The Heart of Hebron: A Christ-Centered Church

For His glory and for our good, let's hear the word of the Lord

this morning. Christ is the image of the

invisible God, the first born of all creation.

For by Him all things were created in heaven and on earth,

visible and invisible, whether Thrones or dominions or rollers

or authorities, all things were created through Him and for Him.

And He is before all things, and He is in Him.

All things hold together and He is the bot, the head of the

body, the church. He is the beginning, the first

born from the dead, that in everything he might be

preeminent. And then from Matthew Jesus

said, seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and

all these things will be added to you.

Paul in Galatians chapter 2. I have been crucified with

Galatians 2 · chapter mention

Christ. It is no longer I who live, but

Christ who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh.

I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave

himself for me. This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God. The grass Withers and the

flowers say, but our word of our Lord stands forever.

Amen. Please be seated.

There are few things as annoying as a truly full blown

self-centered person. Most of you know somebody like

this, somebody whose world revolves around them and they

think that the world revolves around them, that every

conversation they have is all about them, that every we

thought that they think tends to be about them.

They're just incredibly self-centered in all that they

tend to think about, and it shows in everything that they

do. And most of us are really

annoyed by that, with good reason, because where does that

leave us? If they have a world centered

around them, what does that mean for everybody else?

They truly full blown self-centered person can be

incredibly annoying. I should stop for a second and

make a note here that at 240 yesterday afternoon around 2:40,

a group of your leaders here, the elders and some of the staff

gathered together with the representatives from the

denomination, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, and dotted

our last I and crossed our last T.

We are now formally part the EPC.

Now that's worth a whoop or two as part of that move.

As part of that move, what we want to do is try to go back a

little bit and reassert what it is that we believe.

Who are we as a church? We want to do that for two

reasons. One, we want to remind ourselves

this is who we are. And two, we want to also express

what we aspire to be. So as we talked about, hey, this

is who we are. We know that we're only

capturing a picture of the reality.

We we are these things to some extent by God's grace, but we

also know that by the Scriptures push we need to be these things

even more and more. And so I've come up with a quick

little description here about what Hebron is Hebron in what we

aspire to be. Hebron Church is a biblically

based, Christ centered community of disciples, A reformed

classically evangelical church in the Presbyterian tradition,

worshipping, growing and serving Christ in the East Hills of

Pittsburgh. Now my goal is to try to go over

each one of these characteristics over the next

couple of weeks together, pointing out where it is that I

think that Heaven Church's satisfactory presently fulfills

this, but also to put forward to us kind of a challenge that hey,

we don't ever want to lose sight of these goals.

We don't want to lose sight of these descriptors that kind of

describe who we are. And many of them are kind of

self-evident. For instance, last week we

looked at what it means that we are biblically based, and we

described how that is both in the present expression of Hebron

Church and what we want Hebron Church to be.

And in part, what I trust is most people's connection.

A lot of you are biblically based, and yet all of us want to

aspire to be biblically based. Today we're going to take a look

at that second descriptor. They're Christ centered.

What does it mean to be Christ centered?

And I need to do a here like I did last week as well.

And to acknowledge that it'd be really hard, I think, to find a

Christian Church that wouldn't somewhere along the lines

acknowledge Christ as the center of what they're doing.

Be to be Christ centered is not unique to Heber and it is

something that I think a lot of people identify with.

But I want to use the term kind of specifically and want to use

that illustration of a self-centered person kind of as

a corollary or kind of as a contrast to what we mean by

being Christ centered or a Christ centered church.

To be a self-centered person. Part of the reason why that's so

annoying is because it manifests itself.

It shows itself on the outside all the time.

The person's always talking about themselves.

They only think about themselves every.

The world revolves around them and they show it to the outside

because let's face it, the force of sin drives each and every

person in this room to be incredibly self-serving

self-centered. We all tend to be self-centered,

but hopefully, by God's grace, we're all not that annoyingly

self-centered because we tamp it down, we push it down, we hide

it a little bit. That's what we do with our self

centeredness. That is what I fear a lot of

churches might do with their Christ centeredness and by a lot

of churches. What I'm scared about is Hebron

Church. It's easy to say, hey, Hebron

Church is a Christ centered church, but it's a challenge to

make sure that we're not tamping that down, that that's not

drifting into the background, that that isn't just a vague

spirituality that kind of describes Heaven church.

Well, Heaven church is Christ centered.

Of course it is. No, I want it to be manifest.

