How are you growing spiritually? What is God doing in your heart and life? How are you being changed?
Goal
Christianity is not primarily about learning.
As the 5:10 study, we read more about the gospel message. We learn the implications of the message. We come to a deeper understanding of the life and hope God has given us in Christ. Our minds grasp and understand wonderful things!
Even though this is extremely important, this is not Christianity.
I hope that all our learning leads us on to true Christianity, but to assume learning is Christianity is dangerous. Christianity is not about learning. True Christianity is about Jesus Christ. It is about the one who died to bring us into the kingdom of God by grace, saving sinners by faith and renewing them together by faith.
Jesus is Christianity. That is why John can say "He who has the Son has the life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have the life" (1 John 5:12). Jesus saves the one who has faith in him. By faith, we who know Jesus are "being transformed in [his] image" (2 Corinthians 3:18).
If Christianity is about Jesus saving sinners and changing the saved together through what he accomplished for us on the cross, we should see that happening among us in the 5:10.
On Friday nights, we do not want to see just learning going on. As a group, we want to be meeting Jesus together, and we want to see him changing us together.
How?
How can we experience Christ and his gospel together? How can we experience our sin, God's holiness, and the power of the cross together?
This is where the plan for Friday night takes its shape.
The goal is to see our lives transformed by Christ's gospel through:
1) emptying our hearts before him in prayer (1st week of the month)
2) taking in the gospel together (2nd week of the month)
3) living out the implications of that free grace together by freely serving and reaching out to others (3rd week of the month)
We start each month praying and worshiping, emptying our hearts before him and eachother. "Blessed are the poor in spirit" becomes our text and we come to God aware of our brokenness and aware of His great provision in Christ (Matthew 5:3).
The next week, we look into that great provision, the gospel of Jesus. This gospel challenges us to forsake our sin and self-righteousness and find ourselves completely in Jesus.
This then motivates what comes next. Paul tells Titus that Jesus "gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works" (Titus 2:14). Jesus bought me, made me his, made me part of his own people, and this teaches me to be zealous for good works. ZEALOUS! Driven by passion to serve others.
Why? Because we want to be good?
NO! It is because Christ bought us, purified us, and did it all without charge. It's because we are becoming like him. As we understand the glory of the cross and all he has given us, we become generous givers of ourselves.
It is our prayer that this set up will help us to more naturally live and breath the gospel together in order that we will grow toward becoming complete in Jesus together.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Friday, December 19, 2008
The 5 What?
510 Vision - 5:10 Living. This might sound confusing. Let me clarify.
510 Vision
The 510 is the current area code for the East Bay, ranging from Richmond, CA to Fremont, CA. Our main meeting takes place in the middle of the 510, so this is our main area of outreach.
Walk up the hill behind where we meet, or sit in the parking lot at CSUEB. The 510 sits below and brings to one's mind thoughts of how many of them are trapped in lives that they were not created for, lives that degrade them as people instead of bring them to their full potential--to live in the light of their God and bring him glory. This view is our vision: to see the 510 become the recipient of God's free love as he works through his people to his glory.
5:10 Living
The 5:10 is a group of people within the 510 who know that seeing this vision fulfilled will not be done through every man doing what is right in his own eyes. God's love is not some sort of fluffy, marshmallow, teddy-bear love. His love has content and power. In order to show his love we need to understand him, his love, and its influence on us.
First, we need to grasp the message of Romans 5:10:
For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
We were enemies of God. Why? Because we were rebels looking to make ourselves worthy. We did not really want him as God. We wanted to be our own gods. This enmity, God's wrath and our rebellion, was done away with through Jesus. This is love: Jesus lived the life we should have lived (he was worthy), and he died the death we should have died (we are unworthy), and he did this for us. Because Jesus took God's wrath, those who trust in Jesus are no longer under wrath. Because Jesus was worthy, we who trust in Jesus have a relationship with God. We are reconciled. It doesn't stop there though. Because Jesus lives, he didn't stay dead, we have hope that we will never endure God's wrath. We are accepted. Completely. This fact liberates us as the God who saves us continues to change us. This is the sacrificial love with which God reaches out through us.
