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This is the first day of 2022. It’s appropriate that we start off the year together. I want to set the tone for the year with this message.
My message this morning: Eight things I love about Messiah’s Community.
The first thing I love about Messiah’s Community is that God loves Messiah’s Community – a lot. God knew us and loved us before He made us. He loved us while we were sinners. He loves now that we’re redeemed.
How much does He love us? The Father loves us with the same kind of love He loves His Son with. That’s a lot of love.
Not only does the Father love us, the Son loves us – so much that He was willing to limit Himself, become a man, suffer and be crucified for us. That’s a lot of love. Nothing can separate us from His love for us.
God loves Messiah’s Community with a great love – and we want to love what God loves. And we want to love Messiah’s Community with more than words. We want to love Messiah’s Community with our actions, with our involvement, with our service, with our time, talents and treasures.
The second thing I love about Messiah’s Community is that it’s a living organism. I dislike the phrase: “Going to church.” Church is not a place you go to. It’s not a worship service that you attend. It’s a living organism, human beings with the Spirit of God living in them, united to the Son of God who is united to the Father. It’s a community of people who are called out of a dying world and united to the living God. That makes Messiah’s Community very, very special.
This living organism is like a body. Messiah is like the head and we are like His hands, feet and mouth. The Son of God directs us and we do what He wants, go where He wants and speak what He wants.
What does He want us to do?
Love the Jewish people and the Gentiles, men and women, those who are easy to love and those who are hard to love.
Love righteousness, holiness, the truth, the Word of God.
Love proclaiming the Good News.
Carry on His mission of world evangelism and building His Community.
Where does He want us to go? Into all the world, starting with Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. We go with a God-ordained priority – to the Jewish people first.
What does He want us to speak? The truth, especially the truth about Him that alone can save human beings.
I love Messiah’s Community because it’s a living organism, people who are united to the living God and directed by the living God.
The third thing I love about Messiah’s Community is that it’s made of people who are reconciled to God and to each other. Because humanity joined the rebellion of the fallen angels, people are alienated from God and from other people. However, those who respond to the Good News with faith are reconciled to God and to each other.
They have a unity that the world can’t have. They’re part of the same wonderful body – Messiah’s Community. They have the Spirit of God living in each of them. They share the same hope of living forever in the New Jerusalem as the glorious sons and daughters of God. They’re led by the same great leader – the Lord Yeshua.
They share the same beliefs. They experience the same initiation ceremony in Messiah’s Community – baptism – which is a symbol of death and new life and cleansing. They have the same God and Father who is over, through and in all – and the supremely authoritative and all-pervasive Fatherhood of God unites them.
Because of these great things, the people of Messiah’s Community share a profound unity with God and with each other, a unity that transcends race, gender, political positions and economic status.
I love Messiah’s Community because it’s made of people who are reconciled to God and to each other.
The fourth thing I love about Messiah’s Community is that, even though it has great unity, it has great diversity. It’s ethnically and racially diverse. It’s made of the Chosen People and people from the other nations.
It’s economically diverse. It includes rich and poor.
It’s gender diverse. It’s made from the two distinct and wonderful God-ordained genders – male and female.
It’s diverse because it’s made of people with differing abilities, each using their abilities to build up the Community.
It’s diverse in time. It includes all the people from the past 2,000 years who have called on the name of the Lord.
I love Messiah’s Community because even though it has great unity, it has great diversity.
The fifth thing I love about Messiah’s Community is that it’s the pillar and support of the truth. People are ignorant, confused, wrong about the most basic truths: the reality of the Three-In-One God of Israel; that there are good angels and fallen angels; that the Bible is the divinely inspired Word of God; the reality of humanity’s participation in the rebellion of the fallen angels; the reality of sin and the sin nature; that we are headed to Hell, not Heaven, to death, not life; that the Son of God has come making salvation possible.
However, out of this deep darkness, light is shining! The truth that can save us and set us free is not found in the laboratories of modern science, the research centers of the universities, in political parties, the philosophies of the world or in non-Christian religions – but in Messiah’s Community! We have the truth, know the truth, live the truth, proclaim the truth, support the truth and defend the truth from attack.
