Lord, we love singing Your praises. We love turning our eyes to You and beholding You in Your glory, beholding You in the glory of the Gospel. We love the way that it affects our hearts. We love the way that we're able to express our love for You with our emotions. But Lord, we know that in order for that worship of You in song, in order for those emotions to be rightly oriented, we need Your truth. So that's what we're doing right now. We're after Your truth from Your Word. Your Scripture is inspired by your Spirit. And so, Lord, we ask that you would come in all your power and build your church for the glory of your name. That you would do that in the preaching of your word. That your word would go out with power, that it would not return void, that it would change our hearts, that it would push the gospel deeper into our souls, that it would stir up new affections for Christ. That it would blow fresh air on old affections. So do all that in the midst of your people, in the preaching of your word, for the glory of your name. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Well, last week we finished up our summer Psalm series. This Sunday is actually our fall kickoff Sunday, so we're starting the the new ministry year this Sunday. We've got a family meeting this evening at 5 PM, and we're also kicking off a new sermon series. That sermon series is actually going to be a topical sermon series asking the question, what is our mission at Providence? So in other words, another way of asking it is, why do we exist? What are we here for? What are we seeking to do? Not an insignificant question. Because of that, we're going to spend some time this morning looking at our vision statement. Now, ultimately, the series is going to be about our mission, and we'll unpack and dig into our mission statement and the implications of it. Now, this morning we're going to start and look at our vision, and I'll explain why in a second.
But the question maybe arises with that: vision statements, mission statements, do we need those? Why do we have them? That kind of sounds like corporate America. Is that just a corporate America thing? Did Paul have vision statements for the churches he was planting? Did the early churches have this idea of mission statements? They probably didn't use those phrases, but all over Paul's letters, all over the New Testament, all over the book of Acts, vision is cast for what the church is meant to be. If you read Proverbs 29:18 in the NASB, it says, "Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained." So vision is significant, and this series is ultimately about the mission of Providence. Why do we exist? Why are we here? What are we supposed to be doing?
And today we're going public with our new vision statement. So we're taking a step back from mission to cast vision. Here's why. A vision statement really gives the direction. It says this is where we're heading. This is where we feel called by God to go as a church. Our mission statement then makes clear how we plan to get there. So vision is the big picture. Mission is the practical vision in action.
This morning we want to consider this vision statement. This is the vision for what we think Providence is called to. Our vision statement is this: to celebrate the gospel by making disciples of Christ for the glory of God, by the power of the Spirit, for the joy of all peoples. That's our vision. That's where we want to go. That's why we think we're called to exist. It's to go in that direction as a people of God meeting together to worship Him. So to celebrate the gospel by making disciples of Christ for the glory of God, by the power of the Spirit, for the joy of all peoples.
Where do we get that? Well, I think there's evidence and support for each aspect of that vision statement in Scripture. All over the place. But this morning, we're going to look specifically at Ephesians 1. So if you'll turn with me there to Ephesians 1. We'll begin in verse 3 and we will go through verse 14. And we'll spend this morning then looking at 5 distinctives, 5 core elements of that vision statement. And explaining why they're part of a vision statement, why we think it's important that our vision include those things, and how that will mark us as a church. We'll see where we find them here in Ephesians.
6 · The unit delivers a full, uninterrupted reading of Ephesians 1:3-14, establishing the textual foundation for the entire sermon
So first, Ephesians chapter 1, starting at verse 3: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world. That we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, that is, Christ, things in heaven and things on earth. In Him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ —might be to the praise of His glory. In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory.
7 · The unit explains the rationale for choosing Ephesians 1 as the grounding text
A lot there. We're not going to come close to covering all of that this morning. We are going to draw out of it, as I was saying, the 5 core elements of our vision statement, show where they find biblical support in just these 11 verses. There's much more biblical support for all of these core elements throughout all of Scripture. We turn to Ephesians because Ephesians is fundamentally a book written by Paul that celebrates and articulates things about the church. People, people have a low regard for the church. People who don't get why the church plays so prominently in God's plan for redemption, or people who don't think that the church does play prominently in God's plan for redemption, those people have not spent much time in Ephesians, or they haven't read Ephesians very accurately. Ephesians looks at the church, looks at the glory of God gathering a people together, redeeming them, saving them for his name, and then placing them in community that they might be sanctified, that they might grow up to maturity in Christ for the sake of his glory. So Ephesians is the perfect place to lift out a vision statement for Providence.
