We’re
starting a new series today. I am pretty
charged up about this whole series. I
was excited when I found out I would get the opening message for the
series. I’ve been accumulating ideas for
weeks and months really. The topic you
already know. We are going to talk about
how we are, how we can be, superheroes through Christ.
I want to
introduce you to a new hero of mine.
Here’s his picture:
His name is
Zach Zehnder. He’s a pastor from
Florida. He just set a world record for
the longest speech marathon (i.e.-sermon).
His sermon was 53 hours and 18 minutes!
He had 200 pages of notes and 600 power point slides! The focus of the effort was to raise money
for a local drug treatment center. He
taught the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation!
I say he’s a
hero for me because even though he broke the record at 48 hours he kept
preaching for another 5 hours! Why
didn’t he stop sooner? He wasn’t
finished with his sermon!
So even
though I’ve been getting ideas for weeks, I don’t have nearly 200 pages of
notes. I only have 25 power point
slides. I promise that the message won’t
even last 48 hours.
Superhero
has a certain connotation in our culture.
We think about a masked man in a super suit. They risk their own life on behalf of
others. They have powers far greater
than the average person, and names like Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Spiderman,
the Fantastic Four, the Avengers. But,
as much as they entertain us, they are fictional characters, not real people …
I’m going to
show you a video clip from an old TV show.
The episode is “Sunday School Teacher” found athttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51eFOQMFsqs
(from 17:34 to 19:19—1:45 total).
Did anyone recognize
the show? It was called The Real
McCoys. It ran back in the late 50’s and
early 60’s. More than 50 years old. TV’s a little different now than then. It was rated as high as the fifth most
popular television program during its run.
I saw that episode in syndication when I was a kid, and I remembered it
even today. YouTube is handy for finding
such things.
There are
real superheroes, right? We know Hebrews
chapter 11. We call it the Hall of Faith
or the Faith Hall of Fame. The Faith
League … with names like Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob,
Joseph, Moses, Israelites leaving Egypt and entering the Promised Land, Rahab,
Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, the Prophets …
“who through faith conquered kingdoms,
administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of
lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword;
whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and
routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead, raised to life again.
Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a
better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were
chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were
put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins,
destitute, persecuted and mistreated—the world was not worthy of them. They
wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.
These were all commended for their faith,
yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something
better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.”—
Hebrews 11:33-40
How many of
you feel like superheroes right now (the real kind or the fictional kind)? If you did, I would invite you to come give
the message! A couple of weeks back, I
asked our family how they would feel if I told them they were going to be a
superhero. Most of the responses were
pretty much, I’d be uncomfortable or nervous or even scared. I think it was Melissa who said, “Well, I’d
feel better if God said it.”
What is the
basis behind why we would have a series that says we can be superheroes!? The verse is there on the introduction, Jesus
said that whoever believes in Him would do the works He was doing and would do even
greater things than these (John 14:12). What’s the consensus? Greater works than Jesus? Does that sound like superhero work to you?
Do you
believe this? I mean about you. Do you believe that you can do greater works
than Jesus? There are times where I
don’t know if I do either. But, I know
that Jesus does not lie, so I also don’t think I have the opportunity to
discount His words as invalid or inapplicable.
This series
was born out of a conversation that Carl and I had last year when another guy
got promoted out of my group. Because
there would again be no backfill, there were going to be challenges managing
the workload. At the same time, it gave
me a new vision. I realized my goal as a
leader should be to make superheroes.
That’s what I want. I want every
single person in my group to grow to their maximum potential. Then, I want them to grow their potential and
grow some more.
And that is
our vision for all of you. Whether
you’re here for a long time or a shorter time, we want you to grow in the Lord
as much as you possibly can. We want you
to fulfill Jesus’ vision from John 14:12.
We want every single person who steps through the door to do two
things. 1) We want them to choose Jesus
Christ and their Lord and Savior, and 2) We want them, each of you, to aspire
to ever greater works in His name.
