Set Free for a Purpose

How many of you saw the Academy Award-nominated movie Hugo? Can I see that show of hands? Hey, a lot of you guys just kind of, your hands shot up with enthusiasm if you've seen this movie. I would recommend it. It is a fascinating story about a little boy named Hugo who finds this, an old machine called an automaton. It's a machine that is built to look like a man. You're supposed to wind it up and it's supposed to do something. But the machine is broken. And so the little boy doesn't know what the machine was designed to do. And he gets obsessed with fixing it so he can figure out why it was made. And this process makes him ask, "What's his own purpose?" Watch this. Everything has a purpose, even machines. Clocks tell the time, trains take you places. They do what they're meant to do. Maybe that's why broken machines make me so sad. They can't do what they're meant to do. Maybe it's the same with people. If you lose your purpose, it's like you're broken. Is that your purpose? Fixing things. I don't know. It's what my father did. I wonder what my purpose is. Do you ever wonder? What's your purpose? What's our purpose together? Let's talk about it today.

Grab your message notes that look like this as we continue our series in the book of Colossians in the Bible. The series is called Set Free, and today I want to talk about how we are set free for a purpose. In this book, Paul has been talking about how we are set free by Jesus Christ, but set free for what? Well, you are not alone. You are part of a body that God designed for a big reason. We're part of the body of Christ, the church, and today let's talk about what is the purpose of this body we call the church.

I'm going to go back to a couple of verses that I skipped earlier in this series in Colossians chapter 1 because they fit perfectly with our emphasis this morning. You see, this is our annual vision day. This is the day every year where I talk about the purpose of the church. We kind of get recalibrated, and by the end of this talk, you will know what the purpose of this church is. You will know the one task that if we move toward that, 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 this is not just true of the church. You will know at the end of this message where you fit in. You will know the purpose of your life. You will know what it is that if you don't grow toward this, however successful or wealthy or however high you might climb, you will have missed the reason why you are on this planet.

Just two verses I want to look at this morning. 2,000 years ago, the Apostle Paul wrote these words about living with purpose. He said in Colossians 1 starting in verse 28, "We proclaim Christ, teaching everyone and admonishing everyone with all wisdom so that we might present everyone mature in Christ." Paul says, "For this I labor, struggling with all his energy that so powerfully works in me." Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, I pray that as we work through this text, you would touch every single heart that is here today. Some people walked in feeling guilty, ashamed. Others walked in just kind of feeling purposeless. Other people feeling empty. Other people just feeling super busy. Wherever our head's at, our soul is at, I just pray that you'd help us relax in your grace knowing we are forgiven and we are given a purpose by you. And so open up our hearts to the Holy Spirit so that the same spirit that inspired these words would speak to each heart. In Jesus' name, amen.

Well let's go through this line by line. Number one, what is our message as a church? Paul says, "We proclaim Christ, period." Our message as a church is Christ, not Christ plus. Now Paul is saying this, as you'll remember, in answer to the Colossians' false teachers. They were getting all kinds of extra rules and regulations and requirements and religion ladled onto them by their false teachers. So Paul's saying, "No, we proclaim Christ, period." Now what does that mean for us as a church? I love what one of my mentors, John Orpig, when I read what he writes about the church, I literally just weep sometimes, but I totally agree with what he says about this. He says that this means as a church we are not here to proclaim self-improvement or trying harder or constant striving or career enhancement. It means we do not proclaim politics. We do not proclaim tradition. We do not proclaim the superiority of church people over unchurched people. We proclaim Christ, period.

Now when you think back on what Paul said about Christ Jesus, who he was in Colossians 1, what that means is 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 the head of the church, because he is the kingdom bringer and the sin bearer. He is the death defeater and the life giver and the grave robber and the risen savior. To say that we proclaim Christ is to say that God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself so that we are betting the farm. We are staking our lives. We are devoting ourselves fully to the crucified and risen Jesus Christ. We proclaim Christ, period. And by the way, feel free if you happen to agree with me to say amen, because that'd be great. And I think there's some more amen opportunities coming up.

