Focused on the Main Thing

It is so great to have you with us today. My name is René, one of the pastors here. Thank you for joining us here in the auditorium or maybe you're joining us over in the venue service in Munskey Hall or online on Facebook live wherever you are. It is just great to have you with us on this Memorial Day weekend.

Before I start, I want to give you just kind of a quick preview of what's ahead. In just two weeks we have a very special guest speaker Ephraim Smith. Ephraim is one of the pastors at Bayside Church near Sacramento and he is a prolific author and speaker. I love his books. Listen to just some of his titles that I've read myself, Raising Up Young Heroes. I love that. It's not just a book about parenting, it's a book about raising heroes. And here's a great book he's got. It's called The Post-Black and Post-White Church. Isn't that an intriguing title? It's a great book. We've been trying to get Ephraim here for about two years and it finally worked out so I hope you make it here no matter what you've got going on that weekend to hear what he's got to say. It's going to be inspiring, it's going to be challenging, it's going to be motivating Ephraim Smith in two weeks.

Now here's a question for you to ponder as we start. What do you think of when you think of church? Well a YouTuber hit the streets and asked just random people on the street that question and posted some of the responses he got. It's a lot of propaganda. I don't like the condemnation. They're boring. Judgmental. You're not allowed to be in the church if you're that way. Strict, rigid. I sometimes feel as though my morals are probably a little bit in higher standards than some people that I've seen who go to church. Bias. They're just really judgmental of people that do stuff that they don't believe in. Probably that they're odd, you know, pretty prejudiced against different groups of people. I think a lot of Christians are good hearted and they want to do good for humanity. You know, their brother. You know, for the most part. You know, they do. A building full of people that most likely are a bunch of hypocrites. That they never make mistakes. That they're always judgmental of other people. You're not a Christian. Like any religion. And to me, I'm a dozen Americans Christian or Jewish or Muslim. You're not us and you're not okay.

Do you go to church? No. Do you go to church? No, I don't. But do you go to a church? Not regularly. However, I've been kind of reconsidering going. Isn't that intriguing? Fascinating. So what do you think of when you think of church? Maybe some of the same exact things because church people can be hypocrites, right? Church people can be judgmental. Church people can be holier than thou. And in fact, I have been every single one of the things they criticize the church for. I truly have been. But what's church supposed to be like? Can church be beautiful? Can church be loving? Can church be seen by the whole community as a blessing? No. Let's close in a word of prayer. Just kidding. Yes, I believe it can be. In fact, I'm kind of betting my life on it.

Here's another way to ask this question. What is the purpose of church? What's the purpose of this church? According to the Bible, can we be the opposite of many of those interview responses? Let's check out what the Bible has to say. Grab these message notes in your bulletin. Focused is the name of the series that we began last weekend. This weekend, let's get focused on the main thing that we are here for. What's this church thing supposed to be about? What are we supposed to do here? What are we all about?

First kind of a recap. Last weekend when we launched the series, we saw the book of Colossians is a letter that a man named Paul wrote to a brand new group of Christians in a place called Colossae near the west coast of what is now Turkey. And the Colossians problem was what we called last weekend Christ Plus. They believed in Jesus, but slowly they added all kinds of extra stuff to that. Legalism, moralism, politics, all kinds of behavioral issues. A man named C.S. Lewis, very famous, he wrote a great book called the Screwtape Letters, which you may have read. It's about a senior demon named Screwtape who is training his nephew, a junior demon named Wormwood. And it's very funny, it's a comedy, it's written as if they're both in a multinational corporation. I hope you read it if you never have.

But at one point, Screwtape finds out that one of his nephew's human assignments has become a Christian. And he writes this advice, "My dear Wormwood, the real trouble with your patient is that he is merely Christian. What we want, if they become Christians at all, is to keep them in a state called Christianity and... Christianity and the new psychology, Christianity and faith healing, Christianity and psychic research, Christianity and astrology, Christianity and anything else." That is a great description of what the Colossians were into in a great description of many American churches. Today, church stops being mainly about Jesus and slowly starts being about all kinds of other things. We never really deny Christ, but we get distracted. And our message about the free gospel of grace gets very, very muddled, as you could pick up from those interviews.