I love Messiah’s Community because it’s the pillar and support of the truth.
The sixth thing I love about Messiah’s Community is that it has God-ordained authority.
God the Father sits on the main throne in Heaven. At His right hand sits His Son, whom the Father has given all authority in Heaven and on Earth. From that place of supreme authority, King Messiah delegates some of His authority to the people of His Community.
They have authority over evil spirits: I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you. Satan is the god of this world. Fallen angels rule the world with him. They are real. They are powerful. They are dangerous. They are deadly. They deceive the world. They corrupt the world. They keep the world in a state of deadly ignorance.
However, Messiah’s Community has authority over them – to resist them, expose them, overcome their evil influence, and under the right circumstances, cast them out from human beings they possess.
The leaders of Messiah’s Community have authority to lead those in the Community, raise up new leaders and expel people who disobey the truth: Whatever you bind on Earth will be bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose on Earth will be loosed in Heaven.
I love Messiah’s Community because it has God-ordained authority.
The seventh thing I love about Messiah’s Community is that it will be amazingly victorious. I want to be a winner, not a loser. I want to conquer, not be defeated.
The Son of God promised: On this rock I will build my Community of called out ones, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. In spite of the opposition of fallen angels and wicked people, false teachers, and false brothers and sisters; in spite of sins and failures; through danger, trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, poverty and death we will overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.
Economic systems can collapse. Wealth can disappear. Political parties can fail. Nations can fall. Empires can crumble. One day, this world, in fact, this entire universe, will be destroyed. Messiah’s Community will outlast everything and be victorious over everything.
I love Messiah’s Community because it will be amazingly victorious.
The eighth thing I love about Messiah’s Community is that it will be eternally glorious. Messiah’s Community is not perfect – now. We sin. We miss the mark. We make mistakes. But when God is through with us, we will be spotless, blameless, beautiful, perfect, full of wisdom, life and holiness. We will reign with Messiah as glorious and immortal kings and queens in the New Jerusalem – beautiful beyond description, forever and ever.
If you aren’t an active, involved, committed member of Messiah’s Community, who loves Messiah’s Community, I pray that these eight things I love about Messiah’s Community will encourage you to love Messiah’s Community enough to become an active member in it. And if you are an active involved member, I pray these truths strengthen your commitment.
Let’s pray: Father, help us love Messiah’s Community like You love it. Appreciate it. Value it. Be active, involved members. Make serving it one of our very highest priorities.
A QUOTE FROM DIETRICH BONHOEFFER ABOUT GIVING THANKS FOR THE CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP IN WHICH WE HAVE BEEN PLACED
“In the Christian community thankfulness is just what it is anywhere else in the Christian life. Only he who gives thanks for little things receives the big things. We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts He has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for daily gifts. We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts. How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things? If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.” From Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community
No community of Yeshua-followers is perfect. No rabbi or pastor is perfect. There won’t always be great, inspiring messages. There will be problems. There will be inadequacies.
Instead of leaving to find a better place with a better leader with a better word, we thank God for our Yeshua-community that God has place us in. We stay loyal to it. Committed to it. If it’s weak, we strengthen it. If it lacks, we do what we can to add to it. That’s how we grow to spiritual maturity.
SOMEONE RECENTLY EMAILED US WITH THIS QUESTION
Question: For 40 years I’ve given 10 percent of my income to the church that I’m a member of. However, I receive much more spiritual nourishment and teaching from a couple other ministries. Should I give part of my tithe to ministries that are not my local church?
Answer: You derive much benefit from the teaching of your local church. It reminds you of important truths. However, it gives you more than teaching. It gives you community and an opportunity to serve your brothers and sisters. Your church gives you accountability. It helps you obey the Lord’s command to be part of a local Yeshua-community. Therefore, I recommend you continue giving the majority of your giving to your local church and give a little to the ministries that are benefiting you.
