Text:  Genesis 19:16 When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the LORD was merciful to them.

How many of you are looking back?

• We look back for numerous reasons.  Some look back for money, wealth, status, power, pride, But in this life many time it comes back to money.
• If you want to test your commitment to Christ, try this
• Life is rough, bill are past due.  You say you love the Lord; the bible gives no excuses for not giving your tithes. What will you do?  Is this example holding you back?

Back ground:  Abraham Make a plead

• Three men appeared before Abraham.
• Sodom and Gomorrah was going to be destroyed.
• These three men could have been angels.
• The city was going to be destroyed because it was full of sin.
• Abraham pleaded with the Lord for the righteous if he could find 10 righteous people but there were not.

Angel meets with Lot:

• Lot was sitting at the gateway of the city.
• The Angels accepted an invite to Lot’s Home and ate.
• Men from the city came to Lot’s home to have met with the two men.
• You must remember that the city was full of aggressive homosexuals, bent on raping innocent travelers.
• Lot tried to reason with them, to no avail.
• The two men (angels) blinded the men of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Genesis 19: 12-13 And the men said unto Lot, Hast thou here any besides? son in law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place: (13) For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the LORD; and the LORD hath sent us to destroy it.

• With the coming of dawn, Lot must have his family out of the city.

Lot

• Lot lived in a city of unrighteousness and sin for so long that his witnessing for God made him unbelievable.
• His own future son-in-law thought he was joking.
• Lot hesitated because he had wealthy; he had position, power and comfort.
• Many times we get caught up in the material things in the world and put them before God.
• We call them false attractions or Gods.

Genesis 19: 17 As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!”

• Lot was grateful that he and his family were being spared.
• They went to a small town called Zoar and the city of Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed with all that happen, guess what? Lot’s wife looked back.

How can you make progress while you’re looking back?

Genesis 19: 26 But Lot’s Wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

Lots Wife:

1.     She looked back

2.     She was still clinging to the past.

3.     She was still unwilling to look forward.

4.     It was obvious that she still felt a connection to the City.

5.     This made it impossible to move forward when you are still looking back.

Closing: It’s time to look around and smell the roses. We need to look where the world is going today.  We are in two wars.  The economical structure of our country is failing. The belief system of our nation is in question and there is sickness and disease all around us.

Matthew 6:24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

• We can only serve one God.
• We need to decide where your loyalty lay.
• Again I say to you.

What’s Holding You Back?

Text: 1 Corinthians 12:27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

Last Sunday, I  gave you four reasons why you should join church and  shared I two with you.  Today I will share two more reason:   1)It’s an authority issue 2) It’s a ministry issue.    It’s an authority issue.

• You as a believer are under authority…
• Your  under  the authority of God .
• You  have a personal relationship with Christ
• When  you’re  under the authority of God which means you’re under the authority of  His Word and His commands.

Who is holding you accountable for that?
His Word is the authority and since we are called to obedience.  So how can you call him Lord if you do not do the things that Christ say?

1. In doing what Christ say means, understanding what His Holy Word say.

2. Trust me you will never as a believer come under the true authority of your Lord unless you allow yourself to come under the true meaning of  His Word.

3. It is an authority issue. You have people responsible to provide divine truth to you.

Now let me just expand that a little bit. People who just kind of float over here, they’ll say, “I heard a really good message by this guy…oh this guy over here gave a really interesting…good music over here.” You know, at the end of the day, that might be true. This was good, that was good.  But what you’re lacking is continuity in the Word of God as  a whole revelation. Is that not true?  All Scripture are given by inspiration of God.

• Christian’s today don’t have an understanding that Scripture are systematic, they have integrity.
• They don’t understand the whole revelation.
• They don’t have a sound theology. They just have bits and pieces of little interesting good experiences that don’t connect…the dots don’t connect.  So when we say, at this point, that we’re talking about this particular aspect of the church, it’s really a truth issue.

It’s a ministry issue. why?  Because every believer has been given spiritual gifts. Romans 12:6  lists categories of spiritual gifts.   We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your^[a] faith; ⁷ if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; ⁸ if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead,^[b] do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.

