Hey, my name is Matthew Young. As he said, I'm one of the pastors here with
Resonates. I'm excited for tonight. Excited to spend this time with you and
excited to head over to Moscow and see those 20 people get baptized. But
I'm excited for this time to spend with you guys. As we're wrapping up the
semester and beginning to kind of, we do this as a staff and as a church, the end
of every semester we spend some time where we sit and we think and about
the semester that was and talk about what God is doing in our midst and in
us and through us and we're praying and asking him, where are you guiding us? Where
are you leading us moving forward? Keep us talking about even just these
changes that came up this week with our venue for our Pullman service. We, yeah,
just always asking, okay, what is it God is calling us to do and how do we do that
better? How do we, how do we get better at what He's called us to do? And so in
thinking about the opportunity to get to speak with you guys tonight and preach
from God's word and asking, okay, what message do you have then for it to
communicate to us? And I had a chance to say some of the similar things in
Moscow last week, but I felt like as I was thinking about you guys this week,
like, this is good. I feel like we need to hear this. So excited about where we're
headed tonight. If you have your Bibles with you, you can crack those open to the
book of Ephesians. We will, we'll be looking at that. But also if you have the
Resonate app, you can find it there. We'll project scripture up here as well, if
that's helpful for you. We, before I dive into that, I think I need to make some
things clear about, about who we are as Resonates. So we, what we believe as
Resonate Church, we believe that we are created by God and that you may be
familiar with part of the story. Way back in the very beginning in the book of
Genesis, it tells the story of we were created by God and soon after our
creation, we rebelled against God. And we began to do things that he, that were
outside of what he called us to do. And we were disobedient and rebelled against
him. And so it's the story of Adam and Eve. And what that created, something
between us and God that we call sin. You might have heard that word before. And
it created the separation between us and him. And so God, after that happened, he
said, from that point on, he said, I'm going to do something about this. I'm
gonna do whatever it takes to rescue them, to bring them back to myself, to take,
take care of this separation that's between us, to bring them out of the
rebellion and bring them back to me. And, and so he made a plan to do that and he
chose to give part of himself, his son, Jesus Christ, to come and become human.
Part of his rescue plan was to become one of us, to come live amongst us, to do
life as it had never been done before. And that's, that's what we, as we celebrated
Christmas, that we couldn't get to God on our own. So he had to come and be with
us, to come and get us. And so, so he sent his son to come and, and take care
of our sin issue. He did that by living life as it had never been lived before.
Living it perfectly, without that sin thing, without that separation between
him and the father. And he said, okay, I'm going to get him and I'm gonna do this.
And the thing about God, that he loves us so much that he was said, I'm going to do
something about this when he came to get us. But he's also just, and then he has
to do something about that sin issue. He's, he's just, means he's going to do
something about injustices. He's going to punish those. And, and so he has to do
something about our sin. And his, his option for that was to then send the one
who was sinless to die on our behalf to take our sin. And to take the punishment
for our sin. And so, he did that. And in doing so, he took care of that separation
that separates us from God. And opened the door for us to come back into
relationship with him. And, and that's good news. And so that we as, as followers of
God, that we as Resonate Church, we believe that we call it the gospel, which
means good news. And so, I need you to know those things because where we're
headed, what we're about to read is communicated to people that believe
that. And so, if you're, if you're, if you're a Christian, I hope that you hear
that, that iteration of what that means and what God has done on our behalf. And
you say, yeah, yeah, I'm on board with that. Yes, I believe those things. And
maybe if you're here tonight, maybe somebody invited you, you're checking
things out, or you're trying to explore this, this Christianity thing, you're
like, okay, I'm not sure about that yet. But that's interesting. And that's fine.
It's good to be in that place too. So, if that's where you are. And so, but I
need you to know that. So, this book of this, in the book of Ephesians that we're
going to read from tonight, in the very beginning of Christianity, there's this
guy named Paul. And he had a transformational experience with this
God where he, where it became clear to him of his sin and his issues. And God
said, okay, I want to draw you close to me. And he received what Christ had done
on his behalf. And, and then God empowered him, showed him what he was made
for, and said, okay, now I want you to go and plant churches, essentially, to
start churches, to communicate this gospel, this truth to those who are far
away from God that need to be brought near. And so, that's what Paul did with his
life. He went throughout ancient Mesopotamia, ancient Middle East, and, and
planted churches and started these, these congregations, these groups of people
where he'd share this good news with them. They began to follow Christ together.