8 · The unit restates the vision statement and pivots to the first of five core elements
Before we look at these 5 core elements, let's look one time, one more time, at the vision statement itself. The vision of Providence is to celebrate the gospel by making disciples of Christ for the glory of God by the power of the Spirit for the joy of all peoples. We feel God is calling us to this. It's the direction we want to go. So first, core value of our vision. Our vision at Providence is that we will be first gospel-centered.
9 · The unit defends the term 'gospel-centered' against charges of trendiness by grounding it in the gospel's centrality to Scripture's grand narrative
Now, gospel-centered, maybe some of you are thinking, that's a new phrase, haven't heard that before. Others of you are probably thinking, oh yeah, gospel-centered, heard that about 1,000 times. It's not meant to be clichéd. It might get thrown around in a clichéd way, It's become popular in some circles, it's become trendy to talk about being gospel-centered, to stress that we are gospel-centered people, that what we do is gospel-centered in orientation, that our church is gospel-centered. Well, that popularity and trendiness, that's not why this is a part of our vision statement at Providence. It's there because the gospel is the fulcrum of all Scripture. There is a great storyline the Bible tells, and all parts of the Bible are weaving their aspect in the great tapestry that tells the story of what God is doing, of God the Creator coming and seeking to redeem a broken creation and rebellious people for the sake of His name, to take them and to gather them and to redeem them in Christ and to save them. And as you can just tell, That storyline has many different characters. From Noah to Abraham, Joshua, David, the prophets, the disciples, the early church. We are a part of that storyline, although we don't find ourselves in Scripture. And the Gospel is at the center of it. So since the Bible is utterly Gospel-centered and since Paul the Apostle instructed the church here in Ephesians and in other places to be utterly gospel-centered, since the apostles have that intention, we're going to plant our flag on the hill of gospel centrality. Which is just a way of saying, being gospel-centered is a hill that we will die on. So, if it becomes untrendy, in all circles to talk about being gospel-centered, we still will. Even if some people attack and hate this message, we will still love it and we will still promote it. Even if it begins to be persecuted, even if it comes to the place where there is persecution being lobbied at us because of the gospel, because of our clinging to the gospel as the core of who we are. Whether those persecutions are cultural or financial or political or otherwise, we will still celebrate Christ and Him crucified. We will die on this hill because Jesus died on a hill.
10 · The unit defines 'gospel-centered' by exegeting Ephesians 1:7, identifying redemption through Christ's blood and forgiveness of trespasses as the gospel's core
But what do we mean by that term? Gospel-centered. Well, it's more than one sub-point in a sermon on our vision statement. There are great books being written about this topic. I encourage you to go read them. Do a Google search. Type into Amazon "gospel-centered." Things will pop up. Read them. It's helpful. But there's a definition for this phrase that at least in part we can unpack right here in the middle of this passage. The center of this passage, you could even say, strikes at the nature of the Gospel. In verse 7, it says, "In Him"— that is, in Christ— "we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace." That's what we mean when we talk about the Gospel. We're talking about the perfect life, the substitutional death, and the resurrection of Christ. It means that we want everything that we do as a church, as a body of believers, as the bride of Christ, as providence, to revolve around and find connection to the perfect life and the perfect death of Jesus. If something we're doing doesn't have a connection with it, then it's not worth doing. Or we better figure out how to establish correctly that connection.
