Surfing the Inner N8

Yesterday at CrossWay we talked about the comeback church.  A comeback church is an underdog congregation that is headed toward decline but turns things around to begin reaching people for Christ.  A comeback church sees lives transformed by the power of the gospel. 

There are certain spiritual dynamics at work in a comeback church.  They include:

(1) A comeback church has a renewed commitment to the mission that Jesus Christ gave His church.  You can read about Christ’s commission to His church in Matthew 28:18-20.  At CrossWay we constantly remind everyone that our mission is to make lifelong followers of Jesus Christ throughout our community and around the world.  We will only do things that serve this purpose.

(2) A comeback church has a renewed commitment to servanthood.  We recognize that we’re not here just for ourselves.  Rather than turning inward and becoming collectively self-centered, we turn outward.  We recognize that nothing we have is really ours: our bodies, our time, our possessions, our abilities–they all belong to God.  He lends us these things to enjoy and meet our needs, but also to share with others.  You can read about the attitude of a Christian servant in Philippians 2:5-11.

(3) A comeback church has a renewed commitment to strategic prayer.  We pray seriously, continually, and strategically.  We pray for things that matter.  You can read an example of this in Acts 4:23-31.

Of course, the ultimate comeback story is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  After all, He was dead and buried–you can’t get more hopeless than that!  But He  conquered sin and death and made the ultimate comeback.  Since we’re His church, we too can make a comeback.  We can be a comeback church!

If you’re interested in learning more about this subject, I’d encourage you to check out Comeback Churches by Ed Stetzer and Mike Dodson.

Yesterday at CrossWay we talked about Skittles.  Pastor Ed Young from Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas, tells a story about a time he was at a high school football game with his daughter.  She wanted a pack of Skittles, so he bought her some.  As he watched her eat them, he decided they looked pretty good.  So he asked for a couple Skittles, but she refused.

Pastor Young pointed out three things that his daughter didn’t seem to realize about her Skittles:
(1) He was the one who had given her the Skittles.
(2) He was bigger, stronger, and faster than her, so he could take away all of her Skittles.
(3) He had enough money to go back to the concession stand and buy her more Skittles than she would ever be able to eat.

We’re in a very similar situation with God and the stuff He gives us.  Everything we have is from God, but sometimes when He asks for us to give back a few Skittles, we refuse.  We clutch tightly to our Skittles.

As we talked about Skittle management, we looked at a few basic Bible truths:

• Life is about God, not money or possessions. (Luke 12:13-34)
• Our money and our stuff is really God’s, anyway. (Psalm 24:1)
• God calls us to give generously. (Mark 12:41-44)
• God calls us to give cheerfully. (2 Corinthians 9:6-7)

God wants us to enjoy the tangible blessings He gives us, but He also wants us to be His channel for blessing others.

Naturally, we just had to close the service by giving everyone a pack of Skittles. 

At CrossWay yesterday we wrapped up the series “i am second” with a message called “Why It’s Good to Be a Sorry Loser.”

We started with a video testimony from Texas Rangers outfielder Josh Hamilton, then talked about everyone’s favorite subject: repentance.  Repentance doesn’t seem like a very fun word, but it’s actually the means that God has given us to draw close to Him.  We talk a lot in various circles about change, and repentance is the key to real, true, lasting change.  Repentance can be broken down into simple steps:

(1) Admit my sinfulness.

(2) Humble myself.  This means:
       A. Submit myself to God.
       B. Submit myself to others.

(3) Resist temptation.

(4) Draw near to God.

To delve deeper you can read James 4:4-10 and listen to the podcast when it’s up.

At CrossWay yesterday we had the second week in the series “i am second.”  This week’s message was “How to Love Someone to Death.”

We started with this testimony from Chris Plekenpol.  Then we read Romans 5:6-8 and Matthew 5:43-47.  These two passages are summed up in Ephesians 4:32, which says to “be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.”

We naturally live according to our own standard of love, which says that we’re kind to those who are kind to us.  But Jesus teaches us to be kind to everyone and to even pray for people who persecute us!  That’s a different way of doing things, and it’s the kind of difference that sets God’s people apart.

The podcast at least recorded this week, though the sound quality isn’t too great.  But a new recorder is on the way!

Easter Sunday at CrossWay was great!  We knew that Easter attendance is usually higher than normal, but it was a LOT higher this year–easily the most people I’ve ever seen at this church on a Sunday.

We launched a new series called “i am second.”  The idea comes from the website iamsecond.com.  We watched the testimony of Brian “Head” Welch, formerly of the band Korn.  Then we read Colossians 1:15-20 as we began exploring the topic for the morning: why Jesus is #1.

Based on this passage, we see several reasons why Christ is #1:

• He is God.
• He died for us.
• He rose from the dead.
• He reconciles us to God.

It was a wonderful Sunday.  Great to have so many worship with us!  Unfortunately the recording device we use to capture the message for the podcast shorted out on us yet again, so it’s headed for the electronic cemetery.  Pretty bummed about that.  But Jesus is still alive!

In the Gospel of Mark, there is a pretty large cast of characters who appear in the story during the last week of Jesus’ life.  Yesterday at CrossWay we zoomed in on a passage that features two different groups: a centurion and his fellow Roman soldiers, and a group of women who followed Jesus to Jerusalem from their homes up north.

In both of their stories, we see a contrast between their simple, Christ-centered faith and the self-centered religiosity that Jesus’ mockers–and many of us–slip into.