And, and these churches started and he would travel around and do that. So, after
he would plant a church and spend some time with them, he would then go on
into another town and do the same thing. And, and then at one point he was even
arrested in jail because of his preaching and because of his faith. And, and so
while he was away from those churches and those people that he established
relationships with in these churches that he'd started, he would then write them
letters and to communicate and remind them of, hey, don't forget about these
things I taught you. Don't forget about the stuff we learned together.
Don't forget about these truths that we share with you. And so, he would
communicate those things through letters to them. And so, that's what we have here
in the book of Ephesians was originally a letter
written to the, written to the people of Ephesus by Paul.
And so, as we thought about, okay, what to communicate to Paul and resonate
tonight, I thought about this book of Ephesians because we are, as Keith said,
we're in our seventh year and we're relatively new as a church. We're young
in years of how long we've existed. And, but even though we're young, we still
need to be reminded of what we know. We still need to be reminded of what's
true and to be reminded of what we're here for.
It's easy when you get older to get familiar with things and get in a
rhythm and in a way of doing things that you forget
why you do the things you do, why you believe what you believe. And so, I
think that's true for us here in Pullman and I think it's true for
the Ephesians as Paul wrote this letter to them. So, I don't read a passage of
Scripture to you that is the beginning of this letter
where Paul is writing to these people. He spent, actually spent more time with this
particular church than he did with most of the church that he,
most of the churches that he planted. And so, he's writing to this group of
people and he's reminding them. And he, it's almost like the opening
couple paragraphs of this letter where it's, it's almost like it's a song or
like a something they would recite together, maybe even something they
recited together before when he was with them. And so, he's writing, it's almost
like he's writing out and saying, don't forget these things guys, remember these
things. And it communicates, it's very, it's very
theological and by that, what that means is, as we read it here in just a
moment, you're like, whoa, that's a lot of words and a lot of big words and stuff.
I don't fully understand it. If you don't spend a lot of time thinking
theologically, sometimes this, it make it, it's easy to get lost in this
passage of Scripture. It's also, in the ancient Greek, there wasn't a
lot of punctuation. And so, it reads as a lot of really big
run-on sentences. And so, as I read this, I encourage you
guys to either, if you want to read long, if that's helpful, if it's easier to
close your eyes and just hear it or think about it or read long, then do that.
But we'll go back through and break it down a little bit to help you
to process through some of this. So, I'm going to read Ephesians chapter one
starting in verse three.
In verse seven, in him we have redemption through his blood,
the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he
lavished on us, with all wisdom and understanding he may known to us the
mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he
purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the
times reached their fulfillment, to bring unity and to all things in heaven
and on earth and under Christ. Verse 11, in him we were chosen having been
predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity
with the purpose of his will, in order that we who are the first to put our hope
in Christ might be for the praise of his glory.
And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the
gospel of your salvation, when you believed you were marked in him
with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a
deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those
who are God's possession, to the praise of his glory.
I love that passage of scripture, it's meaty,
it's a big chunk of scripture with some some big words and some big
concepts in it. So, we read through that what it
essentially what it communicates is this list of of the perks of being a
follower of Jesus, the perks of being a Christian.
And I don't know if you caught it or not, I tried to emphasize some words, some
phrases within that passage. The phrase in Christ or in him
comes up seven times in those in those 12 verses.
Paul's communicating that what we have in Christ
is good and there's a lot to it and and it's very important for us as
followers of God to know. These statements that he makes here are
identity statements. They speak to our identity in
Christ, our identity in him. So, I want us to look real
quick at some of the things that it talks about that we have in Christ,
who we are in him, what it what it means when we're when we're
joined with him. When you when you make that choice if you believe those
things that we said in the beginning that you follow Christ and it
there's a unity that God brings you into with Christ and this so this phrase
kind of sums that up who you are in Christ in him.
And so, he makes a few statements and I want we're going to list them out here
and you can jot them down in your notes. They're very worthwhile to think about
and contemplate on to meditate on about what your identity is in Christ.
