RISING FROM THE ASHES (2)

“God the Giver”
Colossians 1:15-23

1. if you weren’t here last week, please check out www.canbyalliance.blogspot.com for my message. These messages will build upon each other. I want all of us to be able to track together.

2. I spent this past week in Phoenix teaching a Doctor of Ministry class with 12 pastors for Asbury Theological seminary. The 1st 2 days we met at Christ’s Church of the Valley in Glendale – 100 acre campus, 11,000 people in worship each weekend, trying to raise $20 million in 2 years to build youth & children facilities.

3. our building project barely registers on their construction radar screen. But it is just as important to us as theirs is to them!

4. today I have 3 places I want to go in this message – 1st to the Scriptures, 2nd to the vision behind our building, 3rd, to the faith promise pledge.

God the Giver: Colossians 1:15-23
1. who is the biggest giver you know? Who is the most generous giver you’ve ever met?

2. have you ever thought of God as a giver? He’s our Creator – Savior – Healer – Returning King. And Giver. God is the world’s only pure Giver.

1st God gives to us in creation (1:15-17).
1. As God, Jesus created all things – heaven & earth, visible & invisible, thrones powers rulers authorities. All things were created by him.
2. our very existence as human beings comes from God. The bodies we inhabit. The breath we breathe. The food we eat. The water we drink. Without God, we don’t exist!

3. we work, we create & we give. But our ability to do so comes from God himself. What do you have that you did not receive? (Paul in I Cor 4:7).

4. creation is a picture of, a sign of, the proof of God’s generosity in creation!

2nd, God gives to us in salvation (1:18-23).
1. in addition to the story of creation Scripture tells the story of redemption. We are not just creatures of God; we are sinful creatures due to the fall of humanity.

2. this means that God ends up giving not just as a Creator but also as a Redeemer.

3. it works like this (thanks to Miroslav Volf & his excellent book Free of Charge). All things are from God. All things come through God. But we want to be independent of God. We want to stand on our own 2 feet. We want to claim God’s gifts as our own.

4. when we assert our independence, when we ascribe to ourselves what comes from God, we wrong God. We live in contradiction to who we were created to be. This is our primary sin against God the Giver.

5. so what does God do with us? We mishandle God’s gifts & fall short. And God gives us more – the gift of salvation – freedom from the guilt & power of sin!

6. this is God the Redeemer – through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. God gives by sacrificing his Son for our sin. God’s greatest gift of giving is marked by sacrifice – keep this in mind.

7. I’ve chosen Galatians 2:20 as the verse I’m going to meditate on over Lent this year – I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. God the Son is a Giver. He gave his life for me!

8. Volf suggest 3 ways that we are obliged to respond to this giving God:

1st in faith.
1. Faith is the way that we as receivers relate
to God the giver. Our power to be & our power to act come from God. Faith merely recognizes this.

2nd in gratitude.
1. gratitude is what we give back to the giver. We say thanks. Faith receives God’s gifts as gifts. Gratitude receives them well.

2. God’s giving gives our life meaning, value & purpose. God’s gifts come with the message – you are loved, you are valuable, you are well thought of. God’s gifts establish us.

3. and ours is to say thanks with our lips & with our lives.

3rd, in participation.
1. we are not the final destination in the flow of God’s gifts. We find ourselves midstream. God’s gifts flow into us and they flow on from us. God intends for us to be channels of his gifts to our neighbors.

2. God gives us gifts for us to enjoy. Don’t miss this point. God intends to bless us with his gifts. He desires for us to flourish. But he also wants us to bless others with what we have been blessed with. God wants us to be channels.

3. why channels? Ephesians 5:1, Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. To be a channel is to be God-like. Love leads to giving leads to sacrifice.

4. we are called to imitate God. We are to be conformed into the image of Christ. Part of what it means to be like God is to give as God gives. To give is to express God’s DNA that he passes onto us by creating us in his image & likeness. Giving is at the very heart & essence of who we are.

9. all giving begins with God the giver. We respond in faith. We respond with gratitude. We respond as channels.

the Vision Behind our Building
1. MISSION: why do we exist?
To make disciples who love God and love others.

