Growing Together in Christ
Pastor Jacob Sheriff
Saturday-Sunday, June 1-2, 2019 (Life Group Launch Weekend)
Ephesians 1:9-10 (NLT) God has now revealed to us his mysterious will regarding Christ—which is to fulfill his own good plan. And this is the plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth.
Ephesians 1:10 (ESV) as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
“Busy” would describe many of our lives. Why? (Responsibilities, commitments — schedules, family, sports)
Have you closely examined your life and can see why you are so busy?
What are your priorities in life? What matters most to you?
How closely do your priorities match your schedule?
If I looked at what makes you so busy, what would I think your priorities are?
If I looked at “screen time” on your iPhone, what would I think mattered to you?
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- Growing from: Busy to Attentive (to God and others)
We live in a blizzard. And few of us have a rope.1 Farmers in the Midwest during sudden and fierce snow storms could get disoriented and lost in their own yards and freeze to death if not tethered to a rope (between house and barn).
We live in a blizzard of negative news, social media comparison, online trolls, political and activist outrage, and sensitive emotional offenses. We are losing our way. We need a rope, something to tether our lives to that is bigger than ourselves, our emotional stability, our chaotic schedule, our angry world.
Ephesians 1:10-12 (MSG) He set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth. It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of theoverall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.
”A Hidden Wholeness”, Parker Palmer
“You can’t not bet your life on something. You can’t not be headed somewhere. We live leaning forward, bent on arriving at the place we long for.” ~ James K.A. Smith
2. Growing from: Isolation to Belonging (“Connection” to “Community”)
We live in incredible times: massive technological breakthroughs, the information revolution, incredible social connectivity. And yet… it seems as though there have been quite a few unintended consequences.
For the last couple of years, the American life expectancy is actually decreased slightly. In an age of advanced medical technology and breakthrough, Americans spend more per person on medical care, and yet it seems to have stalled in increasing our life expectancy. Why?
Of the many medical conditions people suffer, there are two specific things that have had a major effect on the life expectancy: drug overdose and suicide. More and more Americans (and people around the world) are finding their lives to be overwhelming and hopeless. More and more people are looking for an escape and a distraction, or just simply just giving up.
In a recent study done by the insurance company Cigna on loneliness, they found surprising results:
•“Young people with the highest rates of social media use reported very similar feelings of loneliness to those who barely use it”
•In fact, the level of loneliness experienced was inversely proportional to age (the younger and more connected to technology, the more prominent to feelings of loneliness and isolation).
•“[Loneliness is] not just making us sad: It can literally make us sick. Loneliness actually has the same effect on mortality as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, which makes it even more dangerous than obesity.”•“Meaningful social interaction was seen as key to reducing isolation… more face-to-face conversations are needed.”
2 James K.A. Smith, You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit
We are in a crisis of meaning. We’re searching for meaning in so many places and finding ourselves dissatisfied.
Ephesians 1:20-23 (MSG) All this energy issues from Christ: God raised him from death and set him on a throne in deep heaven, in charge of running the universe, everything from galaxies to governments, no name and no power exempt from his rule. And not just for the time being, but forever. He is in charge of it all, has the final word on everything. At the center of all this, Christ rules the church. The church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ’s body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence.
At some point we have to get out of the blizzard (especially parents) and deeply examine our life (and technology) and see what we are basing our life on: our immediate cares and challenges and distractions or belonging to something more eternal — God’s purposes.
3. Growing from: Consumer to Contributor (to God’s purpose)
Galatians 6:15-16 (NLT) It doesn’t matter whether we have been circumcised or not. What counts is whether we have been transformed into a new creation. May God’s peace and mercy be upon all who live by this principle; they are the new people of God.
Ephesians 4:11-16 (NLT) Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ. Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.
Ephesians 4:11-12, 15b-16 (TPT) And he has appointed some with grace to be apostles, and some with grace to be prophets, and some with grace to be evangelists, and some with grace to be pastors, and some with grace to be teachers. And their calling is to nurture and prepare all the holy believers to do their own works of ministry, and as they do this they will enlarge and build up the body of Christ. … All our direction and ministries will flow from Christ and lead us deeper into him, the anointed Head of his body, the church. For his “body” has been formed in his image and is closely joined together and constantly connected as one. And every member has been given divine gifts to contribute to the growth of all; and as these gifts operate effectively throughout the whole body, we are built up and made perfect in love.
Growing from:
• Busy to Attentive( to God and others)
• Isolation to Belonging (“Connection” to “Community”)• ConsumertoContributor(toGod’smission)
Come out of the blizzard of busy, out shadows of isolation and anonymity, out of the cheap seats of observation and into the arena of God’s purposes for His world and for each of us.