So, the first one that he says in verse four is that you are holy and
blameless. In Christ you are holy and blameless.
When you when you become a follower of Christ you then associated with him. It's
as though everywhere you go Christ is with you.
And so, as you stand before the Creator and God looks at you,
he looks at you and says, oh, you're holy and blameless.
Now, you may not find yourself thinking that about yourself very often.
You tend to think about yourself and we often think about ourselves and the
first thing we think about is the negative stuff, the things we've done
wrong. But as God looks at us, he doesn't say, uh, that's
disgusting. And they've got issues. He looks at us and says, oh, they're holy and
blameless. It's as though, and I've said this before here,
it's as though he looks at us through Jesus' glasses.
That he looks at us and he says, okay, I see some of the stuff that's going on.
I see the sin that's a part of their life and then he puts on his Jesus' glasses
and he looks at us and he says, oh, okay. Now, holy and blameless. As he looks at us
in Christ or through Christ, what Christ has done on our behalf,
because of what he's done on our behalf, he sees us as holy and blameless.
Christ's righteousness has been credited to us. And so you need to know
that he sees you that way. We're bad about carrying around shame,
the things that have happened in our past. We carry those things around with us
and that's how we see ourselves is the mistakes we've made.
You need to know that your Creator, your God, he's dealt with those things and he
says, I don't see you based on that stuff anymore.
I see you in Christ as holy and blameless. And there's freedom in that. Freedom
from the shame and guilt. Yeah, thanks, Nick. Amen. And I'll amen it too.
And so he sees us as holy and blameless and
you need to see yourselves as that way too, to put that stuff behind you and
move on. He says this also in verse 4 and 5 and he says again down in 11
that you are chosen, that you are predestined. He uses that word.
You're chosen. God picked you. School yard kickball and he said, I want you on
my team in no particular order. He picked you.
He says, I want you. I'm coming after you. I choose you.
And that predestined bit, that means he had a plan all along.
He has a plan for you. He's had a plan all along and you need to know that
that you can rest in him. And some of you may say, I don't feel chosen. I don't
feel like I've been predestined. I don't know if that's me or not.
I don't know either, but the reality is he has a plan for you whether you know
it or not. And whether you know it or not, you've
been chosen. And so he's picked you and maybe you've
gone through life and you feel like I've never been picked. I'm always on the
outside. I'm always never part of the crowd. I'm
never wanted. God wants you. Your Creator wants you.
He chose you. He predestined you. He has a plan for you.
He says again in verse 5, he says that you were in love. He predestined you for
adoption through sonship through Jesus Christ.
He chose you for adoption. So when he picked you, he said it, he
didn't just, honestly, it's more serious than he just picked you for his team.
He picked you for his family. And that family language is very strong.
I'm assuming that you guys know something about families because
you came from somewhere. And we all have families no matter what we do,
whether we like them or not, whether we've seen them recently or we haven't
seen them a very long time. Our family is our family and your mom and
dad are always your mom and dad. Your brothers and sisters are always your
brothers and sisters. And there's nothing you can do about that.
And that's the picture that God communicates to us throughout scripture
that he's picked you to be in his family and there's nothing you can do about
that. You can't get rid of him and he can't get rid of you.
And so he's invited you into that and he says you're my sons and daughters.
And that language is interesting that he sees us that way because
Jesus is the Son of God. And so he's not just God but he stands
there with us as the Son of God, our brother Jesus, if you will.
There's a passage in Romans that says that we are coheirs with Christ.
So as he receives from the Father, we also receive that.
It's good to be in the family of God, to be one of his children.
That's good news. And it's so huge for your identity and who you are in Christ.
In verse seven, he speaks of redemption and forgiveness.
I'll read it in him. You have redemption through his blood,
the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he
lavished on us.
So as we said a minute ago, the gospel, the truth,
that reality that we have a sin issue and that sin issue created distance
between us and God. The passage in Colossians that says
that we were enemies of God. In our rebellion against him,
we were enemies. Being an enemy of a holy and righteous
and all-knowing God is not a good place to be. It doesn't work out well for you.
And so God said, I'm not okay with that and I want to do something about that
distance. I want to bring them back to me. And so he's redeemed us and he's
forgiven us through his blood, through that death that he did on our behalf.
