Dear Church Family,
Do you feel it?
Something has been burning in my belly. I can’t shake it. I have a picture in my head of our church shaking up the culture and changing the face of our city and neighborhoods in a myriad of good ways.
Imagine having your phone ring, noticing it’s the phone tree, picking up the phone not to hear about another funeral but to hear about ANOTHER salvation. Imagine noticing in the bulletin that instead of a typical Sunday night service we were having baptism service after baptism service because church members were sharing their faith and God was saving souls. Imagine family after family coming down to join our church during invitation time every Sunday. Imagine our church growing, reaching individuals and families with the Gospel. Imagine row after row of young people filling our church because God has broken through in our schools. Imagine.
Matthew 13 includes my favorite section in the Bible.
There Jesus tells his disciples, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field." I love this picture. Imagine walking in a field and stumbling upon a treasure that is more valuable than anything else you could work for or find in this life. It is more valuable than all you have now or will ever have in the future. You look around and notice that no one else realizes the treasure is here, so you cover it up quickly and walk away, pretending you haven’t seen anything. You go into town and begin to sell off all your possessions to have enough money to buy that field. The world thinks you’re crazy. “What are you thinking?” your friends and family ask you. You tell them, “I’m buying that field over there.” They look at you in disbelief. “That’s a ridiculous investment,” they say. “Why are you giving away everything you have?” You respond, “I have a hunch,” and you smile to yourself as you walk away. You smile because you know. You know that in the end you are not really giving away anything at all. Instead you are gaining. Yes, you are abandoning everything you have, but you are also gaining more than you could have in any other way. So with joy—with joy!—you sell it all, you abandon it all. Why? Because you have found something worth losing everything else for.
This is the picture of Jesus in the gospel. He is something—someone—worth losing everything for. And if we walk away from the Jesus of the gospel, we walk away from eternal riches. The cost of non-discipleship is profoundly greater for us than the cost of discipleship. For when we abandon the trinkets of this world and respond to the radical invitation of Jesus, we discover the infinite treasure of knowing and experiencing him.
Church, Jesus is someone worth losing everything for.
Church, let’s risk it all. For the sake of 135,971 souls whom God loves in the Forsyth area...let’s risk it all! For the sake of 14,716 eighteen-twenty four year olds being fed an atheistic, hedonistic worldview...let’s risk it all! For the sake of 14,598 single and young families searching for community...let’s risk it all! For the sake of 45,000+ between the ages of 35-64 searching for purpose in life...let’s risk it all! For the sake of 18,682 retirement age individuals who desire to know that their life still matters… LET’S RISK IT ALL!
Let's STOP living in the past, talking about the glory days and begin to cast our gaze to the FUTURE! Greater things have yet to come, greater things are still to be done in this city. Let’s risk it all to gossip the Gospel to every soul we meet whether in our neighborhoods, workplace, or Wal-Mart. The greatest days of this church are still in front of us. LET’S RISK IT ALL!!!
Do you feel it?
Something has been burning in my belly. I can’t shake it. I have a picture in my head of our church shaking up the culture and changing the face of our city and neighborhoods in a myriad of good ways.
Imagine having your phone ring, noticing it’s the phone tree, picking up the phone not to hear about another funeral but to hear about ANOTHER salvation. Imagine noticing in the bulletin that instead of a typical Sunday night service we were having baptism service after baptism service because church members were sharing their faith and God was saving souls. Imagine family after family coming down to join our church during invitation time every Sunday. Imagine our church growing, reaching individuals and families with the Gospel. Imagine row after row of young people filling our church because God has broken through in our schools. Imagine.
Matthew 13 includes my favorite section in the Bible.
There Jesus tells his disciples, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field." I love this picture. Imagine walking in a field and stumbling upon a treasure that is more valuable than anything else you could work for or find in this life. It is more valuable than all you have now or will ever have in the future. You look around and notice that no one else realizes the treasure is here, so you cover it up quickly and walk away, pretending you haven’t seen anything. You go into town and begin to sell off all your possessions to have enough money to buy that field. The world thinks you’re crazy. “What are you thinking?” your friends and family ask you. You tell them, “I’m buying that field over there.” They look at you in disbelief. “That’s a ridiculous investment,” they say. “Why are you giving away everything you have?” You respond, “I have a hunch,” and you smile to yourself as you walk away. You smile because you know. You know that in the end you are not really giving away anything at all. Instead you are gaining. Yes, you are abandoning everything you have, but you are also gaining more than you could have in any other way. So with joy—with joy!—you sell it all, you abandon it all. Why? Because you have found something worth losing everything else for.
This is the picture of Jesus in the gospel. He is something—someone—worth losing everything for. And if we walk away from the Jesus of the gospel, we walk away from eternal riches. The cost of non-discipleship is profoundly greater for us than the cost of discipleship. For when we abandon the trinkets of this world and respond to the radical invitation of Jesus, we discover the infinite treasure of knowing and experiencing him.
Church, Jesus is someone worth losing everything for.
Church, let’s risk it all. For the sake of 135,971 souls whom God loves in the Forsyth area...let’s risk it all! For the sake of 14,716 eighteen-twenty four year olds being fed an atheistic, hedonistic worldview...let’s risk it all! For the sake of 14,598 single and young families searching for community...let’s risk it all! For the sake of 45,000+ between the ages of 35-64 searching for purpose in life...let’s risk it all! For the sake of 18,682 retirement age individuals who desire to know that their life still matters… LET’S RISK IT ALL!
Let's STOP living in the past, talking about the glory days and begin to cast our gaze to the FUTURE! Greater things have yet to come, greater things are still to be done in this city. Let’s risk it all to gossip the Gospel to every soul we meet whether in our neighborhoods, workplace, or Wal-Mart. The greatest days of this church are still in front of us. LET’S RISK IT ALL!!!
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