#412 The Jesus Trip, Worldchangers

#412 The Jesus Trip, Worldchangers
By: Zach Sloane

(See download links at the bottom of the page for the Sermon Notes, PowerPoint Slides)

Video: Bridgewater & PowerPoint, Toronto

We have something great going on here at Impact Church London and we are expanding our footprint. Who we are and what we are all about is presently, right now being taken across the country.

We have to grow, we have to expand. The revelation and expression of the life of Christ that God has deposited in us is bigger than just us here: it’s for all of London, SWO, it’s for across Canada and it’s global.

Recap:
Jesus Trip: Looks for Jesus because of John 5:39 & Hebrews 1:1-3.

Last week we saw how Hosea foreshadowed and demonstrated how an embodied Word, Jesus, the word made flesh, can take a people from where they are and bring them into their destiny, into a preferred future.

John 1:14
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Intro:
This we week we are continuing in the Jesus Trip, looking to find Jesus and we going to look at the life and times of King Hezekiah of Judah, someone who was a real reformer, a real-world changer.

When you think about reformers, who do you think of?

William Wilberforce
Martin Luther King Jr.
Ghandi
Martin Luther – Protestant Reformation. Went a bit off the rails.

“Your sin smells to high heaven.”
From Heidelberg Disputation, pg. 51 of Luther’s Works, Vol. 31

“You, however, keep on asking for trouble and want to be hit over the head.”
From Admonition to Peace, pg. 19 of Luther’s Works, Vol. 46

Martin Luther is often hailed as the greatest reformer of Christianity, but what about Jesus. He changed everything for the better. You too are meant to be a reformer, a worldchanger!

Who is Hezekiah?

2 Kings 18:3-7 (NLT)“
He did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight, just as his ancestor David had done. He removed the pagan shrines, smashed the sacred pillars, and cut down the Asherah poles… Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before or after his time.”

So you can see already that fact that he is changing stuff for the better.

Worldchanger – Urban dictionary
“A person who has a deep inner desire to contribute to making the world a better place, be it through political, infrastructure, technological or sociological advances, and puts such impulses to action in order to see such change become a reality, no matter how small”^[1]

What do God’s worldchangers do and how do they do it?

1. Remove barriers to encountering God.

2 Chronicles 29:3(NLT)
In the very first month of the first year of his reign, Hezekiah reopened the doors of the Temple of the Lord and repaired them. Repaired the points of access to the temple to the dwelling place and presence of God.

Jesus did the same thing for us.

Hebrews 10:19-22 (NLT)
And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enterheaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place…”

Doors are swung wide open. We can now enter boldly and the way, the entrance way is life-giving,not life sapping and soul-destroying religion.

John 10:9“I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.”

Jesus is the entrance into heaven. Jesus is also the door into spiritual encounter.

Worldchangers swing wide open the doors of access to God’s presence, power and person. They find a way to connect people with a God experience.

2. Purify the people

2 Chronicles 29:5 (NLT)
He said to them, “Listen to me, you Levites! Purify yourselves…”

They did it through compliance with the law and the ceremonial rituals.

But Jesus, he did it slightly differently!

How? He took on our impurities.

2 Corinthians 5:21(NKJV)
For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Wasn’t just an outside job – but inside purification too!

Hebrews 9:14 (NKJV)
how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

Now for us, as reformers and world changers we clearly don’t make people pure, not even ourselves. But, we know how to take people to the source of all purity – Jesus!

Reformers know who to embrace the grace that cleanses you and transforms you.

Reformers don’t call people to holy living with great passion and zeal.They lead people to HIM.

He has become our holiness!

3. Cleansed the temple

2 Chronicles 29:5 (NLT)

He said to them, “Listen to me, you Levites! Purify yourselves and purify the Temple of the Lord, the God of your ancestors. Remove all the defiled things from the sanctuary.

His father, King Ahaz had brought all sorts of idol worship and idols into the temple.

