Community Baptist Church
October 25, 2026 | Fully Formed | Week 2 | Steve

      • Psalm 138:2–3HCSB

  • Praise Him Praise Him
  • Blessed Assurance

      • Galatians 5:22–25HCSB

  • Yet Not I But Through Christ In Me
  • Living Hope

      • Matthew 22:15–21HCSB

  • Over the decades of ministry I’ve been privileged to be prayed over by some notable people (at least they were notable to me). At my ordination council a group of older, seasoned men gathered around me and asked God’s blessing on my youth and inexperience. Other times along the way I’ ve been blessed as older, wiser, spiritually deep men and women have poured their hearts out in prayer for me,
    This is not a new thing! Every believer has an opportunity to allow none less than Jesus pray for us - see John 17. We have an intercessor dwelling within - the Holy Spirit who prays for us when we can’t find the words - see Romans 8:26-27. We also find ourselves blessed by prayers of a world class scholar (not me); a trailblazing pioneer of church planting (again, not me); and a deeply spiritual man whose one single life continues to rock the world in which we live (again, not me).
    I’m referring to the Apostle Paul. As I labored over the document we call our mission and vision statement it was his prayers on which I relied.
    STAND (IF YOU ARE ABLE) and let’s read this prayer together:
    Ephesians 1:15–19 HCSB
    This is why, since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I never stop giving thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, would give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. I pray that the perception of your mind may be enlightened so you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the glorious riches of His inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power to us who believe, according to the working of His vast strength.

    THE STANDARD BY WHICH WE ARE MEASURED

    What Kind of People Does Paul Pray For:
    Listen to the list of words Paul uses to describe these believers:
    Chosen in Him
    Predestined to Adoption
    Redeemed through His blood
    Forgiven of our trespasses
    Granted the knowledge of the mystery of God’s will
    Having an inheritance in Christ
    Sealed by the Holy Spirit
    To What End Are We Being Formed?
    Dallas Willard, a Southern Baptist Pastor and Professor or Philosophy USC for 48 years writes:
    A fundamental mistake of the conservative side of the American church today, and much of the Western church, is that it takes as its basic goal to get as many people as possible ready to die and go to heaven. [The church] aims to get people into heaven rather than getting heaven into people.
    Renovation of the Heart, p. 238-239.
    The ultimate goal of the Christ follower is not going to heaven. Rather, the ultimate goal of a believer is simple to behold the glory of God - face to face. Here is another pastor’s description:
    A Holy Ambition: To Preach Where Christ Has Not Been Named God’s Ultimate Goal

    God’s ultimate goal in creation and redemption is to uphold and display his glory for the enjoyment of his redeemed people from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

    His redeemed people are those who, as Paul described to the believers in Rome that are being conformed to the image of Christ, being transformed so that they can be in the presence of God for all eternity.
    Don’t forget this one crucial biblical truth:
    Revelation 21:1–2 HCSB
    Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea no longer existed. I also saw the Holy City, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.

    THE STRATEGIES GOD USES FOR FORMING US IN THE IMAGE OF CHRIST:

    God gives a ‘Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.”
    All believers are given all of the Spirit at the moment of conversion. Paul isn’t praying for people to ‘get saved.’ He is praying that those who are saved, sealed in the Spirit will be open to receive all that the Holy Spirit wants to do: His task as Jesus defined it this way:
    John 16:13–15 HCSB
    When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth. For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak whatever He hears. He will also declare to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, because He will take from what is Mine and declare it to you. Everything the Father has is Mine. This is why I told you that He takes from what is Mine and will declare it to you.
    God’s Holy Spirit is given you and I that we may come to know God more deeply, more personally, more intimately day by day by day till that moment - whether by physical death or the return of Christ for His people - when we see Him as He is in His fullness.
    I can only imagine what it will be like When I walk by Your side I can only imagine what my eyes will see When Your face is before me I can only imagine… Surrounded by Your glory What will my heart feel? Will I dance for You, Jesus Or in awe of You be still? Will I stand in Your presence Or to my knees will I fall? Will I sing hallelujah? Will I be able to speak at all? I can only imagine I can only imagine
    The enlightenment of the Spirit to know the hope of His calling
    This world is getting more bizarre by the day. Fiction now overrules truth in almost every area of life.
    Truth has become whatever one chooses it to be.
    We who are being formed into the image of Jesus are literally the only hope for the world in which we live. It isn’t about politics, it isn’t about policy, it isn’t about our preferences…
    We cant share what we don’t have!
    If our ‘hope’ is escaping this world, avoiding the pain and hurt of the people among whom we live…then we are to be most pitied.
    God has given us a hope that can conquer devastating plagues; uncrossable seas; empty deserts; unconquerable enemies; fire; lions; exile….
    And far too many believers are hiding, hoping for escape rather than engagement as God wants to demonstrate Himself in and through us.
    To know the immeasurable greatness of His power
    Recall this from Paul:
    2 Corinthians 11:24–28 HCSB
    Five times I received 39 lashes from Jews. Three times I was beaten with rods by the Romans. Once I was stoned by my enemies. Three times I was shipwrecked. I have spent a night and a day in the open sea. On frequent journeys, I faced dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own people, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the open country, dangers on the sea, and dangers among false brothers; labor and hardship, many sleepless nights, hunger and thirst, often without food, cold, and lacking clothing. Not to mention other things, there is the daily pressure on me: my care for all the churches.
    But listen to Paul’s conclusion of this list:
    2 Corinthians 12:9–10 HCSB
    But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, catastrophes, persecutions, and in pressures, because of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
    I ask you…do you see believers around you experienciing unparalleled obstacles? Do you have challenges you are experiencing that are beyond your ability?
    Remember the words I shared from 2 Sunday’s ago:
    On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.
    Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone To Talk: Expeditions and Encounters (p. 49)

    REFLECT AND RESPOND

    I fear that we as believers are missing the greatest and biggest opportunity of our lives.
    In our search for comfort, convenience, and protecting our personal preferences, we have become a shell of what God wants for us.
    So, let’s change things up:

    Are you growing in your knolwedge of God?

    I’m not asking about facts and figures. They are important. But after 50 years of marriage I can attest that knowing her birthday, our anniversary, the birthdates of our family, knowing the many struggles we have faced are not the definition of knowing one another. Sadly many Christians gather around the Bible to confirm their own biases, to protect their commitments; to praise their past; and to use ‘Bible Study’ as a strategy for avoiding dealing with the lost world around us.
    How will you know?
    It will be obvious - not in some sort of physical glow or mystical aura. It will be obvious because like Anna in the temple when Jesus was circumcised and named Anna:
    Luke 2:38 HCSB
    At that very moment, she came up and began to thank God and to speak about Him to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.

    Are you radiating Hope in what only God can do?

    The upcoming election has many people hoping for political change. Count me in! But let’s be honest.
    How many times have we changed the people in offices across the land and found ourselves in the same spot we were when their opponents were in office?
    No, our hope is founded on what on God can do. Are we willing to stand up and aks God to move mountains? To expel the adversary? A point in Paul’s time in Ephesus always challenges me:
    Acts 19:11–12 HCSB
    God was performing extraordinary miracles by Paul’s hands, so that even facecloths or work aprons that had touched his skin were brought to the sick, and the diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them.
    Imagine the hope it took for those unsaved, unwashed, pagan men and women to pick up a work apron and expect God to heal, to expel a demons!

    Are we experiencing the exceedingly mighty power of God?

    Personally I admit - my prayer life is weak, feeble, and often laced with words like, can God can do this or than in the lives of my family and friends.?
    As a church our prayers are often laced with doubt and despair. Remember Paul’s conclusion to this prayer:
    Ephesians 1:20–23 HCSB
    He demonstrated this power in the Messiah by raising Him from the dead and seating Him at His right hand in the heavens — far above every ruler and authority, power and dominion, and every title given, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put everything under His feet and appointed Him as head over everything for the church, which is His body, the fullness of the One who fills all things in every way.

      • Ephesians 1:15–19HCSB

      • Revelation 21:1–2HCSB

      • John 16:13–15HCSB

      • 2 Corinthians 11:24–28HCSB

      • 2 Corinthians 12:9–10HCSB

      • Luke 2:38HCSB

      • Acts 19:11–12HCSB

      • Ephesians 1:20–23HCSB

Community Baptist Church
sschenewerk@gmail.com
5416799569
http://www.winstoncommunitybaptist.com
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