Download of 1 7 PRAYER: Thx for being here. Let me frame out

1 of 7
PRAYER:!
"
Thx for being here. Let me frame out our time together. One of the things we’ve been
saying, is that we exist in Southie to: “Glorify God by Making Jesus-followers who make Jesusfollowers.” That means Success for us is: Seeing people “rescued, transformed, and liberated to
follow-Jesus.”... which requires an understanding what it means and looks like to follow Jesus..."
"
In our Discussion Time last week, we looked at Luke 5:1-11, which gave us a picture of the 4
main properties of a Jesus-Follower; namely submitting to Jesus by means of Listening to Him,
Acting on what you've heard, Watching Jesus work through your Listening and Acting, and
Repenting when you have failed to Listen or Act in faith.!
"
This week I asked you to take a look at a couple other passages in Luke:!
"
• Luke 6:43-49 = Shows that Listening/Acting is a heart of being a Jesus-Follower and lest we
think its moralism or legalism, it's actually wisdom."
"
• Luke 8:15 = Shows us that in the end, the one of good soil...the follower of Jesus...is the one
who Hears or Listens to the Word, Holds it fast or Acts on it, and with Patience Watches and
Bears fruit."
"
• Luke 8:19-21 = Shows us that not only is the Christian the one who Listens to Jesus, Acts on
what He has said, Watches Him work and Repents when something of it is not done in faith,
but that person is the one whom Jesus considers His family...His true Followers."
"
• Being a Jesus-follower and calling others to be Jesus-followers is entirely Simple (Listen/Act),
but given our sin nature, it is far from Simplistic."
"
Prayer:!
• Up: [Individual Prayer] = What's God saying to you? What do u need to do about it?"
• In: [Big Group Prayer] = What's God saying to us as a family? What do we need to do about it?"
• Out: [Small Group Prayer] What's God saying to us about our neighborhood? What do we need
to do about it?!
"
"
2 of 7
ANNOUNCEMENTS:!
"
Rhythm Stories?!
- For those who want to quantify things, there is where you can measure faithfulness...
"Obedience for now" is here!!
- New impetus and desire for Sabbath"
"
Blog Thoughts:!
- "Cost of Discipleship""
- Mike Breen talk: “Missional Communities”"
"
Sept 13-15 Save the Date
3 of 7
DISCUSSION: "
"
"
"
[MATT RECORD VOICE MEMO]!
Intro:!
Ok, well let's get started. To kick things off, let me open with two questions or scenarios on
which I want you to give feedback: "
1. If tomorrow you found yourself living in a foreign country where you had no clue as to how
to speak the language or navigate the culture, how would you live differently than now?"
2. Same scenario with an added tweak: If you found yourself in that same country and your job
there was to be a missionary or build the church there, how would you live differently?"
"
If I could synthesize all those responses, I think we could say that the primary thing that would
change for us is that we would quickly learn to become self-feeders...Because we don't know the
culture or language or have built in community, we would hopefully go into survival mode,
establishing rhythms and practices that would allow us to acclimate to and be effective in our
surroundings...We certainly wouldn't live as consumers."
"
And if we think about the second question of how to go about building the church...our focus
would, likewise, be helping others become self-feeders...We would seek to raise up a community
of self-feeders around us, and out of that establish the church...which is incidentally, exactly
what Jesus did...He made disciples and got the church...not the other way around."
"
That idea gets to the heart of our vision for Southie: Littering this neighborhood with Missional
Families necessarily starts with us becoming self-feeders or people, armed with God's Word, in
the power of God's Spirit, following the God-Man Jesus AND helping others to do the same."
"
Review:!
So, 3 weeks ago we started looking at various frames, by which to do what we are calling,
"NAPKIN DISCIPLESHIP" or quickly STORY-FORMING God's Story, if all you had was 5
minutes with a neighbor, over dinner, with a napkin and pen."
"
The purpose of these frames is to help us become self-feeders or people adept at gleaning from
God's word and then Declaring and Displaying that word and those gleanings to those around us."
"
To use another analogy, these Story-Forming frames are intended to gives us yet another tool for
our Gospel-Fluency Tool-Belt....which after all is our end-game...to become people so fluent in
God's Story, that we have the ability to intersect it with daily life and thereby make Jesusfollowers, who make Jesus-followers."
