Ken wants to know: do you feel there has to be an exact moment a person comes to full relationship with Christ, or could it be gradual, over time?
That’s a great question and only slightly less difficult than Kent’s question from yesterday. If we’re to take Ken’s question at face value about a person’s relationship with Christ, then the answer could be either one, especially a gradual commitment to Christ. However, I think Ken might be asking about when a person is justified or “saved.” This question deserves a little more attention. Very early in John’s gospel, Jesus is having a conversation with a guy named Nicodemus. Nic wants to know what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus responds by saying that he must be born again, which is only possible when a person is born of the Holy Spirit. Obviously, there has to be a moment of birth, but I would argue that there might be a gestation process. Take for instance, the disciples process of a fully committed relationship with Jesus. At what point where they fully committed? Was it when Peter makes his confession that Jesus is the Son of the living God? If it was, what do we do when Jesus calls him Satan or when Peter denies Jesus 3 times? By Acts chapter 2, it’s pretty obvious that Peter’s been born of the Spirit. Shoot, he and the others speak in foreign languages under the power of the Spirit. But, when did it happen? I’m not sure. In the modern church (over the last 50 years of Christianity in America), we’ve focused on the moment!
Did you pray a prayer? Did you raise your hand? Did you walk an aisle? (Just so you know…I did!) Some call this “decisional regeneration.” However, a moment or a decision doesn’t “save” a person. It’s only by grace through faith that someone is justified. That’s not determined by a moment, but complete trust in what Christ has done completely! That might take place in a moment, but it might take place gradually. The important question is this: Has it taken place? Is a person in a fully committed relationship with Jesus? Is a person born of the Spirit? THAT’S ALL THAT REALLY MATTERS!
FYI, in a 5-mile radius of Chateau Elan, there are approximately 19,000 people who do not have any level of a relationship with Jesus Christ!
Confession: All week I had a strong feeling that someone or someones were going to accept Jesus at The Vine this week. Add that to the fact that I asked our staff to pray earnestly for the salvation of folks who don’t know Jesus Christ, and I was completely stoked about this morning. Turns out that the prompting and the prayers were dead-on. Our serve teams at The Vine are ridiculous. We gathered at 9:00 for prayer and asked them to pray right there and throughout the morning for people who don’t know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Well, drum roll please…at least four people recognized that they made a decision to place faith in Jesus Christ. That’s awesome! That’s why we exist! That’s why we wanted to build-out a bigger facility!
The second cool thing is that at the 11:00 service we had to bring out more chairs. That’s two weeks in a row. Just to be clear, we didn’t move back the chairs that we moved out last week. So, that means we had more people show up this week at 11:00 than we did last week. Ridiculous. If you go to The Vine, keep it up. If you haven’t been to The Vine, come and check-it-out! It’ll be worth your time I promise.
While I’m certainly fired up about what’s been going on at The Vine, I’m also fired up about what’s going on at a number of churches recently. One of my dear friends (that sounds weird) is a pastor at 12Stone. They’re just down the street from us. Here’s a quote from his twitter: “My fav way to preach is soaking wet from baptizing people the service before. Today was spontaneous goodness all over.” Apparently, over 300 folks were baptized today. What? That’s ridiculously awesome. Keep it up Kevin and 12Stone.
Add that to the people who are going to be baptized at The Vine next week and that’s a good addition to the Kingdom of God!
Confession: I felt like we just birthed another church. By the way, planting a church is not an accurate term for it. Birthing is a more appropriate description. Planting, I could do by myself. Birthing requires the help of a whole lot of people. Well, that’s what happened the first-go-round and that’s what happened on Sunday. If you haven’t heard, The Vine opened a new, 10000 sqft facility. Our launch team was about 3 times the size of our original launch team, and we were better equipped for it. My wife, who also doubles as Kidzu Director, had an amazing team of folks working almost non-stop for 2 weeks to pull-off an amazing kid’s experience. In fact, here’s a picture of the worship taking place there on Sunday:
First day of Kidzu in the new facility!
The crazy thing about Kidzu is that we double the amount of kids in one week! All I know is that my kids loved it. One woman who filled-out a first-time guest survey said that her best impression was that her 7-year-old wanted to return! That’s awesome.
We actually double the amount of adults worshipping with us as well. We had a ton of first-time guests worshipping with us. Their overwhelming first impression was the amount of greeters and the quality of being greeted! That’s what I love to hear. One of the things that I harped on before we launched was the theme of hospitality to the foreigner that is prevalent throughout Scripture. Well, looks like we had that in place on Sunday. Thanks to all who served in Guest Services. One lady responded on the survey by saying that she was blown away by both the hospitality and the awesome coffee. Put those two things together and you’ve got a winning combination. The actual worship experience was great too! The amazing thing is that the “best is yet to come.”
That night, the new facility was crawling with teenagers! They got to enjoy the new blu-ray lounge. I wish I had a picture to show you b/c it was legit. Tucker preached a funeral for “Mr. Clique.” He was hilarious and it drove home Gus’ point that cliques aren’t acceptable in Christ. I’ll add to Gus’ message and spin Colossians 3:11 by saying, “Here there is no {clique}, but Christ is all and in all.”