11 · The unit identifies the paragraph's two-part structure: God's mighty saving acts in Christ and the repeated emphasis that 'we' are the beneficiaries
The letter draws our attention to two things again and again and again in this paragraph. Verse 3 to verse 14, he just cycles through again and again. Paul shows us the details of God's mighty saving acts in Christ. We talk about there's a lot of meat in this passage. You could do a sermon series that would be 14 sermons long just working your way verse by verse through this passage as Paul details all that God has done to save His people in Christ. That's the first thing that comes to the forefront of the paragraph. The other thing is this: each time and in every way when God extends His hand to save, The beneficiaries of that grace are us. The cross, it says, is for us. Election and adoption is for us. The gospel is a story of God moving to save a people. And Paul wants that people, people saved by that God, to be forever obsessively aware and reminded that we, the church, are the beneficiaries of God's gracious saving activity.
12 · The unit transitions from gospel-centrality to Christ-focus by highlighting the shift from the gospel as message to the person the gospel celebrates
So we want to be gospel-centered. We will die on the hill of gospel centrality. But our vision statement doesn't just highlight that we will celebrate the gospel at Providence. It calls us to celebrate the individual who is at the center of the gospel. So just as we desire to celebrate the gospel, we also want to celebrate the thing that the gospel celebrates above all else.
13 · The unit establishes the second core element—Christ-focus—by contrasting cultural self-absorption with the gospel's true center: Jesus
Now, just so we're clear, in an age of social media narcissism, no one in this room is the person at the center of the gospel. Sometimes Facebook status updates and Twitter, a blog that you diligently keep and nobody reads, might lead you to think that you're a bigger deal than you are. When we say we want to look at the person who's at the center of the gospel, we're not talking about anyone in this room. I'm not talking about myself. I'm not talking about you. I'm not talking about any hero that you have, your favorite author. We're talking about Jesus. And so our first core value of our vision is we're gospel-centered. The second is that we're Christ-focused.
14 · The unit explains why Christ-focus is necessary alongside gospel-centrality
Now that could almost seem redundant, right? Okay, we're gonna be gospel-centered and Christ-focused. Isn't that sort of the same thing? Yes, but it's the same thing repeated with a very intentional emphasis. Even though it seems obvious that Jesus is what the gospel shines a spotlight on, we can often operate as if we're at the center of the story. Just take the illustration of sin. Now, saying we're going to be gospel-centered means we're going to have to talk about and deal with sin. It's going to have to be a part of the ebb and flow of our life here, is that we're not going to just let it go by. We're going to address it. We're going to seek to fight it. And we're going to acknowledge it for what it is. Both in the culture at large and in our own lives. The gospel deals with sin. You can't deal with the gospel without dealing with sin. We're broken, rebellious, corrupt people. This world is a broken, depraved place. The gospel is God's answer for how He provides escape from sin. But if we're not careful, we can consider sin something that the gospel deals with and never get over thinking about ourselves in relation to sin. It's what David Pawlisin calls being caught up in the vortex of introspection. You just, you're like an onion. You peel back layer after layer after layer after layer of sin in your heart, looking for the next root. What's the ultimate root of this? Well, that's gonna be a long search. Because your heart is one fickle place. In the process of dealing with sin, something the gospel deals with, we become so sin-obsessed that we become self-obsessed and we lose sight of the gospel and the person about whom the gospel is celebrating. We will talk about sin, but not because we want to be obsessively introspective. But because we know that our sin is what Jesus died to purge us of. And because in seeking to put it to death, we'll be seeking to have more of Jesus and be seeking to be more like Him. And that's just one example of an aspect of the gospel that if we're not careful, somehow in concentrating on it, can turn our gaze away from Jesus.