Number two, let's keep going. Second, who's our target? If we proclaim Christ, if that's our message, who do we proclaim Christ to? Paul says we proclaim Christ teaching everyone and admonishing everyone with all wisdom so that we might present everyone. Now, this isn't a quick question, but what word does he repeat three times? Everyone. You think he's making a point there? In the original Greek, it's even stronger. Check this out. He teaches the exact same phrase three times, the phrase "panta anthropon." Panta from the word pan, you know, like pandemic or panacea, you know. Pan meaning all, each, every. And anthropon, the word we get our word anthropology from, meaning human, often when used in the Bible with a special emphasis on the weakness of human beings compared to God. He is saying we teach every last lost human being and admonish every last lost human being with all wisdom so that we might present God willing every last lost human being mature in Christ. This is a radical idea in the first century religious landscape. He's saying we preach to everyone, not just one group.

He was absolutely the first faith where you didn't first have to become part of an ethnic group or part of some inner elite circle to participate. He's saying absolutely everyone. Now, stop just there on the, stay on that first page for just a second because I want you to look at that verse and just think about this for a minute. This is a major theme of Paul's radical idea as I said. Save or free, Gentile Jew, barbarian civilized, man, woman, all together, that's the church. Now let me tell you kind of a trade secret here that I used to buy into as a pastor. And this is something I'm now announcing for the first time publicly. Don't you want to know what I'm going to say next? That I really have changed my view on. It used to be that I completely bought into what we're taught as American pastors. We are taught that you have to have a target demographic as a church, just like an American business is one. What's your target demographic? You know, just like an American TV show. Well we're targeting males 30 to 35. And I used to completely buy into this idea because you know after all if you're not aiming at somebody then you're aiming at nothing, right? Until I saw what this was in my opinion producing in America.

I go around and speak at camps and conferences across the country. And what I'm noticing more and more is that I'm talking to people who come to those camps and conferences. Where are you from? Oh, St. Louis, you know, Omaha, Louisiana, New Orleans. Oh, where did he go to church there? Oh, I don't go to church anymore. Now these are Christians who go to a Christian camp. So it's not because they're unbelievers. I don't go to church anymore. Really why not? Well, I used to go but I just couldn't find one that I really like anymore. Really why? Well, they just don't have the kind of music I like. Don't have the kind of preaching I like. The pastor's kind of old and uncool. A demographic I'm moving rapidly toward myself personally. In other words, the implication is the church isn't cool like me. And so they don't go anymore because they've been spoiled by all of these niched out churches that are kind of targeted so exactly to certain age groups and music styles and so on. So yeah, you know what? I grew out of that and now there's none that I like and so I just don't go. Do my daily devotions at home.

And what happens is pastors see that and go, "Oh my gosh. We better get niched out even further. We better have cooler music. I better go to the store and buy cooler shoes and get a cooler haircut and get cool tattoos or something so I can draw in all the people for whom we're not cool enough." But I look at the ministry of Jesus Christ. Did he play favorites as to who he was going after? I don't think so. In fact, I would say that was exactly the point of his ministry. What church now I believe is supposed to be like is we get this wonderful opportunity to love people who are different than you. I think that's the whole point, right? We get to bridge generations. It's where young and old can get together, where, you know, tattooed people and non-tattooed people can get together.

How many of you are tattooed people? Just admit it at church. Just admit it publicly. Look around. How many of you were surprised that the person next to you raised their hand and they're in your family? No. Where is your tattoo? How many of you are non-tattooed people and you will never let a needle touch your skin ever, right? This is a place where tattooed people and non-tattooed people can actually get together and talk to each other and love each other. This is supposed to be a place where rich and poor, where left and right, where red staters and blue staters, where blue suits and blue jeans and blue bloods and blue hair, where people who look and act and think and dress and sing and eat and talk and walk different from you are here, but they're here because they're just strangely drawn to Jesus. And maybe that's all you have in common, is that you're both drawn to Jesus, but then you get to meet each other and you get to love each other. How cool is that? That's a cool thing that you don't get anywhere else.

