On Sunday at CrossWay Church we wrapped up the six-week series “Life On Loan” with a message called “Looking to Eternity.” The Big Idea was that our lives can have eternal significance when we invest in things that last forever.
Rather than going into all the details here, let me just point you to the podcast which should be up by tomorrow afternoon.
This Sunday we’re having a stand-alone message, then doing a two-week series about worship called “Fanatic.”
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!
Sunday at CrossWay was the third week of the series Life On Loan. This message was called “Minding the Intersections.”
Whenever we’re driving somewhere, especially on a long road trip, intersections are very important. The final destination is important, of course, but so are the intersections along the way. It is at the intersections that the right things can happen (catching a green light, making the right turn, etc.) or the wrong things can happen (collisions, missing a turn, etc.).
Life as a traveller with God is the same way: the destination is important, but so are the intersections along the way. Spiritually speaking, intersections are those points where our story crosses with someone else’s story. At these intersections, God can use us to influence someone else’s story and even change their destination.
It’s easy to miss these intersections, to just barrel right through them as we focus on reaching our destination. But to experience the journey God has planned for us, we have to mind the intersections.
We can do this in two major ways: pay attention to God and pay attention to the people around us. To help us understand how to do this, we spent some time reflecting on Colossians 3:15-17 and 1 Peter 4:7-11.
I know I’ve gotten behind with the podcast, but I should be caught up by the end of the week. In the meantime… mind those intersections!
Yesterday was the second week of the series “Life On Loan” at CrossWay. The subject was “Merging Your Passions With God’s Purposes.”
The “Big Idea” for the week is that God gives us what we need to partner with Him. Like a good fastball hit right on the sweet spot of the bat, God throws His purposes at our passions. When they intersect, the resulting explosion is the life we’re called to. God has given us everything we need to do the good works He designed us to do. Specifically, here are four things He’s given us:
(1) God gives us leaders to equip us for good works. Ephesians 4:11-12 tells us: “Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.”
(2) God gives us the Bible to prepare us for good works. We read in 2 Timothy 3:16-17: “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.”
(3) God gives us spiritual gifts to enable us to do good works. 1 Peter 4:10 says: “God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another.”
(4) God gives us other Christians to motivate us toward good works. We’re challenged in Hebrews 10:24: “Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.”
The authors of the book that this series is based on, Rick Rusaw and Eric Swanson, ask: “Have you discovered the place where your passion intersects with God’s purpose and you feel fully alive? A life on loan is filled with purpose and passion” (Living A Life On Loan, page 54).
Well? Have you?
On Sunday at CrossWay Church we launched a six-week series called Life On Loan. The series is about how our lives are not our own, but are instead on loan from God. He has a plan and purpose for investing in us by loaning us everything we’ve got, including our lives.
This first message was called “Writing God’s Story.” We read Ephesians 2:8-10 and James 2:14-20. Then we talked about how God has created us in Christ to do good works.
We broke this truth down into three ideas:
(1) You have a story.
(2) God wants to write your story.
(3) God wants to write you into other people’s stories.
I need to give a shout out to the guys who wrote the book and small group curriculum that this series is based on. The book is called Living A Life On Loan by Rick Rusaw and Eric Swanson. Good stuff!
The podcast will be up soon. (I got behind with podcasting the Christmas series, so I’ll just put it up as the next Christmas approaches.)
At CrossWay yesterday we launched the new year with a focus on our mission and vision. Our mission is to make lifelong followers of Jesus Christ throughout our community and around the world. The vision is a snapshot of what it would look like for that to happen, and that’s what we talked about.
In the Bible, Acts 2:42-47 offers a picture of a vision being fulfilled. Since our mission today is the same as the early church’s, we have a lot to learn from them. We can stay focused on our mission and realize the vision by all of our members making five commitments:
(1) We will love God by worshiping Him together with His family.
(2) We will love God by developing intimacy with Him through healthy spiritual habits.
(3) We will love people by serving them.
(4) We will love people by building friendships with them.
(5) We will love God and love people by inviting them to participate in the first four commitments–that is, we will invite them to encounter Jesus for themselves.
