Focus 2024 - Part 3 - Who are you living for?

 

This message was preached at Word Of Grace Church on January 21st 2024  by Colin. For the audio & video please click here.  For the worship please click here. ( Sorry there is no sermon recording for this message)

WHO ARE YOU LIVING FOR – Part 3

Matt 16:13 - When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

Jesus asked His disciples who they thought He was. This is the greatest question you can be asked, and your answer will determine your future. This answer can only come by revelation.

1.  The Greatest Question and the Greatest Confession

Matt16:17 - 17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.

At the end of time ( Rev20:7-10) we see the destiny of Satan and all who follow him.

Rev20:7-10 - 7 When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison 8 and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—and to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore. 9 They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God’s people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them. 10 And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

V11. When Jesus came on the Earth there was no place for Him to be born. But at the end of time, we are told that Earth and sky will flee from His presence and both the great and small will stand before Him.

Revelation 20:11 - Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them.

Today in our courts evil people can get away with murder but NOT on that Day. We are all guilty. Only those whose names are not written in the Book of Life will be thrown in the lake of fire. But those who have put their trust in Jesus will have their names written in the Lambs Book of Life! We cannot guarantee the number of days we live therefore today is the day of salvation!

2.  The Greatest Example

Jesus was the greatest example that ever lived! Heaven is an amazing place and that is what He left to come to Earth to identify with us. He came poor, homeless and then served and suffered a cruel death. At the CROSS he defeated Satan.

Heb 2:14-15 tells us how he defeated Satan

14 Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

Col2:14 tells us that He cancelled our debts and our sins were paid for.

 14 having cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.

2 Cor 5:21 His good deeds have been credited to us. His righteousness has been given to us.

God made him who had no sin to be sin[b] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

3.  The Greatest Commitment

Jesus asks each of us to make a choice. 

Matt 16:24 - Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 

Luke 14:25-26 - 25 Large crowds were travelling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.

Jesus is not impressed with the crowds. He turns to them and challenges them to become His disciples. This is outworked in practical ways. The following must be worked out in practical ways.

Deny: refuse to associate with. Deny is to disassociate with our needs, wants desires and selfishness.

Jim Elliot: He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

What are we willing to give up for the sake of the gospel? To see the great salvation of many will require a great commitment on our part.

4.  The Greatest Community – The church

Jesus came for His church, His bride. He died for His church.

Matt16:18 - And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 

One day everything will fade but the Church of Jesus will go on forever. It is a privilege to be a part of the church.

Every community has a code of conduct. Heb 10:25 – Let us not give up the habit of meeting together. We are here to be the Light of the World.

5.  The Greatest Return

Matt 16:27 Jesus will come back to reward each one according to what they have done. We live with this hope!

 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.

Matt 24:30-31 He will come with power and glory to gather His elect.

30 “Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth[c] will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.[d] 31 And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.

1Thes 4:16-18 The dead in Christ will rise first. We will be with the Lord forever.

16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Rom 8:18 -  I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

Rev 22:12 God is coming with His reward.

“Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done.

What is my answer to the greatest question?

What is our response in the face of suffering? Can we look to Jesus and say His grace is sufficient? Am I putting Christ first and do I value the church?

Word of Grace is an Evangelical (Born Again),  Spirit-filled (Charismatic), Reformed, English-speaking church in Pune that upholds the Bible as God's inspired Word for life. We are a church community that has people from every part of India and parts of the world. We are here to put the Great Command and the Great Commission into practice by equipping and releasing every member into works of service.  Word of Grace is part of a wider international family of Churches called RegionsBeyond.To know more about us please log onto www.wordofgracechurch.org.   

Philippians Part 19: Christians in conflict| Colin D

This message was preached  by Colin D'cruz at Word of Grace Church on August 21st, 2016. To listen/download the audio please click here. To listen to the Sunday's worship and prophetic contributions please click here

There is a place in earth that is the most peaceful place ever. It's called the cemetery! If you took the same number of people and placed them in the same room there will be misunderstandings. That’s the very nature of things.