It's funny, I was thinking of Matthew chapter 10. I've been reading the gospels a little bit more because we get to go on a trip to Israel with a lot of people from this church after Easter. And so I've been familiarizing myself again with all the places Jesus went, right? In Matthew 10, there's a list of the 12 apostles, just their names. And this has intrigued me so much because it's just a list of names except for two guys that the writer of the Gospel of Matthew tells us their occupations, if you will. And you know who those two guys are? The first one is Simon the Zealot. Now zealots were a radical political party. To Romans, they were like terrorists. They hated Romans violently. There's only one group of people that the zealots despised more than the Romans. And that was fellow Jews who collaborated with the Romans. And of the fellow Jews who collaborated with the Romans, there was only one small group of people that the zealots just heaped scorn on. And that was tax collectors because these Jewish tax collectors took money from Jews and gave it to the despised Romans. So we learn about Simon the Zealot, then it's name, name, name, name, name, name, name, name, and then there's one other disciple whose occupation we learned and it's Matthew and guess what he does? He's a tax collector. Now how do you think Simon and Matthew felt when Jesus said, "You guys are going to be in the same small group together, you know?" That's like, "Let's get Bill Maher and Rush Limbaugh and they're in a home group." But do you think Jesus Christ chose those two guys by accident? I think Jesus was saying, "That's what my group's supposed to look like. That's what my church is supposed to be like." These two people who couldn't have been more on opposite ends in terms of their political opinions but they were both choosing to follow Jesus and they both had a long way to go in their personal growth and ended up finding their center right there.

So you know what, as your pastor, I want to look out during greeting time and not just see little homogenous groups talking, that's wonderful. But during greeting time or when you're getting coffee between services, what I love to see is I'd love to see young, tattooed, earringed people talking with older ladies who are tattooed and earringed. You know, in Santa Cruz that's not an impossibility but so everyone, not just one group, and what's our goal? This is really the key question here this morning. Why do we do it? What's the purpose? What's the ball in the net? What's the whole reason this body exists? Why are all the gears and wheels in this body? Why are all the services and programs and classes and groups, what are they all about? And by the way, I encourage you to come over next door to lunch. You probably have lunch for the first 300 people or so but crowd in there because we're going to be telling you a lot more about stuff that's gone on this last year. It's a chance to praise God. But why are, what's all this stuff for? One thing, next phrase, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

Our goal is not just cool services or fun youth groups or great camps but maturity in Christ. Our goal is not just that people check the box on the census that says Christian instead of some other religion but maturity in Christ. Our goal is not just that we have worship services and people serving at concerts and people going out on short term trips but that all those things contribute to somebody's maturity in Christ. Now this is radical in the American religious landscape today because here's how Americans look at religion. There was an article in USA Today just recently. The headline said most Americans customize religion to fit their personal needs. We like spirituality but we don't want to be transformed by it. We want to be comforted by it. We change it to be more like us. Well guess what? When you really have faith in Jesus Christ, He customizes you. He changes you to fit and be more like Him.

You see, what does maturity in Christ look like? This sounds boring maybe to some of you. What does that mean to be mature as a Christian? Perfect church attendance or perfect Bible knowledge? No, it's transformation. We've been going through this series of Colossians and Paul talks about this in Colossians 3. Do you remember? That's the passage where he talks about like a spiritual fashion makeover and he says take off the things from your old life and put on Christ-like character qualities. Like what? Shout out some of the character qualities he tells us to put on. Do you remember? What? Humility, gentleness, what else? Compassion, that's right. Christ-likeness basically, right? Be a person of grace like Jesus Christ.

Let's look in fact at one of the things he said. He says in Colossians 3.13 and let's read this verse out loud together. It's on the screen. Let me hear you. "Forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you." That's part of maturity in Christ. And I want you to check something out. I saw a great example of maturity in Christ on TV, on Of All Places, the CBS Evening News. Watch this. "Thank you Lord." In a small apartment building in North Minneapolis, a 59-year-old teacher's aide sings praise to God for no seemingly apparent reason. Indeed, if anyone was to have issues with the Lord, it would be Mary Johnson. "For all you've done for me." He never had a chance. In February 1993, Mary's son, Loramian Byrd, was shot to death during an argument at a party. He was 20 and Mary's only child. My son was gone. The killer was a 16-year-old kid named O'Shea Israel. I wanted justice. He was an animal. He deserved to be caged. And he was. Tried as an adult and sentenced to 25 and a half years, O'Shea served 17 before being recently released. He now lives back in the old neighborhood, close to Mary. This close. He lives next door.