I want it to show itself just like that self-centered

individual shows itself, manifests that characteristic in

a bad way. So I want this self Christ

centered. Sorry, I want this Christ

centered character of Hebron Church to show itself to

manifest, to be on the outside all the time.

Now what do I mean by Christ centered?

I mean that the controlling focus and the driving force of

everything we do is Jesus Christ.

The controlling focus and the driving force of everything we

do is Jesus Christ. Picture this a little bit for

you. So let's take it on an

individual level. Let's put it on an individual

level for a second. Imagine your life, your life is

a big bubble. OK, imagine a big bubble that's

that's representative of your life as a whole.

So imagine a big bubble around me right now.

And inside that bubble are a bunch of balls.

And the individual balls are all represent something very crucial

in your life, something very important.

And maybe the size of the ball represents how important that

thing is to you. And so you've got a ball in

there for your job, your that's a big ball and your family and

that's a huge ball. You enjoy reading certain

things, that's a smaller ball. Your finances, that's a ball

that's in the church, your friendships, that's a smaller

ball. Your church is a larger ball.

You've got all these different balls inside this big bubble

that represents your life. What you put at the center of

the of the bubble controls everything else, handles all the

rest of those balls and most of us try to stick ourselves in the

center of that bubble. We're in the center of that

bubble and we're juggling all these different balls.

I have a real small talented juggling.

It's a small talents, but I can't keep 3 balls up in the air

a little bit. At least I used to.

So I was planning on using this as an illustration.

I thought, oh, I could get up there and have juggle the balls

and stuff like that. So I asked Kelly yesterday, get

me three things that I could juggle and she get me three

things and Wham, they all went on the floor right away.

So hence I'm not going to juggle.

But the idea is that in the in this sphere, this bubble, the

thing in the center is holding everything up, keeping

everything else juggled in your life.

And So what we do is we recognize early on in our lives,

if we have any sense of self-awareness, that sticking

ourselves in the center of that bubble is a bad choice, is a

failure. Now, the drive of sin, the push

of our own selfishness is to place ourselves in the center.

I know it true. I feel it every day.

I feel it every minute to make myself the center of my life,

the center of my world. But I wasn't created to be in

the center of my life. The center of my life is not set

apart for me, nor is it set apart for my family.

Well, my family is incredibly important to me.

My wife is glorious in my life. All these things.

I love my kids most of the time. I have this great appreciation

for my family. But to stick my family in the

center of that bubble is to collapse.

The bubble is to have that bubble shatter and break.

I love my church. I love my job, but to put either

of those in the center is to invite the bubble to shatter and

to break because they weren't created to carry that weight.

They weren't created to be in the center.

What goes in the center of my life, the core thing, the

driving focus and the driving force is Jesus Christ.

The controlling focus, the driving force is Jesus Christ.

He's in the center and by doing so he keeps.

Now translate that out then to our church.

What does it mean that we are a church that is a Christ centered

church? We have a growing youth ministry

and it's wonderful to see it growing and, and, and developing

and the excitement that there is with that kind of thing.

But if we're a youth ministry centered church, that bubble is

bound to collapse. We have a fabulous worship team.

Don't we have a fabulous worship team?

We have a fabulous worship team, but if is it crucial as our

worship, is it crucial as they are in guiding us and leading us

every day into God's presence? That can't be the center focus

of our bubble. If it is, our bubble will surely

collapse. We do great global missions.

Jerry was talking about that earlier.

We have wonderful local missions all over the place.

We do wonderful things with our 70s and over 70s group.

We have a good fellowship time. We have growth groups and Bible

studies that help lead us into the church, into God's presence.

All of these things are fabulous and wonderful.

But if any of those things become the center focus of the

bubble, the bubble is bound to collapse.

It is bound to shatter. Now, why do you mention this?

The concern is that there are so many wonderful things out there,

there are so many wonderful opportunities out there, and

that the church is tempted to consistently slide into doing

this. OK, we don't want to be

self-centered. We want to be other centered.

We want, you know, that's a mantra that is recognizable in

this world. We don't want to be

self-centered. We want to be other centered.

We want to focus our lives out towards the other people,

etcetera, etcetera. And how easy it would be to

become a church that is other centered.

Goodness me. Don't we want to be focused on

other people? Of course we do.

Don't we want to pour our hearts and lives in the ministry, the

love of God that He is blessed with us into other people's

lives and into the relationships we have with other people?

Of course we do. Any sense that that is not a

mark of heaven, church is to our shame and detriment.

But we can't be other centered. That's not what the church is

built to be. The church is built to be Christ

centered and Christ centered alone.

