Download 1 Awakening, Part One CCC, 7-29-12 1) Diving straight into

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Awakening, Part One
CCC, 7-29-12
1) Diving straight into Scripture – Romans 10:8-10
a) Pray while people find passage
b) “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and
in your heart,” that is, the word of faith we are
proclaiming: That if you confess with your
mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your
heart that God raised him from the dead, you
will be saved. For it is with your heart that you
believe and are justified, and it is with your
mouth that you confess and are saved.
c) Middle of monumental book of Romans, God is
describing simplicity of Gospel
i) Just like God to make most important simple
ii) Might use little equation to remember:
(1) Confession + Belief = Salvation
d) Good place to be
i) Confessed/Believing means Saved/Justified
(1) Made right with God
(2) Good-to-Go, so to speak
(3) Could be beamed outta here, to Heaven
(4) Sins forgiven, forgotten
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(a) No sin not covered by sacrifice of
Christ
(b) Nothing separating us from holy God
2) Salvation means new life, but here not there
a) God doesn’t beam us up
i) “There’s another one who’s confessed and
believes,” plucks that one out of the world
b) Beginning, not a finale
i) Beginning of a process called sanctification
c) Salvation is an event
i) Characterized by Romans 10:8-10
d) Sanctification is a process
i) Characterized by (among many other
passages) by Philippians 2:12-13 –
Therefore, my dear friends, as you have
always obeyed—not only in my presence,
but now much more in my absence—
continue to work out your salvation with
fear and trembling, for it is God who works
in you to will and to act according to his
good purpose.
ii) Work out your salvation? What’s up?
(1) Is there another step?
(2) Emphatically: No!
(3) “Your salvation”
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(a) Possessive pronoun
(b) Already received
(4) Spent 9 weeks in Colossians studying
supremacy, sufficiency of Christ
(a) No tradition, ceremony, pilgrimage or
work makes us any more saved than
death and resurrection of Christ
(5) Not speaking of salvation (event) but
sanctification (process)
e) More context from Philippians – Do everything
without complaining or arguing, so that you
may become blameless and pure, children of
God without fault in a crooked and depraved
generation, in which you shine like stars in the
universe… (Philippians 2:14-15).
i) Key phrase: “so that you may become” –
process
f) Purpose of the process?
i) Make us bigger, stronger, faster, prettier?
(1) Nope
ii) Primarily, for God’s glory
(1) Why did chicken cross the road?
(a) Prove to possum that it could be done
(2) Why does God save, sanctify people from
crooked, depraved generation?
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(a) Prove to crooked, depraved
generation that he can do it
(b) Primary purpose
iii) Secondarily, to draw precious souls out of
crookedness, depravity, into plan of
redemption, for which God deserves all the
glory
(1) Kind of a cyclical thing
(a) Centered on God’s glory
(2) Where we get to join in
3) Life of faith in Christ is not a waiting room for
heaven
a) Not a foyer, not a corral
i) Where we hang out in expectation of final
reward
b) Not a proving ground
i) Where we prove whether we deserve to go
to heaven
(1) We’ll never deserve it
4) Life of faith is where by God’s grace we get to
participate in his glory
a) As more people are rescued from darkness,
placed in light of God’s love
5) Problem: By and large, Church is unaware of her
mission, purpose
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a) Waiting Room Syndrome prevails
i) Notion that salvation is the end itself
b) Time to shake it off like the bad habit it is
i) Church has been asleep at the wheel
(1) Asleep at the switch
(2) Just plain asleep and unaware
6) Series is called “Awakening”
a) Today: Wake Up
b) Next week: Purpose of Big-C Church
c) Third week: Individual purpose
d) Final week: How to live out that purpose
e) This week: Step One – Lose the Snooze: Wake
up to the state of our community
7) Huge disconnect between what is believed and
what is real
a) People who believe that all roads lead to
heaven
i) Doesn’t matter what faith you pursue
(1) What name you attach to God
ii) In the end some benevolent somebody
(something?) will take you in
(1) Make it all OK
b) But Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and
the life. No one comes to the Father except
through me. If you really knew me, you would
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know my Father as well. From now on, you do
know him and have seen him” (John 14:6-7).
i) Invitation is totally inclusive
ii) Means by which it is received: totally
exclusive – one way
c) People who believe good morals can stand in
for God’s grace
i) Doesn’t matter that God is holy beyond our
imagination, and sin separates us
(1) Thru behavior modification, walking
moral tightrope, possible to attain to
fellowship with God
d) But hear God saying to the people: But now a
righteousness from God, apart from law, has
been made known, to which the Law and the
Prophets testify. This righteousness from God
comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who
believe. There is no difference, for all have
sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and
are justified freely by his grace through the
redemption that came by Christ Jesus (Romans
3:21-24).
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i) No mention of behavior modification on our
part – the only righteousness that gains us
fellowship with God comes from God
e) People who don’t know there’s any such thing
as salvation, or any need for it
i) So consumed by day-to-day, A-to-B, get-itdone that they haven’t thought about it
(1) True: most everybody has opinion on
religion
(2) But: Not everybody has informed opinion
on Jesus
ii) Here’s why: And even if our gospel is veiled,
it is veiled to those who are perishing. The
god of this age has blinded the minds of
unbelievers, so that they cannot see the
light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who
is the image of God (2 Corinthians 4:3-4).
iii) Perishing as a result of having their minds
blinded
8) People in our community are presently on their
way to everlasting conscious punishment
a) More plainly: People you know and love who
will go to Hell
i) Unless they find Christ as Savior
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ii) Bridge the gap between what is believed
and what is true
9) God’s plan to avert the tragedy: the Church
a) Proverbs 24:30-34 – I went past the field of the
sluggard, past the vineyard of the man who
lacks judgment; thorns had come up
everywhere, the ground was covered with
weeds, and the stone wall was in ruins. I
applied my heart to what I observed and
learned a lesson from what I saw: A little sleep,
a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to
rest —and poverty will come on you like a
bandit and scarcity like an armed man.
b) It’s the Church – caught napping, waiting
c) Time to mow down weeds/fix up fence
i) Understand that absence of moving forward
is equal to falling back
d) Edmund Burke: …when “bad men combine, the
good must associate; else they will fall, one by
one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible
struggle”
e) Maxim derived from that quote: The only thing
necessary for the triumph of evil is for good
men to do nothing.
i) Plain to see
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f) More down-home (paraphrasing Mark Twain):
Even if you’re on the right track, the train will
run you over if you stand still.
i) Echoes of Proverbs 24 – …poverty will come
on you like a bandit, and scarcity like an
armed man.
10) Only way to engage our mission is as the fully
formed, fully functional Body of Christ
a) Individuals who have been saved and are being
sanctified
i) Collected together as the Church, to engage
the mission
b) Awake, alert, empowered by God’s Holy Spirit
11) Best thing we can pray for is awakening
a) At this point in our church’s life
b) Night before he was crucified, Jesus established
Communion
i) Said many things to his disciples
(1) Make them ready to take up his mission
ii) So many things; finally said, “I have much
more to say to you, more than you can now
bear.”
(1) Promised that Holy Spirit would lead us
into more truth
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c) Receive the bread and juice as reminder of One
who made the promise
i) Pray to be led into more truth, more
awareness, by Holy Spirit
Communion (Aaron leading song)
12) Rallying call
a) Ephesians 5:14 – “Wake up, O sleeper, rise from
the dead, and Christ will shine on you”
b) Assignment for this week – Lose the Snooze:
Pray for Awakening
Benediction: 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24