If you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Saviour, that He has died on the cross for your forgiveness and redemption….if you have received Him as the Lord of you life,…then you have been adopted as a child of God.
Chosen…..called……set apart… by the love of God.
God initiates.
Because even though you have made that choice and decision to follow Jesus, it was Him who suffered and died for you, who drew you, who initiated the reconciliation and made it possible. When we begin to realise this, we start to have a sense of our responsibility to present the whole of our lives as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.
For to be holy, is to be set apart for God, dedicated wholly to Him.
When Jesus called the first disciples, and said follow me, think about what He was doing.
Leave the false security of your job and trust me. Leave the past behind and come with me to a better future. No longer live for yourself but live for me.
They left everything to follow Him, it was a total commitment……a risk, for at that point they didn’t fully know who Jesus was.
We do.
We have the Bible telling us of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and so on. 2000 years of testimony, of lives transformed by the Lord – murders, rapists, thieves, thugs, drug addicts, rich and poor, men and women, from every nation, …..transformed by the living God.
The evidence is overwhelming of who Jesus is.
So yes there is a step of faith……but it’s not quite the risk it was for the first disciples when they left their nets, Matthew his desk, or whatever.

Read Luke 9:57-62.

We have to die to the ‘yes buts’.

‘I’ll follow you, but I expect riches, material security, healing for my body, to sort out all my problems’.
We want something in return for our allegiance. But it’s arrogance.
What we forget is that God has already given to us…..we are responding to His abundant grace and love. God has made us and sustains our lives. He made us to live in a loving relationship with Him and each other, but we have rebelled against Him and gone our own way. We hurt ourselves, we hurt each other, and sadden and anger God.
We deserve hell (I had no doubt).
But God the Father sent Jesus His only Son, to humble himself and become a human being, to suffer a terrible death in our place…..so that we could be forgiven and have the opportunity to know that loving relationship with God.

Read 1 John 4:7-16.

God has taken the initiative and calls for us to respond to Him.
Unreservedly, no buts, no negotiation, no game playing…..YES LORD !
A servant should not demand certain conditions of service. They have given up their rights to serve another. As we grow older it’s easy to slip into the worlds expectations – more money, more status, more respect, and so on.
Where does it say that in the Bible ?
In human terms Jesus’ life ended in humiliation. Documents and tradition has it that except for Judas and John, all the original disciples were martyred, often having been imprisoned and tortured previously. They didn’t have big houses, flash cars, prestige, status, earthly security.
In fact Paul uses a very strong word for some of these things that were important to him before he met with Jesus Christ (Phil. 3).

If anyone would come after me, they must deny themselves, take up their cross daily and follow me. Whoever wants to save, to hang on to, their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for me will save it.

As we look forward to the year ahead, I encourage you to aim for a year of :
Discipleship – becoming like Him - In character, by power of His Spirit. Think of what discipleship involves – learning, listening, copying and following.
Aim for a year of Growth – we are in a process of change. Don’t settle for anything less than growth. If you don’t think you need to grow, then your either incredibly proud, or ready to go and be with the Lord….praise God. But most of us need to grow and develop. Why ?
Because the Lord wants us to be the best that we can be, to be like Him, and to be fruitful. We’re not just called to be disciples but to make disciples. Fruitfulness. You can’t make the fruit come, but you can do what is needed for God to grow fruit through you. He does it by His Spirit – but we can either let Him do it or hinder it.

Read John 15:4,5.

Aim for a year of Movement – Stepping forwards in faith. Trusting God. Stretching your tent pegs wide. Taking risks in the Spirit.
They’re not risks of course, because you can trust God completely……but humanly speaking they appear to be – risk of failure, risk of lack of resources, risk of looking foolish.
But if the Lord has said it…we obey.
And there’s the hardest risk of all…how do we know it’s the Lord ?
You won’t like the answer, but most of you know it already……if you seek the Lord, spend time with Him in His word and in prayer, if you listen, if you surrender yourself….in Jesus words….if you remain in me and my word remains in you…..then you will have the mind of Christ, you’ll be in such close fellowship with His Spirit that you’ll know His will.
Jesus said, ‘I know my sheep and my sheep know me’.
Make it a year of moving forward…..not with your own ideas…not in your own strength….but in the will and purposes of God for your life. Move forward with Jesus.

What can hold you back ? – only you, only your sin.
Satan, evil spirits, sin, …Biblically have no power over a true Christian, unless you give it to them. Christ has set you free, don’t LET yourself be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Don’t LET sin reign in your mortal body. It’s a choice.

