Perhaps the greatest reminder I’ve been given this week is how absolutely essential community is to each of us. Regular fellowship with other Christians, especially those that are active workers, is refreshing my soul. God gives Himself to me through my friends so very often and I even see Him giving Himself to others through me – what grace!  Between Sunday’s Central Teaching, Tuesday’s LTC in Lawrence, Wednesday’s men’s meeting and then house church, my tank is full.

The Journey has become so much more to me than I ever thought “church” could be. Thank You Lord!

I am continuing to pray for the Spirit to be poured out on us, that the world may know that Jesus is at the right hand of the Father and that He is the Christ!

Without a doubt, the single most important journey any person can set out on is discovering the person and work of Jesus Christ. Over the next eleven weeks, the journey will be centering on just that.
We will be discovering how Jesus revealed Himself to us through seven "I AM" statements in the gospel of John.  We will follow that with a close look at four chapter ones (Romans, John, Colossians, and Hebrews).
This is your time to discover what it means to truly live!

WAKE UP!

I don't know anyone that derives any enjoyment from hearing those two words.  

Whether it's your spouse at  midnight or your dad while your alarm is still ringing. WAKE UP! Quite simply is meant to shock us from unconsciousness to consciousness.

Jesus (as the owner/operator of His church) gives this very "WAKE UP" call to His followers in Sardis. Revelation 3:1-6

The church had been given a reputation for being "alive", while at the same time in the sight of it's owner just the opposite was true. This means that for the church, there are always no less than two perspectives to consider and weigh out.  The perspective of the world, and the perspective of God.  The only one that matters, is God's.

So far as what is meant by being asleep but really not sleeping, and being dead but not really being dead, we must press more firmly into the language used in the Bible.  See Romans 13:8-14 or Ephesians 2

Often times what God wants you and I to understand, is that our lives are meant to be lived a certain way, in concert with design and purpose, this is alive or awake in God’s sight.  When we choose to live any other way, God sees us asleep or dead to that way of life.  The primary way to determine what you are alive to or dead to, is by looking closely at what you live for and treasure, what it seems you cannot live without.  

I have found Paul Tripp's work on "A Quest For More" to be really helpful in understanding the kinds of things God wants us to be alive to and awake for.  Check out his video...

https://paultripp.sitewrench.com/a-quest-for-more

Tripp establishes an understanding that there are two ways of living, living for something we call more, or living for something less.  The reality is that at our center, we know at the end of the day, we were made for something more.  There is an unsettling ache within us, some deny it, but all of us have known it.  Ultimately and according to the Bible, the more we were made for is God.  Specifically to know and walk with Him.  The less are the created things of the world, cars, jobs, money, other people, politics, sex, etc..  One awful reality we face is that most of us have been tricked into thinking we are going to be satisfied with less when in reality only more will due.  This must be what Jesus’s desire for us when He cried out to His Church, "I made you for more, you are living for and treasuring what is less, WAKE UP."  "Stop looking to what is less and asking it to do what only I can do, satisfy your soul's existence".  

His bride, the church is passionately pursuing all that is less, the culture is blessing them for it, inwardly they are dying to God and life He desired for them.  These are heart issues and God has been calling His people out of a life of less to a life of more for thousands of years.  This is God beckoning His people in Isaiah 55

“Is anyone thirsty?
    Come and drink—
    even if you have no money!
Come, take your choice of wine or milk—
    it’s all free!
 Why spend your money on food that does not give you strength?
    Why pay for food that does you no good?
Listen to me, and you will eat what is good.
    You will enjoy the finest food.

 “Come to me with your ears wide open.
    Listen, and you will find life.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you.
    I will give you all the unfailing love I promised to David.

My hope and prayer is that everyone of us will not only wake up, to a life of more, a life lived for God, but we will rise up!  It is one thing to be awakened to these truths; it is another thing to walk on the high road of living our lives according to them. 

A very important and interesting fact is that the word used for wake up and the word used for being raised up from the dead have the same root, egeiro. (http://classic.net.bible.org/strong.php?id=1453)

The implication is that Jesus is inviting us, everyday, to be raised up with Him!  To have our minds set on Him and the life of more, but also to keep in step with Him.  His call to wake up is a call to rise up, and He has both the authority and power to do both!  What is already alive cannot be raised, a death must occur before a resurrection can take place.  You cannot experience being raised up with Christ unless you first accept that you must die.

