Why Mountain Springs Church? Part 3
ACTS of our Family
- “Rolling Stone Christians”
- Over the years I have heard people say, “I’m a believer, a follower of Christ, but we don’t go to any church. We really don’t like going to church, but we love Jesus. We just don’t see any need for the church. I can be a Christian without being a member of the church!” Are you sure that is true?
- We read in the holy Scriptures,
Hebrews 10:23-25
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.
- Charles Spurgeon said it this way, “You can be a good Christian by disobedience to your Lord’s commands? There is a brick. What is it made for? To help build a house. It is of no use for that brick to tell you that it is just as good a brick while it is kicking about on the ground as it would in the house. It is a good-for-nothing brick. So, rolling stone Christians, I do not believe that you are answering your purpose. You are living contrary to the life which Christ would have you live…”
Ephesians 2:19-22
Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, 22 in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
- We are no longer strangers and “rolling stones” but we have been brought into a family, a holy family of God.
- We are now members of God’s family, a family in which Jesus is the Father. Jesus is the chief cornerstone.
· We are joined together, growing to be a holy temple of God.
- We are not lone bricks laying about our individual families, rolling stones with no accountability or corporate direction.
- Bricks are made for a building! Stones are made for homes!
- Note Paul’s phraseology in verses 21 and 22: “being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord” and “being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”
1 Peter 2:5
…you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
- John MacArthur explains it this way in his commentary: “Metaphorically, God is building a spiritual house, putting all believers in place, integrating each one with others, and each one with the life of Christ.”
- You are a brick, a stone, a very precious stone, a living stone that has a specific purpose in God’s family.
- Ex. 9 years ago Liz and I bought a house that was 1,450 square feet for our family of 7. I then cut off about 200 square feet with a chain saw, dismantling an old part, and then we began to gradually add on. We now have 3600 square feet with a lot of blood, sweat, and tears! Before we could build the first 1200 square feet, we had to pour a foundation. From the foundation we used 2x6’s to build a solid south wing to our home. Four years ago we built up. We added another 1000 square feet above and a special beam had to be added. Without the foundation and cornerstone we could not have built the first 1200 square feet, without the great beam we could not hold up the other 1000 square feet. Every beam, every brick, every nail was necessary in building our home!
- In the same way, every one of you is a brick, a stone, a beam in the building of God called “the church of Jesus Christ.”
- He is the cornerstone, but we are the bricks built upon Him.
- Every one of you is “a holy priesthood” meaning that each of you is a priest that can offer spiritual worship, in spirit and in truth, up to God.
- The spiritual house cannot be built without you! The church of Jesus Christ needs everyone in this room mobilized for the kingdom of God.
- Each of you is gifted and anointed by God with the Holy Spirit for purposes that are unique for you.
Ephesians 4:11-12
And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.
- It is our responsibility as Mountain Springs Church pastors to “equip” you, the saints, for ministry.
- The building of MSC cannot be built without you! You are necessary for God’s mighty purposes.
1 Corinthians 12:12-20
For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. 13 Fro by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free – and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. 14 For in fact the body is not one member but many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? 18 But now God has set the members, each one of the them, in the body just as He pleased. 19 And if they were all one member, where would the body be? 20 But now indeed there are many members, yet one body.
- At Mountain Springs Church we are building a holy temple of God through four key parts that we see as vital in empowering you to walk in the calling God has for each of us.
We call this the “ACTS of Membership” or the “ACTS of our Family”
Attend our Weekend Services
- We consider you a member of this local church family by virtue of attendance.
- We don’t keep a formal church listing or role, except for phone numbers.
- At Mountain Springs Church, membership is defined not by a name on a role, but by participation with your life.
- You are member of our family if you participate. Just show up!
- People today vote with their feet, not with a name on a piece of paper.
- If you want to be here, you are here! We are not going to harass you, call you, remind you, or bug you. If you call yourself a “member,” then it means you attend our services.
- Someone might ask me, “What is a member in good standing at Mountain Springs Church?” I would answer, “A member participates in our ministries at Mountain Springs Church. They show up; they are here.”
- This is the New Testament value #1 of the early church:
Acts 2: 42, 46
And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers…46 So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart.”
- You cannot grow in your gifts and talents in the body of Christ if you aren’t there!
- Your brick can’t be fitted into God’s holy church that He is building, if you are a rolling stone in the woods!
- So, it all begins with participation or attendance.
Commitment to Serve
- Jesus said that He came not “to be served but to serve.”
Jesus said to his disciples,
Luke 22:27
“For who is greater, he who sits at the table, or he who serves? Is it not he who sits at the table? Yet I am among you as the One who serves.”
- I believe that the reason Jesus spoke so often and so pointedly about service was because He wants us to understand that service is worship and worship is service.
- You can only serve others sincerely when you have learned to worship sincerely.
Matthew 25:31-40
"When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. 33 And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on His right hand, 'Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 35 for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; 36 I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.' 37 "Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? 38 When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? 39 Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?' 40 "And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.'
- Can you see where Jesus is? Where is Jesus in this parable?
- Jesus is saying that He mysteriously embodies:
- The hungry
- The thirsty
- The stranger
- The naked
- The sick
- Whenever we serve others, we are serving Jesus! Wow! Isn’t that a revolutionary concept?
