Last week, we spent our time together looking at an event
from history that is recorded for us in a section of an account in Jesus life in
the Bible called the gospel of Matthew, where Jesus provided a timeless goal
for followers of Jesus that serves as the foundation for the mission and vision
that God has given us at City Bible Church.
We talked about the reality that the church is the only
organization that does not exist for the sake of its members. Instead, the
church exits for the mission that we have been given by God as God has Divinely
designed the church to be the vehicle that He uses to reveal His Son Jesus to
the world. We talked about the reality that God places the local church in
distinctive environments to be distinctively different. And from Matthew
5:14-16, we unpacked the reality that God has placed City Bible Church in
Bullhead City to be a city in a city that is striving to reveal and reflect
Christ as we love and serve the city.
When then talked about the reality that when we read the Bible,
we discover that individuals who were involved in a growing and maturing
relationship with Jesus consistently invested their lives in three specific
ways, which led us to three specific goals for us in 2019 as followers of
Jesus. First, we discovered that those who are involved in a growing and
maturing relationship with Jesus consistently invested their time with other
Christians as they gathered corporately for regular weekly worship gatherings
and as they scattered to experience community in homes throughout the week.
This reality led us to set as a goal that every regular attender would invest their time, in addition to attending one
of the three worship gatherings that we have on Sundays, in a community group.
Second, we discovered that those who are involved in a
growing and maturing relationship with Jesus consistently invested their
talents serving God by serving others through the exercise of their spiritual
gifts. This reality led us to set as a goal that every regular attender would
invest their talents serving God by serving others as part of a ministry
team.
Third, we discovered that those who are involved in a
growing and maturing relationship with Jesus consistently invested their
treasure to support God’s kingdom mission through regular and proportional
giving. This reality led us to the goal that every regular attender would
invest their treasure in a way that reveals and reflects the generosity of
Jesus.
We talked about the reality that our desire is to be a
church that creates environments where people can move on a spiritual journeys
from being consumers, who are either shopping for answers when it comes to
Jesus and the Bible, or who view the church as a place where they receive
spiritual goods and services, to being owners, who own a genuine and authentic
relationship with Jesus, to move to be investors who embrace and invest their
time, talent, and treasure to advance the kingdom mission that God has given
us. As followers of Jesus, we accomplish the mission that God has given us when
we live as missionaries that engage and embrace the kingdom mission that we
have been given to live spirit-filled, gospel-centered lives that reveal and
reflect Christ to those around us as we love and serve those that God has
already placed around us who are far from God.
Now a natural question that could be running through your
mind at this point is “well Dave that all sounds great, but why should I engage
in these goals that you have talked about? And how exactly do these goals help
me move on this spiritual journey from being a consumer to an owner to an
investor? How does investing my time in a community
group, my talents on a ministry team, and my treasure in a way that reflects
the generosity of Jesus result in me actually growing in my relationship with Jesus?
If those questions are running through your mind, I just
want to let you know that you are asking great questions. And for the next
three weeks, we are going to spend our time together answering those questions
in a sermon series entitled “Invest”. During this series, we are going to
discover how investing our time in a community group, our talents on a ministry
team, and our treasure in a way that reflects the generosity of Jesus results
in us experiencing a growing and maturing relationship with Jesus. And as we go through this series, our hope
and prayer is that God would move by the power of the Holy Spirit in our heads,
hearts, and hands in a way that results in us investing in these environments
so that we can move on a spiritual journey that results in us taking the next
step in our relationship with Jesus, regardless of where we currently are at in
our relationship with Jesus.
This week I would like for us to look at the first of the
three ways a person who is involved in a growing and maturing relationship with
Jesus will invest their lives in. I would like for us to spend our time
together looking at how consistently investing our time, in addition to
consistently attending a corporate worship gathering, in a community group, will
result in a growing and maturing relationship with Jesus. As a church, we
believe that the circles that are community groups are betters than the rows of corporate
worship gatherings because transformational spiritual growth occurs in
community with others where those supportive and encouraging relationships can
be developed where people can take that next step in their relationship with
Jesus regardless of where one is at in that relationship with Jesus.
Now when we talk about community groups, we are not talking
about simply getting together to read the Bible. And we are not talking about
simply getting together to connect with others. You see, a community group is not simply a Bible
study. While we study the message and teachings of the letters that make up the
Bible in a community group, a community group is more than acquiring knowledge
about what the letters that make up the Bible say and mean. Instead, a
community group is about taking the message and teaching of the letters that
make up the Bible and discovering how to live out that message in our day to
day lives.
You see, a growing and maturing relationship with Jesus is not about how
much we know about God. A growing and maturing relationship with Jesus is about
how much we know God and how we live our day to day lives in relationship with
God. Think of it this way: When people who are demonstrating a growing
and maturing relationship with Jesus talk about the Bible, what do you hear
them say about it?
Do people who are growing and maturing in their relationship
with Jesus spend their time talking about the key theological issues of our
time? Do they sit at the firehouse discuss and debate their views on the great
tribulation? Or whether we choose God or God chooses us? No, they don’t. You
see, here is the interesting thing. When you engage those who are growing and
maturing in their relationship with Jesus, what you find is that they are not
just talking about theology or doctrine; those who are being transformed by
their relationship with Jesus Christ talk about how the message and teachings
of Jesus and the letters that make up the Bible have changed their life.
Now I am not saying that theology and doctrine are not
important, because theology and doctrine are essential components of our faith
and our relationship with Jesus. What I am saying is that theology and doctrine
that does not lead to transformation is merely information. You see, the message
and teachings of Jesus and the letters that make up the Bible were not simply
meant to be informative: the message and teachings of Jesus and the letters
that make up the Bible are meant to be transformative. And when you engage
people who are in a growing and maturing relationship with Jesus, their
conversations are dominated by how the teachings of Jesus and the letters that
make up the Bible have transformed their life.
We see this reality revealed for us in a section of an
account of Jesus life in the Bible called the gospel of Matthew. In this
section of the gospel of Matthew that we are going to jump into this morning, Jesus
was ending a famous sermon, which we call the Sermon on the Mount. And as Jesus
ended this famous sermon, we see Jesus tell a parable that reveals for us a timeless truth as to why consistently investing our time
in a community group will help us move on a spiritual journey that results in a
growing relationship with Jesus.
Tomorrow we will begin to look at this parable…
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