He died the death that we deserved so that we could live the life that he
lived. And so in that, he dealt with that
distance and he redeemed us and he brought us close.
He forgave us that sin that separated us. He said, I won't consider that any
longer because that was placed on Christ when he died.
And now I see you as holy and blameless. So come close to me children.
Come close to me kids. It's Christmas. Let's have fun together.
And so he looks at us. He sees that reality. Again, I don't know where you
come from and maybe your earthly family has not been great.
You felt like an outsider. Your parents or your family is not someone you trust.
Maybe you've always felt like that kid that doesn't really fit into the family,
that black sheep, or you're the weird uncle at Thanksgiving.
And everybody's like, yeah, he's part of the family but I don't know.
When you're in God's family, he says, no, come close. I invite you in and there's
nothing you can do about it to get out.
And I will never kick you out of this family. You'll always be my sons and
daughters and I will always be your father.
And then in verse 13, he makes one other statement and there's others within
this, another deep truth, but I want to mention this last one in verse 13.
He, I'll read it, and you also were included in Christ when you heard the
message of truth, the gospel of your salvation.
When you believed you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,
who is a deposit, guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of
those who are God's possession to the praise of His glory.
And so when God said, okay, those are my kids, I picked them, I have a plan for
them, I see them as holy and blameless, I'm taking
them from being far away to bring them close.
Now, they still have to live life on a daily basis here on this earth,
but just to show that I'm not done with them, I'm going to
mark them with a seal, part of myself. Again, he gives part of himself,
the Holy Spirit, to be with us, to guide us, to walk with us always.
And so if you've ever experienced the Holy Spirit working in your life,
by that I mean if you've ever experienced God saying,
hey, that's not best, hey, remember this. If you've ever found yourself reading the
Bible, reading scripture, and you felt like God was speaking to you,
that's the Holy Spirit at work in your life. And he's saying your mind, don't
forget it, your mind. As you feel him leading you and
guiding you, he's saying your mind and I'm not done with you.
You may feel like you still have some issues and you haven't got it all figured
out yet, that's okay, don't forget, I'm not done with you.
I've placed a deposit down on you to remind you that I'm not finished
and I will complete this. And that's a good truth to remember
and to be reminded of as followers of Christ, as part of the family.
And that affects your identity on a daily basis when you remember you're not
walking through this alone, but God is with you.
God has been with us when he sent his son to the earth and
a sweet little baby boy and a manger and he's with us on a daily basis now
through the Holy Spirit.
And so these are huge identity statements.
When you, who you are in Christ, never forget that
apart from Christ you are not these things. You don't have the privilege of
being a part of the family, but in Christ as you step into Christ,
these are truths about who you are. And so that's why we continue to remember
that what Christ has done on our behalf and a little bit at the end of the
service will take communion to remember these things.
And it's a glorious list that you can make and you can hang up
in your car and you're on your mirror and you can remember these things. You
could spend a week over the Christmas break meditating on these different
things about who you are in Christ and they're glorious and it would be good
for you to do that. But you need to know that it's not
done to just know this information.
I hope that it encourages you. I hope that it gives you a warm fuzzy
to know these things about yourselves, but there's more to it than that.
It's meant to do more than just be information for you.
So I have an issue. I'm a borderline hoarder.
I'm one significant life tragedy away from being on that TV show probably.
So I have a hard time throwing stuff away. My wife and I, April, we
over the Thanksgiving holiday, we cleaned out our closet
and that was the first time we cleaned it out in like six years and it was gross
guys. It was bad and in the closet is our file cabinet and I spent some time
going through that and oh man I threw a lot of paper away
and but there were bank statements from 2001
guys it was bad. There was stuff that needed been
needed been thrown away a long time ago but every time I'm about to throw
something away I'm like hanging over the trash can the trash bag and I'm like
what if I need it maybe I'll put it back in the file
freak out and I have a hard time getting rid of stuff. I just
I like to collect things I don't know. I also I do this at Christmas
every year. I've done this since I was a little kid.