First Corinthians 12 lists categories of gifts. First Peter breaks the categories into two parts, 1 Peter 4, serving gifts, speaking gifts. You’ve been given certain Holy Spirit designed abilities on a spiritual level to minister to people. That’s right. Every believer has that.

Now in Ephesians 4   you have this pattern starting in verse 11. “He gave some as apostles and prophets and evangelists and teaching pastors for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry.” So we equip the saints, the saints do the work of ministry.

What does that mean?

1. You minister to each other using your gifts.

2. Rember that it was  God has gifted you,

3. there are categories, you can read them, 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12, and those are just suggested general categories in which there are all kinds of blending  and possibilities so that you are a spiritual snowflake. Nobody like you. You have a blend. You’ve been painted a color all your own on God’s pallet where He dipped in all those categories and painted you. You have a responsibility to do that ministry, and it says here,

4. “For the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith, the knowledge of the Son of God, a mature man, the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” The Lord builds His body into Christ’s likeness through the ministry of gifts. And he has done the same for you through the Holy Spirit.  First Corinthians 12,

Your gift has been given to you to use to minister, serve, speak, one of those two categories or perhaps even a blending of the two.

You need to use your gift. It doesn’t have to be formal. You don’t have to be in a formal position, wearing a tag and a label and knowing specifically your little gift category. You need a body of people in which the Spirit of God will begin to use you to impact their lives, to cause them to grow spiritually into the image of Christ.

You say, “Could that be actually happening in my life?”  It will happen in your life if you’re a part of a church and you are faithful.  It’s a spiritual issue. It’s a fellowship issue. It’s an authority issue. It’s a ministry issue.

• I read as story about  a Jewish lady who was going to the synagogue  some years ago, they have a Sunday class, she was going to that. She saw all the people flowing into the church. She got caught up in the line, The pastor saw the lady later and she told him she didn’t hear a word that was said…and you know what happens? The pastor was just shocked by her statement, she said that she had never ever been in a group where so much love was being expressed.  She came to Christ.  May that will happen here this morning.

John 13:34 and 35? “By this shall men know that you are My disciples because you have…what?…love for one another.”

1.     It’s  powerful to see a church, experience that kind of  love and have that kind of  life.

2.     if you can say to someone who is not a believer, “You know, Christ has changed my life and I would love to take you to meet some people who have had their lives changed by Christ like me.” It’s a powerful impact. It’s like 1 Corinthians 14 where the unbeliever comes in, falls on his face and says, “God is in this place.” That’s Powerful, that’s love, that’s God.

You know, our corporate testimony supports our individual witness?   So much can be said about belonging to the church, spiritually. And it’s all so obvious. If you belong to the Lord, you belong to the church. You don’t want to be unfaithful to the Lord, but if you’re unfaithful to a local body, you’re unfaithful to the Lord.

Closing:

1. Scripture repeatedly commands Christians to submit to their leaders (Hebrews. 13:17; 1 Thess. 5:12-13). The only way to do that is by publicly committing to be members of their flock, and saying in effect,

“I commit to listening to your teaching, following your direction, and to submitting to your leadership.” There’s no way to obey the scriptural commands to submit to your leaders if you never actually submit to them by joining a local church.

Text: 1 Corinthians 12:27 (NIV)  Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

Since the beginning and the creation of this church, I have talked to many people as to why they should join church.  Many of them have said that, “If I come and worship as often as the members,” “if I fellowship with these believers as much as anyone else, if I profit from the teaching and other ministries of the church, and if I actively demonstrate love for my brothers and sisters in Christ here, If I tithe, why should I formally join the church?”

Why should you join a church, because God never expect his people to be an independent  Christian!