It’s natural to perceive everything through the lens of how it affects us.  If it benefits us, it’s good; if it’s detrimental to us, it’s bad; if it doesn’t affect us either way, it’s irrelevant.  This view puts us at the center of the universe with everything else revolving around us.  That’s the Gospel of Me.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ, however, has Jesus at its core.  Everything in creation revolves around Him.  (That’s why His pronouns get capitalized!)  We see in Mark 15:37-41 how the centurion and the women demonstrated this.

When the centurion saw how Jesus died, he declared: “Surely this man was the Son of God!”  Many times we let our faith be undermined by something bad happening.  If we get hurt, we ask: Where was God?  How did He let this happen?  Yet this Roman soldier had a simple understanding that God can die and still be God.  (And he didn’t even know anything yet about the resurrection!)  The other day I read a great sermon that offers insight into this reality.  It’s by Dr. J.A.T. Robinson, from the introduction to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book Letters and Papers from Prison.  He talks about how Jesus could have avoided the cross, but He was after a bigger purpose than pain avoidance.  Dr. Robinson says of the cross of Christ: “It was here that love as the clue to everything was to be sought–not ‘out there’ failing to prevent the evil, but in the midst of it, triumphing over it.”  On the cross, Jesus leapt right into the center of evil itself and whupped it.  When things are at their worst and we’re in our greatest pain, it could be then that God is up to His greatest good in our lives.

Then there’s the group of women.  The Bible makes a startling, remarkable statement about them: “these women had followed him (Jesus) and cared for his needs” (Mark 15:41).  How many of us can say that?  I’ve noticed in myself and many others that we tend to be like most of the crowd in New Testament times: they followed Jesus so that He could meet their needs, not the other way around.  These women, on the other hand, were motivated by love for Christ to follow Him and care for His needs.  Jesus is no longer in human flesh on the earth, so He no longer has any needs, but we can still be of use to Him.  Is that one of our primary reasons for following Him?

The Gospel of Me, or the Gospel of God.  Which one are you embracing?

Yesterday at CrossWay was week #2 in the series TXT.  This week we explored the question: How do we know the Bible is true?

We broke this question down into three tests that are used by historians to test the reliability of ancient documents:

(1) The internal test.  This asks the question: Do the writers of the Bible claim that their writings are true?

This one is the easiest to answer.  Passages like 2 Peter 1:16 and John 19:35 give us a resounding yes.  The Bible passes the internal test.

(2) The external test.  This asks the question: What does the outside evidence say about the Bible?

We looked at other ancient writings, archaeology, and other sources and discovered that the Bible does indeed pass the external test.

(3) The bibliographic test.  This asks the question: How well were the original documents translated up to today?

Looking at various pieces of evidence such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, we found that the Bible passes the bibliographic test; in fact, much more so than any other ancient work.

Lastly we looked at how Christ’s mind-boggling fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy verifies their truth.

I’ll give you a warning that I gave everyone in church: If your heart is hardened to God and your mind is closed to receiving His truth, this message will do nothing to change your mind.  Even people in New Testament times who had plenty of firsthand evidence chose disbelief over faith.  Faith is a gift from God, and if we ask Him to show Himself to us and help us believe, He will.  Hopefully this message can at least persuade people to consider that maybe God really is who He says He is.

After all, the Bible really is true!

The podcast should be up soon.

At CrossWay yesterday we wrapped up the Fanatic series with a message called “True Worshipers.”  Once again we touched on John 4:23 where Jesus says that “the time is coming–indeed it’s here now–when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.  The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way.”

Jesus is talking here about genuine worship as opposed to religious routine.  What does this look like?  We looked at three traits of genuine worship:

(1) True worshipers worship with awe.

(2) True worshipers worship with abandonment.

(3) True worshipers worship with their lives.

Look for the podcast coming soon.

At CrossWay yesterday I preached a message called “Living in God’s Will.”  It was actually from the Real Life series we did last fall, but I missed sharing it then because I was sick.

Whenever we’re faced with a tough decision, we often seek God’s will.  We want to know what it is He wants us to do.  But the Bible tells us several things we can do that we already know are God’s will for us.  One such passage is 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18: “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

We can be joyful, pray, and give thanks: always, continually, and in all circumstances.  That’s because these three things are all beyond the reach of circumstances since they rest on who Jesus Christ is and what He has done for us.

The podcast will be up as soon as GoDaddy starts working right.

God wants us to share the good news as we do good deeds.  That’s delivering the goods, and that’s what we talked about yesterday at CrossWay Church as the fourth installment of the series Life On Loan.

The Christian life is a lot like show-and-tell.  You can tell people anything, but if you can show it to them then they know it’s real.  They can see it for themselves.  When we do the good deeds that God has planned for us, when we meet people at the intersections, when we respond to others as Jesus would, then people can see the good news of Jesus as well as hear it.

What is the good news?  Jesus loves us so much that He came for us.  He doesn’t leave us here to figure things out on our own.  We don’t have to figure out who God is.  We don’t have to try to be good enough for God.  That’s because God came to us.  His love for us is so all-encompassing that He came to earth to rescue us even though it meant Jesus dying on a cross.  You can read a real brief statement of the good news in John 3:16-17 .

Jesus teaches us to live out the good news in Matthew 5:13-16.  He teaches us how to help people not only hear about the good news, but to see it in action as well.  As Steve Sjogren has said: “It seems people don’t necessarily remember what they are told of God’s love, but they never forget what they have experienced of God’s love.”

Yet it’s not enough just to do good stuff.  People have to know why we do good deeds.  The reason we live the good news is because we’ve heard it and believed it, so now we want to share it with others.  Jesus instructs us to do this very thing in Mark 16:15.  We read in Romans 10:17 that hearing the good news is how we come to have faith.

Deliver the goods.  Tell the good news.  Live the good news.  Let God use you at the intersections to write someone else into His story!