This is the first day of 2022. It’s appropriate that we start off the year together. I want to set the tone for the year with this message.
My message this morning: Eight things I love about Messiah’s Community.
The first thing I love about Messiah’s Community is that God loves Messiah’s Community – a lot. God knew us and loved us before He made us. He loved us while we were sinners. He loves now that we’re redeemed.
How much does He love us? The Father loves us with the same kind of love He loves His Son with. That’s a lot of love.
Not only does the Father love us, the Son loves us – so much that He was willing to limit Himself, become a man, suffer and be crucified for us. That’s a lot of love. Nothing can separate us from His love for us.
God loves Messiah’s Community with a great love – and we want to love what God loves. And we want to love Messiah’s Community with more than words. We want to love Messiah’s Community with our actions, with our involvement, with our service, with our time, talents and treasures.
The second thing I love about Messiah’s Community is that it’s a living organism. I dislike the phrase: “Going to church.” Church is not a place you go to. It’s not a worship service that you attend. It’s a living organism, human beings with the Spirit of God living in them, united to the Son of God who is united to the Father. It’s a community of people who are called out of a dying world and united to the living God. That makes Messiah’s Community very, very special.
This living organism is like a body. Messiah is like the head and we are like His hands, feet and mouth. The Son of God directs us and we do what He wants, go where He wants and speak what He wants.
What does He want us to do?
Love the Jewish people and the Gentiles, men and women, those who are easy to love and those who are hard to love.
Love righteousness, holiness, the truth, the Word of God.
Love proclaiming the Good News.
Carry on His mission of world evangelism and building His Community.
Where does He want us to go? Into all the world, starting with Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. We go with a God-ordained priority – to the Jewish people first.
What does He want us to speak? The truth, especially the truth about Him that alone can save human beings.
I love Messiah’s Community because it’s a living organism, people who are united to the living God and directed by the living God.
The third thing I love about Messiah’s Community is that it’s made of people who are reconciled to God and to each other. Because humanity joined the rebellion of the fallen angels, people are alienated from God and from other people. However, those who respond to the Good News with faith are reconciled to God and to each other.
They have a unity that the world can’t have. They’re part of the same wonderful body – Messiah’s Community. They have the Spirit of God living in each of them. They share the same hope of living forever in the New Jerusalem as the glorious sons and daughters of God. They’re led by the same great leader – the Lord Yeshua.
They share the same beliefs. They experience the same initiation ceremony in Messiah’s Community – baptism – which is a symbol of death and new life and cleansing. They have the same God and Father who is over, through and in all – and the supremely authoritative and all-pervasive Fatherhood of God unites them.
Because of these great things, the people of Messiah’s Community share a profound unity with God and with each other, a unity that transcends race, gender, political positions and economic status.
I love Messiah’s Community because it’s made of people who are reconciled to God and to each other.
The fourth thing I love about Messiah’s Community is that, even though it has great unity, it has great diversity. It’s ethnically and racially diverse. It’s made of the Chosen People and people from the other nations.
It’s economically diverse. It includes rich and poor.
It’s gender diverse. It’s made from the two distinct and wonderful God-ordained genders – male and female.
It’s diverse because it’s made of people with differing abilities, each using their abilities to build up the Community.
It’s diverse in time. It includes all the people from the past 2,000 years who have called on the name of the Lord.
I love Messiah’s Community because even though it has great unity, it has great diversity.
The fifth thing I love about Messiah’s Community is that it’s the pillar and support of the truth. People are ignorant, confused, wrong about the most basic truths: the reality of the Three-In-One God of Israel; that there are good angels and fallen angels; that the Bible is the divinely inspired Word of God; the reality of humanity’s participation in the rebellion of the fallen angels; the reality of sin and the sin nature; that we are headed to Hell, not Heaven, to death, not life; that the Son of God has come making salvation possible.
However, out of this deep darkness, light is shining! The truth that can save us and set us free is not found in the laboratories of modern science, the research centers of the universities, in political parties, the philosophies of the world or in non-Christian religions – but in Messiah’s Community! We have the truth, know the truth, live the truth, proclaim the truth, support the truth and defend the truth from attack.
