Pursuing Greater Productivity
- Rev. Jerry Lepasana
- Dec 28, 2008
PURSUING GREATER PRODUCTIVITY
You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit--fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.
- Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,
- I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Our highest goal as a church family is encapsulated in our purpose statement - Leading people to a life of commitment and productivity in Christ. And we believe that this is not just a cool phrase we came up with; this is taken directly from words of Jesus Christ in John 15:16. He explicitly stated the end goal of our relationship with Him - "to go and bear fruit--fruit that will last."
In other words, our salvation goes beyond having the assurance of going to heaven, or enjoying the blessings of an abundant life. We must, while waiting to go to heaven, use our one and only life to bring honor and glory to Him who saved us by making a difference in the lives of others. So to simply put it - Productivity is our highest priority. Of course, I don't want to undermine the value of commitment. The reality is: they should always go together. The more committed we are, the more productive we become. That's why both appear in our purpose statement.
Since we are at the close of 2008, we should all rejoice with all the fruits we have experienced this year. Allow me to enumerate some:
- 50 people were added into our church family this year, bringing our total active membership to 254. If we factor in the regular attendees and our 60 children 12 and under, we are regularly ministering to about 350 people. God is good!
- We also see 35-40 young people participate every Friday, excluding close to 10 youth leaders. Let's also acknowledge the blessings of having a youth pastor this year. God is good!
- For community outreach, we were able to feed the homeless 5 times, visit Nursing Homes 5 times and host 5 major concerts here in our church. The concerts even helped in adding families into our church family. God is good!
- In church planting, God has allowed us to give birth to 5 churches, 3 in the Philippines, one in Dubai and Cambodia. God is good!
- In Discipleship, we have seen 25 people finished our Systematic Theology curriculum. There are around 35 people taking New Testament Survey. We also have 12 people graduate our Financial Management training, and there are 8 people who are about to graduate and there were also 2 Care groups added, God is good!
Because of time constraints, these are just some of the fruits I will highlight. I know there are still lots of blessings to talk about. In all of these, I would like to declare that God has been great and mighty in our midst!
Once again, we must look forward to another year with a greater desire to be productive. We must pursue with one mind and heart greater productivity. Evidently, this was the same mindset of the apostle Paul in his life and ministry. If you carefully examine his words to the Philippian church, he clearly impressed to them that he has not yet attained his life's goal; that he was continually striving so he can achieve the goal God has set for him. Perhaps, this mindset was one of the secrets of Paul's very productive life. I believe the text is so appropriate for our church as we look forward to year 2009. Here are three important things we can learn from Paul:
I CELEBRATE AND CORRECT THE PAST: (v.13)
Our memory can either be a blessing or a curse - a blessing when we remember the positive experiences we had; or a curse if we keep remembering the negative things we went through. Unfortunately, we have a greater tendency to remember the negative and unpleasant experiences.
The apostle Paul is teaching us to intentionally forget. The word literally suggests losing out of your mind, meaning we have to actively remove them from our mind. I believe this is an important discipline for us. You know why? The Bible reminds us of the fact that Satan is called the accuser of the brothers:
Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.
So he won't let us forget. All our failures, our sins, or all the disappointing times we had, he has a way of making us remember. So if we are not careful, we will always feel that we will never amount to anything, that we are losers.
On the contrary, God whenever he forgives us promises to forget our failures.
"I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.
The fact is we should stop dwelling on what God has already forgotten. Instead, we must first celebrate. Earlier I started with accomplishments of the past, so we can all celebrate the goodness of the Lord to us. I'm hoping that our perspective would be, "if we were able to do this by God's help, we can surely do more if we are willing to trust Him."
Then, we can also correct the past. What we should do as individuals and as a church is to learn from our mistakes and move ahead to 2009 as wiser individuals. I believe it was Alexander Pope who said, "A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying that he is wiser today than he was yesterday."
This is the reason why our annual strategic planning with all our leaders is so important. This is where we determine where we were weak this year, and plan to do a better job next year. I hope our leaders won't miss this opportunity to help the church correct our past. There is no health in ignoring, rejecting, or being embarrassed by the past. We must face it and learn from it.