Babies are cute but they also mess. Dolls give no trouble. Proverbs 14:4 says Where there are no oxen the manger is clean. Where there are people there are disagreements. This is normal.

Q. What about the church?

We are all flesh and blood. As long as we are alive, we have opportunity to sin and be sinned against. Is it important to resolve these things?

“To dwell above with the saints we love would be grace and glory, but to live below with the saints we know is a different story.”

In Christian life, misunderstanding can and will happen. It's important how we handle it.

Phil 4:1-3 “Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, dear friends!I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you, my true companion, help these women since they have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life.”

Paul is in Rome a prisoner in chains. Paul is writing on important topics, those who want to go back to the law etc. to stand firm against persecution. He is strong in his denunciation of these people who were leading them astray. And then at the end of the letter, which is read up all the people in the church, to the elders etc. It was not a secret letter. And in chapter 4 he is addressing two ladies.

1.      We cannot live with misunderstanding, and disagreements.

If Paul is addressing it out must be important. If you have gangrene on the body you have to deal with it or it will destroy the whole body.

Q. How did he hear about it? We don't know. But it was important enough.

If we have unresolved issues we should sort it out. The Bible shows us how in Matt18:15.

The starting point is talk to the person concerned. Talk about the issue. If it is sorted out, great. If not get a third neutral mature party. If not resolved yet then get a leader involved. I would like to see this practiced in the church.

When Paul heard about this, it wasn’t a case of tale tattling. If there is gangrene in the body shouldn't you know about it? Let’s see how Paul handles this- Phil 4:1- out of love.

Q. Who is Paul?

Paul is not a casual bystander. He loves them. See how he addresses them with much love. That's what gave him authority to speak. We need to cultivate this love before

Q. Who are these women?

They were not ordinary women. They were known to Paul for a long time. They had contended for the gospel. Contend- is the word we use for wrestle. They were mature believers.

No matter how much we have served we can still get caught in disagreements and miscommunication.

Acts 16:9- 12 During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day we went on to Neapolis. From there we travelled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days.

It shows us that the church in Philippi was not an easy church plant.  Normally Paul would go to the synagogue on a Sabbath. But since there was no Synagogue, so he went down to the river. There were women there. Lydia gets saved and Paul stayed with them for some time. We note that they prayed a lot. Paul was troubled by a servant girl with an evil spirit and he commands the evil spirit to leave. This caused trouble for Paul. He was thrown into prison and severely flogged and put into stocks. Paul and Silas start praising God. An earthquake happens and their chains fall off. The jailer gets saved and his family is baptized that night.

This was the birthing of the church. These women were probably there from the beginning. Paul is now pleading with them to agree with each other. He is asking the others to get involved.

Q. What was the issue?

We don't know. Could not have been doctrine because Paul would have addressed it. All he asks them is to be at peace. And he asks someone to intervene. He could be an elder. So we see the importance of living in peace.

Paul talks about the Book of Life. It's the most important book. Rev 20:11-15

When you come to faith in Jesus, your name gets written in this book. Is your name in that book. If you have not put your faith in Jesus please come talk to us.

Q. So how should we live?

We should be able to forgive and bear with each other. Eph 4:13- until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

We are growing in maturity, not being touchy, keeping short accounts, giving grace to each other. Accept one another, love as Christ loves us. So if we have strained relationships let's sort it out.

Scriptures talks of loving, serving, bearing with each other. Let's practice this. We can't love God and hate each other. We are in deception. This week we are going through fellowship in Purpose Driven Life.

Let's aim to live like this.      

Word of Grace is an Evangelical (Born Again),  Spirit filled (Charismatic), Reformed, English speaking church in Pune that upholds the Bible as God's inspired Word for life. We are a church community that have people from every part of India and parts of the world. We are here to put the Great Command and the Great Commission into practice by equipping and releasing every member into works of service. To know more about us please log onto www.wordofgracechurch.org.