15 · The unit catalogs the 'in Him' phrases from Ephesians 1, showing that every spiritual blessing is inseparable from Christ
You can't read Ephesians 1 and not be aware of God's saving activity and the fact that Jesus is central to every aspect of it. We've been, listen as follows, according to this passage, blessed in Christ. We've been chosen in Him. We'll be made holy before Him. We've been predestined for adoption through Him. We've been redeemed and forgiven through His blood. We've seen how the Father's will is set forth in Him. We've obtained an inheritance in Him. We are the first to hope in Him. And we are sealed with the Spirit in Him. Every one of those things is an aspect of the Gospel that needs unpacking and needs application to our lives. Considering being chosen in Him has application for your life in particular ways. Being made holy has application for your life in particular ways. Being blessed in Christ should affect the way that you orient your life, the way that you live. Knowing that you're adopted as a son of God has implications for how you view yourself and how you view God and how you relate to Him. Being redeemed and forgiven, knowing aspects of the will of God Almighty, knowing that God Almighty has promised you an inheritance, being sealed with the Spirit— those are all aspects of the gospel that when we say we're gospel-centered means we're going to take those things and bring them to bear on our lives in significant ways. We want to live in light of them. We want to apply them to our marriages, to our understanding of what it means to go into the workplace, what it means to engage with my neighbor, what it means to let down my guard and allow someone to speak into my life. And every one of those things has an implicit make that explicit connection to Jesus. You can't do those things without acknowledging the way they connect to a person.
16 · The unit defends redundancy in emphasizing Christ-focus
Paul's making a point. He knows it's possible to be consumed by the spiritual blessings of the gospel while at the same time lose sight of the main purpose of the gospel. So let's be redundant. Let's call it repetitive. But like Paul, we'll be just fine with redundance and repetition. If it means we highlight again and again and again Jesus at the center of our gospel. Fundamentally, Providence will be a people pursuing a person. We will be a people pursuing a person because that person pursued us. The word points us to the Word. The greatest good of the gospel is not redemption and forgiveness, but the one who purchased and delivered them to us so that ultimately we might be found in him.
17 · The unit applies gospel-centrality and Christ-focus to four areas of church life: worship, community, generosity, and compassion
Now having said all of that, here are some areas where the distinctives of being gospel-centered and Christ-focused come to the surface for a church. Areas that they come into focus. This is not the whole list. Not even close. I think these are distinctives that we should hope to see at Providence if we are a church that is gospel-centered and is Christ-focused. Here's the first one. We should see a distinctive look and feel to our corporate worship. We should see it and taste it and smell it in our preaching and our singing and our praying when we gather together. Everything about our gathering together should make obvious the value of Jesus. When people consumed with Jesus gather to worship, the Savior is everywhere. Songs combine deep theological wonder at the grace we find in Christ with profound passion and expression. Preaching makes its way to Christ appropriately in every text. It shows us not the morality of the text, although there's plenty of texts that talk about morality that we need to understand and appropriate, They ultimately show us the greater meaning of morality in the face of Jesus. Appropriate connections with every scripture to the Savior. It shows us in worship the cross-section of Jesus and our hearts. It shows us where Jesus challenges our idols, how He flips our idols on their head and how he conquers them, and how in himself he offers something better. Here's another distinctive of a church that's gospel-centered and Christ-focused. You see it in the community of that body of believers. Community is kind of a popular word, kind of a catchphrase, right? Churches aren't anti-community today. Providence Uncommunity Church. Nobody has that name. People want to promote that we do community here. Well, not all community looks the same. A church centered on the gospel and focused on Christ will find community that orients itself around those values, around the things most central to the gospel, most central to being focused on Christ. So gospel counsel that happens in community doesn't give therapeutic answers. It's not about propping up someone's self-esteem. It's about giving them promises of God. It's about showing them where God's grace and his power intersects with their need and their situation. Connects people to specific aspects of Christ's work and its benefits. It promotes sanctification in community and calls people in community to holiness. But it doesn't do this through manipulation or through moralism or through guilt. It empowers men and women to fight to claw for godliness. And it does this by connecting them to their being transformed by Christ and the way in which he has saved them. In a community that really truly values being gospel-centered and Christ-focused, fellowship is not an optional convenience. If you really claim to value those two things, fellowship, being sharpened, coming together for the purpose of growing and maturing and sharing and serving and giving your life, that's not something that you just take or leave. It becomes a way of life. It was a way of life for Jesus and his disciples. Men and women gathering intentionally to bring grace and care and accountability and service and help and prayer to one another, all with the intention of assisting each other