Sermons - Matt Chandler - Our First Love

hi pastor Matt here thank you so much for either streaming or downloading this sermon I pray that every week you're challenged by the Word of God you're built up in his love the Word of God kind of gets in you and rearranges things and draws your affections of to the person and work of Jesus Christ I want to remind you as always that although men I'm I'm so glad that that you want to hear what what I've got to say this week or we've got to say this week that this is never meant to substitute God's good plan for you to be in a community of faith where the Word of God has preached and proclaimed and so I want to encourage you to use this like a vitamin not like a meal so that you belong to a community of faith where you're being shaped by being known by using your gifts by receiving the word but partaking in the sacraments and by walking faithfully in accordance with the scriptures and then this is something men you're listening to while you run or you're watching when you have a few minutes and so just want to make sure we we frame what this is and what it should not be now but with that said one of the things that the village church wants to do is the things that are created here by the grace of God man we want to give those away that's podcasts and podcast that's family discipleship curriculum that's Bible study curriculum like what we've tried to do for over a decade is just whatever we create here we want to give away and so to do that though we rely on the donations and generosity of those who believe in what we're doing and who have benefited from the things that have been created here and so here before you dive into what I'm sure is gonna be a 4550 minute sermon I just wanted to encourage you if you have grown if you have benefited from our resources would you consider being a part of the team that helps this engine continue to produce and create biblical creative and practical discipleship curriculum for men and women of all ages and all stations and so man if you'd pray about that and consider that that would that would be amazing thank you so much enjoy the Word of God proclaimed if you have your Bibles go ahead and grab those we're gonna I've in while you're turning there I want to take a second and honor a good friend of mine one of the things that I think makes the village church a a healthy Church is that there's a group of men and women here with an extraordinary amount of longevity surveys would tell you that a pastor's life cycle at a given church is around three years and yet we've got I mean I think 15-20 people that have been here 10 years or longer and some of those are actually kind of chief architects for how God has put us together as a community of faith and one of those is is my closest friend sands my wife Josh Patterson and so I'm gonna ask Josh to come out Josh been here 15 years this week and so will you thank Josh for 15 years of service okay so if you're a member more than likely you know who Josh is you've interacted with Josh what's been fascinating as we celebrated his time here is the testimonies that are coming up are things like this I I first met Josh in the parking lot I pulled in he grabbed ahold of me I had no idea I was dealing with an elder and a lead pastor he was helping parked cars on a rainy day somebody else there was like hey I first met Joshua I went to pick up my kid he was the one teaching in kids village that weekend and so then I get a ton of credit for what God has done here and I'm telling you we're not here and we're not built like this who brings order to my chaos via the Spirit of God is Josh Patterson and so I love you I want to honor you today we've been doing this all week if you want to give him $100 handshake or a $20 handshake I I know him I love him he'll take it uh and so only if you feel lad we've honored him but man you you want to do that he is not gonna give it back to you dude's got like seven kids and so bless him all right thank Josh one last time sorry okay so I want to take a second and explain I think JT explained it some but but I want to stop for just a second and explain why in the middle of our series on the Gospel of John we would press pause I don't know if you picked up on the fact hey we hadn't been in John in a bit so so I'm glad you asked I want to try to answer I I love preaching books of the Bible I feel safe in it I feel drawn to it I love that it'll make me say things that I would naturally say not because I'm afraid to say but I just wouldn't think about it in regards to where we currently are what and and so was really enjoying going through the Gospel of John but as multiply began to move forward and multiplies not Flower Mound voting on land you know that right multiply is the rollin off of our campus model to make the village church Flower Mound an autonomous Church just like our other campuses it is 22 million dollars of real estate being given to the kingdom of God by the planting of autonomous churches all over the Metroplex it is simultaneously sending out for church plants and multiple missionaries fact right now we've got one of our own on the ground in Iraq sending us pictures he's just walking and praying and hoping to run across those who the Spirit of God draws them to to share the good news of the gospel with right this is what multiplies all about but for the first time like I've been able to kind of feel for us here in Highland Village flower mounds Louisville Argyle Bartonville wherever our little like what