12+1 Core Values: Christ Centered | Jason Martin

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Your day today. We'll be touching the second value. So

the second value is actually Christ centered. Christ centered. Okay,

so that's the second value. Okay. So why are values important?

How many of y'all have learned about values? How many

of you all took SPM. You took SPM and then

you learned the eighty Nili Nili mourney, right, eighty values?

How many of y'all had to memorize those values? That's

the only way to pass the moral paper, right, we

had to memorize those values, and then after the exam,

then we forget all of it. Right and right now,

if you are working, you're in a company. The company,

they will have the company vision, the company vision, and

then they will have company values. Right, you have company

values as well? Okay? And how many of you all

remember your company values? I see one hand, well done,

Elaine remembers the company values, Charles, Okay, Okay, we're passionate

about progress. Okay. So values are only valuable if they

are applied, right, Values only valuable if they are applied,

So I will give you Okay, how many of you

all have heard of this? Okay, I give you this.

You may or may not have heard of this company. Okay,

this company their values is respect, integrity, communication and excellence.

Our what company do you think this is? Okay? This

company is called Enron? How many have we all heard

of Enron? If you haven't never heard of Andron is

because it doesn't exist now. It was one of the

richest companies in the nineties. But the thing is they

were playing with their numbers, so there was a lot

of corruption and they got caught. But the company value

is integrity. So just having the value as a word

has no meaning at all unless we live by it. Right.

So that is why in ext church, even as we

are going through this right and I was preparing for this,

then I begin to appreciate what mission is, what vision is,

and what the values are important. So what is the mission?

What is the vision of action? Vision is that the

whole earth will be filled with the glory of the

Lord in Haber Cook two fourteen. Basically in a nutshell,

is that we want God to be made famous throughout

the earth. That is our vision and how are we

going to do it? That's the mission, that is to

make disciples. That's the mission. Okay, So how does values

come into the play? In that sense? You got the vision.

The vision is the big picture is you want the

whole world to know God. Second one is how we

do it is by making disciples, and values is how

do we make disciples. You can make disciples by sticking

a gun to somebody's head and say become a disciple.

That's that's one way of getting your mission accomplished. But

values is how we do it here in extra Okay,

that is how we do it here in extras. So

the first value was spirit filled, Spirit failed and spirit failed?

Is that we will be filled with the Holy Spirit

and the Holy Spirit will lead us. Okay. That was

the first value and it ties very much to the

second value, which is Christ centered. Christ centered. Okay. So

have you heard the word centered before? Okay, I give

you a definition of the word centered. Next line, Whatever

sits at the center doesn't get attention, it gets authority.

Whatever sits at the center doesn't just get attention, it

gets authority. So what does this mean? Have you heard

of a company saying that I'm cast centric, Amazon customer centricity,

or some is innovation centered, like Netflix is innovation centered.

That means right. They are not there to save money.

They are there to push boundaries, to do innovation and

that because that is their center. It is very clear

that's what they give attention to and that's what the

authority is. That means right. For example, I've been listening

to this audio book about Netflix. It's quite interesting book.

It has no rules, So Netflix there's a sidetrack a

bit right. Netflix has no rules, no rules, meaning they

do not have a leaf policy, they do not have

an expense policy, and they do not have a chain

of command kind of thing like authority. If you you

are given this project, you are given the authority to

sign as much because you are the expert. And how

they do that is because they want to make sure

that everyone has innovation at the center. But of course

they are to hire the right people are you don't

hire anybody, and then you have to hire people with

the same values, the same core beliefs, and the same ambition.

And the moment Netflix finds out that hey, this guy

you know, you know for Netflix, right, you know, what's

the reward of good work? No, the reward of good

work is a severance package. They don't believe in good work.