- Ex. When you serve others in any way, even in the smallest way, you are serving Jesus! Somehow Jesus is there with you.
- Ex. In being a greeter, an usher, a nursery worker, serving meals, working in children’s ministry, serving as a Life Group leader, vacuuming the floors, sweeping the walkway, or setting up chairs you are serving others.
- And, you will be rewarded by Jesus! Yes, you will rewarded by God, not by man, but by God.
Tithing your Income
- The Bible is very concerned about how you handle your money.
- In 16 out of 38 parables, almost half of the parables, Jesus touches on the subject of money or possessions.
- One out of every 10 verses in the Gospels speaks about money.
- There are approximately 500 verses in the Bible on prayer and 500 verses on faith, but there are nearly 2,000 verses on money-related topics.
- Money is evidently a spiritual issue with God.
- In the Bible, “tithing” means giving 10%, but “giving” may not be the right word. Let me explain.
- Ex. What is interesting is that every major financial guru out there, secular or Christian, will tell you that the key to financial happiness or financial peace, to use Dave Ramsey’s term, comes when you learn to invest.
- Not “give away” but “invest”
- Dave Ramsey says that until you learn to “invest” you can’t grow your money. He explains in his teaching that this investment means that you must learn to invest 10% in the kingdom of God.
- In The 10 Golden Rules for Financial Success, Lord Templeton, famous for the world’s most successful mutual fund, shared his secrets to financial blessing. In the forward, Lord Templeton writes, “I’ve found that spiritual attitudes lead to material rewards. That holds true for an individual, a corporation or a nation.”
- I don’t think anyone has integrated their faith into the daily life of money management better than Lord Templeton.
Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
- I really believe God wants all of us to prosper spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and even financially.
- Yet many of us have devoted our lives to material riches and yet we never have enough to make us happy. What is the reason we are not happy? Because money doesn’t make us happy, but proper investing does!
Matthew 6:21
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
- George Muller, the great man of faith, who built many schools and orphanages by faith, said, “The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of faith is the end of anxiety.”
- God wants us free from anxiety with our money.
- You will never know such freedom until you begin to trust God fully with your finances!
- Peggy Noonan, one of Ronald Reagan’s speech writers once said, “We will gain greater perspective and greater peace if we remember something simple and difficult: We must live in the kingdom of God and not in the world. The world is around us with all its pleasures, joys, and temptations, but there is not peace there. The only peace is in the kingdom of God, which is not far away on a map, but within you.”
- Lord Templeton says, “The spirit of greed and anxiety is the most damaging spirit to prosperity! While we may be tempted to assume that one is free from anxiety because he is very prosperous, the truth is this—one is prosperous because he is free from greed and anxiety.”
- Jesus understood that we worry the most about money and he constantly talked about the importance of how we invest and what our priorities would be
Luke 12:16-21
Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. 17 And he though within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’ 18 So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink , and be merry.”’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’ So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”
- Riches toward God begin when you really trust God with your money and that begins with investing your material goods into the kingdom of God.
- Ex. I learned this concept at 22 years of age, and I began tithing 10% of my meager income to God, even as I was planning to be a missionary to Japan.
- God will bless your investment.
- Have you tested God with your finances? The only place in the Bible that says you can test Him is in your money!
Malachi 3:8-12
“Will a man rob God?
Yet you have robbed Me!
But you say,
‘In what way have we robbed you?’
In tithes and offerings.
9 You are cursed with a curse,
For you have robbed Me,
Even this whole nation.
10 Bring all the tithes into the storehouse,
That there may be food in My house,
And try Me now in this,”
Says the Lord of hosts,
“If I will not open for you the windows of heaven
And pour out for you such blessing
That there will not be room enough to receive it.
11 And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes,
So that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground,
Nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field,”
Says the Lord of hosts;
12 And all nations will call you blessed,
For you will be a delightful land,”
Says the Lord of hosts.
- God honors and blesses those who honor and bless Him!
Acts of Membership:
Attendance
Commitment to Serving
Tithing your Income
And lastly,
Small Group Involvement
- Mountain Springs Church is about relationships! We are a family of people who love each other and we grow in that love as we spend time together and grow together
- Our purpose statement is:
Experiencing the adventure of
an authentic RELATIONSHIP with Jesus Christ.
Hebrews 10:24-25
And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.
- God has placed in each of us a desire to know others and to be known. He has programmed us to desire relationship.
- This is one of the main reasons why God created us; so that He could have relationship with us, and we with Him.
- “7 Life Blessings” that come from involvement in a Life Group:
1. The place to grow in the knowledge and application of God’s Word
2. The place to grow in your understanding and expression of worship
3. The place where you learn to pray
4. The place to minister and be ministered to
5. The place to be real and to take a risk
6. The place to get direction and affirmation from God and apply His calling on your life
7. The place to discover your spiritual gifts and begin to use them
So, go for it! This the time, this is the age.
St. Augustine once said, “Good times, hard times—this is what people keep saying. But let us live well, and the times shall be good. We are the times. Such as we are, such are the times.”
This sermon was produced at Mountain Springs Church in Colorado Springs, with Senior Pastor Steve Holt. www.mountainsprings.org
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