Open
Exodus 33:13b-16 (MSG)
·
Moses says, “Don’t forget, this is your people, your responsibility.”
·
And he (God) said, “My presence will go with you. I’ll see the journey to
the end.”
·
And Moses says to God, “If your presence doesn’t take the lead here, call
this trip off right now. How else will it be known that you’re with me in this,
with me and your people? Are you traveling with us or not? How else will we
know that we’re special, I and your people, among all other people on this
planet Earth?”
We are in a season as a church trying
to unpack all that God has formed and shaped us to be over the past 40 yeas as
TVCCI. We have only been here for 2 short years (this week), but we carry a
DNA… an essence… a personality as a church… that is distinct and important.
It is not better than any other
church… but it is unique!
It is what makes us… well, US.
1. We are
people of the WORD (reading the Bible and living by the Bible through our
understanding of Kingdom, Grace, Righteousness... our feel for the gospel)
2. People of
PRAYER (interacting intimately with Jesus… relationally and passionately
pursuing Him through the good times and bad)
3. People of
HIS PRESENCE… we are marked by the power of God in our lives… changing not only
who we are, but our actions… it is the thing that we carry into our homes,
schools, neighborhoods and workplaces… the PRESENCE of God
a.
John 1 – baptism of the fire of God
b.
Luke 4 – clothed with power
c.
Acts 1 – empowered by the Holy Spirit
d.
1 Corinthians 12 – baptized by the Holy Spirit
We are meant to be carriers of the
presence of God in our own lives. We are meant to carry God’s presence to the
community around us. We are to live continually in his presence. As we embrace a lifestyle of following God’s
presence, we become change agents to the world around us.
Some of you hear these ideas and
you’re ready to grab your flag and run to the top of the “hill” that is BloNo
or Clinton or El Paso or Illinois… and you’re going to change the world with
Jesus!
Problem #1 – your heart has exploded with a YES
of emotion, but you weren’t ready for battle.
The other half of you hear “we are
meant to be carriers of God’s presence” and suddenly you’re really nervous. You
start asking “HOW” do I do that? You don’t feel qualified… you’re not even sure
God’s presence is always with you. Maybe you’re just getting used to being a
person of prayer OR a person reading the word… and you’re like, what this new thing
I have to do now?
Problem #2 – your head just exploded with the
list of Xstian TODO’s and your anxiety rose x10
Let’s PRAY. Then we’ll try and figure out
together what it means to be a people of God’s presence.
Looking
Back
The main thing I want to do with each
and every one of you is this: narrow your focus.
We want each and every one of you to
become Generous with the Presence!
If you have said “yes” to Jesus and are
following Him, guess what?
A. THE PRESENCE OF GOD is ALREADY with YOU… whew!
Deep breath J …take
that pressure off of yourselves.
B. In fact,
it gets even better than that. THE
PRESENCE OF GOD is ALREADY with THE VINEYARD. Look at what the Holy
Spirit has been doing for 40 years… Leman story… 1,000’s of conversions… 1,000’s
of healing stories… 1,000’s of people fed… planted churches… leaders raised up…
campus’ launched… PART OF THE LEGACY!
C.
But it gets even better than that. THE PRESENCE OF GOD is ALREADY with the
BLOOMINGTON-NORMAL CAMPUS.
D.
Take a listen to this story from Billy and
Miranda Deckelmann
Deckelmann
Family
1)
Billy and I (Miranda) moved to Blo/No in the
spring/summer of 2015. We did the usual
“church shopping” you do when relocating and had landed in a well-known church
here in the Blo/No community. We were
weekly attenders to Sunday services and were faithful small group participants
but felt something was missing.
At that time, we were walking out a fertility journey and had been
unable to conceive for approx. 2 years.
We realized we were not surrounded by like-minded believers who would
join with us in believing for the power of God to breakthrough in a miraculous
way. That is when my husband came across
the Vineyard website and we saw that there was a local campus, so we decided to
check it out. So, in October of 2016, we
attended our first Sunday service and quickly became faithful weekly attenders
and joined a small group by January 2017.
2)
Our small
group was a game changer for us! At our first small group gathering, our group
leaders (Brad and Charlee) challenged the group to share what we believed God
for in the coming year. Being new to the
group and at an all-time low, I had my husband share our desire to see
breakthrough in our fertility situation. On our first night, this group asked
if they could pray over us to release Gods power into the situation,
something we never received in our entire time in our previous small group. We
now had a community of believers ready and willing to partner with us and stand
firm on the promises we knew God had for us in his word. We entered into a
season of fasting and prayer as a church and our small group partnered with us
and prayed fervently for us and with us.