Carry your cross daily, ie, die to what is less, in order that you may truly live, live for more.

See  Luke 9:23-27.

I see wake up and rise up as two sides of the same coin, in God’s sight they necessarily go together.

So this morning, I call on Jesus, that by His power and authority I die to all of what is less, and rise, leaving that tomb of an empty life in order to live for Him, the more I was made for.

Let’s journey together!

Bryan D

GLORIFYING GOD NOT BY SERVING HIM, BUT

BY BEING SERVED BY HIM

The discovery was that we do not glorify God by providing His needs, but by praying that He would provide ours—and trusting Him to answer. Here we are at the heart of the good news of Christian Hedonism.

God’s insistence that we ask Him to give us help so that He gets glory (Psalm 50:15) forces on us the startling fact that we must beware of serving God and take special care to let Him serve us, lest we rob Him of His glory. This sounds very strange. Most of us think serving God is a totally positive thing; we have not considered that serving God may be an insult to Him. But meditation on the meaning of prayer demands this consideration. Acts 17:24–25 makes this plain:

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.

This is the same reasoning as in Robinson Crusoe’s text on prayer:

“If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine.… Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.” (Psalm 50:12, 15)

Evidently, there is a way to serve God that would belittle Him as needy of our service. “The Son of Man came not to be served” (Mark 10:45). He aims to be the servant. He aims to get the glory as Giver.

STILL SERVANT AT THE SECOND COMING!

This is true, not just in the days of His earthly humiliation, but even in His glory at the close of the age. To me, the Bible’s most astonishing image of Christ’s second coming is in Luke 12:35–37, which pictures the return of a master from a marriage feast: “Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them.”

HOW IS GOD DIFFERENT FROM ALL THE OTHER GODS?

To be sure, we are called servants—and that no doubt means we are to do exactly as we are told. But the wonder of this picture is that the “master” insists on “serving” even in the age to come when He appears in all His glory “with his mighty angels in flaming fire” (2 Thessalonians 1:7–8). Why? Because the very

heart of His glory is the fullness of grace that overflows in kindness to needy people. Therefore, He aims “in the coming ages [to] show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7). What is the greatness of our God? What is His uniqueness in the world?

Isaiah answers:

From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides thee, who works for those who wait for him. (Isaiah 64:4, RSV)

All the other so-called gods try to exalt themselves by making man work for them. In doing so, they only show their weakness. Isaiah derides the gods who need the service of their people:

Bel bows down; Nebo stoops; their idols are on beasts and livestock; these things you carry are borne as burdens on weary beasts. (46:1) Jeremiah joins the derision: Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried, for they cannot walk. (10:5) God is unique: “For of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear...” And His uniqueness is that He aims to be the Workman for us, not vice versa. Our job is to “wait for Him.”

GOD WORKS FOR THOSE WHO WAIT FOR HIM

To wait! That means to pause and soberly consider our own inadequacy and the Lord’s all-sufficiency and to seek counsel and help from the Lord and to hope in Him (Psalm 33:20–22; Isaiah 8:17). Israel is rebuked that “they did not wait for his counsel” (Psalm 106:13). Why? Because in not seeking and waiting for God’s help, they robbed God of an occasion to glorify Himself. For example, in Isaiah 30:15, 16 the Lord says to Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But Israel refused to wait for the Lord and said, “No! We will flee upon horses.” Then in verse 18 the folly and evil of this self-initiated frenzy is revealed: “The  LORD waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show

mercy to you. For the  LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.” The folly of not waiting for God is that we forfeit the blessing of having God work for us. The evil of not waiting for God is that we oppose God’s will to exalt Himself in mercy.

God aims to exalt Himself by working for those who wait for Him. Prayer is the essential activity of waiting for God—acknowledging our helplessness and His power, calling upon Him for help, seeking His counsel. Since His purpose in the world is to be exalted for His mercy, it is evident why prayer is so often commanded by God. Prayer is the antidote for the disease of self-confidence, which opposes God’s goal of getting glory by working for those who wait for Him.

