Let’s turn to2 Corinthians 5:14-17 (NIV). These verses say, "For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"
What if Christ's love compelled your life?
What if that love compelled your life? Wouldn’t that be worthy of setting as your goal for 2007? What does it mean to be compelled by love? Compel is defined as 1) to take action as a result of pressure 2) to bring about by force 3) to overpower or 4) to exert a strong irresistible force.
Christ’s love compels us. Forces us. Requires us. Restrains us. Enslaves us. Drives us. Necessitates us. Obliges us. Urges us. Overpowers us. It’s like I didn’t have a choice. I saw you. I loved you. I had to speak to you. I had to be kind to you, help you carry your burden, push your car, and shovel your snow. It’s not just any love in us. It’s Christ’s love.
It was love that gave Jesus perfect unity with the Father. It was love that made Jesus perfectly obedient to the Father. Love was how Jesus summed up all of the law of the Old Testament. Matthew 22:37-40 (NIV) says, "Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.' "
Love caused Jesus to set the captives free. Love caused Jesus to heal the sick. Love caused Jesus to give sight to the blind. Love caused Jesus to weep for Lazarus. Love caused Jesus to raise the dead. Love caused Jesus to wash his disciples’ feet. Love caused Jesus to speak to a Samaritan woman. Love caused Jesus to engage children. Love caused Jesus to feed the five thousand. Love caused Jesus to call simple, uneducated fishermen into ministry.
What if that same love compelled your life as it did Jesus’ life? Wouldn’t that be worthy of setting as your goal for 2007? Compelled by love. The apostle Paul says, "For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced…."To be compelled, I must be convinced. Are you convinced? Convinced means to be moved by evidence to a firm belief or agreement, to be persuaded, to be assured, or to be certain.
In this passage are the four beliefs that will produce a life of love. First, in 2 Corinthians 5:14 (NIV) it says, “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died." This is easy to miss.
The first belief that will produce a life of love.
God’s verdict on fallen man is that he must die. Because of sin, man deserves to die. The Bible says this in several places. Genesis 2:17 (NIV) says, "…for when you eat of it you will surely die." Ezekiel 18:20 (NIV) says, "The soul who sins is the one who will die." Romans 6:23 (NIV) says, "For the wages of sin is death…" Ephesians 2:1 (NIV) says, "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins…" Colossians 2:13 (NIV) says, "When you were dead in your sins…" James 1:15 (NIV) says, "Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death."
Our culture and most religions tell us that man can be fixed, apart from dying, if he gets a good education. Or if he comes to terms with what happened to him in his childhood. Or if he ever understands his psychological make-up. Or if we fix his environment. Or if we control all the injustice around him. Or if he conforms to certain behavior. That’s what the world tells us.
But God’s verdict is man cannot be fixed apart from dying. Man’s disease is so bad that the only solution is to die. If this is not the case, then God did a terrible thing when he required his own son to die in order to fix man.
The second belief that will produce a life of love.
2 Corinthians 5:14 (NIV) says, "…because we are convinced that one died for all." One died for all. That was Jesus, the one who died for all of us. God valued man enough that he sent Jesus to die in order for man to live.
Let’s quote together John 3:16 (NIV). "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
God’s verdict is that fallen man is worth dying for. With all of our problems, our sin sickness, and our perversions, we were still worth dying for. 2 Corinthians 5:14 (NIV) tells us, "For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died."
The fact is that the only way we can be fixed is through death. The good news is that Jesus came and died for us so that in him, we can die. Not figuratively. Not metaphorically. But really, really die. We enter into his death. In Galatians 2:20 (NIV) Paul tells us, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me."
But it doesn’t stop there. God didn’t want to just kill the disease. He wanted to save the patient. The disease is killed through the cross. We die and are buried in our baptism. The patient is saved through the resurrectionof Jesus. Paul finishes his sentence with, "Christ lives in me."
We died with Jesus on the cross. We were buried with Jesus during baptism. And we are raised from the waters of baptism with Jesus to live with resurrection power.
The third belief that will produce a life of love.
We desire to live for Jesus. 2 Corinthians 5:15 (NIV) says, "And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again."
When you participate in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, you are a new creation. You are a whole new species. The defining characteristic of this new creation is the motivation to live for Jesus.
We, the church, need to appeal to peoples’ new creation identity, new creation motivation, and new creation destiny. The new creation wants to live for Jesus and wants to please God.
The fourth belief that will produce a life of love.
We are Christ’s ambassadors. 2 Corinthians 5:18-21 (NIV) says, "All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."
God gave us the ministry of reconciliation. Not because we have to. But because we love to. Because we are compelled to. Because love won’t let us do anything else except share the love of God, through the gospel of Jesus Christ to those who are lost.
Christ’s love compels us becausewe are convinced that man’s reconciliation with God will solve man’s problems. Man, with a new heartput back in touch with God, can truly have a new life. God wants to put his love into your life.
My question to you today is simply this. Do you want this life of love?