CC: Serve - 2nd Birthday

We are Corvallis Church.  

Our tagline is "Engage, Serve, Grow"

This week we celebrate two years of public gatherings in Corvallis Oregon.  In those two years, we have developed a personal love for this city, what it stands for and the wonderful people who call this unique place, "home".

When we determined what we would call this church, it was by consensus that we landed on the name "Corvallis Church".    But we felt like we had to include our mission in our name.  "Corvallis Church exists to Engage our community, Serve our neighbors and Grow closer to God".   (Some wanted to add "and each other" to the end of that, but we decided to keep it simple).

It comes from the belief that the best way to grow closer to each other and to God was to serve others.  It is an over-arching theme of the Gospel.
- Esteem others as better than yourselves.
- Sacrifice your own comforts for the sake of others.
- Live in selflessness.
Those ideas/commands are throughout the teachings of the bible, old and new testaments.

On our second birthday, I am speaking about Service.  (Last week we talked about the importance of Engaging in community with each other and launched our small groups for the season.)

My thoughts on this week as I refine my sermon in preparation for Sunday:   
(God reserves the right the change my sermon at any given time) 

Service to others is how God hopes we express our gratitude to His overwhelming expressions of love for us.

The Book of James is famous for the "Faith without works is dead" paradigm.    I call it a paradigm because on the surface it seems to put a huge emphasis on a works based religion.  The type of relationship with God that if we are not proving ourselves through our good works, we are losing points with God.

God's lens
One could extrapolate (and many do) that we are to focus our energy and heart on doing good works.

The other way to look at this is through a God lens.  A God who loves and cherishes us.  A God who truly desires the best for us and loves us so deeply that He sacrificed everything so we could be in a relationship with Him.   A God who loves unconditionally and extends His hand of grace to us constantly.

If we look at it through a "God lens", it is clear that there is no possible way God could require such a legalistic, performance based system.  God is depending on our response to His love to us, to be an outpouring of love to Him (worship) and His children (service).  He is counting on us to express our love for Him by loving our neighbors (His cherished children).  His desire is for us to Love each other and sacrifice for the betterment of each other.  (In so doing, we bring the Kingdom of God to earth and accomplish His mission. (see previous blog post)

Green without Blue is Yellow.  

James 2:26 - Just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.  

This passage is best understood as an observational truth.  It is very simple and not a judgement rather an observation.  Like the statement "Green without Blue is Yellow". 

It is a scientific observation.  If there isn't evidence of something's existence, it doesn't exist.  That's the marriage between faith and works.

So we shouldn't strive in works to achieve faith.  We are to simply respond to God's love for us by loving others.  If we don't love others, it is evidence that we don't understand God's love for us deeply enough.  

Rather this:  Isaiah 58-1-9 

Why aren't we experiencing God?  Why isn't God healing?  Why doesn't He hear our prayer?  

We go to church. We do Christian stuff.   Where is God?

We are held back by bondage to sin stemming from identity, depression, forgiveness ...  Issues that steal our identity.  

We are called to be free from bondage.  But on a whole new religiosity and experienced the fullness of God he is so desperate for us to experience.  

Suggest Reading:  CS Lewis Letters to Malcom
"I am often, I believe, praying for others when I should be doing things for them.  It's so much easier to pray for a bore than go and see him."  - CS Lewis