II CONCENTRATE ON MAXIMIZING TODAY: (v.13)
Another truth we can learn from Paul is found in the phrase - straining toward what is ahead. The key word is straining. There are some translators, who have used looking as a substitute for it, which I believe weakens the meaning. Often, this carries the idea of passively waiting. But Paul uses a word known by athletes suggesting that suggests exerting all necessary efforts in order to become a winner. In other words, Paul will do whatever it takes to reach his goal.
We too as a church must have the same mentality. We should be willing to do whatever it takes to be productive so we can give God greater honor and glory. I know there are so many things we can do, but please allow me to summarize them into three ideas:
A. INTERCEDE
The church was born in the atmosphere of prayer (Acts2). And if you consider the history of the church, she was most productive when God's people were in practicing prayers. I believe times have not changed. If we want to experience the hand of God in our midst, we must insist on making sure a lot of prayers are happening in our midst. Let us all remember what Jesus said:
And as he taught them, he said, "Is it not written: "'My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations'? But you have made it 'a den of robbers.'"
Christ church must be a praying church. For our church family, allow me to recommend that we continue to strengthen the prayer times in our Care Groups. We need to continually pray for our people, and the people whom are reaching for Christ. We need to pray for all our plans and programs in the church. Without sufficient prayers we will fail and not accomplish anything significant for God.
B. INVOLVE
Another area that I want to challenge all of us is in involvement. You see, when more people are involved, more will be accomplished.
After we settled in our new facility, I decided to do a lengthy series on spiritual gifts to help everyone understand the fact that God has gifted all of us. One of the key verses we have studied was:
- It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers,
- to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.
Clearly, the growth and health of the church are attached to the performance of the gifted people in the church. So many churches are suffering because the ministers are few and are burned out. I hope we can continually help our people to discover their gifts and tap them to carry out ministries so we can avoid burned out ministers.
Next year I hope to see more of our college students stand in-front of us to lead in worship. We must challenge everyone to be bolder and leave their comfort zones to serve the Lord. I know you won't regret it. Paul reminds us that we should always abound in the work of the Lord because nothing is wasted in our service of the Lord:
Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
C. INVEST
Thirdly, I'd like to also challenge all of us to continually invest in the work of the Lord. You see, when we speak of productivity, God made a very clear statement about it:
- Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.
- Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
- And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
The principle is: Our fruits are always proportionate to what we have sown. So if we want to see more fruits, we need to sow more. Look at the reality of this for us. Because we gave, we were able to buy a bigger facility. The result is we are able to house more people and do better ministries. God honors our investments and we can never out give Him.
I hope you and I will continue to support our ministries. We want to be able to do more for the Lord. And we can only go as far as we are willing to invest for. Next year, we are praying that we can build a basketball gym where we can have a bigger playing area for our young people and kids. Let's all trust the Lord to provide our needs for it through our faithful investments.
III CONTINUE TILL GOALS ARE ACHIEVED: (v.14)
Lastly, like a true champion, the apostle Paul had his eyes set on the finish line. He declared - I press on toward the goal. Clearly, Paul was not going to stop trying until he has achieved the goal that God has set for him.
In the same way, we too as individuals or as a church must be determined to keep on going until we have achieved our goal. Every worthwhile goal is going to encounter some problems, even setbacks, but we should take to heart that God allows some problems in our journeys not to discourage or defeat us, but to develop us. Sometimes achieving our goal may not happen according to the time frame we have set. But, we must keep our eyes focused on God and our goal. We must be confident that God will help us throughout our journey.
Nehemiah was one of the amazing achievers in the Bible. God gave him the task of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. As soon as they started the project, oppositions tried to intimidate and discourage them. His response was worth emulating:
after I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people "Don't be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.
The point he drove was they need to continually trust God until the end of their project because if they allow the oppositions to hinder them in finishing it, then their families will continue to suffer the lack of security for not having the walls to protect them and their city.
That's very true even to us. I don't want us to miss the truth that our fruits today have a direct link to our families and the next generations. If we work hard today, aside from of course giving great honor to God, our children and grandchildren will reap tremendous benefits.
Indeed, the coming year holds great prospect for productivity. Let's do our best to celebrate and correct the past, concentrate in maximizing today, and continue till goal is achieved. We have the constant assurance that God will never fail to help us when we do our best for Him.