At the break of the fast (end of January/beginning of February), we
learned we had conceived our first child without any medical intervention after
2.5 years of trying despite multiple diagnoses, a surgery, and
interventions! We went on to have an uncomplicated
pregnancy and healthy baby girl born in October of 2017 – just a year after
attending the Vineyard and connecting with like-minded believers who fought for
breakthrough right alongside of us and we are forever grateful for their
encouraging words and fervent prayers!
3)
Jesus has
impacted us over the last year… Outside of miraculously expanding our family,
Jesus is developing our prayer lives by expanding our reach to pray and
minister for others in similar ways that we experienced prayer for healing and
breakthrough. In addition, Jesus is
developing our ability to operate in the prophetic to encourage and inspire
faith in others and reveal His love for his people. We know God has a calling for our
marriage and we are excited to continually seek his will to fully experience
all that he has for us.
What a story! I love how our church
came alongside the Deckelmann’s in their journey. I love how the people of the
presence here have impacted their lives. Which leads me to this:
·
We must be Generous with the
Presence at Church.
·
Think about this friends… it isn’t that difficult!
·
If Jesus lives in us who believe… if we carry
His presence… then let’s extend that first to those who have the same heartbeat
as us.
·
Let’s pray for those whom God has here with us
on a weekly basis… let’s love and encourage those fish who God has literally
thrown into our boat.
·
Paul says it like this in Philippians 2:1-4
·
“So if there is any
encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and
sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same
love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish
ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant
than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests,
but also to the interests of others.”
·
In other words, if we are people of God’s
presence… and there are others like that right next to us… then be GENEROUS with that presence
towards one another.
And, I actually want to celebrate that
with all of you J
I think we are here today honoring the
stuff of God over the past 2 years because you all have been generous with the
presence. I think we have this amazing campus that has given of its time and
talents to serve the people of this church. I believe that God has honored us
with so many of you… and we want to say THANK
YOU for what each person has been to this campus.
Look at everything that God has done
in just 2 short years!
·
Attendance – through
worship, small groups, etc. our campus is impacting 150+ lives each and every
week. Think about it. Because a people of the presence showed up here, now
lives are getting transformed.
·
Small Groups – each
week most of our campus is active in a kids, youth or adult small group. Do you
know what that means? That means that people are intentionally entering into a
place where they are being loved, cared for, and prayed for in a genuine Holy
Spirit filled community.
·
Baptisms – in less than 2 years, we’ve had 16
people stand up and say that the presence of God has so radically impacted them
that they were willing to get into a (somewhat warm… and sometimes cold) tank
of water and show how they were dying to their old way of life.
·
Finances – things didn’t stop with attendance
and groups… the presence of God has released financial generosity among us. We
went from a campus that would not have launched without the generosity of our
other 3 campuses to a campus that regularly gives $1,000’s of dollars a month
to what Jesus is doing here, near and far away. (first month 4k to now
averaging over 12k per month). When God moves among a people to be financially
generous to the mission and the poor, we’re really getting somewhere.
·
Other
o
Not only that, but we have dozens of
volunteers serving weekly.
o
Our Kids team has grown
o
Our worship/tech teams are amazing
o
Some of you clean, email, usher, etc. EVERY
WEEK
o
Our thanksgiving outreach went from 10
families to nearly 60 this year
o
Our prayer teams are seeing healings and
freedom each weekend
o
And so on and so one!
·
THE
PRESENCE OF GOD is ALREADY with the BLOOMINGTON-NORMAL CAMPUS.
What we must steward and continue to
do is to be Generous with the Presence in all
situations.
Looking Forward
What’s incredible about the people of
God… is that His Presence cannot be
contained… it’s true! God always empowers us with Himself unto
something. While we may be marked by His Spirit and are empowered by Him, we
cannot keep it inside the church walls. While I love the stories of growth and
healing within the church, they are only
HALF (albeit an important half)
of the story of the people of God’s presence… in fact you saw that in
Billy/Miranda in their journey now J
A true people of the presence will begin
to change everything: their homes, their neighborhoods, their workplaces, and
their cities.
In Colossians 4:2-6, Paul tells us to begin to PRAY about this
happening:
“Continue
steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time,
pray also for us, that God may open
to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account
of which I am in prison— that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to
speak. Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making
the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned
with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.”
Make sure not to overcomplicate this
passage… its actually quite simple:
A)
Pray for people outside our
church family – Reminder of the 8to15 app
B)
Make the most out of each
encounter
Is
it really that simple? YES… YES… YES!
