Knowing Jesus

Just got back from a great conference (churchplanters.com).  I’ve been thinking through what I received.  It was very good stuff. 

 I want to listen to Ed Stetzer and Bob Roberts again right away.  They are very Christ-focused.  Stetzer’s notes from yesterday are here.

Each year this is the most spiritual conference to me personally.  This year, the Lord was confirming in me things He keeps showing me.  My personal take-away from the conference this year is that the goal is to make disciples, not grow churches (Matthew 28:18-20).

We HAVE to make it always about knowing Jesus Christ.  He is where the life-change comes from…He is the One who forgives sin; He is Who preserves someone through a storm in life; He is Who empowers Someone to live well according to God’s design in marriage, money, parenting, and a million other things that make us who God created us to be (which brings glory to Him).  He is the One who defeats our pride and protects us from the Enemy. He is the One who Deserves our worship. He is the One who saved us.  Anything less or different than knowing Jesus that we focus on is just chaff.

My prayer this morning has been that what was true of Paul would be true of me, our staff, and would be what Peachtree Church is known for:

    For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.    1 Corinthians 2:2

 Although I have “known” this truth for a long time (I preached a similar sermon at Dallas Seminary chapel the week before graduation), we are all prone to cover up knowing Jesus with knowing stuff. So, let me flesh out a little of what I believe it looks like because there have been seasons in my teaching where I believe I am following 1 Cor 2:2 and  other seasons (I say to my shame and with repentance) where I have missed the pearl of great price.

 So there is no confusion:

1.       I believe the You’ve Got Personality WAS a good example of teaching knowing Christ.  The application of each sermon (I’ll use the C from last week), what that the cure to the melancholy blues is taking thoughts captives to Christ.  Moses in Exodus and Numbers was to show Cs what the problem is (you are prone to depression and death spirals)…what is the answer?  Overcoming the flesh with the power of Christ.

a.       Thinking of other recent series, State of the Church, He Shall Be Called, and even the Perfect Storm – in my heart and preparation, a focus on knowing Jesus was driving me.

Do help me make sure that that point (Jesus is the answer) is getting through in the sermons…if not, I have robbed the power of the Gospel.

 2.      What is teaching that is not about knowing Christ?  Anytime we make it about simply knowing more or being more disciplined, we are missing the mark.  Willpower might even look like life-change for a while…but “our righteousness is as filthy rags” because it is done in the power of the flesh, it leads to pride, and furthermore, it won’t carry you through the storm.  I know in my counseling of couples over the years, in the midst of crazy arguing, etc.  I’ve sometimes just tried to get them to do x (have a civil conversation, whatever), and I’ve often felt afterward that I did the equivalent of putting a band-aid on someone who is lethally poisoned. They needed the antidote, and I gave them false comfort.  When I do share that they need Jesus, sometimes it has fallen on deaf ears, but that does not weaken the power of the Gospel for those whom God is calling at the moment.  (This is not to say that I’m always not thinking about the Gospel, but I did want to clearly illustrate the difference…God forgive me to the extent I’ve preached and taught the chaff instead of the pearl.)

Note: I’m not putting our teaching ministry in a box to say that doing different types of sermons (felt needs, teaching theology, etc.) are wrong…but each one should be part of pointing people to Jesus.

 A great question was raised at dinner last night.  Are we discipling people at Peachtree?  A more specific question that really gets to the heart of the issue is, Are we helping people know Jesus? (leading people into a life-changing relationship with Jesus)...or something less. And if we are leading people to know Jesus, I believe we will see fruit.

Are we really discipling?  The comments from Cs on Sundays (and Ds on three weeks ago, and Is two weeks ago) suggest to me that we helped a significant number of people know that Jesus is the solution to the problems of being overbearing, insecure, and depressing.

As I think of Men’s Ministry, WEM, SM, CM, Connect Group  (topics and being part of the body), there are major aspects of each where men, women, students, and children are being helped to know Jesus. I think we are all guilty sometimes of missing the pearl (knowing Jesus) for the chaff (even in our own lives) and thus are in danger of doing it as we pass the Truth on to others.

 I’m starting to ramble now, but Are we helping people to know Jesus?  Yes,  there are some GREAT Christ-focused things going on in DOZENS of specific people I can think of, and SCORES of people who hear the sermons, certainly Katie and myself, I see lots of evidence of it in our staff as well.  The five couples in Fireproof with Chris & Angie Wheelus (most of whom we are REJOICING to see in a marriage class) I believe are being pointed to know Jesus.  The Truth Project…Crazy Love…

 Is everything we’re doing helping people know Jesus?  Probably not, and we need to cut that stuff out.

 I desperately want this to be true of my life, our lives, and our ministry:

7 But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ,

9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,

10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;

11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

12 Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.

13 Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,

14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. -          Philippians 3:7-14

Hold me accountable for making it all about Jesus.  We will see fruit if we do that.