would it look like for us to be the church in this place and I started picking up on the fact that in my journal I was getting angsty you understand what that means like I could just feel in me stuff coming alive in my bones that I don't know how you are but if I don't get out of me bad things happen and and so the elders for my 15 year graciously gave me an extended sabbatical and so may 12th will be my last Sunday in the pulpit until early August and then I'll be back which that is unbelievably generous to me my family and I am super excited and super terrified by the notion all at once in if you know me like I what am I supposed to do like on Tuesday if I get up early 7:30 and then I spend a couple hours with the Lord and then I go work out okay it's noon what now so I mean I've had a couple little minor panic attacks around this idea of rest and so I've got a god that's trying to help me build it all out and eager to just enjoy my family and recover and get ready for the next 23 years because I promised you 40 and by the grace of God I think we're gonna get there and so with that said I I need to get this out of me before I go this isn't a vision series this isn't a this is where we're going this is what's in my guts and so went to the elders and in fact it started a couple of weeks ago what I told JT English almost two sermons is lets get out of John preacher guts and so your two epic sermons from JT English that came out of how God's wired and then men I thought Trevor joy burnt the place down last week man I thought I just got to listen to it I wondered is the building still there and so how gracious is God to us that we roll we run that deep and men who love Jesus and are serious about the Word of God not to mention the women we have here that are the same way and so I've just said hey let's preach our journals let's just preach our journals and tell may 12th and so that's that's what we're doing I'm just trying to get out of me what's in me so I have a shot at resting so I have a shot at resting okay my my first year here I preached through the book of Ephesians how many of you were here 16 years ago on that first there were a ton of them in the last service I don't think there's many in the 1030 although there are some so I wanted to preach sue hey Matt I wanted to preach through the gospel or not the gospel the book of Ephesians because I thought that in it you could see God's heart for the church you could see God's call on our lives you could see the centrality of the gospel you could look at what it means to be spiritually alive you could look at what it means to model and live a holy life that shows the Christ is common that Christ is superior to the idols of this world and you could see that we are a sent people because here's the here's the bottom line for me for all of our kind of dreaming about what the future looks like I know there will be three things that are ever-present because if they're not I can't be here and I am here so they have to be there and so here here's what I know about me I've been profoundly shaped in three areas that wherever I go there it is and wherever it's not I start to feel like this isn't for me one the village church will always be a biblically serious Church all right we're just gonna we're gonna preach the Bible love the Bible read the Bible memorize the the Bible take serious the Word of God that we're not sitting to pep rally we're gonna start our stuff with if you have your Bibles grab them right we're gonna read the text I don't have you notice but every song we sing did you see it we got where we got it from where do we get it from the Bible all right we're gonna be people of the book that can never change because I don't know how to do anything else then read this book and then talk about it with you but we're also gonna be spiritually alive right to be doctorally pure and dead is know when it's rebuked in the book not exalted in the book the point of the Bible is love and understanding of Jesus his preeminence and his lordship over our lives and so any knowledge of the Word of God that doesn't lead to spiritual vibrancy isn't a knowledge of the word of God it's knowing some sentences but they certainly hadn't been illuminated by the Holy Spirit I mean serious about the Word of God I'm gonna be serious about spiritual life being alive in Christ and we're gonna be serious about being a sent people let me serious about going they if any of those three pillars fall apart then then I just don't know what to do I can't do it I can't be the guy till the elders I mean that's no threat I mean we need to pray and fast and seek the face of God but I wouldn't even know how to preach in an environment that doesn't value those things or time I talk about I'm like well you put a little bit too much weight on that brother I wouldn't know how to operate and so wherever we're going those three things will be pillars if that's a new building if that's a new format if that's a new style whatever it is those three things have to be ever-present at least in my 40 year run because they're so woven into Who I am I don't know how to go about this any other way now certainly there are other things that are important and there are other things we need to consider but those three are gonna be the things we keep coming back to over and over and over and over again because it's all that I know so what I want to do with my first kind of journal sermon is really something I've talked about before but it's been about 13 years so I