When Paul was asked by a church that was struggling to live for Jesus and show His mission to the culture they lived in whether they were allowed to eat meat that had been used in pagan temple worship, he used the opportunity to help them understand why they were asking questions to avoid their real problems. Paul used the opportunity to spend time revealing their real problem. They were not motivated to live by the Gospel. Their place in culture was not about whether they could eat or drink certain things, but rather, what motivated them to go into the culture. The Gospel demanded that they engage the culture with the mission of Jesus that had saved them. In one part he tells them:

For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.
(1 Corinthians 9:19-23 ESV)

Many who claim to believe the Gospel live like they are bound to a certain culture (and it’s usually not even one that they enjoy).  We are not bound to an earthly culture, but the Gospel calls us to be bound to a missional culture consumed with the mission of Jesus. Many avoid the culture around them because they believe that it is sinful and misunderstand the calling that the Gospel puts on our lives. We are not saved out of the culture but rather, to become messengers of hope and reconciliation with God for the sake of those within the culture. The Gospel demands that we live the mission of Jesus in the culture.

The Gospel Demands Missional Humility (1 Corinthians 9:19)

When we call ourselves followers of Jesus we are not speaking of a standard of moral law that we have been enslaved to, but a mission in which we are graciously transformed so that we may choose to enslave ourselves, because that is the heart of Jesus. Jesus was truly free from all. But because of the great love that God loves us with, he humbled Himself under the mission to seek and save the lost and died under the penalty of our sins. Paul is enslaving himself to the revealed and obvious will of God through the revelation of Jesus.

When we set up cultures inside of the community of the church that are not blatantly missional and are more self-consumed than culturally relevant in order to reach people with the Gospel of Jesus, then our posture is not one of humility under the mission of Jesus. We must willfully become servants to the people in the culture around us. Missional humility brings about cultural humility. There is no such thing as a culture untainted by sinfulness. The culture itself does not cause or create or commit sin. People do that, and we cannot avoid people, but we must be motivated by getting the Gospel to people through the life that we live in front of and alongside them.

The Gospel Demands a Missional Mindset (1 Corinthians 9:20-22)

We must seek to bring the Gospel to the cultures around us in a way that is faithful to the Scriptures and is accessible to the culture. This is what Paul exhibited. In Jerusalem, Paul used the law and followed the law. In Athens, he preached through the culture of intellect and philosophy. In Corinth, Paul became a tentmaker and preached only the crucifixion to the pagan, blue-collar culture.

We must see ourselves as missionaries. Like Paul in Athens, we must use the tools of this culture in order to reach the people of the culture. We must form that same kind of missionary mindset by first saturating ourselves with the truth of the Gospel through God’s word in order to ensure our motives.

We must then get over our biases, prejudices, preferences, etc. that hinder the movement of the Gospel. In His sacrifice, Jesus removed the barrier between God and man, reconciling those who believe to Him. We must resist the prideful urge to erect religious and traditional barriers to the Gospel so that more may hear. We must become all things to all people that we may reach the most people. The mission compels us to live in such a way that we reach as many people as possible within our lifetime.

The Gospel Demands Missional Sacrifice (1 Corinthians 9:23)

True worship does not come without sacrifice. When we sacrifice, what we are saying is, “Jesus, you are more valuable, God your glory is more precious than these fleeting, fading, likes and dislikes.” It represents a life in which we believe that the mission of Jesus going forward into the lives of others is more satisfying and enjoyable than any cultural preference or personal barrier that I might have. That forms a missional culture that can go unhindered into the culture at large in Gospel engagement.

Belief in the Gospel brings with it a mentality that others are more important than myself. When the Spirit proceeds to work its way out of our lives through the reality of the Gospel, this causes a humble understanding that all I am is because of who Jesus is. This causes a missional mindset that brings about missional sacrifice.

The Gospel Demands a Missional Vision

The advancement of the Gospel is paramount to any other desire that I have in my life. As we strive to live this out, we will fail, and most of us will fail often. The Gospel must become our vision for living. In living the mission of Jesus we must constantly create environments in our lives to remind us that our identity, security, and success is not based on our missionary accomplishments. In doing this, we are denying the very Gospel we claim to be living for.

We must build a culture of Gospel saturation that prepares us to engage the cultures that we live in with a Gospel that we ourselves trust in. In doing this, our vision will spring from that which motivates us. We must develop a vision for our lives in which we are motivated to take the Gospel into the culture. The mission of Jesus exists to reach the people that live inside of culture. Therefore, we must live inside of that culture. We must be a culture within a culture for the sake of the culture through the hope of the Gospel.

We struggle to look at the story as a whole to understand what God is doing throughout all of History and that it is not disconnected. Everything in Scripture is working together, weaving an amazing story throughout the history of the world to produce God’s revelation of Himself, and how he is going to bring Himself ultimate glory. In the Old Testament, God uses this language of how even though sin is reigning in the lives of people everywhere, He will save for himself a remnant. He constantly tells OT prophets, “It looks pretty bad right now, but understand that through this, I will save for Myself a people who will bring me glory.” Then fast forward to Revelation 7, where, at the end of it all the Scripture records the end of that remnant. John writes that around the throne of God, worshipping God. The story of Scripture is how God gets there. Scripture reveals the story of God redeeming to Himself a people to bring Him ultimate glory.

Last week we talked about the Freedom to Live. We don’t always understand this freedom though. Freedom is not the ability to live however you choose, but rather it is the ability to live as you were created to. We are not redeemed so that we can have this personal friendship with God where we are just accepted as we are no matter how bad we get. It’s a bigger story than that! Remember, the trend from the last few weeks is to go from a Polaroid to a panoramic. We want to step back and see the entire story that God is writing here. Salvation is about more than just you. It is about God creating a people for Himself through His Son, Jesus.