2 Chronicles 29:16 (NLT)
The priests went into the sanctuary of the Temple of the Lord to cleanse it, and they took out to the Temple courtyard all the defiled things they found. From there the Levites carted it all out to the Kidron Valley.

When he went to Damascus and saw the idolatry there, Ahaz came back told Uriah the priest that he wanted a new altar in the temple, not the altar God had given them but one he saw in Damascus.

2 Kings 16:11-13
Uriah followed the king’s instructions and built an altar just like it, and it was ready before the king returned from Damascus. When the king returned, he inspected the altar and made offerings on it. He presented a burnt offering and a grain offering, he poured out a liquid offering, and he sprinkled the blood of peace offerings on the altar.

So much of false religion, doctrines of demons has to do with altars, the wrong sacrifice. A religious system infiltrated the church with an altar and a cult of death all around the death and the dying of you. You and your self-sacrifice is what is required to move God, to get God out of heaven, to get his power to show up in your life.

God is however not interested in sacrifices and offerings. There is one altar that he cares about… the cross. It’s the death of his Son, not our own self-sacrifice that secures God’s favour and power.

Hezekiah tears out this false sacrifice system, false worship of sacrifices and offerings. And so did Jesus!

Hebrews 10:12-14
But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

Hebrews 10:8-10
When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

He destroyed the whole system built around our offerings and sacrifices.

Secondly, the cleansing of the temple also has to do with putting back into the temple the things that others discarded.

2 Chronicles 29:19 (NLT)
“We have also recoveredall the items discarded by King Ahaz when he was unfaithful and closed the Temple. They are now in front of the altar of the Lord, purified and ready for use.”

The glory filled the temple, Christ’s body on Pentecost. God is back in the temple, the glory is back. And with it, with Him, a restoration of all that this entails.

This means apostolic government of the church and the ascension gifts for the equipping of the saints and the gifts of the Spirit.

Worldchangers like Jesus oppose and resist demonic structures of trying to follow Jesus that are built on human, self-sacrifice, will power and our best efforts. We resist that stuff and all the entanglements that go with it.

Worldchangers activate, awaken, and restore lost and fallen gifts and expressions of the Holy Spirit, reconnecting people to the glory of God, the Spirit of God that has been poured out on all flesh.

4. Brought people together around Jesus.
Hezekiah resisted the urge that most reformers/worldchangers feel to champion only their own people, those nearest dearest, and with the closest similarities.

2 Chronicles 30:1 (NLT)
King Hezekiah now sent word to all Israel and Judah, and he wrote letters of invitation to the people of Ephraim and Manasseh. He asked everyone to come to the Temple of the Lord at Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover of the Lord, the God of Israel.

John 12:32 (NLT)
“And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.”

And he said this indicating the way that he was going to die.

John 12:33
“He said this to indicate how he was going to die.”

Worldchangers look out over the whole of the human condition and say, “no one left behind! What Jesus has done is for all of us and all of us must experience it.

SUMMARY:

Worldchangers:

1. Open the door to encountering God: Be the open heaven you are. Put yourself out there and let people experience God in you. Freely you have received freely give. Lead people to Jesus by letting them have access to Him through your life.

2. Purifying People: Worldchangers elevate the moral atmosphere around us, not by being religious, legalistic prudes… but because we know how to embrace the grace that empowers us to say no to sin and say yes to the movement of the Holy Spirit in us.

3. Cleansing the temple: Worldchangers embrace the one and only altar – the cross, and all of our worship and spirituality flows from His finished work. Worldchangers awaken, activate and excite a passion for the full expression of the glory of God in His house: the signs, wonders, gifts, fruit, and truth that emerge from Holy Spirit’s activity.

4. Bring people together around Jesus: We draw everyone by pointing to Jesus and his finished work. It’s for everyone – for Bridgewater, Toronto,London, SWO and beyond.

^[1]https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Worldchanger

The Jesus Trip, Worldchangers, Sermon notes to print, PDF

The Jesus Trip, Worldchangers, PowerPoint Slides, PDF