They want great work, So good work doesn't cut it

right now, like bell curve, if you're in the middle lot,

that's it, you're out. That's how severe they are. But

because innovation is their center, they will do whatever it

takes to innovate. And that's why that's how they progress

so fast, you know. And so when it comes to church,

all churches should be christ scentered, but are all churches

christ sentered should be an r are two different things,

you know, because sometimes there will be other things that

will take the focus or the attention. And when we

if we are not careful. You know, in the Bible,

it says, right, Jesus says, not everyone that calls me

Lord Lord will be saved. When you say not everyone

that calls me lord lord, he's referring to Christians or

people who call themselves believers. He's not calling he's not

referring to non believers. So just by saying that, oh,

I believe in Jesus does not make you christ scentered.

So we have to be very clear of that. Okay,

I know it sounds serious, but it's not serious. This

is not It's the truth, you know, and it is

truth that will give us life because if the enemy

is here to distart the truth, you know, and you know,

there's there's another quote that I heard. You know, you

know what is discernment. Discernment is not differentiating between what

is right and wrong. That's not discernment. Discernment is differentiating

within what is right and what is almost right. And

that's how the the enemy tells you that, hey, we'll

just give you half truth, and then you suddenly like, actually,

it sounds legit. The sounds legit, and suddenly, if you

are not centered, you will start deviating. Okay, So how

the spirit filled tie to Christ centered next light. So

this is in John sixteen, verse thirteen. However, when he

the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you

into all truth. For he will not speak on his

own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak, and

he will tell you things to come. He will glorify me,

for he will take of what is mind and declare

it to you that he here refers to the Holy Spirit,

and the Holy Spirit will always point us back to Christ.

So if we have the first value down and we

believe in it, and we are living it, believing in it,

in it is not enough if we are living it

spirit filled, the Holy Spirit will always point us back

to Christ and that brings us to the second point,

which is Christ centered. You know. So that's you can see.

That's why I say that there's a new appreciation for

me on how I view the values. If you do

not have your own personal vision or mission statement or

even value statement, you know what I did. I decided

just to adopt this because it works for me as well.

The vision is to make God famous throughout the earth.

The mission is to make disciples, which is the great commission,

and the values spirit filled. Hey why not be spirit filled?

Why not be Christ centered? Is there any other way

to live than this? So if you do not have

your own personal ones yet, I encourage you to use

this as well, because this is not only just for

X Church. It is also it can be applied to

us as individuals as well. And you will see that

there is truth and there is power when we live

out these values as well. Okay, so being Christ centered,

we will have three questions, three questions that will guide

our discussion today. So the next line, so what pulls

us away from Christ? What does Christ's centeredness look like?

And how do we constantly keep Christ at the center. Okay,

So first question, what pulls us away from Christ? Because

to be Christ centered, it means that Christ has the

attention and also the authority. You know. Theoretically, yes, that's

the way it's supposed to be. But there are many

things that are pulling us away from that. Okay, So

I wanted to give another example. I was thinking because

we are talking a lot on mission vision and values, right,

so it ties a lot to corporate culture also, and

whatever the whatever is in the world. A lot of

things they learned from biblical principles as well. So have

you heard of the company Boeing Boeing, Right, they make airplanes, right,

They were one of the biggest airplane manufacturers in the world. Okay,

at one time they were. They had a monopoly of

the whole industry. The air bus was like much much smaller.

And you know why they did it so well? It

is because they were a company, right that they were.

They were known as an engineers company. That means they

hired the best engineers. And these best engineers, right, they

they took pride in their work. They made sure everything

worked well, and everything there was no room for error

and that's how the competitors couldn't touch them, because they

created airplanes that just worked. It just worked, it did

very well, you know, and that's how they got the monopoly.

But then come the nineteen around the nineteen nineties, there

was a merger. So there was a merger between another

company and Boeing, and then a new management took place.

So Boeing their core value is that we are an

engineer's company. That means we take pride in our work.

Our work must be tip top, no room for errors.

That was their value, and that value guided them to success.

But after the merger, the other company came along and

say that, hey, shareholder profits is our key value. And

you know, when you share helder profits and then becomes

your key value, suddenly engineering seems very expensive. Suddenly being

perfect seems very expensive. Hey ninety percent okay, already, no

need one hundred percent, you know, no need to hire

the top engineers, no need to hire the best, no

need to have so stringent tests, you know, deployed to

market faster, you get profits faster. So their value change.

