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Introduction
Review Mission
Last week we began an important sermon series regarding the direction of the church.
We have been asking the church to pray for the last year for God to give us a vision for the future, and we believe that he has answered those prayers.
Last week I attempted to answer the question of why?
Why do we exist as a church?
I revealed
This led to the adoption and explanation of our new mission statement: to invite all people to life under a better King.
Clarifying what our mission is as a church will help us to keep the main thing, the main thing.
Next week we will be answering the question how?
How are we going to carry out our mission?
But before we get there, I want to answer the question of what?
What is it that drives us?
Or, what is it that makes us who we are as a church?
Essentially, what I want to define for us are a set of core values that will shape everything we do together as a church moving forward.
What are values?
The values of an organization can be a somewhat abstract concept to wrap our minds around.
Let me give you an example of one of the other organizations I mentioned last week that have stated values.
Dunkin’ Donutes
DD’s values are honesty, fairness, transparency, responsibility, respect, integrity, humility.
We saw last week that their mission statement was to make and serve the freshest, most delicious coffee and donuts quickly and courteously in modern, well-merchandised stores.
Their values are essentially the manner in which they carry out their mission of making us coffee and donuts.
Sure, DD could try to make and sell us coffee and donuts in a way that isn’t honest, in a way that rips us off or takes advantage of us.
But because they value honesty and fairness, they charge us fairly for their goods.
The values also show us in a way what they are not.
Notice that one of their values is not health or nutrition.
So consequently, DD is not one of the healthiest places to get food.
But this is freeing in a way, because they do not need to seek to craft the healthiest food, but the tastiest.
If nutrition were a value, they would likely need to scale back on the donuts and cream and sugar in our coffees, and whatever they would make instead would be that much more expensive.
Plus, their values help distinguish them from other companies in the restaurant industry.
There are countless restaurants who have a similar mission to Dunkin’ Donuts, but their values help distinguish who they are.
So when we are talking about values we aren’t talking about the things we do.
Rather, we are talking about the things that characterize what we do.
Clearly stated values serve as guardrails that will keep us on track as we carry out our mission.
They will help shape our culture as a church and will become a part of the unique DNA of our church.
They will be what drives us we invite all people to life under a better King.
When speaking about values, we are talking about those things which will be non-negotiable in our church’s ministries.
They aren’t so much what we do together.
Rather they will characterize all that we do.
Our values are a part of our unique DNA as a church.
At this point these values are somewhat of an aspiration.
We do not embody them as fully as we’d like.
That being said, I believe each value we will cover over the next few weeks are present in our church in some form or another.
We have identified four values that will shape our mission to reach our community for Christ.
They are:
A better message
A better family
A better job
A better party
Our values are the guardrails that keep us on track as we carry out our mission.
Value: A Better Message
Our first value that will define us as a church is a better message.
Part of what makes life under King Jesus so good, is that we have a better message than anyone else has to offer: the gospel.
By stating that we value a better message we mean that we value the gospel as central to everything we do as Christians.
The gospel of course is the good news about Jesus.
Paul sums up the gospel this way in his first letter to the Corinthians.
1 Corinthians 15.3-
This is the gospel message in a nutshell: Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead.
Paul tells the church that this message is of first importance, and we would do well in keeping the gospel message of first importance in our church.
Too often churches and Christians treat the gospel as something elementary that we move beyond as we mature in the faith.
Yes, yes, Jesus died for our sins, and I am glad he did, but now we must move on to this, or that.
But notice what Paul says right before this summary of the gospel in 1 Corinthians:
Who is it that Paul is writing to?
Believers or non-believers?
Believers.
And Paul wants to remind them of what?
The gospel! Paul tells them that yes, they received the gospel, but they currently stand in the gospel and are being saved by the gospel as they hold fast to the gospel.
What does Paul mean when he says that we are being saved by the gospel?
He is speaking about the ongoing work of sanctification in the life of a Christian, the process of us becoming more and more like Jesus.
And the way that we become more and more like Jesus?
Through the gospel.
The gospel is central to all we do as followers of Jesus.
The gospel is not just the ABC’s of the Christian faith.
It is the A to Z.
The gospel is central to all we do as followers of Jesus.
All of life must be viewed through the gospel.
Earlier in this letter Paul makes this claim about the gospel for believers:
1 Corinthians 8So when we talk about our church being gospel centered we mean that all ministry must be done in light of two realities: Our ongoing struggle with sin and our ongoing need for grace.
The gospel is power for those who are being saved.
The gospel fuels our growth as Christians.
We can never outgrow the cross.
We do not grow by trying hard.
We grow by resting in the message of the cross.
Only then will our lives begin to truly change.
All of life must be viewed through the gospel.
So when we talk about our church being gospel centered we mean that all ministry must be done in light of two realities: Our ongoing struggle with sin and our ongoing need for grace.
Ultimately, when we talk about our church being gospel centered we mean that all ministry must be done in light of two realities: Our ongoing struggle with sin and our ongoing need for grace.
So when we talk about our church being gospel centered we mean that all ministry must be done in light of two realities: Our ongoing struggle with sin and our ongoing need for grace.
The ongoing struggle with sin
We must recognize in everything that we do, that the central problem of every person we encounter is their struggle with sin.
This applies to both believer and nonbeliever alike.
1 Corinthians 1.
For the non-Christian, they are cut off from God because of their sin.
Their lives are in shambles because they have rejected God as King and have not received the sacrifice of Christ on their behalf.
Their greatest enemy is not a lack of food or shelter, or relationship problems, or financial instability.
Their greatest problem is they are at war with a holy God.
For the Christian, sin stills wages war in our lives.
Christ has paid the ultimate penalty for our sins, but sins effects still remain.
My greatest problem isn’t my circumstances.
My greatest problem is me.
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