“The eyes of the  LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him” (2 Chronicles 16:9). God is not looking for people to work for Him, so much as He is looking for people who will let Him work for them. The gospel is not a help-wanted ad. Neither is the call to Christian service. On the contrary, the gospel commands us to give up and hang out a help-wanted sign (this is the basic meaning of prayer). Then the gospel promises that God will work for us if we do. He will not surrender the glory of being the Giver. But is there not anything we can give Him that won’t belittle Him to the

status of beneficiary? Yes—our anxieties. It’s a command: “[Cast] all your anxieties on him” (1 Peter 5:7). God will gladly receive anything from us that shows our dependence and His all-sufficiency.

Excerpt from John Piper's book Desiring God.  Chapter on prayer.

Imagine for a moment, if you will, the most complex piece of machinery man has ever created.  This piece of equipment has been estimated to cost more than any other single machine man has ever created.  It is capable of doing incalculable damage and destruction to the people of the world and the environment.  It is also capable of doing an infinitely greater amount of good to both the people of the world and the world itself.

Can you imagine such a creation?

Look in the mirror

What kind of person or persons would be able to create such a thing?

Look to the heavens

Can you imagine what the owners or instructional manual might look like?

Look in the Bible

The Bible describes man in such a way, capable of both incalculable evil and capable of doing even greater good than Jesus Himself accomplished.

God has given us all an equal opportunity to know Him through Jesus Christ.
He has given everyone access to the instruction manual...

Do you know what you were made for?  (see instruction manual for details)

Our most basic core beliefs determine our identity and our destiny.  Those central ideas control how we perceive the world around us. 

Our modern world abounds with both positive and negative illustrations of the principle.  Jorge Crespo’s God-given concept of prison reform transformed the lives of hundreds of men.  Similarly, a false idea can have incredibly destructive power.  A gun or bomb may kill a few people in one place and time; but an idea can murder millions.  An idea can stretch across national boundaries, oceans, and centuries to continue either to bless or destroy.

“First, God, that my worldview would align with Yours…”

¡  Romans 12:2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

¡  2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

¡  Ask God to reveal to you what you really believe about issues of ultimate reality.  Be reminded that His kingdom agenda desires for all people to come to faith in Him and live with Him forever.  As you pray, ask for His heart which beats for people to become your heartbeat as well.

“Next, that I would truly believe in the power of the gospel”

¡  Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, 

¡  Pray that He would renew your hope in the power of the gospel.  Do you really and truly believe that God’s message-His plan of salvation-can change people’s forevers?

“That You would open doors for me today…”

¡  Colossians 4:3-4 At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison— ⁴ that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.

¡  Pray this same prayer for yourself and for others

“That I would allow the Spirit to direct everything I do and say”

¡  Galatians 5:25  Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. 

¡  Ephesians 4:30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption

¡  Be reminded that words carry meaning.  Big meaning!  Ask God to rein in your tongue.  Ask Him to remind you of the power you carry with your words.  Ask Him for more, more wisdom in this regard.  As you lean into the power and direction of the Holy Spirit, pray that you will think, speak, and move in accordance with his design for each and every interaction you have.

“That You would silence the voices of doubt”

¡  1 Corinthians 15:58 So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless.

¡  Pray that God would silence the voices of doubt that seek to dishearten, dismantle, and destroy.  Ask Him to remind you that your evangelistic efforts are not a self-image booster.  Pray that He would keep you intentions focused on other people, not seeking to fulfill something in you, but rather to fulfill the greatest something in them-their need for God.

“That I would persevere until the end…”

¡  1 Peter 1:18-19 For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value. ¹⁹ It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.

¡  Pray that you would be willing to pay the price of time and energy, remembering the price Christ paid for you; and that the peace of Philippians 4:7-peace that goes beyond human understanding-would flood your spirit.  Pray that you would be open to being used in new and different ways to lead people to faith in Him; and that other Christ-followers would play the role they are supposed to play in people lives.  Pray that hearts would melt, people would be changed, and heaven-bound eternities would be secured.

“Finally, that I would devote myself to being a walk-across-the-room person”

¡  1 Corinthians 9:22-23 When I am with those who are weak, I share their weakness, for I want to bring the weak to Christ. Yes, I try to find common ground with everyone, doing everything I can to save some. ²³ I do everything to spread the Good News and share in its blessings.

¡  Tell God that you are ready to be an instrument for good.  Ask Him how He desires to magnetize people to His message of grace, using you as a mouthpiece.  And pray that eternities would dramatically shift as a result of your simple steps pointing people toward faith.