I look forward to seeing what God does through CrossWay Church this year!
Yesterday at CrossWay was the third week in our Christmas series, “Are You Ready for Christmas?” We’ve been in the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel, which contains several rich stories leading up to the first Christmas 20 centuries ago.
Every year at this time we have things we do to prepare for Christmas. We go around asking each other: “Are you ready for Christmas?” Usually what we mean by that is: Have you finished your shopping? Have you wrapped all the kids’ presents? Have you sent out your Christmas cards? Have you got the lights up? Have you decorated the Christmas tree?
These things are all nice and can be meaningful ways to celebrate this special holiday, but there are other things to do to help us really prepare for the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. That’s what we’re talking about in this series.
The first week we looked at the circumstances surrounding the birth of John the Baptist, as told in Luke 1:5-25, 57-80. He was uniquely created and called by God to blaze a path for the coming Christ, to get ready a people prepared for His arrival. In the same way, God can use us today to prepare people’s hearts for the coming of Jesus.
The second week we read the story of Mary, Jesus’ mom, and how she responded with trust, submission, and obedience when God told her through the angel Gabriel that she would give birth to a son even while she was a virgin. You can read about it in Luke 1:26-38. We used that as a launching pad to talk about how we can get ready for Christmas by surrendering our plans and agendas to God.
Yesterday we read the story of Mary’s visit to Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, while they were pregnant with Jesus and John. This account appears in Luke 1:39-45. They were all overflowing with joy–even the unborn John! At Christmas we sing “Joy to the World,” and God really has given us joy by giving us Jesus. No matter what is going on around us, we can experience true and lasting joy when we believe, like Mary and Elizabeth, that God really does keep all His promises to us.
Next week we’ll conclude the first chapter of Luke by checking out the song Mary sang as she and Elizabeth celebrated together. Then we’ll wrap up the series on Christmas Eve by taking a close look at a passage you might not expect.
We wrapped up the Real Life series yesterday at CrossWay with a message called “Living in Peace.” We talked about several verses that help us live in peace with each other. There are things we can do to promote peace with other people, and there are ways we can restore peace once it’s been broken.
Verses we read include 1 Thessalonians 5:13-15; Ephesians 4:29-32; Proverbs 27:5-6; Psalm 141:3; Luke 6:31; Proverbs 28:13; James 5:16; and Proverbs 12:20.
These passages of Scripture teach us that we can live in peace with others by treating them as we want to be treated, and speaking to build others up instead of tear them down.
When a relationship has been damaged by conflict, peace can be restored when we accept responsibility for our wrong, confront others in love, refuse to hold a grudge, and forgive.
We closed the worship service by sharing in Communion to celebrate the peace with God that we have through Jesus Christ.
Next week begins the Christmas season, and we’ll launch a new series called “Are You Ready for Christmas?”
Hard to believe it’s already Christmastime again!
At CrossWay on Sunday we picked up again with the Real Life series in a message called “Living with Leadership.” We spent some time looking at 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13a and Hebrews 13:17.
These passages talk about the importance of supporting our leaders. Leaders are not only those who hold a position of authority over us. Leaders are those who influence us. Leadership is influence. In the church, leaders are those who influence people to move from where they are toward where God wants them to be.
We have responsibilities to our leaders. These passages teach that we must support and love them. How can we do this? Pray for them, follow them, become good leaders ourselves, and step up into whatever leadership roles God is calling us to.
Two questions for you:
(1) Who are you following? (That is, who is influencing you?)
(2) Who is following you? (That is, who are you influencing?)
Last Sunday at the end of the sermon I gave everyone a stamped envelope and a couple sheets of paper. We had just looked at how the apostle Paul wrote a letter to the church in Thessalonica to encourage them with a message about our hope in Jesus Christ. So I challenged everyone to write a letter to someone to encourage them by sharing their hope in Jesus.
In the middle of the week, someone in the church who is really in a tough situation herself told me that she had just mailed off her letter and was eager to see its effect. How satisfying it is as a pastor to see someone respond to a message like that!
I pray God rewards her for it and brings good things out of her effort.
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