in clinging more intentionally and more firmly to Jesus, to apply the gospel to their lives. Here's another distinctive of a community, a body of believers. That values the gospel and focuses and turns its gaze upon Christ, there's generosity. People constantly bringing the extravagant grace of God to the forefront of their lives, they can't help but be extravagantly generous in return. If a community claims to love the cross, claims to celebrate the cross, claims to meditate on the cross, and isn't generous with its time and its resources, its gifts, its money, its schedules, those people are only giving lip service. He has given us His Son. He has given us His Son. When He's given us His Son, He's given us His Son that He might be put to death in our place, that we who deserve death might have life. He has promised us a place in His kingdom. He has promised us an inheritance. People that meditate on those things, that cherish those things, They are not miserly. They serve and sacrifice and give and find joy in doing so. Why? Because Jesus became poor for our sake so that through his poverty we might become rich. 2 Corinthians 8:9. When a church embraces this, they become radically generous towards others. The early church didn't just give out of their excess. It wasn't just the wealthy members of the early church making sacrifices. It talks about the voluntary decisions of the people to sell their possessions for the needs they saw around them, for the sake of the gospel and the sake of promoting the ministry of the gospel, so that Jesus Christ would be promoted and would build a people and grow a people and mature people in their midst, and that the name of Christ would go out into their communities, into their neighborhoods, even to the ends of the earth. That's a huge ambition for a bunch of people with no airplanes, no nuclear-powered ships, no cars, no bicycles. Thankfully, they had some Roman roads, I guess. Even the needy in their midst, Paul says, gave generously. There's another distinction. Last one, there could be more. They're marked by compassion. Pride is something that is crushed at the cross. If guests or unbelievers, broken people come through the doors of Providence or interact with the people of Providence and they sense judgment here, they are not visiting a church that's being changed by the gospel. Christ's taking on flesh didn't decrease his compassion. It made him sympathetic with us in every way. In the same way, having our hopelessness revealed to us in the gospel should never produce arrogance or cold shoulders. It shouldn't produce cliquishness. That means I reach out and engage with the guest who, at first glance, maybe seems like they're like me. It means if somebody walks in that door and they stink of alcohol, my heart is filled with compassion. Here is a broken person in need of a Savior, and I have the good news to give to them. To consider Christ's perfections and our imperfections, His willingness to exchange the two, that changes the way you interact with broken people. Your heart breaks and reaches out to those who are different and hopeless. You don't look for those who appear cleaned up. You don't look for those who appear put together. You don't look for those who appear like, "I think they value all the exact same things that I value. I'll introduce myself to them and be kind to them and invite them over." And it means you don't concern yourself with constantly appearing like you're all cleaned up and put together. There's a vulnerability and a transparency that the gospel brings out of people. Because they know the appearance of perfection, that doesn't save. And so they don't promote it. And they don't fake it. And they don't expect it from others. It's the way Jesus interacted with the broken around him. He extended them much compassion.
18 · The unit introduces the third core element—Spirit-empowerment—by highlighting the vision statement's Trinitarian structure
Third core aspect of our vision: that we would be Spirit-empowered. Now, I hope you picked up on the Trinitarian language of our vision statement. That was intentional. I think a good vision statement should be Trinitarian because our God is Trinitarian. Having a conversation before the service. Our God is not the God of the Jehovah's Witnesses. He's not the God of Mormonism. He's not the God of Islam. Our God is gloriously Trinitarian. One God, three persons: Father, Son, and Spirit. Well, the passage in Ephesians 1 is bookended with references to the third person of the Godhead. I don't want the Spirit to become an afterthought in the culture of Providence. And the direction of this church. So listen, Ephesians 1:3: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Verse 13: In Him, in Christ, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, the Spirit who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it. To the praise of His glory. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't want to leave out of my vision statement the part of the Trinity that guarantees I'm getting an inheritance, right? That seems like an important thing to include in what we're going to be about. Everything we've received in Christ that's highlighted here as spiritual blessings— Paul's not saying there's spiritual and physical and we're dividing them up right now. There are aspects of our inheritance in the heavenly places that are going to be totally physical and tangible, and Paul includes them here. What Paul is saying and drawing attention to is the fact that all gracious gifts we receive in Christ are a part of life in the Spirit. From election to holiness, redemption to forgiveness, adoption to inheritance, the Spirit mediates God's blessings to us. We receive them because we've received the Spirit. So our vision is to pursue God's active, ongoing, empowering presence at Providence in all the ways it's described in the New Testament. For a very simple reason. We want to be aware of and acknowledge and pray for more of God's presence here. Here.