How a convicted murderer ended up living a door jam away from his victim's mother is a story not of horrible misfortune, as you might expect, but of remarkable mercy. A few years ago, Mary asked if she could meet O'Shea here at Minnesota's Stillwater State Prison. As a devout Christian, she felt compelled to see if there was some way, if somehow she could forgive her son's killer. What'd she say to you? I believe the first thing she said was, look, you don't know me. I don't know you. Let's just start with right now. And I was befuddled myself. O'Shea says they met regularly after that. When he got out, she introduced him to her landlord, who, with Mary's blessing, invited O'Shea to move into the building. Today, they don't just live close. They are close. Clearly, Mary was able to forgive. Unforgiveness is like cancer. It will eat you from the inside out. It's not about that other person. Me forgiving him does not diminish what he's done. Yes, he murdered my son. But the forgiveness is for me. It's for me. For O'Shea, it hasn't been that easy. I haven't totally forgiven myself yet. I'm learning how to forgive myself. And I'm still growing towards, you know, trying to forgive myself and what it is I've done.

To that end, O'Shea is now busy proving himself to himself. He works at a recycling plant by day and goes to college by night. He says he's determined to pay back Mary's clemency by contributing to society. In fact, he's already working on it, singing the praises of God and forgiveness at prisons, churches, to large audiences everywhere. Forgiveness is a powerful thing. Which explains why Mary can sing her praise of thanks to her audience of one. Steve Hartman, CBS News, Minneapolis. That woman, that is what maturity in Christ looks like. Now don't you think that if all of us, this is Paul's dream by the way, isn't it? This is what Paul lived for. This is what Paul worked for. This is what Paul traveled for. This is what Paul wrote about. This is what Paul was imprisoned for. This is what Paul died for. The vision that every man and every woman, every husband and every wife, every parent and every child, every master and every slave, every boss and every employer, everyone everywhere, Panta Entropan would be mature in Christ. Imagine how that would change this planet. That is an amazing thought.

I'll tell you something. I didn't mention this at the first service, but Paul Spurlock, our outreach pastor, just forwarded me this email yesterday from Stacy Reitz. She's a Twin Lakes church member. Stacy works in Afghanistan as a teacher. One of her fellow teachers, you might have heard about this, Jeremiah Small, was shot and killed by one of his own 11th grade students, an Afghan boy, because of course everything is just boiling over over there. This week was the funeral. In this email, Stacy says that at the funeral where two imams sat in the front row while Bible passages were being read, Jeremiah's family got up and they quoted Bible verses about forgiveness. They said, "Our Lord instructs us that blessed are those who show mercy and forgive those who have done you ill." They publicly extended an offer of forgiveness to the killer's family, which in that culture, Stacy writes in this email that one of her students had just told her the week before that if somebody kills somebody in your family, you're obligated to go to kill somebody in their family. That's the way it works over there. We, these people get up and they say, "We just want to say our Lord forgives and so we forgive." Well, Stacy writes that that funeral which was broadcast on national television in Afghanistan actually galvanized people in the country. A national political leader in Afghanistan actually called them up this week and said this. "I'm going to send you your email. I feel like you have set us free from revenge." Now this is Paul's vision. You see as we all as individuals become mature in Christ, this changes the world. This is the hope of the world. This is why this goal should set your tone for your interactions with everybody around you. This isn't just about what the church does. This is about your interactions with your neighbors, with Ponta Anthropon, everyone. Your interactions with the person who cuts your hair, your interactions with the other drivers on the road. Everything is done so that by God's grace, you're helping and not hindering their growth toward maturity in Christ. Imagine, imagine a world like this. Wow, what a purpose to live for.

So here's my question. Who does this? That's question number four. Who do we need? Who do we need if we want to be that kind of a church? It's interesting that in the movie Hugo, that little boy, he keeps thinking about purpose and he realizes finally that finding your purpose, it's not just about you. You're meant to be part of a far greater whole. Right after my father died, I had come up here a lot. I had to imagine the whole world was one big machine. Machines never come with any extra parts, you know. They always come with the exact amount they need. So I figured if the entire world was one big machine, I couldn't be an extra part. I had to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason too. We all long to be a part of a greater whole, right? To be not a mere spare part, to have that kind of purpose where we fit in. And that's exactly what the Bible says that you have.