2. VISION: where are we going?
* worship – to worship God as a lifestyle
* growth - to see people transformed into the image of Jesus
* care – to care for people and value relationships
* kingdom-building – to advance the kingdom of God

3. GOALS for this season of ministry
* build a culture of prayer
* build a culture of disciple-making
* serve the needs of our community in the name of Christ
* seek to bring healing to hurting people
* equip people for leadership

Purpose of the Building
1. as we looked at our mission, vision & goals AND listened to your vision & dreams for the new building we came to 3 specific purposes we wanted to building to fulfill.

A Place for the Community
1. Canby-area people enjoy being together for an assortment of events (football games, Slice of Summer, General Canby Days, concerts, plays, coffee & eating, etc).

2. therefore we want to build something that will allow for relationship building, plays, seminars & concerts. In addition, we want to build something that will meet the spiritual needs of our congregation

3. therefore, in light of our congregation and our community build a Worship Center and Coffee
Center that can meet the spiritual and relational needs of CAC & our community.

A Place for Teens and Children
1. Canby-area people value young people (strong public schools, Canby Kids, the growing number of young families choosing to live here.

2. therefore we want to build something that will allow children and youth to feel "at home” in our church. We want to build spaces for children and youth that will allow them to “make it their own”

4. this doesn’t mean we don’t value adults for our senior citizens. There will be ample adult space for classes, social gatherings & program events.

5. we concluded, with your input, that in light of our congregation and the community we want to build a youth center & do all we can to enhance the children's space & ministry.

A Place to Meet the Needs of Others
1. Like all communities the Canby-area has its share of social and economic problems. These appear to be on the rise – the poor elderly, those in need of food, clothing & counseling.

2. we want to provide for a Food Panty space and something that could house community uses – tutoring program, literacy classes & seminars.

3. therefore, in light of our congregation and our community we want to build and/or provide space that can be used for the Food Pantry and other community needs.

4. how? By building something that can be utilized by our community, used by our children & teens & become a place out of which to serve the needs of our community. We want this building to be a ‘channel’ from God to us to our community.

the Faith Promise Pledge
1. let me break this down for you. 1st, money you prayerfully trust God to provide. Make this a matter of prayer. This is between you and God. Let God direct. Seek his face. Ask God to give you a specific amount to pledge.

2. 2nd, over and above your regular giving. If you are not giving, now is the time to start. Scripture is crystal clear on giving – giving is part of what it means to follow Christ. Both Old & New Testaments teach us to give. Ours is to obey. We need the $800,000 we are seeking to raise to be over & above your normal giving.

3. 3rd, through your sacrifice. Sacrifice means sacrifice. We won’t raise $800,000 without sacrifice.

4. the church I began this message with – Christ’s Church of the Valley. Their senior pastor shared last week that God has led he & his family to sacrifice in every building program the church has entered:
* 1st fund-raising campaign sold house & gave equity to church
* 2nd sold both cars
* 3rd gave all his retirement

5. he shared that they had no regrets, that God was faithful to provide for their needs, that they learned how to live by faith.

6. 4th, and his supernatural provision over the next 12 months. This means trusting God for the money he leads you to pledge even if you have no idea where it is going to come from. This means trusting God to supply. This is a level of faith & trust that I believe few of us have ever experienced.

7. I want to conclude by sharing some creative giving strategies with you that I stole from Village Baptist Church in Beaverton – they are seeking to raise $16 million in the next 3 years! 5 Ds = easy to remember!

8. DONATE:
* give from your regular income
* assets – real estate, stocks & bonds, car, personal possessions
* future revenue – rental properties, stocks & bonds, certificates of deposit, interest-bearing accounts

9. DO AWAY – reduce spending to free up resources

10. DELAY – hold off on major purchases like:
* big vacations
* new cars
* new home
* home renovation

11. DO MORE – find creative ways to increase your savings
* thrifty shopping
* finding new ways to earn money

12. DENY – sacrificially cut something out of your life – what can you give up, do without, postpone or alter in order to give?

