Our Heritage

Would you take your Bibles, please, and turn to Ephesians chapter 4? You saw on the screen that logo of a tree and the words heritage, our heritage, and underneath it, were the words equipping the saints and building the body. Those words are taken directly from Ephesians chapter 4 in fact, verse 12. Or Paul says that he, that is Jesus Christ, gave the apostles and prophets the evangelists and shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry for building up of the body of Christ. You'll see later on in our service the two logos and slogans for both the church building program and the school. One is called heritage. That is for the church where we are building upon what others have done in the past as we look towards the future. The theme for the school building project is very similar. It's called legacy where they are leaving behind a rich blessing for those who follow after us. Both of those themes of very connected, very complimentary, they were arrived at independently by the strategic planning team of the church and the board of the school, but they fit very well together. This passage of scripture that they selected as our theme talks about equipping the saints that is building up particular individuals in both their ability to live for Christ and to minister for Christ and to build up the body of the Lord as the corporate expression of his life in the world. It's an emphasis on individuals and the congregation all wrapped in to one verse and so I want to take some time this morning not long and tell you how this equipping and building process will be enhanced by our school and our church projects. So I'm going to ask you again to look at Ephesians chapter 4 is I read the first 16 verses along with you. I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. There was one body and one spirit just as you were called to one hope that belongs to your call. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is overall and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says when he ascended on high he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men in saying he ascended what does it mean but that he also has descended into the lower regions of the earth. He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things and he gave the apostles the prophets and evangelists the shepherds and the teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry for the building of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine by human cunning by craftiness and deceitful scheming. Rather, speaking the truth in love we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped. When each part is working properly makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. This is a great passage lies at the heart of this epistle, Ephesians that is devoted to the study of Christ's church, what it is to be the church, how the church grows, and what the church is to do. Those are the three sections of this wonderful epistle on ecclesiology on the doctrine of the church and here in the very center, very heart of this epistle, Paul says that one of the benefits of Christ's resurrection is the church that when he descended into the lower realms of the earth, that's where we get by the way in the Apostles Creed, the statement that he descended into hell doesn't mean that he went to the place of punishment. The original Greek said he descended into Hades into the lower regions or the place of the dead. It means that Jesus Christ remained under the power of death and in the grave for a season, along with all the rest of mankind who was dead, and then he ascended from that lower regions of the earth to heaven and he brought with him a great host of captives, people who had been liberated from sin and from the bondage of the devil and from the wrath of God into a new community called the church a community of the redeemed. In talking about that, Paul makes reference to a Psalm 68 verse 18, but he changes that first. Here's how it reads in the Old Testament. You ascended on high, leading host of captives in your train and receiving gifts among men. Paul changes the emphasis of that verse, not to reflect what Jesus Christ received from men, but what he gave. He ascended leading a host of captives and giving gifts to men. In other words, in his dominion as Lord, by the way, he says that Jesus fills all things which is exactly what he said of the Father in the first three verses, that Jesus Christ shares into the dominion and power of the Father and one of the ways in which he receives gifts from men is that he equips his church to reach out to men that they might bring their gifts and their service and their love and their worship and their devotion to him. This is his great plan. When Christ descended into hell, that is into the grave, he shared with us the low point of humanity. When he ascended on high, he shares with us the sovereign dominion of Jesus Christ and of his Father. Two things happened. He triumphed over all of his enemies and like his Father, he fills all things with his glory and his dominion. And secondly, he chose some men, men and women, we would say people, who were gifted in supernatural ways to build up the church. They were given specific spiritual gifts that were used to planting and maturing and growing and multiplying the church around the world, apostles. He gave apostles, he says. Those 12 men Christ chose to establish the New Testament church along with the 13th Apostle Paul. Prophets, men of the old and New Testament, who received special revelation from God and who wrote our Bible. Evangelists traveling preachers and church planners who went around as our evangelists do, calling people to Christ and organising them into specific local congregations, shepherds, who took over those congregations and pastored them and built them up in teachers, gifted individuals who were theologians and Bible teachers. Christ used all of these men and women and continues to do so to build up his church to equip the saints for ministry, to build up the local congregation, to work alongside the members of the church, using their gifts as well to mature the church. Paul says there are five things that Jesus Christ is after. Here they are. Number one, he wants equipped members involved in ministry. He gave these men for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry. Sometimes we talk about the ministers of the church being those seven men who