19 · The unit expounds the Spirit's empowering presence by rehearsing Pentecost in Acts 2
In Acts 2, you read about the Spirit breaking onto the scene. And this is a wild deal. This is something that's been prophesied about centuries before. That there is going to come a day when the Lord's anointed comes, and you know what God's going to do? He's going to pour out His Spirit indiscriminately. Not just kings and It's not just prophets and priests that are going to get the Spirit. All God's people will receive the Spirit. In Acts 2, that happens. It's Pentecost. You know what? The Spirit descends. There's tongues of fire. The apostles are in front of this crowd of diaspora Jews, Jews from all over the Roman Empire who've come back to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. They're back for Holy Week. And there's languages from all over the empire. And the apostles start proclaiming the gospel. And these people from all over hear them in their own language. That's the Spirit breaking— Peter preaches the first gospel-centered, Christ-focused sermon in the history of the world, and there's power and authority. Thousands believe because the Spirit is empowering what's happening. The Spirit rushes upon people and it opens their hearts to receive the message. And while some aspects of Pentecost are unrepeatable, it's a unique, distinct event in redemption history, the description in verse 23 of chapter 2 should not be. As the Spirit works, verse 23 said this is what happened: Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe. They're marveling. God is present with His people. God is working in our midst. Do you sense His nearness right now? We want that nearness. We want that empowering presence. I love how Lloyd-Jones puts this: Men and women, when they are truly awakened, when they're born again, begin to realize there's nothing so serious as to be without the presence of God. To be given every other blessing is of no value if God isn't with you. Every blessing of the heavenly places. Every blessing of the heavenly places. We don't really have any analogy for what those blessings are going to be like. You can find the coolest mansion in the coolest neighborhood of Johnson County and it will pale in comparison. Every blessing of the heavenly places, everything that we're talking about, all of that is worthless apart from the presence of God. What's the forgiveness of sins if it doesn't bring you into God's presence? What's eternal life if it doesn't bring with it fellowship? With the risen and enthroned Lamb of God. I pray it will be our testimony that when we gather, we can leave in awe, saying, "God was in that place."
20 · The unit introduces the fourth core element—joy-spreading—by grounding joy in the gospel's ultimate purpose: bringing us to Christ for satisfaction
Fourth core: that we would be a people who are joy spreading. The Gospel brings us to Christ for the sake of our joy. Now, I talk about joy a lot because I think it's really important. I inherited that from the two most significant pastors in my adult life. They talked about joy a lot because when they read the Scriptures and when they examined the human life and the human heart, they saw the Scriptures talk about enjoying God. The Scriptures hold up the importance of knowing God, and if you really know Him, you will be satisfied in Him. And they looked at human lives and said, people orient their lives around what they think will bring them pleasure. I'm going to invest time, I'm going to invest money, I'm going to pursue hard after whatever I think will make me happiest. The Spirit makes us alive to Christ. Christ to purge us of leaky pleasures, to give us satisfaction with the one true pleasure. There's nothing explicitly in this passage that says joy, but you can't tell me joy isn't dripping from these verses. You can't tell me Paul's experience of joy and anticipation of its fullness isn't behind the inspiration the Spirit gives him as he lays out the spiritual blessings we will have in Christ. You think there's going to be spiritual blessings in Christ without infinite joy? Not a chance. Discipleship, which will be central to our mission as we'll see next week and the weeks to come, discipleship is about joy. Discipleship is about increasing joy. It's about finding true joy. The pursuit of God is a fight to find satisfaction in our souls. Doctrine and singing and prayer and preaching and fellowship are not the end in and of themselves. They are means to the end. They are means to the source of joy. They're means of seeking and finding Jesus. And if we discover God in Christ, if we find Jesus, you will find joy.