It's interesting in Colossians 1.28, Paul talks about admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom and you go, "Well, that's Paul's purpose. Well, check this out." Later on in Colossians, Colossians 3.16, he says, "Teach and admonish," same two words. Admonish basically means warn, flag off if somebody's going to the wrong direction, "one another with all wisdom." So it's one another. We've all got a role to play. Let me ask you, do we teach and admonish one another or do we just sit and wait for the teachers to teach and admonish us? I want to set up a culture here at the church where everybody here is open to critique. In fact, two weeks ago, I'll admit, I had been very grumpy here at the church. And one of our staff members said, "René, can I talk to you privately?" And this person said, "You know, René, you talk about being Christ-like and gentle from up behind the music stand at church on Sunday morning, but frankly, you have been speaking rather tersely and rather harshly to the staff. And I want to know, is there something going on that's contributing to this?" And I said, "No, I apologize. I've just been grouchy. There's no excuse." And I changed my behavior. But I got to tell you, I thought that took a considerable amount of courage for a staff person to say to me, "Unfortunately, that person is no longer on our staff, but..." No, just kidding. I can't fire my wife. So, no, just that wasn't her. The point is, everyone has a part to play.

And I got to tell you, I saw this in Technicolor last weekend. Mark was preaching, doing an amazing job, by the way, didn't you think, with his message on prayer last weekend? So I take my phone and I walk around the campus during church and I snap some pictures. And you know what I saw? I saw people playing a part. You know what I saw? I saw while you were in here worshiping and it was awesome and while Venya was getting set to worship over next door in Munsky Hall, I saw the answer to the question, "Who do we need as a church?" You know who we need? Well, we need Mike Taylor. I saw Mike's Sunday school class. We need Mike. Mike is a sought after corporate strategist. He's giving his time that corporations spend thousands of dollars on and Mike is teaching classes here for free. Who else do we need? We need the people in the joyful noise class. This is a class for adults with learning challenges and part of their Sunday school class is that they have worship and they hand out instruments and every single person in the class sings and plays instruments and praises God. And we need these people for one thing to teach us how to worship with freedom and non-self-consciousness and joy because that defines their worship. And guess what else? They all adopted a cause together. They decided as a class we're going to have a mission. And all they got is bus money, right? A lot of these folks. And their mission is they're going to bring in their bus money to support wheels for the world, which takes wheelchairs to poor countries around the world so that they're helping others. We need them here to teach us that no matter what our limitations are, we can be mature in Christ. Some of these people I'm convinced are more mature in Christ than I am because with all of my resources and with all of my experiences I'm still not bringing all that to bear on you know the purpose of growing in maturity in Christ. But we can love and so we can grow and be mature in Christ like them. We need these people.

Who else do we need? Well we need Reed Welting. Reed's playing bass in this picture. He helps lead music and joyful noise. Reed's an aircraft mechanic for United Airlines. Reed has a tough job. He works long hours. You know what Reed's commute is? He commutes all the way from South County to SFO. Every day he works and he's got to be at work at 6.30 a.m. when at least one of our pastors is still in his prayer closet, if you know what I mean. But Reed's part of the joyful noise ministry. One of the many volunteer leaders there and we need them all. And you know who else we need? We need Laurel LeBaron. Laurel is that figure teaching the kids in this picture. Let me tell you a little bit about Laurel. Laurel is a grandma. Laurel has already raised four kids. They're all adults. They're all grown-ups out of the house. But Laurel and her husband Dave are now adopting their three grandchildren, adopting them ages 10, 8, and 5 because those kids need a stable home. Now Laurel could legitimately say, "I've had enough of kids, right? Put in my kid time. Want to come to church for me time?" But Laurel serves here as a children's ministry leader and we need Laurel. And I have to tell you something funny that happened while I was there. Laurel said, "Kids, does anyone know where the book of Matthew is?" And one little boy raised his hand. She said, "Yes, Johnny." He said, "Well, I don't know where the book of Matthew is, but the book the Lorax is now at a theater near you." I kid you not. But we need Laurel. And you know who else we need? We need Brian and Christina King. Brian is one of our board members here at TLC. He's the president of Cabrio College. He's on the board at Dominican. He's used to being in circles of influence. And you know where Brian and Christina volunteer? They serve the littlest kids in the nursery. Not much networking going on with this guy, right? And by the way, we need this guy. We need little kids because Jesus said, "Look at the kids. Learn from them. Unless you're like this, you can't enter the kingdom. We need them. Who else do we need? We need Ricky Kale." Ricky is a bus driver for the Santa Cruz Metro Buses. And he just started as a volunteer for our bus ministry. You'd think he would have said, "I don't want to drive a bus on my day off." He drives every Sunday to UCSC to pick up students there from the Asian-American Christian Fellowship who do not have cars, and we need them here. Because we need people of all ages and all kinds of backgrounds to be the body of Christ. Who do we need? We need you. Because you have gifts and you have wounds. And you have a passion. You see, we're a body. And in the body, you need every part. Now the enemy's going to try to tell you, "No, you're too busy. Or, "No, you have nothing to offer." But that's a lie. We need you. And not just here in the church walls, but outside too.