thought let's let's just write the reason I preached through the book of Ephesians it's not just all of its content but because you can see its lifespan you can see its lifespan you can see it born you can see it struggle and you can watch it die and there's a lot of lessons in watching that process take place so I don't know if you know that we know more about the church at Ephesus then we know any other church in the Bible right we watch Ephesus born in acts 19 we are we watch Ephesus be encouraged in the book of Ephesians we watch Ephesus get challenged in 1st and 2nd Timothy we watch Ephesus get rebuked in 1st 2nd 3rd John and we watch Ephesus get threatened by Christ himself in revelation 2 like can we just talk about how all-star that staff is right who's your pastor Timothy really where'd he trained under Paul where'd he trained Christ okay now that's pretty legit resume there like him another one of our guys executive Pastor John the disciple Jesus loved that was his nickname well hey they call me alfalfa in seventh grade the de site if you weaponize that against me I will preach so angry better not get an email this week oh right that's church discipline stuff that'll be later and yet this is a church that despite all of that gifting drifted in a really painful way and he drifted in a way that you wouldn't expect or at least I wouldn't expect and so let's let's look at the end and then go back to the beginning because I think that in the beginning we get some insight into into what we need to think about dream about pray about hope for as a family of faith revelation to starting in verse one to the angel of the church in Ephesus write the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand who walks among the seven golden lampstands I know your works your toil and your patient endurance and how you cannot bear with those who are evil but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not and you have found them to be false I know that you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake and that you have not grown weary but I have this against you that you have abandoned the love that you had at first remember therefore from where you have fallen repent and do the works you did at first if not I will come to you and I will remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent yet this you have you hate the work of the Nicolaitans which I also hate he who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches and to the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God now there's some things about this church that I want to highlight at the beginning it sounds like the kind of church I want my kids to join alright let's look at it they're serious about holiness the church at Ephesus 60 five seventy years after they began that that's what this timeframe is they are still serious about holiness right they work they toil they have patient endurance they're serious about holiness they they have they are doctrinally sound the only way you can be the only we can spot a false apostle a false teaching is to know true teaching right that's how you spot false teaching it's to know true teaching so someone shown up and there I'm an apostle and they start to teach and like you're no apostle because this is what's true you're teaching what is false there doctrinally sound they're serious about holiness look at verse three they endure now let's think about endurance and and you know this but I just want to highlight it do you know none of the compulsive the compulsions that you and I struggle with are new to humanity I mean just stop and think for about it for a second like none of the compulsions of the modern air are new to the modern air so I mean we're looking around like oh my gosh we are such a sex-crazed sex-obsessed culture like yeah and in Ephesus the Temple of Artemis existed with thousands of both male and female prostitutes and that you would worship by visiting them so I think that probably put some things in our day in check right so it's not like oh look at what's happened to humanity humanity's been a train wreck since Genesis 3 I just stroll through Genesis this week you'll actually start to feel better about 2019 right seriously I mean you're giggling I'm trying to help us it's like all is lost apparently you haven't read Genesis and so you've got you've got this church that has all this group of men one that has all the compulsions that you have and I have the compulsion towards anger the compulsion towards lust the compulsion towards you name it it exists and on top of that compulsion the compulsion that at different times hits many of us so should I walk away from my faith is on a group of people that is being tormented and persecuted by the prevailing culture no one in this house no one in this room is your house gonna be looted today because you love Jesus no one's gonna be arrested no one's gonna be killed no one's going have their stuff taken from them that's not the world they're living in on top of their own compulsions on top of the on their own desire to follow the Lord they also have the the full force of a secularized enraged Christianity hating let's wipe it off the face of the earth government pressing in on them and what Jesus says is you've been faithful you've endured you haven't turned your back you keep moving forward I'm proud of you I see you right that that's what's being said and and so this again like like if I'm just if I'm on the website now right and you got this blurb from Jesus down