After Christmas morning and we've gotten all the presents and everything's been
open I'll take whatever I got no matter how big or
little whatever and I'll like have my little stash and I'll move it over into
one corner of the room over behind the Christmas tree and then it'll just sit
there for a couple days and I'll just look at it look at my loot look at my
stuff all the stuff I got for Christmas or whatever
and uh and yeah I just like to enjoy looking at it my my stuff and uh I do
this with with iTunes. I do this with gift cards.
I have a drawer in my in my dresser that has
gift cards in it and all of them have a balance on them
and I like to think about the reality like I have gift cards and they have
money on them. I could go spend them if I wanted to
and uh and every time I think about spending one I'm like
but what if what if I didn't really want to spend it on that then I wouldn't
have that in my in my drawer anymore and on my iTunes I have
16 dollars and 37 cents and it has been there for a year
and I think I should buy that album I should buy that book
but then I wouldn't have any money on my iTunes anymore so I can't commit guys
I've got issues and I just like to look at that balance up there and
it's bad uh so I do this just I do this with my tools
down in our garage I have this um I have this work bench there and is uh is
being a homeowner and as I grow older I have discovered I like to build
things and and fix things and so I've started
acquiring all these tools for different projects and
so sometimes when I'll go down there and I'll work in the garage and I enjoy
that and sometimes I'm just going down there to feed the cat or get something
else out of the garage and I'll just stop for a minute look at my tool my
tool bench and look at all the tools and everything I'm like yeah like those
tools those are my tools and uh and I'll think
about man I could I could do some stuff with those
and I have this one tool a micrometer I got a couple years ago
and it measures little things I have never used that
micrometer but I like to think about you know I could measure something really
small if I needed to I could and I have this one set of
screwdrivers that hangs inside of the drawer and and never use always use the
the screwdriver that's upstairs in the junk drawer but has like little
interchangeable little parts little heads or whatever but there's that there's
that set that up there on my work bench that I like to look at like look at my
screwdrivers they're all nice and neat and ordered I like to imagine
using them sometimes I do but but not often so I like to look at my stuff
but the reality is though all those tools are made for something they're made to
do something so here's the point in all that
we acquire things but they have a purpose
especially those tools that I have that they have a they all have a purpose
they're made for something so as we look at this list of things in Ephesians
chapter 1 and 3 through 14 we have this list of
sweet deals this is our Christmas list this is our loot
that we get in being in Christ that we're holy and blameless we're adopted
we're forgiven we're sealed with the Holy Spirit
this is a sweet list of things to think about and ponder on
but the reality is they're not just there to look at
they're sweet in that who who we are our identity
it informs what we're supposed to do it gives us clarity about what we're for
about what we're supposed to do all of that information
is helpful to inform inform us about what we're supposed to do
but if we look over the next chapter of Ephesians there's a verse that
Paul writes it continues on to explain to the Ephesians
reminding them about who they are and what they're supposed to be doing
they're in Ephesus writing to this early church this new church much
like us here in Pullman Washington we need to be reminded about these things
in Ephesians chapter 1 but also this bit in Ephesians chapter 2 I want to read it
to you Ephesians 2 verse 10 where he says this
for you are God's handiwork you were God's workmanship some translation say
you're God's handiwork created in Christ Jesus there it is again
created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to
do you're created in Christ Jesus to do
good works which God prepared in advance for us to do
so he's created you and he's essentially he's recreated you in Christ
he's given you this new identity and he's done it for a reason
he's created you to do good work do good works that he's prepared for you to do
so just like he had a plan all along to rescue you
and bring you out of your rebellion to bring you from far away to bring you
close and now that you're close he's still got a
plan for you to do he's got things for you to do
and so just like just like those tools on my tool bench they have a purpose
now the problem is is too often we we think about
our identity in Christ we think about who we are and we ponder those things
again we get the warm fuzzies we have Bible studies about we we've come here
on Sundays and we sing about it and we hear more about it and we we get
together during the week and we eat a meal together and we talk about it
there's still those those realities about what our identity is in Christ
they're there for a reason to then to educate us about what we're supposed to
do but what we do truly defines who we are
what we do truly defines who we are now we younger generations especially I
think all of us to some extent in this room
we like to think about ourselves we all have a tendency towards selfishness
and being self-consumed and if left to ourselves apart from Christ that will
happen life is all about me and all about us
and we like to we like self-discovery we love to discover things about ourselves
and define ourselves in different ways and how i'm different than everyone else