13. back to Christ’s Church of the Valley. 2 years to raise $20 million. Pastor shared how he went golfing with man from church. This man asked him, how much do you think I should give? Pastor said, I think you should give $500,000! Man with a shocked look on his face said, we could never give $500,000 but we are planning to give $150,000.

3 days later the man called, God convicted me through your answer. $150,000 is not a sacrifice for us. We’re going to give $500,000. To do this we are goin g to sell a building that we have been saving for our retirement – it’s worth $500,000!

14. this time of building & fund-raising is our opportunity to
* do something significant that might outlast our lifetime
* leave a legacy for our children, youth & future generations
* make an eternal difference with our investment

“RISING FROM THE ASHES” (1)

“Morphing into Christ-likeness”
Romans 8:29 & 12:2; Galatians 4:19

1. last June when our church caught on fire (not yet knowing that it was on fire) I was standing at the fire alarm outside the library punching in the code to silence the alarm when I heard Mel Yamase yell – Fire, call 911!

I ran toward the youth center (old sanctuary) and saw flames of fire climbing up the platform wall to the ceiling. I turned and ran into the office to call 911 (while I had a cell phone in my pocket!).

(By the way if I had entered the youth center to get a better look at the fire, I wouldn’t be standing here today. A few seconds later a huge fire ball rolled through the room – the intense heat would have instantly melted my lungs & killed me.)

I dialed 911 and told the operator our church was on fire. Suddenly I was surrounded by a blast of heat & smoke. I threw the phone down. I started to run out of the office. The change in air pressure knocked me to the floor.

I tried getting up on my feet but couldn’t. The movement of air and smoke sounded like a tornado. I started crawling on all 4s for the nearest outside door (wooden door on the north side of the church).

I felt like I was in slow motion, like I wasn’t moving. I thought the fire might be chasing me. I thought I might die. Heather Hannah & Elizabeth were frozen in my minds eye.

Finally I hit the wooden door with my right hand. The next thing I knew I was planted on my face, surrounded by smoke, about 20 feet out in the parking lot. I tried to get up & run away but fell down. Finally I got my footing & ran to the rental house lawn.

I was stunned. And I remember feeling overwhelmed that I was going to live. Mike Higgs came up & asked me if I was okay but nothing he said registered. I felt like God had just given me my life back.

2. and by God’s grace we are getting closer & closer to getting our church building back! Today we begin 30 days of Faith Promise Pledges – Rising from the Ashes. In dependence upon God we hope to raise $800,000 in pledges in the next 30 days payable over the next 12 months!

7 things I believe about God, the fire, CAC…
1. my 3 ‘nots’ for these messages on Rising from the Ashes:
I will not try to manipulate you
I will not try to guilt or shame you
I am not trying to spiritualize our circumstances

2. God’s sovereignty: our church fire & the sovereignty of God go hand-in-hand together – God has a design for the fire that he wants to draw into our personal & collective lives

3. God wastes nothing: God uses everything in our lives to draw us closer to him if we let him – jobs-kids-parents-spouses-successes-health-temptations-failures AND the burning of our church

4. spiritual growth: the fire & rebuilding are PRIMARILY about our spiritual growth and only SECONDARILY about a new building – the process of building will act as the vehicle of God’s transforming work in our hearts

5. equation: God + church fire + rebuilding process = CAC conformed into the likeness of Christ = renewed people for a new building

6. the stuff of transformation: process of rebuilding will surface issues in each of us that will impede what God wants to do unless we give the green light for God’s transforming work:
* idolatry
* small faith/trust
* indifference to God’s kingdom work
* spiritual myopia
* ingratitude
* idolatry

7. gospel: the whole point of the gospel is to be transformed into the image of Christ –
* Galatians 4:19
* Romans 8:28-29
* Romans 12:2

My heart for your heart
1. I’m a pastor. What gets me out of bed in the morning is the vision of doing all that I can to lead you closer to Christ.

2. the whole point of the gospel is to be transformed into the image of Christ. The deepest sin of my life is holding onto the right to lead my own life.

3. God is more interested in us than he is in a new building. God is more interested in the shape of our hearts than he is in the shape of the new worship space. God is more interested in how Christ is being formed in our lives than he is in how the new youth area is going to be laid out.