at the bottom and he's like hey they're serious about holiness and and they're doctrinally sound you know what they endure there are people that endure no matter what difficulty comes their way there they're in it like at that point I'm clicking on you know I'm kind of trying to navigate and find okay how do I join and yet I think the critique is devastating and undoes all of that and the critique is that they have abandoned their first love all right so they've abandoned it there was a way in fact the rebuke from Jesus says remember the heights at which you have fallen right so you were at one point in the heights and you're not in the heights anymore then you're you're in the valley and it you chose you abandoned you turned and and so there's this rebuke that despite their seriousness about holiness despite their seriousness about doctrine and despite their endurance they're in danger of the presence and power of Jesus being removed from their midst now that has haunted me since day one sixteen years ago that you can be serious about holiness you'd be serious about doctrine that you can be ferociously walking in endurance and abandoned the love that you have at first and fall from the heights in which you began and so what I want to what I want to do is kind of highlight how serious of a deal this is because it's easy for us to go yeah yeah I mean yeah just love I mean what but love's the point and and that's where this church is in a lot of trouble regardless of how pretty it looks so there's this teacher of the law comes up to Jesus in the book of Matthew and there's this massive debate in the first century among the people of God about what the best what the greatest commandment is like what's the whole point of the Christian faith right what's the point of the law and so you had a group of people like this is the point of the law and you had another tribe over here saying this is the point of the law then you had another stream over here going this is the point of all it's not all that unlike what we see in evangelicalism today where you've got these different tribes ago this is the point no this is the point no this is the point and so this teacher of the law decided to just go straight to the source and go tell us what the point is and here's Jesus's response Matthew 22 36 through 40 teacher what is the greatest commandment in the law and jesus said to him you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and this is the great and first commandment and a second is like it you shall love your neighbor as yourself and on these two Commandments depend all the law and all the prophets so the response to what's the point of this whole thing according to Jesus is love for God and love for others a vertical reconciliation that leads to a horizontal reconciliation that shows that Christ is supreme and preeminent so that if a church loses love they lose the point of what's happening a church that knows about Jesus and does not love Jesus is a dying Church and a church that will not be around long a church that has knowledge of the character of God and does not find himself herself captivated by the beauty of God is a church on the clock waiting for someone else to buy their building love is the point love for God love for our neighbors that's what Jesus said the point of it all the point of it all is that you be reconciled together you would love God and that that would spill out and love for neighbor in fact you can see this everywhere I want you to like what drives out fear courage no not according to the Bible what drives out fear love drives out fear you want a battle fear grow in love now you don't conquer fear by being courageous you you conquer fear by growing in love love stabilizes our souls love received can be loved given listen one of the reasons I am just a madman about God's current right now at this second passionate love for you is that if you'll ever get it you can actually love other people but as long as you think you got to fix something up in yourself before he cares for you you are in a world of trouble you cannot love others if you feel like you're unloved you can't do it it's white-knuckled nonsense it's nicety it's southern hospitality it's not a soul transform walking in joy that can empathize weep and rejoice with others and the danger if we're not careful is it will do a lot of things well and that'll get lost and that'll get lost and and then I've got more in my notes here than I've got time for but hey faith hope and love remain but the greatest of these is what love all right now let's talk um can we just agree that faith is a pretty huge deal what about hope man I've got about three or four seasons in my life that it wasn't for hope I didn't mean like that oh snap and out of just dissolved and blown away into the wind and and the Bible is gone faith is necessary hope is a gift of God's grace but love loves the greatest in fact if you don't have love doesn't matter if you know all the mysteries of the universe you're like a clanging cymbal and no one I have ever met said hey cue up that song just cymbals clanging together just so man just brings me peace restores my soul just bang that cymbal over and over and over again right it's close to my head as possible oh no one says that and so think about first Corinthians 13 if I speak with the tongue of angels I don't know what that is but I have not loved loves the point loves why we've been called unto Christ the Spirit of God establishes love in our hearts love for God that