went through seminary and are ordained to that ministry. That's inaccurate. There are only some of the ministers. Every person here who's truly regenerate, who's truly born again, has some spiritual gift that enables him to minister or serve someone else inside or outside or both concerning the church. So Jesus Christ is after people who will be actively involved in ministry. He really is not interested in pucitors, but in ministers. Number two, he wants to build up the church and its spiritual strength. He talks about the maturity of manhood, the fullness of the stature of Christ. He realizes that no church actually reaches that full measure in this life, but that does not prohibit the Holy Spirit from moving the church in that direction, in its spiritual maturity and strength. He also wants a unity of the faith among believers. He says there is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is overall and through all, and he tells us to strive for the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. And then he says in verse 13, do we all attain to unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ? Fourthly, Jesus Christ wants spiritual maturity for Christians of all ages. He says so that you may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the ways and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful scheming. He's concerned about the spiritual maturity and the stability of the church, especially the world's influence on the church and realizes that people who have been equipped well and trained well will be able to discern what's bad doctrine and good doctrine, what is bad living and good living. And finally, fifthly, he wants to make sure that all ages of the church grow together in such a way that they are synergically feeding each other in this great work of sanctification. Speaking the truth and love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ for whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds up itself and love. A healthy church, according to Jesus Christ, is able like a healthy body to regenerate itself, to renew itself, to heal itself, and to grow itself as it works through life and moves forward with the Lord. This heritage that we're talking about is what Christ has given to us. It's not something that we invented. It wasn't that some men along the way said, well, you know, let's come up with a church. I mean, it's a popular thing out there. Now, there are books written about how the church is really not important because it was man's invention. Now, I don't know how anybody could read the New Testament and come to that conclusion. Jesus said, I will build my church. It's obviously his idea to have a New Testament church, born out of springing out of the Old Testament church Israel. And this church, he says, is the heritage, the gift, the inheritance I give to the people of the church and their little children, so that there is a place for them to grow in the love and nurture and discipline of the Lord and to grow into the fullness of Christ. This is also our legacy. It's what we leave behind us for generations yet to come. I think one of the sad comments upon our generation may be in the future that many Americans built a church that had a guaranteed shelf life of one generation their own. And after they died off, that church shriveled up and died and there was nothing for their children or great grandchildren to come to in order to experience the same spiritual enrichment and blessings and ministry that they received all through their life. It is the legacy of the church to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints and to leave in the wake of our lives, in our wake behind us as we move through time and into eternity, strong churches for our children yet to come. One commentator named Frank Fieldman's had this to say about this passage. Christ who has extended his victory over all opposing forces and his sovereignty over all the creation is the very one who now equips the church to join him in this sovereign reign over the earth. He does this through giving gifts to discrete groups of people so they in turn can equip others to serve and edify the church. That is what we're thinking about. That's what your officers are asking you to consider today when we talk about the our heritage and our legacy campaign. How does this all fit together? Well, let me just share with you a few minutes before we proceed to a presentation and then our meeting. That is a pastor of 32 years I've been evolved in seven building programs. This will be my eighth. After the first one I said, Lord, would you do me a favor? And never make me go through another building program. And Jesus has said no to that seven times. But let me tell you something. I went through two of them at Surfside, four of them at Trinity. Of course we have the Wilcox here and this will be number eight. Sometimes they were as small as 175,000. Sometimes as much as three million or more. Of course they were with congregations as small as 100 people and as many as 2,100 or so. But in every single case without exception, I want to tell you that there were several benefits, seven of them in particular, that actually blessed the church and here they are. I like you to write these down to pray for these as we go forward in our campaign. Number one, in every case without exception, the unity of the church was greatly strengthened because we pooled our resources, we prayed together and rebreached towards the goal as a church. A goal that could only be reached if Jesus Christ was helping us. So it tended not to divide the congregation. At first, there's always people who have questions about it and they're a little iffy. But once we got into the building program, everything is so much so that the people who were opposed at first always said this at the end, Pastor, wasn't this a great idea we had? And it was. And it caused us to grow together. Secondly, it caused the trust on behalf of the people in their leadership to grow as the congregation followed the lead of the session and the act in it. In none of those seven campaigns did we experience any financial difficulty? Our worst fears never came true. Our staff and our pastors and our officers let us wisely and well into growth and giving. I know there was always people who said, this is going to be our ruin that it never happened. Some were easier than others, but all of them proceeded along course and the