21 · The unit applies joy-spreading to the life of the church
If we found joy in Christ, here's the other piece of that. If you've tasted that, if you've experienced it, others should be able to see it. If we experience the presence of God and authentically know the power of His resurrection, our joy will be evident. Not in a happy, everything always goes my way sort of way. Not in a cheesy way. That guy is just like obnoxiously, weirdly joyful. That's not the kind of joy that Paul talks about. That's not infectious. And not in some vague notion of positive and encouraging. I'm talking about genuinely joyful in Jesus. Where that joy is real, that joy will be spread indiscriminately. People who cherish the gospel do not hoard the gospel. They share it. They long to share it. They look for opportunities to share it. They strategize as they lay asleep, as they lay awake in bed at night, thinking, "How can I share the Gospel? How can I make a connection of the Gospel with my neighbor? How can I bring it to my coworker? How can I bring it to my cousin? I've shared it 10 times already. There's gotta be a fresh way that I can bring it." They want people to sense the way they've been changed by the gospel, and they want to draw attention to the gospel because they know and they've experienced the horror of being hopeless. So they love extending compassion to the brokenhearted and shining the light of the gospel on the hearts of the blind. A church without joy is a church that is forgetful of the gospel. If there's not real significant joy at Providence, we are missing something about Jesus. But a church that doesn't seek to share and spread that joy hasn't adequately grasped the glory of God.
22 · The unit introduces the fifth and final core element—glory-driven—by positioning God's glory as the ultimate purpose behind all other convictions
Last one: our vision is to be glory driven. There is one supreme— there's lots of purposes, secondary purposes. There is one ultimate supreme purpose behind making the gospel central and making Christ our focus, behind pursuing the Spirit and fighting for joy at providence: the glory of God. That should be and must be the thing that drives us. That is the thing that sustains all of the other convictions, is that we would be consumed with the glory of God. And here's why: because God is consumed with the glory of God. 3 times Paul explains why God has done all the things he's done in Ephesians 1. Our adoption as sons through Christ, verse 6, was to the praise of his glorious grace. Both our inheritance in verse 12, and hope and salvation are ultimately, Paul says, to the praise of His glory. He's sprinkling strategically that phrase in this paragraph to point us to 3 different spots. The purpose of all the things that I'm describing, the benefits and the person of Christ, is that God would be made magnificently glorious. God's glory is meant to be the great ambition and drive of His people.
23 · The unit defines God's glory: it is God's character and holiness made public
Now, what is the glory of God? Here's a brief synopsis of what God's glory is. It's God going public with His character and His holiness. Creation, and man as the pinnacle creation, all of the universe are designed for one purpose, one purpose only: to glorify God, to draw attention to the object most worthy of attention. Now, there can be this mistaken notion that by saying we want to be about God's glory and we want to glorify God, that somehow if we're really good at this, if we really latch on to this vision, then we're going to make God more glorious. We're going to add to His glory. That's not what's going on here.
24 · The unit illustrates the nature of glorifying God using two cultural analogies: Heisman campaigns and movie previews
Two examples I thought of. The first, it's football season, so bear with me. Heisman campaigns start, right? The Heisman Trophy given to quote unquote the greatest college football player in the country. Really the best college football player on one of the best teams is what it's about. But if you're a school and you think you're going to be competitive and you think you've got one of those guys, you start a Heisman campaign. And you put up billboards and you start a website and you start a Twitter hashtag. To promote your Heisman candidate. What you're doing with that campaign is not going to change the ability of that player. You can put together the most incredible Heisman campaign in the history of college sports, and it's not going to guarantee that the player is suddenly more athletic, that the quarterback can throw crisper spirals, that the running back is faster, that the wide receiver can jump higher. Case in point, Joey Harrington. Some of you know who that is. Most of you don't, because he had a Heisman campaign that was unable to increase his glory. Here's another one. Movies. Movie previews. You go to the movies, and now there's like 30 minutes of previews before the movie starts. What they're doing is they're trying to stir up and draw attention to the movie. They're trying to spotlight and show you how significant this movie is, how great this movie is going to be, how much it's going to change your life. You ever been to a preview and thought, "Wow! I got to see that movie!" And you go to the movie and think, "I just wasted 2 hours of my life. A great preview doesn't add to the significance and the weightiness of the movie. That's what's going on here. We don't add to God's glory. We reflect it and acknowledge it and we call attention to it. His holiness and His character remain unchanged. His glory isn't diminished. It's not added to. Listen to how Edwards, I love this, connects Christ and our glory and our joy with God's glory. Sometimes only mentioning the name of Christ or an attribute of God will cause my heart to burn within me. Suddenly, God appears glorious to me. God's not more glorious in that moment. Edwards sees the glory more clearly. When I enjoy, when I find joy, this sweetness, it seems to carry me outside of myself. I cannot bring myself even to take my eye from this glorious object. What Edwards describes is what I want to pursue. That we would obsessively contemplate God in Christ, that our hearts would burn with passion at the sight of God's glory.