In the more recent years of the seeker movement, they would tell you, if you want to build a church, give people full anonymity. Don’t make them reveal anything about themselves because that scares people away.   Some churches are all about numbers and not about God’s Holy Word-the truth.   The church is the assembly of the redeemed. It is the assembly of those called out of darkness into light. It is the assembly of those who have been called affectionately by God into new life in Christ to become a part of the community of those who believe, the family of God, if you will, the body of Christ, the Kingdom. You are this church because you have made the common confession,  You have confessed Jesus Christ as Lord and believed in your heart God raised Him from the dead. You’ve been saved, therefore you are in the church of Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 13:17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.  Hebrews 13 is telling us that we have an account to give to God for how we shepherd the flock and the first thing that’s very helpful is to know who’s in your flock. And if you were a shepherd in the ancient world, there were no visiting sheep. You didn’t say, “Well, I have my flock and I have my visiting sheep.” Really? “Yeah, they show up about every third day and expect me to feed them and clean them and I don’t see them and they go wherever they want to go and maybe go to some other shepherd for a while.” There’s no such concept. Everybody knew his flock, they knew exactly who was in his flock and he had the responsibility and the accountability to care for his flock.

The first thing you need to know to be a good shepherd is for whom am  I responsible for.  If I have to discharge that responsibility, tell me for whom I am responsible. They kept record and they kept track and they added to the number. These people were believers who had made a profession of Christ openly and were baptized. So it wasn’t hard to identify them, it wasn’t hard to count them. (church of God which is at Corinth, to the church of the Thessalonians as a few examples with leaders such as “Paul and Silvanus and Timothy-).

In other words, you can’t have a church made up of people who are not Christians with only a superficial interest in Jesus. Nor can you have people who are true Christians who are not a part of the church. You are the church. It’s only a question of how faithful you are to discharge your responsibility and to do what the Lord wants you to do as part of the church. You are the church.

I guess we could ask the question…would I want to be a member of a church that was full of people with my level of commitment?

But for some of you, you have been added to the Lord, you’re not added to the church. We don’t know where you belong. You come, you go, you float in, you float out, you’re here, you’re not here.

So, let me give you a few more reasons why you need to belong. Let me say this. I not pushing “Family Praise & Worship”, but it  is a good church, but there are other churches in this area and you need to belong. You need to be faithful to be in the Lord and in the church, known, committed, devoted, responsible and accountable. So again, I say why should one join church?

1.     It is a spiritual issue.          2.     It’s a fellowship issue.

3.     It’s an authority issue       4.    It’s a ministry issue

1 # It’s  a spiritual issue.

• Why would you not say…I want to be a member here, known, loved, taught, respected, helped, ministered.
• Why wouldn’t  you want to be under the leadership, protection, the care, the love by this congregation of assembled believers in this place?”

Most people would say, I’m kind of comfortable to slide in and slide out, you know, I like what I hear and it’s good experience and, you know, I’ve given my life to the Lord, just don’t want anybody expecting too much. I don’t want anybody getting too close.

You know what will happen if we get close to you?  You’re right, “ You will be  just like us”. We’re all fighting the same battle. I had a person say to me one time, I talked to them  about coming and joining  church, they  said, “Well, I’d love to come to your church but I’ve got to get my life cleaned up first.” What do you think we’re here for? What do you think, we’re a bunch of people whose lives have already been cleaned up? We’re all in process all the time. I mean, there are no spiritual reasons not to do this.   Certainly no biblical ones.

• The Bible knows nothing of a free-floating kind of free-wheeling independent Christian who comes and goes willy-nilly at his own discretion.

It only knows of those who are in the Lord and in the church and accountable to Christ and accountable, as well, to the church. It is a spiritual issue.

Hebrews10:25 (King Version) Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.

The closer we get to the coming of the Lord, the more important it is that you be a part of the church, that you be here to stimulate one another in love and good works, that you be a part of the redeemed community. It’s all that the New Testament knows. It is inconceivable to the writers of the New Testament that somebody would be in Christ and not in the church, a local gathered group of those who are in Christ’s.

Look, you were redeemed with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. God purchased you with His own blood, to put you into the church.