worst fears that we had never came to be. I think because we were led wisely and discerningly by elders and deacons in the church who put a great deal of time and prayer and energy into planning for this before they brought it to the congregation. Thirdly, the stewardship of the church grew overall in six of the seven programs. People rediscovered the joy and the power of sacrificial giving. They gave to the general budget in a steady manner. In fact, in six of these seven cases, the giving to the general budget actually increased while the building program was going on. And one, it remained steady. They gave to faith promises and six out of seven campaigns faith promises actually increased rather than decreased. And people grew in both their faithfulness and tithing and giving so that after the campaign, the higher level of giving maintained itself indefinitely. Fourthly, we learned how to trust Jesus Christ as the real and living head of the church and not one time did Jesus Christ fail us. This may be in my opinion, it's just my opinion, the greatest benefit to building programs. When we have a building program of this magnitude, we're going to need the divine help of Jesus Christ. Let me tell you something. Everything else we do as a church, we can do on our own. We don't need His help. We won't see the fruit that we want to see, but business will carry on as usual. But when it comes to stepping out in faith and saying, Lord, you're going to have to empower and enrich and enable us or we fail, then we're asked to step out in faith. It's easy for us, Lord, once to say that we walk by faith and we trust Jesus Christ and everything, but I find that building programs force us to trust Him more than they usually do. And this is what we find, that we can do all things through Christ who strengthen us and my God is able to supply all of your needs according to His riches and glory in Christ Jesus. Number five, in each case, the people took greater ownership of their church and ministry because they volunteered in the campaign and some capacity was not run by the pastors but by the people. Hundreds of people were in focus groups and on subcommittees, people chipped into help and be involved in projects and a number of ways and people rediscovered the joy of service and ministry to one another. Number six, there was a great and positive impact upon our outreach is I alluded to earlier. Faith promises actually increased in most of these places. Mercy ministry was not hindered because we weren't throwing a lot of money at Mercy ministry. We're not giving welfare money to people. We're energizing people to be involved in Mercy ministries. It's people who get off their donkey and reach out, not our money. And we had in each case our church plants went on in two of the building programs. We actually launched a church plant in the midst of the building program and the building projects had a tendency to further our real purpose which was to go and make disciples of all the nations and baptize them and teach them to bring them into the church and to help them grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ. In seventh and lastly, each building project enhanced our ministries to people in both the church and the community. And you've seen on this video how this project can do that, the family life center for fellowship, youth ministry communities, a polling place for Matthews, trail life, anchor in Bible studies, homeschool meetings and gatherings. The city of Matthews uses our buildings on a regular basis and we'll use that, I'm sure, the chapel. The capacity to do smaller weddings and regular funerals in Sunday school classrooms out there. We have a reception room that will be used as a visitor center and who knows for what else right off the South lobby here. The drive under will make it easier for people to come here and inclement weather and of course the ball fields already reach a lot of people and this will even enhance both our sore and our schools ability to engage in sports as an outreach activity. I know that people do ministry buildings don't but also know the buildings enable us to do ministry. Buildings don't do ministry but people usually don't do ministry without buildings. They need some place to worship, some place to gather, some place to study. I had the opportunity to speak to the student families this morning over in the high school gymnasium and as thankful as I am for the graciousness of the school and let us use that I've never talked in a worse classroom. It's not a place that's conducive to learning and we need a place that is. What is interesting is that we are not the only church in our denomination or in our city that's thinking this way. Two churches that we are coached by often are Perrotor Church and Briar would press bearing church. One in the land of the other in Birmingham. They have made the commitment to be in a major capital campaign every five to seven years because of the spiritual benefits to the church. Let me just give you a rundown of our Presbyteria. Uptown church, our first daughter church is negotiating now to purchase the great at Stella Center and own it as their own facility rather than continue to lease it. Hope community church is looking for property or an old church to purchase so that they are no longer spiritual gypsies moving here and there. Christ Central has recently left their lease facilities and joined with another ministry that has a permanent building. Redeemer church done in Indian Trial is purchased five acres a few years ago and is now raising money to build a church on it. Sovereign Grace is about to break ground on a two million dollar sanctuary in classroom building. Grace, PCA and Waxall, the pastor there, Harrison Spethers told me that he desperately needs to get out of that school gymnasium and to find some permanent place and our two new church plants cross-park and east Charlotte will be looking for space in a couple years so that they can grow. Churches are discovering that you are hindered in ministry without proper facilities so that the evidence I think is clear. Growing churches need facilities that expand and change and reconfigure to meet their needs as a spiritual family because it is the spiritual family's house. Now I know that they are concerned. There's concerns about why should we take on debt? And yet debt is something that all of us manage in the buying of our home, the financing of our