I love Messiah’s Community because it’s the pillar and support of the truth.
The sixth thing I love about Messiah’s Community is that it has God-ordained authority.
God the Father sits on the main throne in Heaven. At His right hand sits His Son, whom the Father has given all authority in Heaven and on Earth. From that place of supreme authority, King Messiah delegates some of His authority to the people of His Community.
They have authority over evil spirits: I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you. Satan is the god of this world. Fallen angels rule the world with him. They are real. They are powerful. They are dangerous. They are deadly. They deceive the world. They corrupt the world. They keep the world in a state of deadly ignorance.
However, Messiah’s Community has authority over them – to resist them, expose them, overcome their evil influence, and under the right circumstances, cast them out from human beings they possess.
The leaders of Messiah’s Community have authority to lead those in the Community, raise up new leaders and expel people who disobey the truth: Whatever you bind on Earth will be bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose on Earth will be loosed in Heaven.
I love Messiah’s Community because it has God-ordained authority.
The seventh thing I love about Messiah’s Community is that it will be amazingly victorious. I want to be a winner, not a loser. I want to conquer, not be defeated.
The Son of God promised: On this rock I will build my Community of called out ones, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. In spite of the opposition of fallen angels and wicked people, false teachers, and false brothers and sisters; in spite of sins and failures; through danger, trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, poverty and death we will overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.
Economic systems can collapse. Wealth can disappear. Political parties can fail. Nations can fall. Empires can crumble. One day, this world, in fact, this entire universe, will be destroyed. Messiah’s Community will outlast everything and be victorious over everything.
I love Messiah’s Community because it will be amazingly victorious.
The eighth thing I love about Messiah’s Community is that it will be eternally glorious. Messiah’s Community is not perfect – now. We sin. We miss the mark. We make mistakes. But when God is through with us, we will be spotless, blameless, beautiful, perfect, full of wisdom, life and holiness. We will reign with Messiah as glorious and immortal kings and queens in the New Jerusalem – beautiful beyond description, forever and ever.
If you aren’t an active, involved, committed member of Messiah’s Community, who loves Messiah’s Community, I pray that these eight things I love about Messiah’s Community will encourage you to love Messiah’s Community enough to become an active member in it. And if you are an active involved member, I pray these truths strengthen your commitment.
Let’s pray: Father, help us love Messiah’s Community like You love it. Appreciate it. Value it. Be active, involved members. Make serving it one of our very highest priorities.
A QUOTE FROM DIETRICH BONHOEFFER ABOUT GIVING THANKS FOR THE CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP IN WHICH WE HAVE BEEN PLACED
“In the Christian community thankfulness is just what it is anywhere else in the Christian life. Only he who gives thanks for little things receives the big things. We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts He has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for daily gifts. We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts. How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things? If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.” From Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community
No community of Yeshua-followers is perfect. No rabbi or pastor is perfect. There won’t always be great, inspiring messages. There will be problems. There will be inadequacies.
Instead of leaving to find a better place with a better leader with a better word, we thank God for our Yeshua-community that God has place us in. We stay loyal to it. Committed to it. If it’s weak, we strengthen it. If it lacks, we do what we can to add to it. That’s how we grow to spiritual maturity.
SOMEONE RECENTLY EMAILED US WITH THIS QUESTION
Question: For 40 years I’ve given 10 percent of my income to the church that I’m a member of. However, I receive much more spiritual nourishment and teaching from a couple other ministries. Should I give part of my tithe to ministries that are not my local church?
Answer: You derive much benefit from the teaching of your local church. It reminds you of important truths. However, it gives you more than teaching. It gives you community and an opportunity to serve your brothers and sisters. Your church gives you accountability. It helps you obey the Lord’s command to be part of a local Yeshua-community. Therefore, I recommend you continue giving the majority of your giving to your local church and give a little to the ministries that are benefiting you.