Before we
get going with the rest of the message, let’s take a moment and ask God to open
our eyes to the greater works that He is calling us to do:
Lord God, we
have read the Scriptures. We see the
awesome and wonderful things You have said.
We’re going to read many of them again now. Open our hearts up to these truths that we
would really believe. I pray that what
we talk about today would not be burdensome.
I pray that we would be encouraged and excited at the possibilities to
do greater works for You. We want to see
You lifted up, not ourselves. In Jesus’
Name. Amen.
I don’t
think I’ve done this in a while. But I
want to take some time and just read through a whole bunch of Scripture. You see, the Bible says some crazy things
about you and me, things about our identity and our capability in Christ. When we read through the Bible, we take them
one at a time. I want to pull out a
bunch of them and stack them up together.
From Psalm
18, I’ve been meditating on this one for a long time:
“With your help I can advance against a
troop; with my God I can scale a wall. … It is God who arms me with strength
and makes my way perfect. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables
me to stand on the heights. He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a
bow of bronze.”—Psalm 18:29,32-24
I’ve spent
years of my life looking at what others have done: those more mature than me, those who are my
peers, those younger than me. I usually
say, “Wow, I could never do that.” But,
I’ve slowly come to the point where I’m beginning to say more and more, “Why
not?” If God is the One making me ready,
I ought to advance against a troop and scale walls and bend a bow of bronze.
I’m not out
on the extreme sports circuit running around jumping out of airplanes or cliff
diving or rafting over waterfalls in Jesus’ Name. I’m talking about dealing with challenging
situations of day to day living. I’m
talking about being willing to connect with people emotionally where in the
past I would have “minded my own business.”
It’s about
praying without ceasing, praying hard.
(I Thessalonians 5:17) Pounding on the doors of heaven, not because we
doubt but because God tells us that’s what we should do. (Luke 18:1-8) And, it is what Jesus
modeled. (Hebrews 5:7)
During our
sharing time last week, Kristin shared about a couple who have made an
incredibly difficult decision regarding their child. The mom has cancer of the placenta. The doctors have warned her that she should
end the pregnancy for her own health.
The cancer could spread to mother’s body and take her life. The prognosis for the child is also not good. And yet, they have made the decision to
continue with the pregnancy. This is
superhero faith, and the impact is tremendous I am sure. We are all praying fervently for the safety
of mom and baby. At the same time, many
are impacted by their choice. The mom
and dad choosing together to honor the life of their child at the risk of the
mom’s own life is an amazing testimony to God, the reality of eternity: that
choices matter.
It’s not
about what we can do on our own. It’s
not about our talents or abilities. It’s
about what Jesus has done for us and what the Spirit is doing inside of
us. This list is not things that are a
grouping of what we can do, they are what we are. In Christ, we have a new identity, we have
new life, we have new character, we have new abilities, we have new
associations, we have access to resources more powerful than we could ever
imagine, we have new roles and assignments.
New Identity - Lots of superheroes were nobodies or
weaklings before they became heroes.
You’ve got Peter Parker the science geek who becomes Spider Man, and Steve
Rogers becoming Captain America. We’ve
got a lot more going for us than that.
1. We do not belong to the world [… you do not belong to the world, but I have
chosen you out of the world. … for they
are not of the world any more than I am of the world.—John 15:19, 17:14]
2. …our
citizenship is in heaven. –Philippians
3:20
3. …we know that if the earthly tent we live in
is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not
built by human hands. –II Corinthians 5:1
4. …we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be
shaken —Hebrews 12:28
5. …here we do not have an enduring city, but
we are looking for the city that is to come.—Hebrews 13:14
6. …now we are children of God, and what we
will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we
shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.—I John 3:2
7. …that we may live peaceful and quiet lives
in all godliness and holiness. –I Timothy 2:2
New Life –
Superheroes are tougher than your ordinary bloke. In fact, it can be downright hard to take
them down. They seem to rise above their
circumstances. What about us?