Paul later says in Colossians 4-5, "Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders. Make the most of every opportunity. The most of every opportunity." You know, you don't have to just sit passively by and wait for the opportunities to come. You put yourself out in places where opportunities might happen. If you haven't guessed yet, that's why we do outreaches. Like the Second Harvest Food Drive. And the short-term mission trips. And things out there that might create opportunities if you're open to them. It happened to a woman at TLC named Kathy Mann last Christmas. Listen to this. I had volunteered to ring the Salvation Army bell and took over my post in front of Nob Hill. And shortly after that, I felt a finger in my back. And somebody said, "This is a stick-up." And I turned around and looked, and it wasn't anyone I knew. And I soon realized that it was probably a homeless man that was maybe lonely and wanting to talk. And so we did. His name was David. And I shared René's sermons and his messages about focusing on God and not on his sin. And I got a chance to share my faith with someone I didn't even know. I had never shared the story of Christ and his forgiveness quite that extensively. Not for 45 minutes. That was a long time. I'm always willing to express my love for God and my dependence on Him. But it's usually little clips, not a 45-minute talk. I told him I'd pray for him, and I have. And it was really a life-changing experience for me. And I kind of thought maybe it might be for him, too. How would you like to have a life-changing experience? Well you can have one. The opportunities are all around you if you put yourself out there and you make the most of the opportunities.

And some of you are going, "I wish I had an opportunity to do something like that, to really change somebody's life." Let me tell you something. I think that there is a major opportunity that is going to be gone in three weeks for every single one of us in this room, and that is Easter and Palm Sunday coming up. We have these in most of the bulletins, these little three-by-five or smaller than that, business card size things. You can pick these up at the information desk if you want some more. Here's my challenge to you. Do not let this opportunity go by. The Bible says make the most of every opportunity, this is an opportunity. Here's why. This year, like no church I've ever been involved with in the past year, just in the last few months, this church has gotten so much positive press from TV stations and newspapers and so on. Now when I'm going around and I say I'm the pastor of Twin Lakes, the first thing from people's lips is, "I saw you on the news. A million pounds of food for the food bank, that's amazing." That creates an opportunity. God has blessed us with goodwill in the eyes of people so that their hearts are predisposed to say, "Oh, you go to Twin Lakes, that's that great church." And then you can say, "Hey, are you guys looking for a place to go on Easter?" "Yeah, Easter, we always go to church somewhere on Easter." You got these in your purse or your wallet. Listen, take four or five of these cards with a personal pledge that you are not going to leave one of them in your wallet by the time Easter comes around, that you are going to keep your eyes open to the opportunities, the conversations with neighbors, the conversations with people that are cutting your hair. For some reason, I always get into conversations about the Lord with people who cut my hair, almost always. The conversations with coworkers so that you can... These are very basic. All they have is the service times, little bullet points about what happens there. There's a map on the back and the website. I encourage you to grab these and make the most of the opportunity.