So the Apostle Paul solution is Christ alone. Don't complicate it. Don't confuse it. Now that's where we left off last weekend. This weekend, Paul says, and here is what a Christ alone church looks like. And here's why you need to listen to this. At the end of this sermon, you will know what the purpose of this church is. You will know the one task that if we move toward this, we are moving toward what is right. And if we don't, no matter what else we do, no matter how good any program might look, we will have failed. And that's not true just for the church. You will know where you fit in. You will know the main thing for your life. You will know what it is that however successful or wealthy, however high you might climb, if you don't grow toward this one thing, you will have missed the reason that God put you on this planet.

2000 years ago, the Apostle Paul writes the Colossians, the words we're going to look at today about his purpose and about their purpose and about our purpose. Starting in Colossians 1:25, he says, "God has given me the responsibility of serving his church by proclaiming his entire message to you." What's God's entire message? Well, wait for it. "This message was kept secret for past centuries and generations, but now it has been revealed to God's people." And when he says God's people, who's he talking about? The Jewish people. Paul was a Jewish man and he's talking about the Jewish people. It's been revealed to the Jewish people for God wanted them to know that the riches and glory of Christ are for you Gentiles too. And this is the secret. Here it is. "Christ lives in you." That's the secret of the Christian life. Christ isn't just for you. Christ isn't just around you. Christ doesn't just inspire you. Christ is actually in you. No other religion makes this claim of its founder. Jesus Christ is supernaturally changing you from the inside out. You are never alone. You're not reliant just on your own willpower. This is just such a powerful concept. This gives you assurance of sharing his glory.

So he says, "We proclaim Christ, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we might present everyone mature in Christ." To this end, he says, "I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me." An amazing two verses that you see on screen here behind me. Paul answers five crucial questions about what we are supposed to be doing here. And if we don't do these things, we are failing as a church. And these are five questions about what we as Christians are supposed to be doing too. Five questions jot these down in your notes.

First, what is our message to the world? It's very simple. Paul says we proclaim Christ, period. Christ, not Christ plus. Now, what does that mean for us here at TLC on this topic of the church you might have picked up if you're becoming even two or three years. I am so influenced by three people who write a lot about the church. Tim Keller over in New York City, the late Ray Steadman, who was a pastor up on the peninsula, and another current pastor on the peninsula, John Orpert. And I'm going to be quoting all three of them extensively in this message.

For example, I love the way that Orpert talks about what it means to say, "We proclaim Christ, period." He says this means we do not proclaim self-improvement or trying harder or career enhancement. We do not proclaim a system of beliefs. We do not proclaim a political agenda. We do not proclaim a set of traditions. We do not proclaim the superiority of church people over unchurched people. We proclaim Christ. We proclaim Christ because he is the light of the world, because he is the creator and sustainer of all that exists, because he is head of this church. We proclaim Christ because he is the kingdom bringer and the sin bearer, the death defeater and the life giver, the grave robber and the risen savior. To say we proclaim Christ is to say God is in Christ reconciling the earth to himself. So we are betting the farm. We are staking our lives. We are devoting ourselves fully to the crucified and risen Christ. We proclaim Christ. Amen.

So let's just keep our message and your message very simple. It's about Jesus. And as we focus on Jesus and just meditate on the implications of who Christ is and what he does, everything else follows. You got to stay centered on Jesus. We proclaim Christ. Okay, to whom? Who's our target, so to speak? Paul says we proclaim Christ admonishing and teaching who? Everyone with all wisdom so that we might present who? Everyone.

I want to show you something. In the original Greek, and I don't know why it's not translated this way in most English translations, but it actually reads like this. Admonishing everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we might present everyone. What word does he repeat three times? Everyone. Specifically, three times in the Greek, Paul uses the phrase "panta anthropon." "Panta," like pan, that means all, and "anthropon," like anthropology, that means human. He's saying our message is for all humans. That's pretty inclusive. We proclaim Christ not leaving anyone out. We proclaim Christ to everyone, not just some radical idea 2000 years ago, right? In that world, Jew, Gentile, slave, free, barbarian, Greek, man, woman, all together, that's the church. And that is still a radical idea today. And getting more radical, sadly, in our current state.

Last fall, I told you about a current cultural phenomenon that sociologists are observing. They call it RCO. And RCO to sociologists stands for repugnant cultural other. They say we live in such an angry, divisive world today, the people see those who don't vote like them or look like them or live like them or live where they live as not just different, but repugnant cultural others. And this is true on the left and the right and the middle and the up and the down. This is a phenomenon happening in our society right now. People are different than me. I've got to despise them, cut them off from my circle of friends.