"
And remember, the reason we are so concerned with becoming Gospel-fluent is because: God's
Story is NOT GOOD ADVICE, but GOOD NEWS...History-making, Life-shaping, Paradigmshattering NEWS that God is on a mission of bringing Himself Glory, by restoring creation and
rescuing, transforming and liberating people to follow Jesus, so that they can enjoy His glory
and re-made creation forever!...News which has the ability to bring real joy and transformation."
4 of 7
Transition:"
So 2 weeks ago we looked at the first of four frames...Creation, Fall, Redemption,
Restoration...A THEMATIC Frame showing us WHAT the Scope of the Bible is about..."
"
This week the frame is not Thematic but PROGRESSIVE...Not What the Scope of the Bible is
all about, but HOW God executes the Scope of His Story..."
"
So here's your frame: God's Plan...God's People...God's New People...and God's Preeminence...A
PROGRESSION Frame of God's Plan, God's People, God's New People, God's Preeminence."
"
Frame 2:"
So turn in your Bibles to 1 Peter 2:9-10...1 Peter 2:9-10...And while it's just 2 verses, they are
two verses which really cover the sweep of the entire Bible...So it's 2 verses, but we are gonna
cover a lot of information today, in order to see...HOW...God is...PROGRESSIVELY...executing
the scope of His Story. So, stick with us and would someone read 1 Peter 2:9-10?..."
"9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own
possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness
into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people;
once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.""
"
Passage:!
So, just in two verses we see HOW God has been PROGRESSIVELY executing His redemptive
story; namely by starting with a PLAN...Choosing a PEOPLE through which to play out that
plan...then grafting in a NEW PEOPLE...And all for the purpose of showing Himself to be
PREEMIENT or worthy of our allegiance."
"
Take a look at the first part of verse 9. It shows us what God's PLAN has been for humanity all
along. It says, "
"
God's Plan = v.9a: "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for
his own possession."!
"
Very simply, God Created the world and us in it that we might be like a treasured gift of His...a
culminating, spectacular trophy of His glory in creation...And the reason I say a spectacular...like
diamond encrusted...is bc of those three phrases that the Apostle Peter uses. He says we're a:"
"
• "chosen race" = which literally means an elected, adopted people...a people picked OUT for
blessing......BUT NOT ONLY ADOPTED. We're also a..."
"
• "royal priesthood" = or like Priests are to be...a people who are CONNECTED to God at all
times and in all places...Like the high ranking Senator, we have the ear of the
President...continuous access to the highest powers that be......AND finally we're called a..."
"
5 of 7
• "holy nation" = or a clean, stain-free, blemish-free community of people."
"
Chosen Race, Royal Priesthood, Holy Nation...Adopted...Connected...Clean...and ALL for God's
possession. "
"
God's Plan for Creation was that He put on display and share all the riches and blessings of His
glory with His Creation...That was the intent...Immeasurable joy, blessing and prosperity in the
presence of our Creator, which is exactly what we see in the Garden in GENESIS 1 and 2..."
"
But you know your Bible and you experience the brokenness GENESIS 3 tells us entered the
world as a result of Adam and Eve's sin and our daily authentication of that sin...and so you
know that the PLAN God had laid out was rejected by His PEOPLE...And that's central point we
see from GENESIS 3 to GENESIS 11...God's PEOPLE rejecting God's PLAN: "
• Adam and Eve eating > "
• Cain killing Abel > "
• God flooding the world in Noah's time bc of increasing wickedness > "
• And...the Tower of Babel as institutionalized rebellion and rejection of God's PLAN"
"
But just when it looks like God's redemptive story has ceased to progress at the end of GENESIS
11, look at verse 10...The next big PROGRESSION in God's Story...God's PEOPLE!"
"
God's People = v.10a,c: "Once you were not a people...; once you had not received mercy.""
"
What Peter is referring to, or I should say calling us back to, is GENESIS 12, that cinematic
story of God entering His own story at the height of His people's rebellion...and putting a finger
on an unknown sojourner by the name of Abram...and telling him that He was going to covenant
with Him and quote: "
"make of (him) a great nation, and bless (him) and make (his) name great, so that (he)
would be a blessing to all the families of the earth.""
"
With that God had not only established what is referred to as the Abrahamic Covenant, but He
had progressed from a general PLAN for prospering creation to executing that plan through a
specific PEOPLE."
"
Incidentally, that covenant serves as the basis for the rest of the OT:"
• In Genesis, God covenants with Abraham > Multiplies his family through Isaac > Isaac gives
birth to Jacob > Jacob has twelve sons, which come to be known as the 12 tribes of
Israel...God's Chosen PEOPLE"
• In Exodus, Israel has multiplied from 12 Tribes into a full-fledged nation, but one which is
living in captivity under Egyptian rule, so God Rescues His People."