Now you can pick this up a little bit in the text in which

we read the text that point to the source of all that we have

is Jesus Christ. The motivation that all we have

is Jesus Christ and the hope that we have is Jesus Christ.

The source of a Christ centered church is going to be Jesus

Christ. The motivation of a Christ

centered church is going to be Jesus Christ, and the hope of a

Christ centered church is going to be Jesus Christ.

You can see this if you have your text available in

Colossians chapter one. This is when I read it.

I hope you captured some of the majesty.

I stumbled through the reading a little bit, but in in light of

that, I hope that you still captured the majesty.

This is one of those great passages about Jesus.

This is one that really highlights who He is.

Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the first born of

all creation. For by Him all things were

created in heaven and on earth, invisible and invisible.

Whether Thrones or dominions, rollers and authorities, all

things were created through Him and for Him.

He is before all things and in all things hold together.

He is the head of the body, the church, the beginning, the first

born of the dead, that in everything he might be

preeminent. Do you hear that?

That's the passage that should ring that that should capture

every thought in our every sense of our imagination, every goal,

every pursuit in which heaven church is made-up of.

That should capture your heart and your desire as an

individual. What do we want?

We want Jesus Christ to be preeminent.

We want him to be lifted high. We want His Majesty and His

sovereignty and His supremacy held up before the whole world

and in front of our whole lives. We want everything in our lives

to be shaped this way. How so?

This text highlights that He's before all things.

He's in all things. He.

All things exist through him. All things exist by Him.

He's a source of every aspect of what it means for us to have a

Christ centered life. Now it'd be easy for us to sit

there and say this, OK, why do we have such a good worship

team? Well, because we have a great

bass player. That's why we have a great

worship team. Why do we have why are we so

fabulous at the Bible studies and youth ministry work?

Because we've got great volunteers that lead things.

Why is it that our, our local ministry work is so good?

What Look at our facilities. Think about what God has given

to us in the facilities in which we operate in.

You have no idea the money and the manpower that the trustees

pour into in order to maintain this.

It'd be easy for us to identify all those things and every one

of those steps would be wrong because we'd be tempted to put

in the center the work of the trustees or our budget that it

enables us to financially do this most of the time.

If you haven't, by the way, kept track of our finances in the E

newsletter, you should do that. You you should know where we're

at. And so and, and since the Lord's

prodding to assist us in the ministries in which we do it,

it'd be easy to get distracted from the center core of who we

are and to be to place anything else in the center of of the

church's work in Jesus Christ and to identify the power and

the effectiveness. You know what if Jerry wasn't

all that Jerry was, so many things wouldn't happen around

the church if Dan didn't do what Dan did, if we didn't have the

staff of all. That's true.

But all of that risks missing the source of what makes Hebron,

Hebron, which is Jesus Christ and him alone the source of a

Christ centered church. Is Jesus Christ the motivation

of a Christ centered church, Matthew and Jesus.

Jesus says these things. Seek first the Kingdom of God

and his righteousness and all these things will be added to

you. What about all those other balls

in the center of my bubble that are so important to me, that are

so crucial to me? I don't want a single one of

them to drop. What about all the balls in our

church? We don't want a single one of

them to drop. We don't want the elderly in our

church to feel uncared for. We don't want the babies in our

church not to have an effective nursery.

We don't want the youth ministry or the adults, or we don't.

We want everything that we want all those balls to stay in the

air. How do they happen?

Only by keeping our motivation correct.

Do you get some of you who are older might remember the comic

strip Calvin and Hobbes? If you don't remember the comic,

Sir Calvin and Hawes find it. It's fabulous.

But Calvin is a little boy and he has a vivid imagination, and

he imagines that this cardboard box is a transmorgifier, and a

transmorgifier is a machine that turns them into whatever he

wants, and it turns them into an alien or it turns them into a

dinosaur or robot or whatever like that.

I wish that we had a transmorgifier and the trans

morgifire would be every time anything happens in this church

where we ask the question, well, what should we do about this or

how do we feel about this or how do we think about this?

We push it through the trans morgifire and we come out with,

what do Christ do about this? What does Christ think about

this? What does Christ feel about

this? Now the crazy thing is that we

do have a trans morgifire and he's the Holy Spirit because

he's working that way in every individual Christian's life.

By God's grace, he's working that way in our church as well,

so that we have that motivation, the motivation that focuses on

Christ as a center. Christ is the center by

recognizing he's the source of all things.

He's the motivation of all things, and He's the hope of all

things. Listen to how Paul writes in

Galatians chapter 2. I have been crucified with

Galatians 2 · chapter mention

Christ. It is no longer I who live, but

Christ who lives in me. All right, now let's be in awe

of that passage in such a way that we don't take it silly.

