Wes Terry

Sunday Morning Service at Broadview West — 9-30-2007

Text –2 Corinthians 5:14-20

14For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

16So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21God made him who had no sin to be sin^[a] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

In this text we see that we’ve been called to ministry. You may have heard me say before that God has no plan B for making His name known around the world and that plan A revolves around him using US. We are ministers! That’s an uncomfortable assertion for a lot of us. It was an uncomfortable assertion for me when I was a junior in high school with better things to do with my time than talk about God and play guitar for the youth.

Isn’t ministry just for the Pastors? Isn’t ministry just for church staff? – Those are great questions! The Bible has a great answer.

Ephesians 4:11-16

11It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

14Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. 15Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. 16From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

– Pastors, teachers, and evangelists have a huge responsibility of equipping the Church. However, it’s through that equipping that the church becomes the hands and feet of Jesus Christ. We are unified as one body with many parts. Each person serving where Christ has gifted him!

Every person has been given a gift from God. Some of you don’t know what it is. Some of you do and your’re serving and ministering to the Body of Christ through it. Some of you know what your gift is and your serving the Church in such a way that the Body of Christ isn’t being ministered to by it.

I want to talk about two things. 1) Why we should be ministers. (both in the church and outside of the church) and 2) What should fuel our ministry. (what ignites you and gives you passion)

Why Should I Be A Minister? – 2^nd Cor. 5:18-20

We’ve been assigned the task by God – 1) God makes his appeal through us. We are what make an invisible God very real to a lost and hurting world. 2) What Christ has done for you should overflow into every part of your life. (Verse 14 – For Christ’s love compels us)

WHY DO YOU MINISTER? In the book of Acts I don’t see one evangelism seminar taking place. Why? Today we have all kinds of trainings, seminars, books, tapes, cds, gospel tracks, programs, and still people have a hard time of passionately sharing their faith! That’s not in the book of Acts. Why? It is because people were madly in love with Jesus and couldn’t help but tell people about it. They were excited. This was the real deal. Jesus was raised from the dead and people saw him! There were eyewitnesses who believed in this thing enough to GIVE THEIR LIVES FOR IT!

Beyond that, they were commissioned. You remember the last thing that Jesus told his disciples? GO! It wasn’t a … “Hey guys…. now that you know that I’m the son of God and that eternal life is found only in me and no one else…. And that I’ve risen from the dead and conquered the grave and all… if you feel like it you might tell somebody you bump into…” It wasn’t that at all. It was intentional and it was passionate because what they told was THE REAL DEAL.

Jesus is who he said he was, He did what he said he would do, eternal life is found only in him, and guess what… it’s a FREE GIFT! Not for good that we’ve done but because of God’s grace. That should get you excited! That should overflow in to everything that we do as Christians. The book of Acts you punch somebody and they’d be telling you about Jesus. They were passionate and focused.

Let’s look back at the love side of this deal. Do you Remember the first time you fell in love in Jr. High? Did you need a seminar to teach you how to talk about your lover? No! It was natural and just poured out of you. And I know a lot of times we will say, “Well I just need more discipline! If I had more discipline about this ministry thing then I’d just do better.” I don’t think that’s the problem. Disciplines are a great thing (prayer, bible study, fellowship, serving and sharing.) They are very helpful for staying on track but a lot of times it isn’t a discipline problem… it’s a love problem! It’s easier to follow rules than to love Jesus isn’t it?

Where is your passion? In a list or in Jesus? What is your focus? Is it on eternity or the temporary? All this material stuff is going to go away someday. It isn’t real. It’s isn’t eternal! Jesus is. You can study any other religion out there and it’s all a list of external rules and an eternity of “material” pleasure because the good outweighed the bad. Christianity is the only religion in the WORLD that God (in love) came to earth and meets with man and the only religion in the WORLD that has a living hope of spending eternity in loving FELLOWSHIP with God. It’s about love, it’s always been about love, and if you get so caught up on disciplines then your disciplines become a crutch to quit loving Jesus. That’s heartless ministry. That is ministry without passion.

If we use our disciplines outside of a loving relationship with Jesus Christ and without a passion for the things that HE HAD PASSION FOR then it is just HARD WORK. It’s hard work. That’s all it is.

We are ministers to the Church and to the Lost. Our ministry should be done out of the overflow from what Christ has done in our lives. If you are hearing me say that you just need to try harder you are hearing me wrong. We can’t “JUST” try harder. We need to quit trying and start relying. Stop focusing so much on what platform will give you the best opportunity to serve and start focusing on your relationship with God and allowing THAT to fuel you WHEREEVER God may place you.

Christians don’t get tired because they have too much to do. I believed that for a long time. I still try not to believe it. The real reason that Christians get tired is because they don’t enjoy what they’re doing. Something changes in us when God draws us to himself. That something transforms everything we do in life. Verse 15 of our text says this “And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again”

Our passion and our ministry should come from the overflow. An overflow that is rooted in gratitude for what Christ has done and is acted out with that love Christ has shown us trough the cross.