children's college, purchasing of an automobile, but debt is not forbidden by the Bible. It's the management of it that is important so that you don't become the slave of the lender. And I would ask you in all fairness why would you ask the church to not do something that you have done all your life and will probably do up to and maybe even through retirement? That is to use debt, especially when your debt free as the church is and interest rates are so low as an asset to help you get a jump on things rather than wait forever. Some people said why don't we wait and raise the money? Well let me put something in perspective. When we built this vacuous building here, back in 1994, 1995, 1996, it was right at eight and a half million dollars. That's what it caused us to build a building that's the third of that size now, which means that in another five years, that eight and a half million project that we're asking you to consider today will be more. We also have to figure that we've been 18 years since November of 1996 without entering into a serious capital campaign. Our muscle of trusting the Lord and giving sacrificially and stepping out in faith has not been exercised and we need to rediscover that. It's good for us. I have shown you today that all of these objections that people have, I have never found them to be true in my 32 years of ministry and what will now be my eighth capital campaign. No one I know ever wants to find the money, you know, Jane and I don't have $50,000 land around the house. I looked at her jewelry box to see how much she had. It ain't close to $50,000. Nobody has that kind of money. You have to find it somewhere by a sacrifice and we're going to show you in the next six weeks how that's easier said than you imagine, how you can find ways to make a substantial gift of the church over three year period and help us in this project. Trust me please we will be glad when this project is over. The first time we have a meal together and our new fellowship hall, first time that the student ministries thrives and that new devoted and unencumbered facility when we take communion together in our chapel when we have new large and pleasant places for communities to meet for Sunday school in this new D building when we gather in our reception area when we hear the laughter and joy of young people on our fields and as we see the high school and lower school students increase and grow spiritually in the new academic buildings we will say this is the great idea we had why didn't we do this sooner so I would ask you today to consider these five things if you'd write these down and pray for these over the time would you first of all sounds very self-serving but I say this earnestly would you trust me would you trust me and your officers that we're leading you in the right direction you have prospered from the leadership of this session you are in better financial shape now than you have ever been in the history of this church why would we lead you into financial ruin would you trust us and would you follow us and go to the next phase and see how you might participate in this number two would you vote yes on the motion sent before you this morning to authorize your officers and staff to begin the fundraising and building and financing of this project you're not committing a dime this morning what you're voting on is to move to the next phase which is to study how we're going to raise this money and to see what the Lord does we will obviously respond to the amount of money that's raised and to a healthy level of debt we can carry and nothing else thirdly would you study closely every page of this wonderful little information booklet that was sent to you last week it has the answer to many of your problems and many of your questions and many of your ideas it's wonderfully put together information packet from our strategic planning team both of church and school would you fourthly attend these multi-generational Sunday suit classes over the next six weeks to study the treasure principle and see how you might become financially more enriched by the stewardship of your own finances and how you might find the money for this building program fifthly would you begin to pray and to think through how you can contribute your time and efforts to this venture and claim this promise for yourself and for your family give and it will be given to you good measure press down shaken together running over it will be poured into your lap for with the measure you use it that measure will be measured back to you and then I say let's enjoy the process let's sit back and see what the Lord will do in an amazing way to encourage us and to bless us in all of the things that he has called us to do I believe with all my heart that this could be one of the best things we've ever done together as a church and I'm asking you to enter into that project with that spirit in mind and I'm asking you to peg to pray to E encourage other people and G to give and I'm asking you to do that because I think our elders have let us in a good way and I think it's our responsibility and our joy to follow them as they lead us into the future so let me pray for us and then we'll proceed to a presentation father we want to thank you for the fact that you have given to us the church and from the time in the Old Testament when you built a building for your church this thing called a temple and as it evolved into synagogues scattered throughout the regions of Israel and Palestine form the pattern of local churches and and specific areas with buildings they met in you have honored the building of sacred facilities for spiritual use and for for gospel ministry and you have used these assets to help us in our responsibility to equip the saints for the work of service to the building up on the body of Christ so that we reach full maturity in Christ and we reach the world for Jesus Christ through the resources and assets that you've given to us we we look for you to do wonderful things for us beginning this day and for a sweet celebration not only in our lunch and today but in the weeks and months to come as we see this concept take shape and turn into something tangible and real that we can benefit from in the years and decades and generations that are yet behind us and we would ask your favor upon us and all of these things for the sake of Christ and his people his church and so we would pray these things in Jesus' name amen