People of the presence are generous
not only with those inside the church walls, but with those who don’t go to our
church… and what do you do? Pray and talk… that’s it!
Let me share another story: Theressa’s PIC
Growing
up I attended church services fairly regularly but It was more of a social
thing for me as a kid- I loved hanging out with my friends at Sunday School, VBS,
camp, etc.. However, as I got older and
started attending the adult services, things changed. I remember formal sermons that seemed to be
more about preaching at the congregation rather than talking to and interacting
with us. I heard about all the things I
should do as a good Christian and all the bad things I would surely be punished
for. God, to me, sounded like some angry, vengeful being who would strike me
down should I cross Him. I decided I wanted nothing to do with this God
and I stopped going to church as soon as I was old enough to make that decision
for myself.
I
met my neighbor, Tracy, in January
2017 shortly after the birth of my youngest daughter. I don’t remember the first time Tracy invited me to to attend church with her but I do
know I wasn’t at all interested (Sorry, Tracy).
I’d gone around 25 years or so without God in my life.... It turns out
Tracy is quite persistent. Over the next
month or two she asked me more than a few times about coming to church. One day she even asked if her small group
could pray for me right on the sidewalk outside my apartment. While I’m not sure I believed it would do any
good, I had some things going on in my life and I figured it couldn’t
hurt. That week I had just quit my job
due to my boss changing my work schedule to include times I was not available.
She did this as a result of my inability and/or unwillingness to work off the
clock during my maternity leave (a week after being released from the
hospital). Not only did I love that job, my family needed the income. The day after that prayer session I was
presented with a new job opportunity.
Although I told myself it could just have been a coincidence, I decided
maybe I would give God and church another try. I attended The Vineyard for the
first time on March 30, 2017. I was pleasantly surprised by how warm and
welcoming everyone was. I think nearly
everyone in the building greeted me. The
message was also a surprise. I don’t
recall who delivered it that morning, but I do know it was done in such a way
that I could easily understand it and the material was both relevant and
relatable to me. The next Sunday I woke
up excited to return and learn more, even a year later I still find myself
looking forward to Sunday mornings.
I’ve
reached so many milestones over the past year.
Most involve me stepping outside my comfort zone; things like singing
along with the worship team (as opposed to lip syncing or whispering) and going
up front for prayer at the end of the service.
Inviting others to attend services has also been something I wasn’t
necessarily comfortable doing at first.
I have terrible anxiety in social situations and I was so afraid of
seeming pushy or annoying. The more
my faith grows, the less those things scare me. In fact, I’m finding myself more and more
excited to share this part of my life with friends, family and even complete
strangers. The biggest milestone, of course, was my decision to be baptized towards the end of last
year. I was making the choice because I
was truly ready to give my whole life over to Jesus.
My
life has been far from perfect this year. For a while it seemed like every day there
was one more bump in the road. There was one week my family was in such bad
shape that I wasn’t sure how we were going to eat and put gas in our car. Rather than panic, I prayed. I also went up front for prayer that Sunday
morning after the first service ended.
While I was up front receiving prayer, I sent my husband to get the kids
from the nursery. Something extraordinary happened at the exact moment I was
praying about our financial situation.
Someone my husband was not familiar with approached him and said
something along the lines of, “God told me you might need this” and handed him
some money. I
Just last week we found we had a screw in our rear
tire. I heard Discount Tire would patch
the tire for free, so we headed over there.
The technician was unsure if he could patch the tire due to the location
of the screw, which was in the outer part of the tread, but offered to take the
tire off and have a look. We left
the rear tire there and headed for the grocery store. I prayed the entire way there. As we paid for our items we got the call that
they were able to patch our tire! When we
arrived to have the tire put back on our car the manager asked if I could
afford $40 that day. I wasn’t sure
why he asked but I indicated we could.
He told me he wanted our family to be safe and that he had two very good
tires we could have at no charge if we would pay the $40 installation. I have so many more stories just like this
one! In fact, every single time we have
been in a bind, we have received whatever we needed. These hurdles life keeps throwing at me seem
impossible to jump over, but I have jumped, and continue to jump over them, because I’m no longer alone.
Thank you Theressa for sending this to
us… what a remarkable picture of what can happen in a year when we encounter
the presence of God… look at the journey of faith… look at the miraculous
things God has done… look at a life changed by the presence of Jesus… no longer
is Theressa encountering a people of the presence but she IS ONE J
But how did it start?
Was it complicated?
When we are Generous with the
Presence outside the Church, amazing things begin to happen.
This is how lives, neighborhoods and cities become who they are destined to be.
Generous
with the Presence
Ministry
Time