or how i'm like everyone else hey i'm like you guys or hey i'm different than
you guys we love to do these things and sometimes we can look at this list of
who we are in Christ and just get excited about that
and it's like this it's it's like props guys uh it's like this it's this picture
it's a picture of a tool can you tell what this is
anybody got any who what is this there we go thanks
interactive sermon too um so there's a picture of a hammer
and so you know from what this is you've probably seen hammers before you're
aware of what i what hammers are for the identity of a hammer
hammers are for nailing things hammering yeah you hit stuff with them
so that's that's good to know and so when you see this image you say oh that's a
hammer that's for that's for hitting stuff the
thing is if i wanted to hammer something
i have a nail here so it's really hard to do
with this picture of a hammer we're not going anywhere
all right so you're meant to do something as a follower of
jesus christ and to sit around and merely think about
what you could do and to look at an image of yourself and say that's who i am
but then never doing it you're missing out on what you're created for
you're created to hammer you're created to do what god has created you to do
and take a hammer
that's awesome and hammer stuff hammer stuff even a pretty hammer that's all
be jeweled up like that handle on it uh it does stuff
that is what we're meant for so god has done this work know this
god the work of god has saved you all that that has happened
to bring you into christ that is what has saved you so that you can do
god's work you've been saved by the work of god so that you can do god's work
we have a purpose all of this reality of who we are and our identity
has a has a purpose and we discover our identity and who we are
is truly defined by what we do our identity is defined by what we do
it took some time this week to try and crunch some numbers and figure some
things out about who we are here in pulmon
so as Keith said some of you guys go to the the morning the Todd service and
we specifically started that service on campus at WSU
to reach students that lived on campus so they could roll out of the dorm room on
Sunday morning and come and worship god and hear the gospel hear the truth
about who god is and who they are in line with him
and and for those who live in that community and that gave us some specific
purpose then for us who uh who go and and are part of this uh the WSU
pulmon service and the villages that are connected with this service
as Keith said we have a purpose to reach those who
who don't live on campus the students that go to washington state university
who live off campus who live in apartment land if we as we've termed it
and just as our church and at the beginning of this next year we'll be
moving to apartment land over at Schweitzer event center where we're
surrounded by apartments that's who we're called to
we're also called to the families in the community of pulmon
so as i crunched some numbers it's what i discovered as best i could determine
there were about 11 000 washington state university students who live off
campus 11 000
that's a lot more than who we've reached thus far
there are a lot of students who are far away from god there are a lot of
students who don't know their heavenly father and are
standing in the place of an enemy of god and you know some of them you have
classes with them you teach some of them
you work with some of them
and we're called to reach those students to communicate the message
that they can be brought near to their creator they can be brought into the
family that they are chosen they can be sealed to be led
and live life with god
6 500 apartment units in the pulmon area roughly
over 6 000 apartment units and a bunch of them are over by Schweitzer
engineering laboratories but they're spread out all over and you drive past
them you live in them you have neighbors in these apartment complexes
and god is saying i've prepared you to do good works
i've prepared you to take this truth to those who are far away so that they can
be brought near
yeah looked at some census data uh four thousand families roughly four
thousand families family units in the pulmon area
they're 2.88 people live in those families
we are called to go to those families josh was telling me this past week that
it's been four years since we baptized a non-student adult
here in resonate church it's been four years not okay with that
not okay with that i hope you're not okay with that
last week as we as we baptized a lot of people on this stage
six of them came from this venue six of the 25
praise god that he brought those people close
and there are 11 000 students out there who are not brought who have not been
brought close and he's calling us to go to them
and he's placed in you if you if you say i'm a follower of Jesus Christ he's
giving you a new identity to educate you and inform you on
what you're called to do and as you do it you
discover what your true identity is you discover who
who you are as you go and do what you're created to do
when i take that hammer and i hammer and a nail if if hammers could talk i think
you would say oh yeah that feels good yeah that's what i was made for
because i think that's what hammers sound like your hammer may sound different
i don't know
as you experience life as you're created experiences you do the good works
that God has prepared in advance for you to do
and it feels good it's life as you are intended to experience it
when jesus was here when he was walking on earth
he was doing life and he was doing the things that God led him to do and i
think that as he did so he and the father and the spirit they had a constant
conversation going on because there was no separation between them and so he was