Acts 20:28 Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God,^[a] which he bought with his own blood.^[b]

Every time a person is redeemed, the Spirit of God places them into the body of Christ. You are in the body of Christ. You are joined to the Lord, you are one with everybody else who’s joined to the Lord. Why do you resist? Why do you resist becoming a part of the local assembly of the faithful believers who are fighting the same struggles you are and who will be a great help and encouragement to you in the process?  Don’t make it anything else.

2#   it’s a fellowship issue. Philippians  2: 1-2 say, “If there’s any encouragement in Christ, if there’s any consolation of love, if there’s any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in Spirit, intent on one purpose.”

• That’s about unity. You say you want to encourage men in your life?
• You say you want love in your life?
• You say you want compassion and affection in your life?

Then you will find it in the fellowship of the church. That’s why we’re here and if our fellowship is defined by anything, it’s defined by truth and love.

Note:  “You cannot live effectively in your Christian life in isolation. It has been said, You can have  a barbeque in the backyard and you can put all the coals together and they all stay hot.   But just take one and stick it outside the rest and watch what happens to it, it grows cold fast.”

• You isolate yourself from the intimacy of fellowship in the church,
• from people’s fellowship expectation and accountability,
• from the opportunity to minister to them, to exercise the one anothers toward them as they exercise them for you.
• Pray for one another, love one another, comfort one another, encourage one another, edify one another, restore one another, forgive one another.
• All those one another’s
• , and there’s many more. That’s what it means to engage in real fellowship.

Fellowship  is essential and purifying. It is enriching, comforting, caring, sharing, bearing one another’s burdens and thus fulfilling the law of Christ which is the law of love.

Closing: Joining the church is a spiritual and fellowship issue and much  more,  You openly demonstrate the reality of the body of Christ. When you join a church, you make it visible.  You give a living demonstration of the spiritual reality of the body of Christ. You show that even though you are an individual, you are a part of the body, you are joined together with others.  You take the body of Christ out of the realm of the abstract and give it a meaning that people can see.

I know there are those of you who are saying to yourself, “Look, I didn’t know why it’s such a  big of a deal, it’s huge. Not joining the church is saying                                                                                        I don’t want to be Accountable, I don’t want to be committed, I don’t want to be responsible,  I don’t want to have the love, comfort, expectations from a church and I don’t want to have  spiritual accountability.

See it for what it is, if you resist it, because that’s what it really is- a big deal.

Text: Jonah 1:1-3 ¹ The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: ² “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”

³ But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD.

The Book of Jonah (Hebrew: Sefer Yonah) is a book in the Hebrew Bible. It tells the story of a Hebrew prophet named Jonah ben Amittai who is sent by God to prophesy the destruction of Nineveh but tries to escape the divine mission.

Nineveh:  was a great city in Assyria, it was a city of power, it was wicked, it was guilty of evil plots against God, exploitation of the helpless, cruelty in war, idolatry, prostitution, and witchcraft.

This city that was full of evil, God was willing to show them mercy if they would only turn from there wicked ways.

• Jonah like many of us did not want to do what God want!

⁴ Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. ⁵ All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship.

But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. ⁶ The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish.”

⁷ Then the sailors said to each other, “Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.” They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. ⁸ So they asked him, “Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What kind of work do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?”

• Here the sailors are relying on superstition to give them the answer. (Pagans)

⁹ He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”

• You cannot seek God’s love and run from him at the same time.
• You cannot hide from God.
• You must stop going in one direction to go another.
• How can you say you love God and do not do what he says? ¹⁰ This terrified them and they asked, “What have you done?” (They knew he was running away from the LORD, because he had already told them so). ¹¹ The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?” ¹² “Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied, “and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.” ¹³ Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. ¹⁴ Then they cried out to the LORD, “Please, LORD, do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, LORD, have done as you pleased.”

• The pagan sailors showed more compassion than Jonah.
• Remember, he did not want to go to Nineveh
• They called out to Jonah Lord.
• We should be shame when unbelievers show more concern and compassion.

¹⁵ Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. ¹⁶ At this the men greatly feared the LORD, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows to him.