Second, we need to learn to practice Ephesians 5:10:
finding out what is acceptable to the Lord.
We have been reconciled to him. We have been made acceptable. Now we want to grow in knowing how to do what is acceptable. The love of God, the gift of Christ, and the work of the Spirit change us, and in doing so make us ex-rebels want to do what God wants because we love him. We learn what he wants by prayer, by meditating on his person and his word, and by doing what he wants us to do.
Third, we pray we will realize what we learn from 2 Samuel 5:10:
So David went on and became great, and the LORD God of hosts was with him.
Effectiveness is never because we do anything. We will be of no help to anyone unless God is with us. This does not mean we try to get God on our agenda, but that we live in the light of God's agenda. We see that he is reconciling people, "good" and "bad," to himself. We see that he is changing us as we learn to walk in his light. As God works in us, he is with us. We pray that we will see his presence through changed lives. Not bad people becoming good, but God's enemies becoming worshipers.
This is the 510 Vision that is accomplished through 5:10 Living. This is what we are about. May God be glorified through us.
510 Vision
The 510 is the current area code for the East Bay, ranging from Richmond, CA to Fremont, CA. Our main meeting takes place in the middle of the 510, so this is our main area of outreach.
Walk up the hill behind where we meet, or sit in the parking lot at CSUEB. The 510 sits below and brings to one's mind thoughts of how many of them are trapped in lives that they were not created for, lives that degrade them as people instead of bring them to their full potential--to live in the light of their God and bring him glory. This view is our vision: to see the 510 become the recipient of God's free love as he works through his people to his glory.
5:10 Living
The 5:10 is a group of people within the 510 who know that seeing this vision fulfilled will not be done through every man doing what is right in his own eyes. God's love is not some sort of fluffy, marshmallow, teddy-bear love. His love has content and power. In order to show his love we need to understand him, his love, and its influence on us.
First, we need to grasp the message of Romans 5:10:
For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
We were enemies of God. Why? Because we were rebels looking to make ourselves worthy. We did not really want him as God. We wanted to be our own gods. This enmity, God's wrath and our rebellion, was done away with through Jesus. This is love: Jesus lived the life we should have lived (he was worthy), and he died the death we should have died (we are unworthy), and he did this for us. Because Jesus took God's wrath, those who trust in Jesus are no longer under wrath. Because Jesus was worthy, we who trust in Jesus have a relationship with God. We are reconciled. It doesn't stop there though. Because Jesus lives, he didn't stay dead, we have hope that we will never endure God's wrath. We are accepted. Completely. This fact liberates us as the God who saves us continues to change us. This is the sacrificial love with which God reaches out through us.
Second, we need to learn to practice Ephesians 5:10:
finding out what is acceptable to the Lord.
We have been reconciled to him. We have been made acceptable. Now we want to grow in knowing how to do what is acceptable. The love of God, the gift of Christ, and the work of the Spirit change us, and in doing so make us ex-rebels want to do what God wants because we love him. We learn what he wants by prayer, by meditating on his person and his word, and by doing what he wants us to do.
Third, we pray we will realize what we learn from 2 Samuel 5:10:
So David went on and became great, and the LORD God of hosts was with him.
Effectiveness is never because we do anything. We will be of no help to anyone unless God is with us. This does not mean we try to get God on our agenda, but that we live in the light of God's agenda. We see that he is reconciling people, "good" and "bad," to himself. We see that he is changing us as we learn to walk in his light. As God works in us, he is with us. We pray that we will see his presence through changed lives. Not bad people becoming good, but God's enemies becoming worshipers.
This is the 510 Vision that is accomplished through 5:10 Living. This is what we are about. May God be glorified through us.
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