The main enemies - pride, fear, doubt – most sinful actions can be traced back to these at the source. Lust, bitterness, jealousy….behind them are usually fears and insecurities. Pride and doubt then compete to stop us letting God deal with these things.
Recognise these enemies, recognise the root sin and not just the symptoms, …confess them without excuse, bring them to God and let Him deal with them.
Because you will never know the fullness of God in your life if you knowingly hang on to them.

Humility, love, courage, faith, self control, power – these are the things to seek from the Lord.

There has been a lot of talk in the past 10 years or so of tolerance, …..but also of zero tolerance, usually referring to crime in some way.
Don’t tolerate sin in your life. Don’t get used to it, don’t get comfortable with it’s presence.
I’m not talking about the occasional slip up….I mean ongoing specific sin.
Ongoing sin, and the guilt and despair usually associated with it will always drag you down, and the people around you.
It can cloud your judgement and thinking.
It can sap your physical strength and damage your health.
It can cause you to focus on yourself rather than God.
It effects your relationships.

You think your sin doesn’t effect others ? – the body of Christ, Achan (36 people died as a result of his sin).

If you’re making excuses for your sin let go of those excuses – it’s inherited, it’s my circumstances, it’s illness.
But it’s the same with any sin, sin enslaves, it is by nature addictive – lust, jealousy, pride, gluttony. Confess it, let go of it, accept the truth that Jesus has dealt with it.

Jesus will set us free…no problem. But we need to want it with all our heart, not just part.
To want Jesus, and have nothing more to do with sin. He has the power…but the choice is ours.
There is following our sinful desires which leads to death, or following Jesus that is life – eternal life and life in all it’s fullness now. No middle ground, a simple choice.

We live in a culture that blames others and other things as a matter of course.
Excuses for everything - It’s my genes, it was the way my parent’s treated me, it’s an illness over which I have no control. They may be the reason why you have a tendancy to a particular sin, but not one of these are given as an excuse for sin in Scripture.
So what are you going to believe – the world, or God’s word ?

You are a child of God. Live like one. God has called and chosen you. Live a life worthy of that calling. Live for Jesus.

Your sin effects others yes, so sort it, …..but positively, so does your obedience to Jesus.
Whether you like it or not, if you’re a follower of Jesus, then you are part of the Church of Jesus Christ.
There’s no option when you come to Christ. An angel doesn’t appear with a questionnaire – ‘tick here if you want to be part of the church, and here if you want to go it alone’.
You are a child of God, so is every other believer, you are brothers and sisters in Christ. Jesus is building His church – a people, a temple of living stones, a body with parts all working together, a bride. These are pictures of relationship, of unity, of each person playing their part for the whole, of joint purpose.

What is His purpose for His Church ?

The purpose of Church is to :
- love God – glorify Him
- love others, esp. each other
- make disciples, preach Gospel – that’s why the world continues and why we’re still here and not in heaven now.

We the Church, as Israel was called to, are to display to world what God is like and what He requires. It is both by our lifestyle, actions, the way we behave, ….and proclaiming, praising God, declaring His Word. Both are essential.

So what does our corporate life together communicate ? - love, compassion, grace, holiness, truth, justice, righteousness – the qualities of God ?

The advantage we have now under the new covenant, is that God has empowered all believers by His Spirit to do it. We have the power of God within us, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. It’s not pie in the sky, a hopeless dream…..the Lord is doing it.

His bride will be beautiful and radiant on her wedding day. But that may mean a purging has to take place, a purifying, a separation. The way that usually happens in industry is by heat or pressure. Persecution more than anything else separates true from false believers, the challenge to stand up and be counted as His, or to deny Him.
Don’t wait to be forced to choose. Choose Him now.

This purpose for the Church to display and glorify God is the same for the Church in every generation, wherever it is in the world.
But specifically we ask God how He wants us to do that here…in Lostwithiel and this area of Cornwall. And we seek to be obedient to what He reveals.

I shared last week some of what I believe God is doing and saying. The words I used earlier express some of that – discipleship, growth, movement .
Isaiah 54 - Enlarging the place of our tent - the stretching of tent curtains, cords, and pegs – personally stretched, taken farther, ….and as a Church.

Putting things in place that God can use. But these only serve the vision and purposes of God.

It’s all about Jesus, Him being glorified, His Kingdom expanding, His Church being built.
We need to keep focussed not on things and structures, but on Jesus.
The best preparation of all, is the preparation of ourselves, offered wholly to Him.