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God is love. God is everything good and desirable. God causes and preserves all things. Nothing can happen apart from God’s providence. So why does evil exist?  Does God cause the evil that happens as a part of everyday life? Is the death of a young child who was molested by a pedophile somehow God responsibility? These are all loaded questions and statements. Scripture never shows God as directly involved in doing anything evil but it does show God allowing evil/pagan nations to bring about evil through their actions. Can a person rightly blame God for those evil actions? The Bible is pregnant with examples of men and women who suffered because of evil in the world. In Job’s case, evil was brought about by the devil himself (evidence for the existence of evil that space will not permit in this discussion)! However, Scripture is clear that God never does nor is to be blamed for evil in the world. To blame God for the evil caused by secondary sources would be sinful. It is beyond human comprehension why God would allow bad things to happen to his children. Despite that, bad things still happen. Simply put, we live in a sin stricken world that is subject to the effects of sin. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death. Death is a strong word. However, sin and death have been defeated though Jesus’ sacrificial death and miraculous resurrection! Mankind is responsible for the evil in this world and the effect it has on the ones we love. That is an unfortunate statement. However, to say that God is not in control of the evil in the world would suggest that evil is more powerful than God. This is a conclusion seldom reached by those who argue that God has nothing to with evil. Sadly, that conclusion is inevitable. To say that God uses evil for his purposes, but never does or should be blamed for evil, is an uncomfortable premise. But the conclusion gives God the glory he deserves. His sovereignty remains intact, his holiness unblemished, and his redemption essential.

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A brief introduction to the New Testament!

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Resurrection - A theology brief.

The implications of the resurrection of Jesus are significant to every believer. Jesus’ defeat over death and the grave ensures our justification and regeneration as believers. When we are in Christ we share in his victory over sin. We now have a living hope because we worship a living Savior who mediates for us as the right hand of God. Jesus did not simply raise himself from the grave as a cool magic trick. It was much more profound than any other miracle he had ever done. He redeemed his Church and finished the work he was sent to do by the Father. The resurrection is not only historically significant to this world but also to the eternal places: heaven and hell. The resurrection serves as a climatic point in history where the world was changed in its relationship with God the father. It offers the hope of resurrected bodies; both for believers now and for loved ones who have gone to be with the Lord. It gives us power to live out the Christian life with assurance that our righteousness is firmly rooted in Jesus and that someday we will be raised with Christ in his resurrection just as, in baptism, we were buried with him in his death (Romans 6:5). Christ has ascended to heaven and has received the glory that he is rightfully due. He has authority over all power and dominion and is above every name that is named (Ephesians 1:20-21). He is alive and serves as the King of Kings and Lord or Lords. The resurrection is proof that Jesus is both our Savior and our God. The resurrection power provides all Christians the ability to act out their faith and live righteous and holy lives because they serve a righteous and holy God. We can now call God our Abba Father because we are co-heirs with the resurrected Christ.

Jesus as the Son of God

Is Jesus the son of God? Yes. Was he the son of Mary? Yes. Was he the son of Joseph? Yes. Can a person have three parents? I suppose if your mother and father were divorced you could technically have more than two parents. However, Mary was not married to God (at least not in the literal sense). One might say that God was Jesus’ father just as He is our heavenly Father, but there one key difference. Jesus was fully God in addition to being fully man. This distinguishes his relationship with God as unique and different than any other person’s relationship with God. So what does it mean to be the son of God? The reading suggested that sonship ascribed deity to Jesus and deliberated about how valid, and to what extent, the manifestation of that deity played out. Interesting questions were asked and answered in relation to the claims of Jesus by others and his own personal claims of deity in the Gospel of John as well as the Synoptic Gospels. There are many “I AM” statements by Jesus in the Gospel of John which show Jesus demonstrating his deity by verbal affirmation. In contrast, Jesus refers to himself as “son of man” in the Synoptic Gospels. As said in the reading, the term “son of man” is a reference to Daniel seven and was used by Jesus to clarify who he was and gave a glimpse into what his purpose was on this earth. In addition, the Synoptic Gospels show Jesus claiming deity as the son of God and proving those claims by performing miracles. The nature, and extent, of his claims and miracles give solid evidence that Jesus is who he claimed to be: the son of God. If he’s not the son of God, Jesus is just a good teacher who got a raw deal in life. That is not all there is to Jesus. He is the lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world, a suffering servant who died as a ransom for many, and the sole mediator between God and man.

A theological brief on the Record of Jesus’ life. - Written while taking a theology course.

Reading the text, I came across several authors that have been in books I have read throughout the years. I had just recently read Blomberg’s “Preaching the Parables” and was especially interested in his remarks regarding eyewitness testimony in authenticating the Gospels. Through taking hermeneutic and New Testament survey classes I have learned the criteria for what it takes for a book to be canonized. Despite that, I have never actually asked the hard questions that Strobel asked in his interviews. I have always used the Gospels as my primary source of information when studying the historical account of Jesus’ life. I knew of things such as the Jesus Seminar and other attempts to demystify the Gospels but I never paid much attention to them. I take the Gospels at face value and believe that they are true and accurate in all that they say. Just because the content of the Gospels are more literary than biographical and less chronological than the expectations of modern culture never really mattered to me. Does this make me simple minded? Has faith exceeded reason to the point of irresponsibility? I do not believe that to be true. My faith has, and will continue to, extend past my ability to reason. That is what makes faith genuine! I am glad that there are dedicated scholars who investigate and answer hard questions such as those asked by Stobel. I strongly believe that every Christian should have an answer for the faith. However, my presupposition has always been that the Bible is true. I have never read scripture or studied history with any other lens. The record of Jesus’ life, as presented in the Bible, is amazing. It is powerful and invigorating: even more so for the eyewitnesses who wrote it all down. Given the historical evidences and the logical arguments in favor of the historicity of the Gospels does not increase my faith. However, it does give me one more answer for the reasons why I believe what I do.

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Sunday morning service at Broadview West. 9-16-2007

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