But what church is supposed to be like is this amazing opportunity to love people who are wait for it, different than you were. Where all people and young people come together and love each other. Where tattooed people and non tattooed people come together and love each other. Where rich and poor, left and right, blue suits, blue jeans, blue bloods, blue hair, come together and love each other. Where you meet people who look, act, think, dress, sing, eat, talk, vote, different than you. But they're drawn to Jesus. And maybe that's all you ever will have in common. That you both just love Jesus and are fascinated by Jesus and want to follow Jesus. And then you get to love each other. How cool is that?

Like probably you have found too that the worst thing that I've seen happen recently is moments where the divisiveness of the political world has entered the church, including this church. But how dare we even imply that to be a good Christian you have to think just like me and vote just like me. In fact, let me show you something in the Bible. Have you ever noticed this? Ever notice the 12 guys that Jesus chose as the first sort of prototype for the church? In the Gospel of Matthew, the 12 disciples are listed in chapter 10. And he just lists the names, except intriguingly in two cases. It's just name, name, name, name, name, name, name. And he tells us about one disciples job and one disciples political party. And why does he do that? Well, I think he's making a point.

Let's take the last one first. Simon, it says he is what? A zealot. Simon the zealot. Who were zealots? Zealots were a violent political movement in the first century that hated Rome so violently that to the Roman world the zealots were terrorists, terrorists. And the biggest argument was over taxes. Zealots believed that paying taxes to Rome was not just oppression. It was not just a bad idea. It was blaspheming God. And about the only people that zealots hated worse than Romans were Jewish people who were collaborators with the Romans, especially the Jewish people who became tax collectors for the Romans. They were the worst.

Well, just one other disciple is named Matthew. And what job does Matthew have? He's a tax collector. How thrilled do you think Simon and Matthew were to discover they'd been assigned to the same small group? Can you imagine? This is an even bigger difference than any political divide that's happening in our country today. But that's the thing about what Jesus came to start. That's the thing about this body we call the church. It's supposed to be full of people who kind of in the world, in the flesh, would be repugnant cultural others, right? Jew, Gentile, zealot, tax collector, craziness. But we are all drawn to Jesus. And so we have true unity in that.

I tell you, as your pastor, I want to look around at Twin Lakes and see during the greeting time, you know, young people with tattoos and nose piercings chatting amiably with old ladies with tattoos and nose piercings. It is Santa Cruz. So we're supposed to be a place where people who are incredibly different find common ground in Jesus. So he's for all humans. But why? What's our goal? Why do we do it? What's the purpose? What's the ball in the net as the warriors would have said last night during their awesome victory? Well, Paul says, "So that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ." That's our goal. Maturity in Christ.

Jesus didn't say go into all the world and get people to call themselves Christians. He didn't say go into all the world and here's your mission. Go around and get people to stop checking themselves in the other religious categories or stop checking the atheist or the agnostic box and get them to just check the Christian box and you will have succeeded. That is not the objective. The mission is make disciples. In other words, maturity in Christ. Okay. What's that mean? That sounds vague. Simply put, it means having a character that looks like Jesus on the inside. The Bible calls it the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. That's the goal.

Little sneak peek. This is why this fall we're going to do a church-wide, immersive study. Church-wide in the fruit of the spirit because that's the end game right there. You know, that's the goal. That's our objective as a church. That's what maturity in Christ looks like. It's about transformation, not just education. It's about a lot more than Bible knowledge. It's about Bible knowledge as a means to the end of having that kind of maturity in Christ and your character. Now, needless to say, this is a massive challenge in our culture today.

There was an article in USA Today a little while back that made waves. Headlines said, more Americans customize religion, customize religion to fit their personal needs. Basically, the article says we as Americans, we like faith. We like spirituality because it kind of gives us comfort, makes us feel good when we're facing problems or facing death or something. But what we want is kind of a designer faith that just makes us feel good. We want the different elements that we personally like about all the different religions. The most popular idea that God is kind of vaguely out there somewhere. We don't want him to intrude into our lives and tell us what to do, but we would like him to answer our prayers, you know.

It's kind of like this. I have a book by a parenting expert about parenting teenagers. It has a great title. It's called Get Out of My Life, but first could you drive me and Cheryl to the mall? And that's kind of this approach to God, right? I don't really want you in my life, but first could you answer all my prayers? Kind of this generic spirituality. Again, quoting John Orper, he says the problem with generic spirituality is that it won't challenge and transform somebody's character, and Jesus wants to do that. See, Paul says when we proclaim Christ, he is not saying Christ plus, but he's not saying Christ minus either. Christ. And the goal is maturity in Christ.