Jonah’s Prayer ¹⁷ Now the LORD provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

Jonah 2:1 ^{1 [a]}From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the LORD his God. ² He said: ¹⁰ And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.                                                                                            

Jonah  Goes to Nineveh Jonah 3: 1-3 ¹ Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: ² “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” ³ Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. ⁴ Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” ⁵ The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.

Closing: 1.   God wants us to be concern for all of his people, lost and saved.                                                                                                        2. He wants our obedience.                                                                       3. He wants our unconditional love.

Rom 6:23   Sin PAYS its servants: the wage is death. But God GIVES to those who serve him: his free gift is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

1 Pet 2:16 (NIV)  Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God.

Gal 5:13   My brothers, you were called, as you know, to liberty; but be careful, or this liberty will provide an opening for self-indulgence. Serve one another, rather, in works of love.

Who’s In Control 1 Cor 6:19-20  You are not your own; you were bought with a price.

Rom 14:8    If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord, so that alive or dead we belong to the Lord.

Richard Foster: “A natural and understandable hesitancy accompanies any serious discussion of service. The hesitancy is prudent since it is wise to count the cost before plunging headlong into any Discipline. We experience a fear that comes out something like this: “If I do that, people will take advantage of me; they will walk all over me.”

“Right here we must see the difference between choosing to serve and choosing to be a servant. When we chose to serve, we are still in charge. We decide whom we will serve and when we will serve. And if we are in charge, we will worry a great deal about anyone stepping on us, that is, taking charge over us. But when we choose to be a servant, we give up the right to be in charge. There is great freedom in this. If we voluntarily choose to be taken advantage of, then we cannot be manipulated. When we choose to be a servant, we surrender the right to decide when we will serve. We become available and vulnerable.

“Self-righteous service picks and chooses whom to serve. Sometimes the low and defenseless are served because that will ensure a humble image. True service is indiscriminate in its ministry.

Mark 9:35  ³⁵ Jesus sat down and called for the Twelve to come to him. Then he said, “If you want to be first, you must be the very last. You must be the servant of everyone

Flesh Test! How Hard Is It To…? Richard Foster: “Nothing disciplines the inordinate desires of the flesh like service, and nothing transforms the desires of the flesh like serving in hiddenness. The flesh whines against service but screams against hidden service. It strains and pulls for honor and recognition. It will devise subtle, religiously acceptable means to call attention to the service rendered. If we stoutly refuse to give in to this lust of the flesh, we crucify it. Every time we crucify the flesh, we crucify pride and arrogance.”

Giving Up Your Rights Oswald Chambers: “Obstinacy and self-will will always stab Jesus Christ. It may hurt no one else, but it wounds His Spirit… Every time we stand on our rights and insist that this is what we intend to do, we… vex and grieve His Spirit.”

A Living Sacrifice to God Romans 12:1¹ And so, dear brothers and sisters,^[a] I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.^[b]

Rom 12:1 (KJV) I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

• The key to real Christian living is dying to the world and living unto Christ.
• “Reasonable” is the Greek logikos (logic coast), from which we derive our word “logical,” and “service” is the Greek latreian (La train), referring to service as a priest. We have been made “an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5), and it is perfectly logical that we render such lifelong service.

Jesus, The Suffering Servant, Dives Into Humanity To Rescue A Few Luke 4:18                                                                    ¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is on me. He has anointed me to tell the good news to poor people. He has sent me to announce freedom for prisoners.  He has sent me so that the blind will see again.  He wants me to free those who are beaten down. What me do? 1.   Love must be honest and true. Hate what is evil. Hold on to what is good. ¹⁰ Love each other deeply. Honor others more than yourselves. ¹¹ Never let the fire in your heart go out. Keep it alive. Serve the Lord.  ¹² When you hope, be joyful. When you suffer, be patient. When you pray, be faithful. ¹³ Share with God’s people who are in need. Welcome others into your homes. Romans 12:9-13

2.   Let us not become tired of doing good. At the right time we will gather a crop if we don’t give up. ¹⁰ So when we can do good to everyone, let us do it. Let us make a special point of doing good to those who belong to the family of believers.  Gal 6:9-10