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Created, crafted, commissioned | Ian Portwine

This message was preached  by Ian Portwine at Word of Grace Church on March 6th, 2016. To listen/download the audio please click here.

We are an apostolic group of people because we want Jesus message to spread to the whole earth.

EPH 2:8-10

        I.            We have been CREATED in Christ Jesus. This refers to our recreation/regeneration in Christ. God imparts a new Spiritual life to us. Nicodemus was told “you must be Born again”. Nicodemus must have been confused. But this is a spiritual birth that we need to go through. WE play no active part.

 Ephesians 2:1 We were dead in our sins. Something needs to be done from the outside and what God does is a work of God, we cannot boast. Some things we can boast about but when we are dead we are dead.

We are born again and adopted into his family and this in happens within a flash.

How does all this happen? What happens in regeneration is a mystery to us –Wayne Grudem. We will never understand because it’s a work of God and pushes me further into worship because its incomprehensible.

      II.            We are CRAFTED

Eph 2:10 – “Handiwork”. Greek Phoema i.e masterpiece. The English word “Poem “comes from this. He is fashioning us, putting his love in our hearts and making us a thing of beauty.

I asked a Literature professor to describe the crafting of Poetry to me. Here is what she said. “In a good poem there are no insignificant elements, nothing is too small to be important. Every full stop, comma, capital letter should be there for a reason. Every mark of ink on a page is significant. Even the white spaces around the words are important. They all represent choices that are made by the poet.”

I asked my friend who is a watercolor artist to describe his craft “When planning my painting I need to consider a range of things, composition, perspective, choice of colors, tonal contrast” and so on.

The Father is the master craftsman developing a work of His art. The fingerprints of God are all over you and he lovingly shapes and develops us. Our identity in Christ is a thing of beauty.  At new birth we are given our identity. The rest of our lives we have God shaping and molding us.

WHAT HAPPENS TO A MASTERPIECE

Several things can happen to a masterpiece.

1.       It can get damaged. Being a Christian does not insulate us from trouble. Jobs are lost, crimes are committed, relationships destroyed but it’s important to be in community to be encouraged.

2.       It can go unrecognized. A person used a big vase as an umbrella stand. Till one day a friend came along and gasped stating that vase was worth half a million dollars!!!

We can feel like that – left in the sidelines, undervalued . But God has crafted you and He has a plan.

3.       It can be stolen. Jesus speaks about the parable of the sower. Weeds can stop us from getting to where we should be. But God is in the restoration business.

4.       Displayed. Its admired, written about. If we put ourselves in a place where we do nothing its uless. WE need to work into society and tell people about Jesus. WE are a masterpiece not a museum piece.

    III.            COMISSIONED

Pope Francis prefers a church that is bruised, hurting and dirty rather than a church that is unhealthy from being confined to itself.

Why is it good work? Because, it has been given by God. WE have been placed in certain areas to do good work. WE need to bring Christ to people around us. God has given us good work to do.

We are the aroma of Christ so we can affect those around us. God has a calling in your life and he has placed you in the right place where you should be. You are on God’s mission in your place of work. All work is good because we have a purpose.

We have been empowered by Grace to go into the world. There is no secular sacred divide. We are on an adventure. AS we take baby steps of faith who knows what new things will open us?

From this church you have a unique and wonderful position to affect the world as people get flung to different corners of the world from Word of Grace

Now God does not meet our work, He is sufficient in himself, but our neighbours do.

WE may think we need to build up credit with God. That maybe true for other religions. Christianity is also a religion of works. BUT it’s not our works but JESUS’ WORK by which we are saved. This is a work of God.

Jesus does a work of salvation- a gift from God. God dos a word that is everlasting

Good work does not lead us to Christianity but Christianity leads us to good works.