We are not simply accepted; we are transformed and made heirs in the Kingdom of God. We are redeemed in order that God may use us to build His Kingdom. Galatians 4 continues to lay out this amazing Gospel of the Kingdom of God in which we are described as being adopted into God’s family; heirs to His Kingdom. We are taken from slavery to sonship. We are not alone though; in this great Kingdom God is creating a community of people to bring Him glory as one. He unites all things in Jesus to be the church which is “…His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” God is building His Kingdom through the Church.

This is not a future possibility, but a present reality. God wants US to build His Church. This has always been God’s Plan. This is about challenging the world that we just accept as hopeless and believing that God truly has a plan to build His kingdom and to redeem not only individual lives, but entire communities for His name. What would happen if we lived like the people of God rather than just like everyone else. God is calling us to an extreme commitment to the Gospel. But are we willing to answer? Are we willing to live our lives to build His Church in order to further His Gospel? God is building His kingdom, and the question is, “Do you want to be a part of it?”

This is our desire at The Village. Come be a part of it.

Last week, we discussed the promises God made to Abraham, and that it was Abraham’s faith that God would fulfill those promises that changed His life and made Him follow God. Abraham had zero inclination to follow God until he had an absolute belief and trust in God that changed His life and prodded Him to obey. It was Abraham’s faith in God that had brought the righteousness of God into his life.

Paul used this story to show that through this promise to Abraham, God had set into motion the family tree that would bring about Jesus, who would bring redemption to all man, not just the physical descendants of Abraham. Righteousness does not come to our obedience to any law, not even the law of God, but that it comes only through the plan of God, which was completely fulfilled in Jesus.

This week, we went right into verses 11-22 discussing the purpose of the law and Jesus’ fulfillment of all of God’s promises to Abraham. We live segmented lives where we look at part rather than the whole, and we often take that perspective right into our view of the Bible. God’s promises can be looked at as Polaroid shots, whereas His path of fulfilling those promises is a panoramic landscape. We must be willing to finally look at God’s story as a whole rather than a grouping of random stories.

God starts by revealing this promise to Abraham, and then throughout the Old Testament He makes it more clear by revealing that through the line of Abraham He was raising up a people who would be for His possession so that the name of God would be spread through the whole world and worshipped. Then, through Israel’s failure, God re-iterates that the promise is not dependent on man, just like He had revealed to Abraham that the covenant was completely one-sided, and dependent totally on God. He reveals in Isaiah that even though they were disobedient servants, He is sending an obedient servant that will complete this covenant so that the whole world will know God, and His name will be called IMMANUEL – “God with us.” The covenant of God has always been dependent only on God.

Rather than being an addition to His promises, laws such as the ten commandments are a guide to show us our dependence on God. As it unfolds into the complete panoramic shot, we are finally able to see the path that leads to God redeeming us through His Son, Jesus. 2 Corinthians 1:20-22 reveals it as saying, “All of the promises of God find their “Yes!” in Jesus.”

God’s promises are not dependent on our actions. If they were, it would not be a promise based on Him, but rather us. The law, which is fulfilled in Jesus, shows our dependence on God and His dependability on keeping His promises. We can trust God to be who He says He is, and to do what He says He will do.

Yesterday at the Village we began the New Year by delving into what our lives will look like over the next year. We found ourselves in Galatians 3:5-14 asking the question, “What brings the work of God into our lives? Is it our works of the law? Or is it our faith?”

We make so many commitments at the beginning of the year. Millions make resolutions in January, but the stat is that only 6 % of people keep those New Year’s Resolutions. We are terrible at keeping commitments, so does that mean that hope is lost? This section of Galatians shows that our failures are not what sums up our lives. Instead, it is dependence on the promises of God that bring His works into our lives.

Paul uses the life of Abraham as an example. Beginning in Genesis 12, Abraham follows God to becoming a great nation. From the beginning though, it is noticeable that Abraham is not responsible for this at all. He does not seek God out; God seeks him out. He does not make a commitment to God; God commits to Him. Abraham must simply root his faith in God. He must trust that God will follow through with what He said He would. Because of this, He is able to follow God. Without faith though, this is impossible.

Our concept of what it means to commit to God must not be based on what we are giving God, but rather, what God has promised us. In this, He becomes the basis for faith rather than our works for Him. We can do nothing for God, but rather, He desires to transform our lives. Through this, He replaces our life with His life. He gives us a new vision for what life could be. Notice that Abraham leaves his life in order to follow God for the vision that God has laid out for Him. Too often, we attempt to give God the vision for what our life should be. God doesn’t fit into our plan; instead He replaces our plan with His plan. This is transformation.

It takes no faith to live life based on the same desires everyone else has. God desires a people who will live for His glory. We must be completely dependent on Him. Abraham did not manufacture a vision that would lead to the redemption of the world through the Son of God. It was God’s plan and God’s design. Abraham simply trusted God. This is the basis for the Gospel. God has promised life through His Son. God has placed our debt of sin wholly on His Son. Jesus became a curse for us, yet we still attempt to plan the vision out ourselves. God’s vision for Abraham is God’s vision for us: To live lives trusting fully in Him to be who He says He is and to do what He says He will do.

When we attempt to fit God into our lives and commitments, we are always left disappointed and jaded towards others and God. When we are the planner, failure is close at hand. When God is the planner, redemption always takes place. Stop committing to a life that is going to fail. Trust God for what He has promised. He has promised a life through His Son, Jesus.