Oh yeh, the best thing that took place on Sunday was that a young woman gave her life to Christ! That’s what this is all about.
“Revival can be expected when Christians have the spirit of prayer for a revival- that is, when they pray as if their hearts were set on it.”-Charles Finney
One of the primary characteristics of revival of an individual, church, or nation is prayer. That makes sense considering that prayer is our red phone to God. It’s our direct-line to only one who can impart revival. Throughout the history of revival, people testify to the intensity of prayer and to the common themes of prayer. Prayer for revival is one theme. Another is confession, which I’ll discuss tomorrow. A third theme of revival-driven prayer is praying for those who don’t know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. In fact, Finney says, “The spirit of prayer is a state of continual desire and anxiety for the salvation of sinners.”
Confession: I’ve got desire, but not anxiety! I want people to know Jesus, but I’m not anxious over it. Just being honest. I confessed that to God this morning, in fact. This is what I said: God, burden my heart for the things that burden Your heart. Burden equals anxiety. Burden equals “it never goes away.” Burden equals action. Burden equals experiencing something that might even be considered physiological at the thought of someone dying without a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
In psychological terms, anxiety can often be relieved through drugs and counseling. In spiritual terms, anxiety/burden can only be relieved through prayer, but not simply prayer. Finney tells the story of one woman who began praying, and in doing so, became more burdened for those yet to receive Christ. That’s why prayer must be accompanied with the sharing of the good news. Finney said that the burdened woman wanted her pastor to schedule an evangelistic meeting. These were her exact words: “If you do not schedule the meeting, I will die, because there is going to be revival.”
Further confession: I don’t think that Christians, in general, have a burden for non-Christians much less a desire for the salvation of sinners. Would you die if you don’t see folks come to know the life-saving, life-changing love of God through Jesus Christ? I pray you do and that I do too!
Confession: I love The Vine. It’s great. Sometimes I get tired of setting-up and tearing-down. Sometimes I get tired of walking through a gravel parking lot. Sometimes I get tired of small seats crammed together. Sometimes I get tired of a being in a little black box. BUT, yesterday was a reminder of why we set-up, tear-down, walk thru gravel parking lots, sit in small seats crammed together in a little black box. Here’s why I love The Vine:
Yesterday, at least two adults gave their lives to Jesus Christ for the first time. Two more reasons to party. Two more reasons that the world can change. Two more reminders of why Jesus died. Two more catalysts for revival.
Though I really missed our band, Gregg+Guitar=Good Stuff (Even when the 11:00 folks couldn’t keep a rhythm) Two oldies and four originals! Not too bad.
I told the story of getting a vasectomy and the doctor’s assistant asking me, “Did you work at Snellville UMC for 4 years?” Busted! When God looks at you (btw, God’s seen everything) and asked, “Do you know who you are?” Do you know who you are? Do you know who you really are-by nature, completely naked, vulnerable, transparent? David did-read Psalm 51!
I got to meet a future church planter who was worshipping with us yesterday. He’ll be launching in Tennessee within a year. He’s learning from Mark Driscoll. Not a bad dude to learn from if you want to plant a healthy church.
I got to meet a family who recently moved from California to Georgia simply b/c they felt led to move. Cool folks. I’d love it if they stayed around, but who knows…
KIDZU is doing a great job. How do I know? Well, when I asked my kids if they had fun, they said, “yes.” When I asked my kids what they learned, they said, “Noah.” When Liz asked this question of my 22-month-old, here’s what she said:
HD, our youth ministry is doing a great job. When I asked Gus how it went, he simply responded “students praying for students.” Not a bad response!
Our outreach pastor and some folks from The Vine are leading “Revolution” mission camp this week. They started set-up yesterday and will be serving folks in Atlanta all week.
I missed not being in the preaching role, but I loved the preacher we had visit us this morning.
I can’t wait for our next series called “REVIVE,” but I love the series we’re doing called “One Prayer.” One of the reasons I love this series is because of the theme, which is “God is…” That’s a hard sentence to complete. Last week, we tackled that “God is Bigger.” This week, we heard from Craig that “God is Love.”
In his message, Craig talked about how he came out of the bars as a sinner and went back into the bars as a born again follower of Jesus. It was another reminder that I need to be among those who don’t know God’s love is personally available to them.
The thing I prayed about this morning was the “one.” Let me explain. In Craig’s message he talks about the “one” coin, the “one” son, and the “one” sheep that was lost, but warranted an all-out pursuit. Then, looking directly into the camera, said, “you might be the one.” I was praying for the “one” at our church.
Here’s the best part of the day: There was at least “one” this morning at The Vine. Praise God. Join the party!
After church, we had some folks trying to out serve each other. It was a hard competition between a number of folks, and I declare it a draw. I guess we’ll have to find out next week who’ll win the competition.
After church, I discovered that my son might just be wired for architectural design or engineering. Is he a future Yellow Jacket? Don’t ask him that question unless you’re prepared for a beat down!
Got to eat some bbq at Klara’s going away party. Klara is a German exchange student who came to live with Pat and Tammy Jarvis for this school. Little did she know that she was going to be introduced a cool, new church and this guy named Jesus. Well, God’s sovereign and in January, she became a Christ follower.
That’s a good day! Have a great day. God loves you! Love others and love God!