1. We have life … abundant life [I have come that they may have life, and
have it to the full.—John 10:10]
2. We are not our old selves [… if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the
new has come! … Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being
renewed day by day. –II Corinthians 5:17, 4:16]
3. We are no longer slaves (to sin) [Shall we go on sinning so that grace may
increase? By no means! We are those who
have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? … For we know that our old
self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away
with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—Romans 6:1-2, 6]
4. We are God’s children (I John 3:2 again)
5. We are heirs of God [So you are no longer a slave, but God's child; and since you are his
child, God has made you also an heir. … we are not children of the slave woman,
but of the free woman. –Galatians 4:7, 31]
6. We are pressed but not crushed [We are hard pressed on every side, but not
crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck
down, but not destroyed.—II Corinthians 4:8-9]
7. … we … glory in our sufferings –Romans 5:3
8. …we have this treasure in jars of clay to
show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.—II Corinthians
4:7
9. Anyone who loves their life will lose it,
while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.—John
12:25
New
Character – Superheroes are the good guys, right? They exhibit character than is unlike the
general population. They care when
someone is in danger. What about
Christ-followers?
1. We have the peace of God. [… the
peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and
your minds in Christ Jesus. … we have been justified through faith, we have
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ—Philippians 4:7, Romans 5:1]
2. We are the righteousness of God. [God
made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the
righteousness of God.— II Corinthians 5:21]
3. … we belong to the day … If you are filled
with light, with no dark corners, then your whole life will be radiant, as
though a floodlight were filling you with light.—I Thessalonians 5:8, Luke
11:36 NLT
4. We are clean [You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.—John 15:3]
5. …we have been made holy through the
sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.—Hebrews 10:10
6. We have the glory of God [I have given them the glory that you gave me …—John 17:22]
7. We wait patiently […we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.—Romans 8:25]
New
Abilities – Superheroes have all sorts of gizmos and abilities. Each individual superhero is a bit different
from the others. What about the
believer’s abilities?
1. We have new weapons [For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world
does. The weapons we fight with are not
the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish
strongholds. We demolish arguments and
every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take
captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.—II Corinthians 10:3-5]
2. … we have the mind of Christ.—I Corinthians
2:16
3. We have security when facing temptation [No temptation has overtaken you except what
is common … God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can
bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out …—I Corinthians
10:13]
4. …we live by faith, not by sight.—II Corinthians
5:7
5. We reflect God’s glory [And we all, who with unveiled faces reflect the Lord’s glory, are being
transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the
Lord, who is the Spirit.—II Corinthians 3:18]
6. …we can comfort those in any trouble with
the comfort we ourselves receive from God.—II Corinthians 1:4
New
Associations – Sometimes superheroes work on their own. Other times, they’re part of a team. When we come to Christ, what connections do
we have?
1. …we are the temple of the living God. As God
has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God,
and they will be my people.” —II Corinthians 6:16
2. …we are all members of one body…we, though
many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.—Ephesians 4:25,
Romans 12:5
3. For through him we both have access to the
Father by one Spirit. Consequently, you
are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people
and also members of his household—Ephesians 2:19
4. We are hated by the world […the
world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the
world.—John 17:14]
New
Resources – Superheroes often tap into some extra power source. Do we have access to new power?
1. We can ask anything in Jesus’ Name, and He will
do it. [… ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. … I tell you the
truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.—John 14:14, John
16:23]
2. …through him we both have access to the
Father by one Spirit.—Ephesians 2:18
3. In him and through faith in him we may
approach God with freedom and confidence.—Ephesians 3:12
4. …we say with confidence,
“The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?”—Hebrews
13:6
5. …we are more than conquerors through him who
loved us.—Romans 8:37
New Roles
and Assignments – Superheroes are driven to protect some place or take
responsibility for some group of people.
What does the Word say?
1. …we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus
to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.—Ephesians 2:10
2. We are sent into the world [As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.—John
17:18]
3. … we regard no one from a worldly point of
view.—II Corinthians 5:16
4. We are … Christ’s ambassadors …—II
Corinthians 5:20
5. Do you not know that we will judge angels?
How much more the things of this life!—I Corinthians 6:3
6. …we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and
not in the old way of the written code.—Romans 7:6
7. …we died with him, we will also live with
him … we endure, we will also reign with him.—II Timothy 2:11-12
That’s a
pretty crazy list isn’t it? How many
things on that list made you want to say, “Nuh uh” or “G’wan?” We feel a bit like the disbelieving princess
when Prince Charming has come. Who
me? And yet, He didn’t just come to
carry us off to a fairy tale castle far away.