constantly in a state of prayer listening to the heavenly father as the spirit
guided him and led him and he walked as he would walk into town and the spirit
would say hey look at that guy over there who's lame and who needs healing
and they would walk over and they would heal him together and they'd be like oh
that was fun man that was good let's do it again
and jesus would walk into a crowd of people and he would speak truth and
he would say things that would blow people's minds of the religious leaders
and others and they never heard things like this before
as they would as he would do what god led him to do what god
sent him to do as he did as he would do what he was supposed to be doing
as he lived life as he was created to live it
as he was brought to do it he said oh this is fun this is good
as you do life as you were created to do it to do the good works that he's
prepared in advance for you to do
it feels good and you and the father and the spirit and the son all together
would be able to say oh this is fun it's fun to get to share the faith that i
have and my creator it's good to be a part of bringing
people who are far away and bringing them near
it's good to communicate forgiveness it's good to communicate
the reality you can be holy and blameless in christ and there's no shame
attached to you with your heavenly father
and so i want you to to know that you're not meant to just
think about and reflect on and to meditate on who you are
but you put those things into practice so you live your life out communicating
through your actions and through your words the truth of who jesus christ is
and that you don't let fear of of what might happen what others think of you
because you know that you've been brought into a family where you cannot be
rejected and you have a heavenly father will never
never leave you you've been given a holy spirit that gives you power that
puts away all fear and he says let's do this together i'm with you all the way
i'll help you find the words i'll help you communicate
and you'll never you can never be rejected from your heavenly father and
your and your and your heavenly family in christ
and so this truth about who you are informs how you do what you do and
educate you on how to go about those things but unless you do it you don't
truly understand who you are and what you've been created for
until we walk in christ and do these things in christ we're missing out
we're going to have a time of response here in just a little bit
and as we do that i want there's two i think there's two steps for us
are two decisions to make here tonight
the the first one is to say okay god i recognize you have something for me to
do
i realized that you're calling me to something that you've created me in christ
jesus and i thank you for doing that and now i want to respond to the
reality you have good works that you prepare in advance for me to do
it's the first step is just saying okay god put me in god use me
god i'm available i want to make myself available
because unlike my tools on my work bench they don't have a choice in it if i'm
going to use them i'm going to use them we have a choice god has given us a
choice to step in and be used by him or not
and we can say god yes i want to be used and to open ourselves up to him and say
god i'm i'm i'm allowing you to lead me in
this
and then from there you have continued choices to make it's almost a daily
choice that you make in this because every day he's
created us in christ she has to do good works which he's prepared in advance for
us to do on december 15th and on december 16th
the rest of this week he's created us to do good works which he's prepared in
advance for us to do and so prepare yourself for that
you might need to take some steps to educate yourself continue your
information understanding of who you are in christ
you also need to be able to communicate these things you need to be able to come
to a place with with your mouth you can say who what you believe in christ
what you believe christ is on your behalf
and you may you may feel like i think i probably could do that maybe
i think if i try it i might can figure it out work my way through it and that's
good and you should probably practice that some more
because if god has created you to do good works he's got someone that he wants
you to share that message with i i don't know why god did it this way
sometimes we we say this i i think it would have been a better plan if he
had decided to write it in english in the sky
or we could all just read who he is and that would be easier right but for
whatever reason he said no i want to use you i want to use
my my children to communicate this message that's what he's called us to be
a part of that of communicating this message
and so for that you need to prepare yourself as one of god's tools as part of
his workmanship as someone that he has something to do
something for you to do to come to a place where you can communicate this
truth i encourage you we have uh mission of
living classes we'll be offering again in the spring
it's part of our resonate one-on-one courses to go to one of those classes and
and to practice that they give you some great tools to do that but honestly you
may feel like i need to i need to practice that now
let's do it tonight after the service night you come find me or find somebody
else find you're a village leader find someone that you know knows this
message and say hey i want to practice saying that stuff
i want to practice communicating what i believe about who god is
and what christ has done on my behalf
some of you here again may be here tonight and you're still checking out
christian you're checking out church you'll be like i don't know what i
believe about this stuff and i don't want i don't want to