This is the one point I want you to remember if you forget everything else because this goal should set the tone for all of our interactions with everybody, right? I should respond to my team here at the church and the clerk at the store and the doctor and the person who cuts my hair with love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness, goodness, meekness, temperance, you know, the fruit of the spirit, so that my every little interaction with them helps and doesn't hinder them from coming to that kind of maturity in Christ.

So now we know what and we know why, but I want to know who does this. This is so good and kind of surprising, but it takes a little detective work. Watch this. The Apostle Paul says he is admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, right? So it's like the job of the pastors and the apostles, right? Well, keep reading in Colossians 3:16. He says, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as who you teach and admonish." Same exact two words he used there in chapter one, teach and admonish one another with all wisdom. Same exact phrase. In other words, it's not just a job for the pros. He means everyone, not just pastors. Everyone has a part to play in this potentially beautiful thing that we call church.

And I just got to tell you, last weekend I saw this in Technicolor. Here's, I snuck out of church last weekend. I did something I very rarely do during the worship time last weekend. I went to visit some different classrooms, different Sunday school rooms, and so on to see what's happening out there that most of us who are in here don't get to see. And here's some of what I saw and kind of snapped pictures of with my phone. I saw the answer to the question, who do we need? Who do we need to be a great church? You know who we need? We need the people in the joyful noise class. This is our class for adults with developmental challenges. They're meeting right now. At the start of their Sunday school class, they have worship together. And you know what? We need them to teach us how to worship with joy and freedom. You and I need the joyful noise people.

And you know who else we need? Their band is full of volunteers who come to help. The woman in the middle singing there, that's Joanne Hughes. And I don't know if you know Joanne, but a lot of people might think Joanne has every right to just feel sorry for herself. Joanne was widowed suddenly and tragically a few years ago. She could just be bitter. But Joanne devotes herself to this class, and not just to this class, to singing in nursing homes around the county. We need Joanne Hughes and the whole rest of this band.

And you know who else we need? Then I walked over to the first and second grade celebrate kids class. That's Dylan Gonzalez on the right. Let me tell you about Dylan. Dylan is 18 years old. He's a senior in high school, and he's there every single week helping in the class. Anybody else remember when you were a senior in high school? Anybody find better things to do with your time, right, than help a bunch of little kids every week in church? Oh, and by the way, you know what else is going on at home? Dylan's family is now caring for Dylan's grandma who has Alzheimer's disease. Anyone, you know, would understand if Dylan said, "Man, I want a break from caregiving. I work hard as a senior. I got a lot on my mind. I want to sleep in on Sundays." But he's there with the kids every week. We need Joanne Hughes. We need the Joyful Noise class. We need Dylan Gonzalez.

And you know who else we need? We need the teachers in the Sea Turtles class. This is our three-year-old class, like Deanna Mansfield. That's Deanna. Deanna has two kids of her own, and no one would blame Deanna if she called timeout during church and said, "Man, I put in my time during the week." And with Deanna in the class, that's Bailey Smith. Bailey is 20. She's a Cabrillo College student, and what I asked her last weekend why she helps out with the kids, she opened her mouth, and then she couldn't talk because she started to cry. And when she collected herself, she said, "I responded to a call for help, and I have found my life purpose. I found my new family. I rediscovered my relationship with God. This has changed my life. We need Bailey Smith."

And then I realized, "Whoa, it's about time for me to preach." So I walked outside and started heading over here, and I saw Stuart and Dick and Bob, three of the guys in our car club here at church, the Kingsman. Now you might think, "How can I serve God if the thing I really love to do is work on my car?" Well, you know what? They have their car show here every summer, and you know why they do their car show? Because they long for some of the vast car club community in the Monterey Bay to check out their church that they love and get to know the Jesus that they love. We need Stuart and Dick and Bob, and you can tell I'm getting emotional as you can see this pile up, and I'm walking into the lobby with like two minutes to spare before I have to preach here, and I see a guy come in with three of those giant milk bottles that we're using to raise funds for the Pregnancy Resource Center.

I go, "Wow, how did you fill three so fast? They've only been out a week." And he says, "Well, it was my kids, Ryder, Dominic, and Noel Johnston. They sold lemonade yesterday at our street garage sale. They squeezed all the lemons by hand. They made all the lemonade themselves." And you can tell he's telling the truth because look in the lemma, only a kid would look at any recipe and say, "What this needs is blue ice cubes." They made it all themselves, and they also contributed money from their own funds because this moved them. You know who we need in this church? We need Ryder. We need Dominic. We need Noel. You're looking at potential future leaders of Twin Lakes Church.