bleeds out and to love for others and then you've got this you've got this threat here I know people are like oh that's too strong it's certainly not too strong or it's exactly what's happening repent remember the heights at which you have fallen repent and do the works you did at first or I'm removing your lampstand right if you so love to do Christianity without Christ how about I just remove the presence of Christ you know I'll get on about building your man centered thing I know I know that's not your view of Jesus he has wings and he smiles got glitter like he'd been at a rave he's just everybody's fine and good he's never upset by anything and that's what love means except it's not what loves means and if you have children or anybody you love you know that's not what love means that's why David says the boundaries have fallen for me in Pleasant places why because there are boundaries and so Jesus here without wings hadn't gone to the rave says you want to do Christianity with me I'll give it to you good luck right we're sorry I'm still I mean I want him back on the felt board smile and pastor but but that's not what's happening in this text is it you want to do this without me go ahead does not God say the same thing to Moses in Exodus in this the same thing God lays before Moses you are a stiff-necked people and I'm afraid I'll wipe you off the face of the earth so you can have the promised land you can have milk and honey you can have wealth you can have your inheritance but I'm not going then what does Moses say but I'm not going because if you give us all that and you don't give us you it's worthless I'm not moving and you have already said you're taking us so you're taking us if you read that it like makes me uncomfortable to my watch Moses talked to God him like oh this dude's about to get lit up and he doesn't write because God values he loves an honest heart because he already knows that he loves men and women who won't hide the honesty of their hearts and so if we go back and look at what they did at first acts 19 say fascinating pattern what happens in Ephesus really is something that I would love to see happen in DFW so the Apostle Paul gets to Ephesus and he finds a small group of Christians who had had John's baptism so he asked him what baptism have you had and he said John's baptism so John's baptism if you if you're not familiar is one of repentance which means think youth camp as a sophomore where you swore you would never do it again and you came down front crying like I'm gonna be a better moral person and maybe you actually were converted to youth camp I'm not talking to you I'm talking about the one that was just like I'm never gonna do that again and you did really well for about three weeks but you weren't really surrendering to Jesus you were just trying to be morally better well that was the sub because Paul's question was like have you received the Holy Spirit which they were play what's that so Paul's like oh man you guys are doing this all wrong the BAM Holy Spirit comes now we've got ourselves legitimate convert and then Paul starts to teach daily in the synagogue and tell some Jewish men began to kind of undermine an attack and so he pulled out at the hall of Tyrannus he reasoned every day for two years preaching the Word of God two years every day I feel like I should never complain about the reps that I have to give at DVC two years every day until the Bible literally said all of Asia had heard and that incredible and then in the middle of all this preaching the Word of God there are these stunning miracles like people like starting to steal stuff off Paul because it heals people so they like steal his handkerchief and they throw it on there sick persons that sick person they take his apron I don't know you cooked or working through the apron on people in P worry I'll show you at least Mariah and then he was just casting out demons left and right missus reveals my own immaturity although 16 years ago there's one of my favorite stories moments till this morning my favorite stories in the Bible but there was a Jewish itinerant Exorcist who had seven sons the seven sons of sceva and they watch Paul cast out demons and they decide that that's that'd be a good time we should try that and so they go and they find a demonically of person and they say you should read this this is all acts 19 hey they say to this demon-possessed man in the name of Jesus Christ Paul's God I command you to come out and and then the demon speaks to him and says I know Jesus I've heard of Paul which I've always liked like I I don't know about you but that's like one thing enemy to go dang know yeah I've heard of that dude right I don't know how you want to spend your life but I want to be so fully surrendered in spirit feel that they're like oh don't go that way go this way I've heard of Paul but then I love this but but who are you I don't know you ain't heard of you and then the Bible says that the demonically possessed man turns on the brothers and beats them bloody and naked so that they flee the house and so I've always said this cuz it's just gold it's just right there if you've ever watched a fight there can be debate about who won and who did not win but when the fight started if you were wearing clothes and when the fight was over you're naked you lost I mean it's just universally true like I don't care if you had like one like wild crushing right the knock teeth out of a dude you still lost your pants in the fight which means that nobody's