• In Leviticus and Numbers, God Embraces and Instructs His People with the Law, which sets a
precedent for God being both Heavenly and Father to His people...Holy but Personal."
6 of 7
• In Deuteronomy and Joshua, God walks Israel into the land He had promised them, but which
they had failed to occupy because of sin."
• In Judges, we see God make Israel into a political nation, but we also see how far short God's
People continue to fall, as they fail over and over again to Listen to their God, Act on what He
has said and Repent when they mess up..."
• And so for the rest of the OT...1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, and through all of the
Prophet Books, what we see is:"
• God shaping the nation of Israel into a Kingdom PEOPLE > "
• God Dividing that PEOPLE, because of their sin, into two smaller Kingdoms, known as
the Northern and Southern kingdoms or Israel and Judah > "
• God choosing the Southern Kingdom as His PEOPLE > "
• God disciplining that PEOPLE with various forms of political captivity (Assyrian,
Persian, Babylonian)"
• And God closing out the OT with what is known as 400 years of SILENCE...400 years
in Israel's history where God just stopped talking to and directing His PEOPLE!"
"
So by the end of the OT, the sense you get is: God's PLAN, through God's PEOPLE has not yet
been resolved...And so when Peter says "Once you were not a people...; once you had not
received mercy,," he is recounting the whole OT history and how God had begun a progression of
unfolding His redemptive story through a chosen PEOPLE...Israel..."
"
But look at v.10b,d and you see that God's PEOPLE didn't stop with Israel!!
"
God's New People = v.10b,d: Peter says, "but now you are God's people...; now you have
received mercy."!
"
Here Peter's talking to God's NEW PEOPLE...His audience is not Israelites or Jews, but
Gentiles...People that were not originally apart of God's chosen people, but who now are because
of Christ!..."
"
See, when you finish the OT and turn to the first page of the NT, what you get is Matthew 1:1
which says, "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of
Abraham."...In other words, the NT signals the arrival of God's True King...the Coming of
Christ...Manifesting God's True Kingdom...the Ministry of Christ...by means of delivering God's
True People...the Church of Christ...through the Death, Resurrection and Ascension of
Christ...That's the books MATTHEW, MARK, LUKE and JOHN!"
"
Peter is saying, because of who Christ is and what He has done, if we have submitted our lives to
Him, by faith, we are now included among God's chosen PEOPLE...We are a NEW
PEOPLE...The Church...A PEOPLE characterized by God's mercy."
"
7 of 7
So from GENESIS to JOHN what you have is Creation, Fall, and Redemption being
PROGRESSIVELY played out through a PLAN of God, the PEOPLE of God, and then the NEW
PEOPLE of God..."
"
But lastly, Peter tells us why God has set this PROGRESSION in place...Look at v.9b. He says, "
"
God's Preeminence = v.9b: "that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out
of darkness into His marvelous light.!
"
The overt implication at which Peter is driving is that God started with a PLAN for blessing
Creation. Then in His sovereignty, He moved to enact that PLAN through a specific and
covenanted PEOPLE, known as Israel. But because of Christ, that PEOPLE expanded into a
NEW PEOPLE...the Church...which is what we see in the NT books; ACTS-JUDE...And the
PURPOSE of the Church...this NEW PEOPLE...is as verse 9 says: proclaiming God's
PREEMINENCE to the world...UNTIL Jesus returns to establish His Kingdom and
PREEMINENCE in that Kingdom for good...which we are told about in the book of
REVELATION..."
"
ACTS-REVELATION: The Church; God's NEW PEOPLE living to Proclaim and Practice the
PREEMINENCE of God!"
"
This is why we are so concerned about making Jesus-followers who make Jesus-followers;
Because it is the fundamental purpose of the church...Mission is NOT a ministry or by-product of
the church...Mission IS the Church...It's the outworking of God's PLAN, through God's
PEOPLE, which because of Christ, includes God's NEW PEOPLE, living to Declare and Display
God PREEMINENCE to the world...Until Christ returns and establishes the PREEMINENCE for
good!"
"
God's Plan, God's People, God's New People, God's Preeminence...A frame by which to
understand the Progression of God's Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration Thematic-Story!"
"
So Let's Discuss:!
"
What kind of implications does this frame have as for our Up, In, Out Identities and Actions?"
• Up = ???"
• In = ???"
• Out = ???