Finally, you know who else we need? We need you. And you might think, "But I'm too old, or I'm too young, or I'm not smart enough, or I'm not skilled enough, or I'm just too busy, or I'm too sad." Did you hear the stories behind the people I just showed you? Any number of them could have said those exact same things. Those are lies. They're not true. We need you. All of us, old and young, and skilled and unskilled, and wounded and hurting all of us together doing this beautiful thing we call church. And as you heard Mark Lengase say, "Just one of the immediate needs we have is for summer Sunday school teachers," and there's an insert in your bulletin about it, but there's so many ways you can serve.

Now, let's land the plane here because you might be asking at this point, "Well, I want to, but I just don't feel like I can. Like I'm unskilled. I'm not smart enough." That's point five. How do we do this thing called the church? And this is the part that so often gets left out. Frankly, this was the part that got left out of my Christianity for many years, so let's not leave it out. Paul says, "To this end," everything we've been talking about, "to this end, I strenuously contend." In other words, is it hard? Yes. The word in the Greek that he uses here is the word that we get our English word agony from. Sometimes it is super hard work for sure, but it's with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.

It's about God's power, not just my power. I've actually experienced this, and we've experienced this as a church. You put yourself out there kind of on a limb, and there he is on the limb with you. It's Jesus, his energy working in you, but you have to put yourself out there to discover his power there, right? And we've seen this so many times as a church. Pardon me, I think of the 2020 Vision Initiative. Just one example from that. Last fall, we said, "Lord, we really believe that you want us to build a front porch that faces the world, that faces our neighbor, Cabrillo College. We're going to serve coffee, give students a place to study, people in the neighborhood, a welcoming place to hang out, and we prayed, and we pledged, and next weekend, Mark is going to give you kind of a virtual reality walkthrough of the coming college ministry center and coffee house. It's actually happening.

But my point is, how did that happen? We didn't have all the funds for this sitting around in a safe somewhere, right? But together, we thought this is something that would help us fulfill our mission as a church, and we moved, and God worked miraculously through you. Jesus works miracles when we do his thing, his way, for his reasons. And we've seen that so many different ways here and globally. So when you leave today and somebody asks you, "Oh, the message was about the purpose of this church," so what is it? You'll know. It's to proclaim Christ, period, so that we can all present everyone mature in Christ, and we do that with the energy of Christ. That's our purpose. That's your purpose. A life like that is going to bring you joy. A life like that is going to bring you meaning.

And so can I just ask you to pray for our church to be better and better, to live that way, according to that purpose for the church, and pray about how do you do that in this body? Let me wrap up with a couple of things. We started with those interviews with people who were skeptical of church, so I want to end with this. Two weeks ago, I get an email from somebody who's a new believer, very educated, very successful, and two years ago, she was just like one of those people. And here's what she wrote. "When I first started attending, I was defensive, frightened, skeptical, stubborn, reluctant, confused, lost, like the sheep, not believing or knowing I needed to trust and follow my shepherd. But he has a way of coming after us. I could give you so, so many examples of this from my life, that I am grateful I was found and willing to follow the lead of my Savior. It's such a better, nicer way to live life fully."

What made the difference for her? One thing. Jesus. And he can make a difference for you, too. I love the way the message translation renders the verses we've looked at today. Let's close with this. This is so good. "The mystery in a nutshell is just this. Christ is in you." So therefore, you can look forward to sharing in God's glory. It's that simple. That is the substance of our message. We preach Christ, warning people not to add to the message. We teach in a spirit of profound common sense so that we can bring each person to maturity. Christ, no more, no less. That's what I'm working so hard at, day after day, year after year, doing my best with the energy God so generously gives me. That is what it looks like to stay focused on the main thing. Let's pray together. Would you buy your heads with me?

Lord, we've been talking a lot about how we preach Christ, period. And so I just want to offer a prayer right now to receive Christ. That anybody not sure they've done so might just pray on their hearts, "Lord, I identify with that woman's email and I don't understand it all, but I choose to believe you paid for my sin on the cross and rose again and can live in me, and so I want to receive you into my life as my Lord and Savior." Now maybe many people prayed a prayer like that ages ago, but forgot their reason for being followers of Jesus. So Lord, we pray, remind me of my mission and my message, Christ alone. Remind me of why I'm here to be transformed together with everybody else here into Christ-likeness. God, especially I pray that this church would be the body of Christ, nothing more and nothing less to our community and our world. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.