talking about that right hook the time affected you ran out of the house naked and bloody and that's in the Bible I didn't make that up that's acts 19 and when that happened the Bible says that all filled the land that the Holy Spirit of God fell in such a unique way that the whole socio-economic climate of Ephesus change and that those who made money off of the selling of idols couldn't make any money anymore so they started a riot how amazing would it be to drive down thirty five and hit Walnut Hill where one of our campuses is and see that all those strip clubs are gone because there wasn't any money to be made in there anymore how amazing would it it for the Spirit of God to have a revival in such a way that those who make gain off the back of the oppressed and the marginalized couldn't make a dollar that's what happened in Ephesus no small thing and and here's what we read in the middle of all that this is Acts nineteen seventeen to twenty this is all we've got around there works from which they had fallen and this became known that dude getting beaten bloody and naked to all the residents of Ephesus both Jews and Greeks and fear fell upon them all and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled also many of those who are now believers came confessing and divulging their practices and a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all and they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver so the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevailed mightily for very quick things meant number one the first thing that you see the heights from which they have fallen is they extolled the name of Jesus now since my guess is you have not used the word extol this week anybody say actually I had a one-on-one with one of my salesmen and I use here's what extol means extol means to lift up to esteem to praise so whatever else they were doing one of the works that we see in Ephesus at the beginning is they are captivated by the supremacy of Jesus Christ they lift him up they esteem they praise they love him in song in prayer in the Lord's Supper in study in conversation this is not overly complex one of the things that that the Spirit of God has really been doing in our myths that I'm so excited about is people are taking a step of faith to just live lives of affirmation and encouragement I can't tell you how many stories I'm hearing lately of some of you that just took the risk of going how can I pray for you at work that is led into gospel conversations that have led to people coming to church to hear the good news of the gospel that has led into you getting to share the gospel with your co-workers with your family murmurs that all started with hey how can I pray for you and if you're like that didn't quite sound like extolling the name of Jesus I'm telling you that's exactly what extolling the name of Jesus is it's not how can I fix your problems it's how can I take your problem to the one who can and then how can I introduce you to the one who can because your problem actually isn't your marriage if your problem is a corrupt heart that needs to be born again love for God that then horizontally works I mean just story after story of people going man I want to live more boldly in my faith I don't want to sit in the stands and judge how others run I want to run and God's growing that here and I'm just asking him to continue to grow here they extolled the name of the Lord but they also walked in transparency right and this is not new to us what you see them doing is confessing and divulging their practices now confessing and divulging their practices means they were talking to other people about these things right so now you've got a community that is also and you can see the residue of this in Revelation 2 they're serious about sin but they're serious about sin with one another so there's a difference between confessing and divulging and so let me tease out what I mean to confess would be something like this hey I'm just really struggling you know I'll pray for me alright so that's can we agree that that's confession it's better than just how you don't brother fine praise His name worlds on fire behind you right so confession is something but then there's this divulging of practices that I think changes the game now now again use wisdom here the divulging of practices is the details of the confession that brings the gross mess of it into light right so I am struggling is a lot different then here's kind of the dirty gross nasaw what's going on in my heart and my life here's what I'm involved in and I am embarrassed and I am ashamed and I'm just with trembling hoping you don't reject me here that's divulging practice and here's why it matters I'm currently listening to a book called gates of fire by Steven Pressfield anybody read this book if you haven't it's fine oh come on my people so it is about the Battle of Thermopylae if you don't know what the Battle of Thermopylae is read more and it's the Persian army kind of trying to wipe Helen eight hellenization off of the face of the earth and so jerk C sent a two million man army to overthrow all of Greece and surely you know the 300 Spartans listen y'all are gonna frustrate me if y'all don't know this story and 300 Spartans kind of hold at this pass and and eat they all die but they inflict I think 20,000 casualties on the Persian army and it it messed with Xerxes so bad that that ultimately turns the tie but the story it's historical fiction written by a military guy is that