i don't want to confuse you or anything but i want you to get a full picture if
you become a christian when you become a christian it affects every bit of your
life it's not just something you pray or
pray or anything i'm going to add that to to some other stuff and maybe that'll
help me out sometimes but god's created you in christ
jesus to do good works which he's preparing in advance for you to do and
so if you step into christ he's got some things for you to do
and know that and that's true for all of us
and so the second decision then tonight is to say okay god
who or where do you want me to go
i'm willing to go there
about a month ago josh preached a similar sermon at the conclusion that
sermon we had these cards and we wrote down five names that we were going to
begin to pray for the people in our lives that god would give us opportunities
to go to them and share this truth with them to build a relationship with them
and serve them and communicate what it looks like to be accepted
communicate what it looks like to be forgiven and loved
to pray for opportunities to do that in those relationships
i trust that god has people in your life he's placed you where he's placed you
on purpose he's placed you there to do to do
good work so he's preparing in advance for you to do
and so as we respond here in just a little bit you
probably already noticed that there on the back of the chair in front of you
there's this little string and as you as you ponder god what are you
calling me to do have you called me to do something as you accept that reality
i want to ask you to take that string off and tie it around your wrist
as a commitment that you know that you are in christ
as a commitment to that you know and to embrace your identity in christ
to say i believe these things about who i am about my identity and to tie that on
we're going to take as i said we're going to take communion and to come and take
the bread and dip it in the juice and to consume that and in doing so remembering
what christ has done on your behalf that you were far away but because of his
act he has brought you close as you remember that to say yes god
thank you for bringing me close and i want you to think about the second
part there are some empty seats especially in this section in this middle
section there's also a string hanging there from that back that empty seat
and god has called you to do good work so choose prepared in advance for you to do
and these empty seats represent people that aren't here yet
represent people that have not heard this message that god has come to rescue
them
that they are far away and god wants to bring them close
and so as you as you process through that as you take communion as you work
your way back to your seat i want to encourage you and invite you to take
another string and you feel like god is calling you
to go somewhere on purpose as he's clarifying what he's
created you to do the people that he's called you to go to
to serve to communicate love to communicate truth
through your actions and through your words for that second string to
represent that and to tie that on and allow these to be a remembrance
of your commitment as you can move forward into into the coming week
we have a few weeks ahead of us those of you students you've got a ridiculously
long christmas break you've got like a month and some of you that means you're
heading back home this week are you going to see some family
and that may mean that god has created you and christ Jesus to do good works
over christmas break among your family
and so as you tie that string around your wrist you may be thinking about your
brother or your sister your mom or your dad or your friends back home
know that as you go into christmas break it's not a break from your identity in
christ who you are in christ is still very
true he's brought you close you're his sons and
daughters he sees you as holy and blameless and
he is going with you into christmas break on purpose
and so know that he's walking with you and he's got some things for you to do
join him in doing that and as we come back here to Pullman
move into a new year in 2014 as we move into a new site on sunday nights
as you move into a new semester of classes
of new relationships as you move into a new year at work
as you continue to relate to your neighbors you continue to relate to the
people that god has on purpose placed in your life
if you be thinking about those people he has called you to
and he wants to use you to do good works to communicate this truth
to be a part of bringing people who are far away
close to him so that they can experience life so that you can experience life as
you were created to experience it as you do good works so that others can
experience life eternal life as they were created to experience it
so as you do that as the band comes out and plays
i want to pray over us ask you to be movable
to respond and ask god what are you calling me to are you willing to allow
him to use you and where is he calling you to
god we thank you we thank you for the opportunities you give us to be a part
of what you're doing
and god we pray that is as we're here tonight
that you would give us clarity god that we would feel your invitation
we would feel your invitation to join you in your mission
to bring those who are far away to bring them close
god i pray that you would overwhelm us with this identity of who we are in christ
god that that would inform us and what you've called us to do
and god i pray that you would lead us to experience the joy
the joy of doing what we were created to do in christ jesus
to do the good works which you've prepared in advance for us to do
so god speak to us now as we respond
spirit lead us and guide us and give us courage
we ask these things in the name of jesus christ amen