Paul's alive. Paul is alive, but what he's

saying is that his hope, his expectations, his desires,

everything about him, the center of his world, the center of his

bubble is so clearly the crucified Jesus Christ in his

grace, in his love, in his sacrifice, in His Holiness, in

his righteousness, that the center of Paul's life is so

completely and totally Jesus Christ that when you look at hit

the bubble, the ball that is Paul himself is small and

disappearing so that the Lord Jesus Christ can reign in the

center of his bubble more and more completely.

That's what we need for heaven church.

Heaven church desires not just to be all of these things, but

to fulfill all these things. We need the finances to be able

to be faithful to the ministry God's called us to, but our hope

is not. My hope is not in that you will

open your wallets, but go ahead and do so.

My hope is not that you will volunteer for the for the

ministries, but please go and do so.

My hope is not that you will catch a global vision of the

Jesus Christ and that every single day you'll be driven to

your knees to pray for the church that is suffering

throughout the world, but please do so.

My hope and prayer is for Jesus Christ to be the center of

Hebron Church and everything that happens here so that you

will automatically and always be driven exactly to that kind of a

state place where all the balls within the sphere of Hebron

Church are in order and functional as the center of the

church balances and juggles them all.

So what does it mean for us to be a Christ centered church?

Well, one thing it means is that don't ever take Jesus Christ for

granted. Now, I say that to you guys, but

I'm saying that as a challenge for you, for the leadership of

this church, if you ever hear us.

If you ever hear me talking about things where it's not

clear that it arises from the centrality of Jesus Christ,

you've got to call me on it. I guarantee you it's not because

I've forgotten Jesus or I no longer love him.

But what happens is that I'll take him for granted.

This church could take him for granted because he's been such,

so good to us. He has blessed us in so many

ways. It would be easy to take him for

granted. Please don't let us do that.

Please don't ever let ever let Jesus Christ become a means to

an end. Well, we need a great strong

youth ministry. Therefore, we're going to hang

on to Jesus Christ. No, we hang on to Jesus Christ

because he's the center. Now, out of that, we trust that

he will bring us as the source, as a motivation, as a hope.

He will bring us a strong youth ministry of vibrant 70s ministry

and effective local outreach and wonderful facilities that we

have going on. The good effective staff.

We trust all those things because we trust in the

centrality of Jesus Christ. But if heaven is going to be a

Christ centered church, I need you to be a Christ centered

follower. You need me to be a Christ

centered follower, which means not in just some vague, distant

behind the scenes implicit way, but incredibly explicitly in

your life. Why do you know that a

self-centered person is self-centered?

Because they show it all the time.

What do I need from you? What do you need from me?

You need me to be showing you all the time that Jesus Christ

is the center of my life. I need to see from you all the

time that Jesus Christ is the center of your life.

How does that happen? By our embracing Jesus Christ as

the source of all we have and all we do.

By making sure that Jesus Christ is the motivation for all we

have and for all we do, and that Jesus Christ is the hope that we

hold onto for all we have and then for all we do.

And if there's anybody here that tries to live that way and

consistently bumps up against their own inability because of

our sinfulness, because of our self centeredness, because of

our struggles, let me encourage you that we have an advocate on

our side who is wanting to work that very life in your heart,

placing Jesus Christ on the throne, and that's Christ

himself, our Lord. Let's go to him in prayer.

Jesus, we are thankful for the blessings that you pour out into

our hearts. We are thankful that you are

indeed the center of everything that happens here at Hebron.

We know that to be true, Lord. We want to manifest that more

clearly. We want to make that evident to

everybody who sees that recognizes that we know that you

are the source of all things, that you are the motivation for

all things, that you are the hope of all things.

Lord, we want that for every aspect of Hebron Church, and we

want that for every individual associated with Heaven Church.

And Lord, we are unable to do that on our own.

And so, as always, going all the way back to our salvation

itself, we place ourselves in your hands, trusting in the work

that only you can do. Make it so through our lives, We

pray in Jesus Christ. We ask, Amen.

My friends, if you would stand together with me and affirm that

which we believe. Let me ask you, why is the Son

of God called Jesus, meaning Savior?

Because he saves us from our sins.

Because salvation is not to be sought or found in anyone else.

Christ alone is sufficient for salvation.

Why do we call him our Lord? Because not with gold or silver,

but with His precious blood, He has delivered and purchased our

body and soul from sin, and from the tyranny of the devil to be

his very own.