Instead, He came to make us a new creation, right here, right now. Something beautiful and confounding to the
world.
In the video
we watched at the beginning, Grandpa told the kids that the people in the Bible
were far superior to the superheroes of the comic books. As unbelievable as it may seem, the Bible
says that we are far superior to those superheroes in the comic books, too.
Another
thing about this list. It’s
incomplete! It’s all I had time to pull
together. For one thing, all the verses
come from the New Testament. There’s
plenty more stuff that can go on the list.
There are so many things that can be said about you in Christ. In the book of Revelation in chapters 2 and
3, there are the lists of what the overcomers are like. Great and wonderful things. The condition for being an overcomer is found
in I John 5:4. The recipe: our faith,
nothing else.
And so, with
the time we have left, I want to talk about our mission.
We get so
many different inputs as to what our focus should be and what we ought to do,
that it is easy to feel overwhelmed.
Many times we think that there’s just so much to do that I can’t do it
all. The list I just gave you had
forty-five things on it. It’s not
intended to be a to-do list. It was
intended to be a “here’s what you are in Christ” list. But there’s a tendency to do that … to make a
to-do list, right? Once we do that, then
we get discouraged, especially if we find areas where we feel like we don’t
“measure up.”
There was a
fairy tale movie called Ever After. In
it, one of the characters makes a helpful statement: “Last night I had a
revelation. I used to think if I cared about anything, I'd have to care about
everything, and I'd go stark raving mad.” Isn't that how we feel? How often
does that prevent us from doing anything at all?
If we can’t
focus on everything, do we end up focusing on nothing?
I’ll just
throw out a couple of the normal things I think about when I hear the question,
“What is your mission as a Christian?”
--The Great
Commission – Matthew 28:19-20
Jesus last
instruction to His followers was to “Go and make disciples.” That’s got to be a key mission.
--The Great
Commandment – Matthew 22:35–40, Mark 12:28–34
This was
Jesus’ answer to what is the most important instruction. Another crucial focal point.
--The Commands
of Christ
Jesus gave
over 300 imperatives in the gospels.
There are several lists floating around which try to reduce that to a
manageable level. I’ve seen ones that
contain 7, 10, and 50 commands.
--The “One
Anothers”
There are 30
or 40 “one another” statements in the New Testament. Shouldn’t we focus on how we treat one
another. Wouldn’t that make a good
mission?
--Love and
Unity
This is a
key focus of the Last Supper. Since
Jesus gave so much time to this topic, since God is love, since the greatest
attribute is love. Shouldn’t this be our
mission?
--Our Church
Ends
I’m working
through a series of articles in the church newsletter about our church ends,
our key goals. All of them are based on
Scripture. Wouldn’t these be a
foundation for a good mission statement?
I think all
of these are noble and worthy. I think we
should be pursuing all of them in increasing measure. But, I’m reminded of a quote which I thought
came from Charles Spurgeon but in fact goes all the way back to Jerome in the
300’s AD.
“The
Scriptures are shallow enough for a babe to come and drink without fear of
drowning and deep enough for theologians to swim in without ever reaching the
bottom.”--Jerome (347 – 420 AD)
I think we
can bring the mission statement from God to a level that everyone from the
smallest child to the wisest among us can grasp.
Our mission
is: To BELIEVE GOD.
For God so loved the world that He gave His
one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have
eternal life.—John 3:16
The door to
eternal life, that superhero life that we just looked at, is belief. We believe in Jesus.
And without faith it is impossible to please
God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he
rewards those who earnestly seek him.—Hebrews 11:6
Without
faith, we do not have access to eternal life.
Without eternal life, we do not possess the superhero attributes we read
about. No amount of trying will allow us
to gain them.
