Why Am I Here? Why Am I In This Mess? Great questions that I bet you have heard. Our discipleship process begins at a place where we begin to answer both. Forgive me, it is alliterated with M’s to make it easier for me to remember, train and pass on.
Made – That is step one. Whether you are a person who has never seen a Bible or a person who won every Bible Drill in grade school…we are going to check your foundation. It all begins with being Made and specifically being Made by the God of the Bible – Father, Son & Spirit.
If this foundation is not set and solid then everything else shifts and struggles with the pressures of life, culture, etc. In a simple introduction, we focus on three basic components of our position of being Made by God:
1 – As part of Creation, we are made unique and given the gift of being ‘Created in The Image of God’. Genesis 1:27 is the foundation for that truth.
2 – When Created in the Image of God we are given a unshakeable Identity in our position. This is the foundation for a truth that will come later in the process as well.
3 – Claiming the Biblical God as our Creator puts us under Authority as a creature in His Creation. Psalm 8:5-6 are helpful in grasping this truth. When in Authority, we begin to develop an appropriate worldview.
Next, we see why question #2 comes up. After all, if we were made perfect then why didn’t we stay that way.
Marred – The downward fall from made perfect happens when sin entered the world. The Mess comes from the Marring. Here are three elements to it:
1 – Sin cursed the World. All of Creation endures and groans under the curse of Sin so there is no natural place to escape from it.
2 – Sin cursed our mortal bodies. Our flesh is cursed with death. Our mortal end (death) is a result of the marring of sin. Not only is the world around us broken but so is the world within us.
3 – If the world and our bodies weren’t enough, we also have an enemy named satan. Yup, he’s cursed by sin as well. However, he expends all of his energies in focus in taking the world and our mortal bodies and keeping them separate from God.
All of the hurts, habits and hang-ups of life flow from one or more of these sin-cursed areas. All of these are representative of our fall from the perfect creation God initiated. We were made perfect but we were marred horribly.
Most of the people we hope to reach in our church planting efforts find themselves right in that spot. Marred and broken and hopeless and lost. Next week we will begin the journey upward as we take seekers and turn them into disciples.
[Admin Note: This is part 3 in a 7 part series. You find the others in the series here.]