We are not saved by works but saved for works

WE have a new life in Christ and he has crafted us with such tenderness as a thing of beauty. He has commissioned you with purpose and meaning to go into the world of Christ glory!! Amen!

Word of Grace is an Evangelical (Born Again),  Spirit filled (Charismatic), Reformed, English speaking church in Pune that upholds the Bible as God's inspired Word for life. We are a church community that have people from every part of India and parts of the world. We are here to put the Great Command and the Great Commission into practice by equipping and releasing every member into works of service. To know more about us please log onto www.wordofgracechurch.org.

Intimacy with God = Intimacy with Community | Bill B

This message was preached by Bill B at Word of Grace Church on the September 13th, 2015. To listen/download the audioplease click here

God has had me on a journey in my relationship with him. I wanted to be a man of God and so I studied His word, gave myself to community. Intimacy is a God given desire. He does not want you to know about Him but to know him in your heart. We are too focused on head knowledge and intellectual insight.

The essence of Christianity is to live in union with Him. That’s the journey every Christian should be on. Then Christ flows through us and that’s attractive to some and some will reject it. We are called to be Jesus on the earth today by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Q. How do we journey into this intimacy?

In Acts 2, it depicts that deepening your intimacy with Christ through the dynamic relationship we have with one another. Without this, we will never fully know intimacy with Christ.

In this passage, Peter is not preaching something but someone, i.e. Christ. The Holy Spirit through Christ brings us into communion with the Father. We can get confuse with the Trinity- its unexplainable but they live in a love relationship with one another. They pour themselves out for each other and so should we for each other.

We need a spiritual encounter with Him. What we know and see is not enough. He is wooing us into a deeper communion with Him.

In Acts 2:37, the new believers ask, “Brother, what then shall we do?” This should be our response when we read the word or listen to a sermon. Faith is being built into the life that God has called us into. In verse 38 is where it all begins. 

The first call is to repent. We hear this a lot in the Christian circles. Just turning away from wrong is a shallow understanding. Some feel true repentance means you won’t sin again. That is not true. Repentance is sorrow over my sin. It is also a journey, not an event. Repentance is turning toward Christ and we are dependent on God to change us. We work at it but with His strength.

Then he says, be baptized. It is the union of the physical and spiritual. We receive the person of the Holy Spirit and we need to live into it. We are united with Christ at Baptism. That is exciting! It’s all about relationship and intimacy with Jesus.

We don’t understand all of it but we walk in it by faith. In verse 38, it says, receive the Holy Spirit and not eternal life. To be in union with Jesus is eternal life. Right in Genesis, we were created to live in communion with Him.

In Verse 41, three thousand get added to the number. One sermon, 3000 people saved! That is a miracle. 

After baptism, they began to meet together in smaller groups, sharing life together. How we develop intimacy is by listening to God’s word and saying yes together to what God has spoken.

Today we are very independent in our decisions. We make individual and corporate decisions for God. This means, I need to sacrifice what I desire for the greater good. An individual is an individual. A person lives in community. If you want to live an individualistic life, then Christianity is not for you.

Obedience is relational. Jesus said, if you love me, you will obey what I have commanded. Love is expressed through obedience. God does not demand us to join him, he invites us to do so. Our faith is a faith of beauty and not of laws and judgements.

So we make personal and corporate decisions. We are created to support one another. They were continually devoting themselves to fellowship i.e. a common life with one another. 

They broke bread together. They ate together. When we participate in this it is faith that is needed. When we participate in the communion, we take in Christ by faith. Christ is in me right from the start but there is a journey of having him in you deeper too.

Jesus said, remember me. Remembering means to re-member or be re-joined or attachment. As we remember there is a greater attachment to Christ.

Prayer: The early church had prayers that they said together as a community. Today we do it in singing. We join in one voice together. Prayer is first and foremost communion with God, being in the presence with God.