one of the Helenus slaves survived they pulled him out of a bottle pile of bodies and he's in front of King Xerxes and Xerxes trying to figure out how 300 God's just killed 20,000 of his and so he is this slave is unpacking to him the the way spartans did battle how they held their shields the seriousness by which they approached war how they thought about it how they came together who wants my I need something like that to awaken the inner warrior alright and and so he's describing one of the ways that he describes in fact on more than one occasion he describes the importance and how the Spartans fought by the linking up their shields together and then with the long eight-foot spear striking over the shields so that the only way that a warrior could be safe is that a brother on his left and a brother on his right had their shields together to protect from the immortals the onslaught from the Persians and so I'm just Giggy enough to hear that and go that's what it's like that's divulging practices because if I come to you and say I'm struggling you're gonna go home at struggling man let's pray for Matt but if i divulge if i go man this is this part of my life where my compulsions overtake me and i lose all sense and i become like an idiot then all sudden would eat now you know me now you're able to slide and lock your shield in the mine and then let's go together but if all you know is i'm struggling what can you do just kind of ignorantly pray oh he's struggling with something somewhere in his life who knows you know blessing god which i'll take but the transparency to step in and go no this is how broken i am this is how much i need a savior this is how much i need you flanks you with brothers and sisters it puts people around you and the elite force of the persians was called the immortals and i and i loved even the concept this kind of spiritual weird kind of assault crushes to the joined shields of the Spartans and are slaughtered by the tens of thousands and if we're thinking about what it means to be the people of God against principalities and powers and demonic forces of this present air confession and the divulging of practices is about flanking ourselves against the attacks of the enemy and Ephesus loved Jesus enough to go yeah I'm gross but he's not see what happens if you don't love Jesus you've got to go I'm awesome and so is Jesus but if you love him if you see him as who he is you're able to go isn't he wonderful let me tell you how wonderfully I am a I am so I have compulsions that lead me to such dark places and he is unmoved in his love for me the things that I've been a part of our so grotesque that I get nauseous when I think about him and he delights in me his love for me is curies never regretted calling me unto himself see when you love Jesus you don't have to be awesome when you love Jesus you get to just be what look at me what you are broken and scared and hoping and longing and wandering and unsure and resting in the one who isn't any of those things this is why love is so important but they didn't just walk in transparency which brought about community and accountability but they were also serious about sin let's look at this last part and the number of those who had practice magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all and they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver now let just for the record I'm not for book-burning right I'm not even for if you're around my age maybe you became a Christian when you know all secular music was gonna make you do meth and kill your parents maybe you grew up in that era or not I don't know but but they were like CD burnings back in the day when I was a kid where you bring your Metallica CD and you'd burn in your Pearl Jam CD and burn it and then it would pop and hiss you like demons and actually it's just plastic burning because that's what happens when you burn plastic and so so I'm not for those kinds of things I think honestly they might be a little silly but I would highlight this the church at Ephesus wanted to not go back to what they knew would destroy them see they were serious about sin in a way that I'm wondering if we are I think so many of us think that we've got our sin under control and when it's full grown it will kill you 100% there are no small respectable sins all sinned when full grown kills us it over promises under delivers betrays us and leaves us wanting my daughter rodeos which is something I never thought I'd say and barrels is actually towards the end so just think track meet think hanging out for four hours to watch 16 seconds right that's that's the way to think about rodeo and one of the things they do earlier in the rodeo which I think that should probably save to last because more people would hang out even though it's still like a track mean right there's like 40 people there but is there are these there's these men and something's wrong with them I I don't know what happened I did something's broken somes nah trying to get hugged bothered I don't know what happened but what they do is they strap themselves to 2,000 pound mammals and then they inflict a shocking pain in the most tender spot of said two thousand pound mammal and then try to hang on for eight seconds alright and and man they are just confident as all get-out that their technique that they're draw that their experience is gonna save the day and yet I have seen far to me and get hooked get bucked off not be able to get out of that rope that they last themselves to this