4. this is our grand opportunity to grow spiritually. Our spiritual life is our whole life – every moment & every facet of it.

Morphing into Christ-likeness
1. a word about transformation. The desire for transformation lies deep in all of our hearts. This is why we enter therapy – join health clubs – join recovery groups – read self-help books – take the season of Lent seriously. The possibility of transformation gives us hope.

2. one of the richest ‘transformation’ words in the New Testament is morphoo – the inward & real formation of the essential nature of a person. John Ortberg calls this ‘morphing’ in his book The Life You’ve Always Wanted. This word is a favorite of the Apostle Paul.

to the Galatians he wrote (4:19)
3. My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you.

4. Paul is not satisfied that Christ dwells in them; he longs to see Christ formed in them. To see them transformed into the image of Christ.

5. he lives in the pains of childbirth for their spiritual maturity. He is in labor for them. They have drifted away from fully following Christ. They have gone back to trying to keep part of the Law as well as follow Christ.

6. he loves them so much that he is in agony over their spiritual regression.

7. John Ortberg writes, we are pregnant with possibilities of spiritual growth and moral beauty so great that they cannot be adequately described as anything less than the formation of Christ in our very lives.

to the church & people of Rome he wrote (8:28-29)
1. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

2. God’s eternal purpose for us – that we should become like Jesus. Here Paul uses another form of this word for ‘morphing.’ We are to have the same form as Christ. To be shaped into his likeness. This is our predestination, our calling. This is God’s highest purpose for our lives.

Paul also wrote to the Romans (12:2)
1. do not conform any longer to the pattern of the is world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. This is yet another form of the word morphoo, the word metamorphoo, from which we get our word metamorphosis.

2. this is the same word used by Matthew & Mark of the transfiguration of Jesus. A complete change came over Jesus.

3. our transformation involves a change of conduct & character away from the standards of the world and into the image of Christ himself.

4. this involves – the purpose of life + meaning of life + how to measure success + how to respond to evil + ambition + sex + honesty + money + community & on the list goes.
It’s morphing time
1. until Christ is formed in you….conformed to the likeness of his son…transformed by the renewing of your mind.

2. ordinary people like us are capable of experiencing extraordinary change in our lives. God our Father, by the power of the Holy Spirit, wants for each one of us to become like his son Jesus.

3. I fear that many of us have bought into ways of becoming a Christian without becoming Christ-like.

4. I’m utterly convinced that over the next 14 months while we put up a building, God has a much bigger project in mind. He has new work that he wants to do in our hearts.

5. spiritual growth is a molding process where we become, as CS Lewis once said, little Christs. We begin to believe what Jesus believed. Live as Jesus lived. Love as Jesus loved. Serve as Jesus served. Lead as Jesus led.

6. our having to grapple with the fire, insurance settlement, a new building proposal & raising $800,000 are the vehicles-means-tools God intends to use to further conform us into the image of his Son.

7. all of this will surface issues in each of our lives that keep us from growing in Christ. For instance:
* our idolatry – our love of money & what it buys us & does for us – our laying up of treasures on earth instead of in heaven
* our weak faith & trust in God – will he really provide money for my Faith Promise Pledge? If I give generously will God take care of my needs?
* our indifference to God’s kingdom work – do we really care about the advance of God’s kingdom in Canby & around the world?
* our spiritual myopia – do we have compassion for the people all around us in our community that need Christ, need food, need encouragement, need love, need help? Of do we just care about ourselves?
* our ingratitude to God – for more ways in which he has blessed us than we can count
* idolatry – our temptation to make the new building our new idol

8. sure, no way around it, this season is about rebuilding a burned out building. But even more, this is about each one of us becoming more of a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ. This is morphing time into Christ-likeness.

Prayer
1. 50 people to pray every day for 30 days – sign up on the round table at the back today!

2. First Friday 24 hours of prayer sign-ups!

Faith Promise Pledges
1. money over & above your regular church giving. We don’t want you to rob Peter to pay Paul.

2. this is money that you pray about. You ask God to show you how much money he wants you to give.

3. this is money that you are relying upon God to provide.