Del Tackett
is the guy who led and in large part created The Truth Project. He had a thought-provoking question in that
series. He asked, “Do we really believe
that what we believe is really real?”
Let’s ask
another question on a similar vein. Do
we really believe that what God says about us is really true? That He called us out of darkness into His
marvelous light, (I Peter 2:9) and all the things we discussed earlier. If we say, “No,” then there are three
options: either we are wrong, or God is wrong or He is a liar. Since we are sure that God cannot be mistaken
and He certainly cannot lie, then the challenge falls on us: our unbelief.
Do you
remember the story where disciples could not drive out the demon from the mute
boy? Jesus came upon the scene and asked
the father a question. How did the
father answer, “I do believe; help me
overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24)
We believe,
but we also struggle with unbelief.
That’s where I often get stuck.
Before we move
on, what did Jesus do next? Healed the
boy … He answered the father’s prayer. “Cast all your anxiety, worry, cares on him
because he cares for you.” (I Peter 5:7)
We need to keep coming back to Jesus even if we are struggling with
unbelief.
What is
unbelief? I would say in large part, it
is pride. Unbelief says that God is
wrong. This is honestly our greatest
superpower. Not our unbelief, our
sovereignty. Tom Anderson laid it out
well in the book Three Questions:
“All human
being are sovereign beings. We are
supreme in power in our own minds, and unlimited by any other power in what we
think. We can believe whatever we want
to believe, we can think whatever we want to think. Sovereignty is incredible.”
Our
determination to say that we do not believe is invincible. There is nothing in this world that one
person can say or do that will change another person’s mind for them.
“We can
believe that whatever we think is true. … And, as part of our inherent
sovereignty, we have the frightening capacity to choose lies in which to
believe, change our values as often as we change channels, or to choose to have
no values and just watch television.
Whatever we want.”—Tom Anderson, Three Questions.
It is part
of our being created in the image of God. (Genesis 1:26-27) We are fearfully
and wonderfully made. (Psalm 139:14) We can say, “I know better than God. I choose to not believe.” This attitude is one of arrogance, and I
Samuel 15:23 says:
Stubbornness, arrogance, presumption,
defiance, insubordination, selfwill, is as idolatry.--I Samuel 15:23 (compiled
from many translations)
I want to
couple this thought of unbelief as arrogance as idolatry with this quote from
G.K. Chesterton”
“Idolatry is
committed, not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false
devils; by making men afraid of war or alcohol, or economic law, when they
should be afraid of spiritual corruption and cowardice.” – G.K. Chesterton, Illustrated
London News
There is one
false devil in the realm of unbelief that is particularly fearful and
grievous. It is the idea that we can
lose our salvation. II Timothy says
this:
… if we are faithless, He remains faithful,
for He cannot disown Himself.—II Timothy 2:13
Jesus said,
My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.—John 10:27-28
My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.—John 10:27-28
Once we have
chosen Jesus. As soon as we are
connected to Jesus in relationship. Once
He is our friend. We are forever saved. We are a part of the body, and we cannot be
disowned.
So then, what
should we do with our unbelief? The
solution is rather straightforward when we connect it with idolatry. We must treat our unbelief as sin.
We should
confess our sin. We should repent of our
sin. (Ezekiel 18:30, Acts 3:19) We
should trust God to forgive us of our sin.
(I John 1:9) And, we should return back to Him.
It’s going
to be a great journey over the coming weeks.
God has great plans for you and me.
Plans and works that He has put in place and set in motion from the
foundation of the world. (Ephesians 1-2)
I’ll end
with three verses.
We all stumble in many ways.—James 3:2
We’re all
growing, and none of us are yet perfect.
That is for sure.
We who are strong ought to bear with the
failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.—Romans 15:1
It is an
honor and privilege for us to serve one another.
Everything is possible for one who believes.—Mark
9:23
It is by our
faith that God is working. We are in
fact given gifts to be super. It is a
choice that we get to make. Will we act
on what He has said? Or, will we leave
our inheritance relatively untried?
Let’s pray:
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