really angry animal and and I just think that's so like you and I when it comes to sin I've got this I can handle this I know a technique that can manage this you can't manage sin it's managing you and sometimes for greatest effect for the glory of Christ being shamed and your utter destruction your sin will just nibble and nibble and nibble and not take a giant bite out of you it'll nibble cuz you got that wasn't that bad nibble again that one that bad nibble again that wasn't that bad not a bad and then you're gone and the church at Ephesus so loved Jesus that they burned it all they saw it for what it was refuse waste and then the last thing I want to highlight here is that while all this is going on they increased and prevailed so that the Word of God continued to spread right so all of these things are connected right being biblically serious and spiritually alive and being a sent people they're interconnected they're almost one in the same thing they're not different things they're one thing I've noticed lately to great delight and I want to speak to it directly that there are kind of two swells currently happening in our body there is a zealous well to know doctrine in theology and the depth of God's Word and we see this happening because we open up a class and you fill it and then we have a waiting list and how many churches struggle with that so I was trying to study First Samuel I couldn't get in and I sound like we're like 10 weeks on Revelation 12 weeks on sex right those will sell out but like 1st and 2nd samuel anybody want some of that right and most of you hadn't read through 1st and 2nd Samuel and your Bible reading plan you punted at Leviticus for you even God to it and yet we open up that class and you feel in training program fills up in a matter of seconds and I want to praise God for the hunger for the word of God and then also simultaneously with there is a desire to experience and walk in the power of the Holy Spirit to hear his still small voice to step out to pray for the sick and see them healed to hear prophetic words from God to extend prophetic earth and I want to tell you these are not two things they are one thing they're the Spirit of God being poured out on the people of the village church in a unique way you should not pick one of those you should embrace both it's what God is doing in our day praise His name spirit and truth is how worshipers will worship Him you're tracking with me and and so what I'm trying to lay before us is over the course of 65 70 years these are some of the dangers and what we need to fight for what we need to contend for what we need to pray around when all said and done is that we're a church that extols the name of Jesus Christ that we walk in transparency the confession and divulging of practices accountability and walking in the light mark us as the people of God in this place did we take sin serious and we embrace God's call to go neighborhood to nations now here's what I want lay before you just as I can in fact I'm not even to do that I'm just gonna conclude there are steps that each of us will need to take here we are bent a certain way we're wired a certain way you're uniquely wired and certainly you're drawn to some of these things over others you don't need to kick against that you just need to be aware of it you just need to be aware of it not all of us have the same gifts not all of us have the same abilities but you have been called into this place gifted uniquely gifted and seen by God as an individual and yet in the same sentence not to be seen individualistically because you are a part of a whole not a single you've been called into the community of faith filled with the holy spirit gifted by God and when all of us buy into that you've got something special so what's your step maybe this is a season in which extolling the name of Jesus is something you you have felt your affections for God weighing and and maybe if you thought about it you'd be like oh you know I know I because I don't confess and I haven't been transparent or you know what I don't take sin seriously actually try to treat it as a pat and think I've got it under control or maybe it's men I am NOT embraced that God is uniquely wired me and called me and sent me out to be light in the darkness and salt in a dying world and I just have not embraced that so my work and family life is completely separate to my church life and that that's not what God's doing yet and ask you to be a spectator this isn't a conference this is the body of Christ so I'm happy to put so many other preachers up here in front of you this is the body all right so what's that step we're meant to be doers of the word and not just here so let me pray for us father bless these men and women I thank you for your grace on our lives thank you for the lessons you're showing us here pray for our church we just ask that you protect us and guide us and lead us we want to lift up to esteem to praise the name of Jesus we want to be a people marked by transparency known in community held accountable I want to be serious about our sins and we want your name your renown to increase and to prevail we ask you to do these things by the power of the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus amen

Channel: The Village Church Resources

Views: 31,565

Rating: 4.8552036 out of 5

Keywords: Matt Chandler, The Village Church, Our First Love, Stand Alone

Id: TzCdKCFT6VA

Length: 46min 44sec (2804 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 01 2019