We also have little posters that are designed to be just the right size to go up in the windows of coffee shops, grocery stores, other places that post things about community events. Take some of those, grab them. This is an opportunity. Make the most of it. Mark also mentioned these yellow sheets that are in your bulletins talking about ways you can serve at Easter. We need you. After this message especially, man, I'm fired up. Let's all decide to come to one of the five Easter services and serve and then come to another one to attend and be blessed by Easter. Fill one of these out and put it in the offering plate at the end of the service. But you have got to know the answer to the final question, which is how do we do it? You could do all this stuff and just get burned out by church if you don't know the answer to this question because this is the part that often gets left out. Paul says in Colossians 1.29, "To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me." This is key. Christ empowers us. I have experienced this over and over and you will too. You put yourself out there and there he is. When you move forward, it's like moving forward toward automatic doors at a grocery store or something. You're open automatically but you have to be moving forward for that miracle to happen.

So when you leave today and somebody says, "Oh, it's vision day today. René always talks about the purpose of the church on vision day." What's the purpose of the church? Very simple. It's to proclaim Christ, period, to everyone so that we can all present them mature in Christ. That's going to change the world and God will empower us to do it. That is our purpose. That is your purpose. So I would ask you to pray for the church to better and better live according to the purpose of the body. But I've left one thing out, especially for some of you here today. And that is this. Are you a part of the body? You know, it's interesting in the movie, Hugo, the boy gets all the gears for the machine but he's missing one piece, a key shaped like a heart. That key placed in the mechanical man's heart is what winds up the gears and gives life to all the pieces. It's what gives life to the body. It's what makes it all come together. And don't miss this. It's just like that for you and for me. It starts in the heart. The key for you as a person and for us as a body is not some program. It's not some strategy. It's not some catchy slogan. It's having Jesus in your heart living out his love.

Now I want to show you an example of the difference that Jesus Christ can make. I want you to listen to what Laurie and Bob Barone had to say about this. Watch this. It was about two years ago that Bob and I walked through Twin Lakes doors. I didn't want to talk to anybody. I said, "Bob, don't you dare talk to anybody. Don't you give us your phone number, especially your email address." One of the first times when we came to Twin Lakes, Bob went up to the information desk and got a new believer's Bible. And I opened it up like one of the first things I read in it was that I talked about having a hole in your heart by not having Jesus. And I felt like that's me. She'd been telling me for years that she had a hole in her heart that she didn't know how to fill. I tried everything to feel better. I did excess of exercise until I got hurt. I took medication. I did therapy. I felt like I never was going to get better. I'd wake up every morning and I just felt like I just didn't want to wake up. I didn't want to make it through another day. And the more we started coming, I started feeling better. And it wasn't actually to the day when we got baptized and we were in the ocean. Mark said to me, "Do you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior?" That is the moment when I accepted Christ, at that moment when I said it out loud. I was making it so complicated and it's so simple. You just need to receive and believe and be healed. Her son Justin asked me why I look like I feel better and I said because I've been reborn. And he just looked at me and I go, "No, really." I said because I've got Jesus in me. And that is what it's all about.

Now Bob and Laurie have continued to come to Twin Lakes Church. They've grown. They're both greeters now. You'll probably see them out there at the doors. They both serve communion. They both continue to grow and heal and mature in Christ. But it starts in the heart. It starts with that one decision to say, "Jesus, I don't even understand this, but I love you and I want you in my life." Christ in you, Paul says, is the hope of glory. That is our message. Let's pray together. Would you bow your heads with me? Lord Jesus, I pray that anybody who has not yet received Jesus would just do so very simply right now. Would just pray in their hearts, "Lord, I'm not even sure I understand this exactly, but I choose to believe you are real and that you paid for my sin on the cross and that you rose again. You're alive. You're here and I want to receive you into my heart." Fill the hole that's there. Give me fresh purpose to live for. Now maybe you prayed a prayer like that ages ago, but you're a little like that mechanical man. You're broken and you forgot your purpose. And maybe you can pray, "God, thank you for reminding me of why I am here to be part of your body, to be transformed into Christ-likeness, to go to everybody around me with the intent of moving them toward Christ-likeness." And God, as a pastor of this church, I pray, may this church be that kind of purposeful body of Christ to everyone. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.