25 · The unit returns to Ephesians 1, showing that Paul's entire argument is designed to move the reader from seeing God's saving work to responding in worship
Paul's entire concern in this paragraph is to highlight the mighty saving activity of God and to cause us, as those people who've been saved, to see God's worth and then to respond. To the praise of His glorious grace. To the praise of His glory. To the praise of His glory. Paul wants people to see and identify, to magnify and glorify in response. That's how he starts. "Blessed be the God of our Lord." He's not saying, "I hope God gets a blessing today." No, he's saying, "Blessed be God." Glory be acknowledged in God because He's blessed us in Christ. Bless Him, glorify Him, magnify Him, celebrate Him, make much of God because He's blessed us. And it echoes throughout the passage and it echoes throughout the pages of Scripture.
26 · The unit grounds glory-driven vision in God's self-revelation as a jealous God
We must be a church driven by the glory of God because that is what God is driven by. He is a jealous God. He reveals Himself in that way in the book of Exodus. "You tell them My name, and you tell them that I am jealous, jealous for My glory." In 1 Samuel 12:22, in relation to God making a people, "For the Lord Yahweh will not forsake His people." Why won't He do that? Why are we promised that He'll always be with us? For what purpose? For His great name's sake. Because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for Himself, for His glory.
27 · The unit cites Isaiah 46:9 and 48:11 to show that God accomplishes His purposes 'for His own sake'—He is jealous that His name not be profaned and refuses to give His glory to another
Isaiah 46:9, remember the former things of old, for I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like Me. I declare the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose. Why? For my own sake. For my own sake I do it. For how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.
28 · The unit cites Isaiah 43, showing that God gathers a people from the ends of the earth—a people He created for His glory
Listen to me, O Jacob and Israel, Providence whom I called. I am He. I am the first and I am the last. Isaiah 43: I will say to the north, give up, and to the south, do not withhold. Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth. God gathering a people. Pursuing a people. Saving a people. Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory. Verse 25: I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake. I will not remember your sins.
29 · The unit synthesizes the fifth core element by moving from exposition to implication
God is zealous for His glory, and so His people should be zealous for nothing less. And that should be reflected in our priorities, in our schedules, in our time, in our passion. God's glory is the radiance of His manifest perfections, the radiance of His holiness, and He is jealous for His glory. He is driven by it. And so our vision is to celebrate the gospel by making disciples of Christ for the glory of God by the power of the Spirit for the joy of all people.
30 · The closing prayer gathers the sermon's five core elements into doxology
Lord, we want to see your name lifted high. We want our lives and our passions, we want the things that we invest our time in, we want the things that it's evident to the people around us that we care about, we want all all of those things to reflect your glory, to highlight your glory, to make much of your worth. You've saved us. You've blessed us. You've made us who were not a people, a people. And you've done all that in Christ. And you caused us to be born again to a living hope by the power of your Spirit. And You've done it so that we would have joy. And in Your infinite wisdom and unsearchable kindness, You designed that we would find joy in a way that brings You the most glory. So God, help us. Help us to be driven by your name and your glory. That Jesus would be cherished and treasured here at Providence and increasingly in the spheres of influence that we have. Do it for your name.