They are centered. What was their value previously was like

perfection and being a key engineering company now changed to like,

our core value is to make profits. And for the

start they seem to be doing well because they cut

a lot of corners. So suddenly profits went up. But then,

you know, in eighteen twenty nineteen there were plane crashes,

three hundred other people died, and when there was investigation,

it was due to engineering issues. And then in twenty

twenty four, suddenly one of the doors flew off the plane.

You all read about that, yeah, right, yeah, and all

this would not have happened if they stuck to their

poor which was engineering first, right now profits first. So profits,

although it sounds good, became a destruction and they it

deviated from what made Boeing great. And the church when

we are called to be Christ centered, we are meant

to put God in authority. But there will be many

things that distract us. And the things that distract us

may not be bad. In fact, they might be good,

you know, you know, like one of the examples past

the Candida gave. Right, Hey, you want the church to

be packed, you just say expresso. You put it on

Facebook or whatever social media. Expresso this week serving WHYU

brief free flow? Okay, Well I can feel the church one,

No problem, no problem, right, But is that being Christ centered?

Is your goal to fill the room or to make

disciples who are Christ centered? Your mission is make disciples.

The values is these disciples need to be spirit filled,

they need to be Christ centered. So suddenly good ideas

are they We have to differentiate within what is good

ideas and what is God ideas? So good ideas is

what will distract us? Okay? Can I go to the

next slide? So you see Galatians five, I say, then

walk in the spirit, and you shall not fulfill the

last of the flesh, for the flesh last against the spirit,

and the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary

to one another, so that you do not do the

things that you wish. So if you are not Christ centered,

then what are you? Self centered? Have you heard of

it self centered? And these are always at contradiction. These

are always at contradiction and being self centered, right. You know,

sometimes it'll be like, hey, you have to look out

for number one. Have you heard that? You know, if

they look out for number one, number one is yula?

You know that that's the saying, or I don't care

about the red as long as it works for me,

it works, And that's the focus self centered, you know,

but the Bible says that we have to be spirit filled,

and spirit filled will lead us to be Christ centered.

So if not, our self will take over. And you

know our self is our flesh is super strong one,

it's really strong. How many of y'all had trouble waking

up this morning? How many of you all pressnos on

your alarm? You would rite because the flesh is strong.

It's not the spirit is reallying about. The flesh is weak.

Now the fletcher is dictating how we we live our

lives instead of the spirit. Okay, next light, So self

centeredness is rarely a rejection of Christ. So you can

be self centered but still be a Christian. You can

still say I believe in Jesus. It's not rejecting Christ. No,

it's not rejecting Christ. You would say, hey, do you

reject Christ? No? I never rejected Christ. But self centeredness

is putting self before spirit and before Christ. And that's

why the self, it's a quiet substitution. It will slowly

take the self is pushing on every day, every minute,

every decision. It is pushing towards one thing to be

the center. But Christ centered you know that Jesus is

the center no matter the season. So it's stable no

matter the season, whether it's hot cold, whether it's winter

or summer, or whether it's good times bad times. Christ

is still Whatever Christ says is still the same. And

our identity is rooted in who Christ says I am,

not who your boss says, not what social media says,

not what the politicians say. But our identity is rooted

in Christ. That is Christ centered, and we obey His

commands even when it's costly. And we actually get freedom

through surrender because you certainly surrendered to in Christ alone.

I place my trust you know that song, So that

is putting Christ in the center. But then if we

are self centered, we go according to culture. Whatever is

cool right now, whatever is popular right now, what gets

the most, like what gets me to the top of

my company, regardless of who I hurt, regardless of who

I tear down. And identity is built on performance, image

and approval. And that's why right there is so much

strife on one thing. To put yourself up there. It

obeys self interest even though it costs others, and it

is bondage disguised as freedom. So there are three factors

that will cost us to drift from Christ centeredness. Okay,

I just put it into three factors. But of course

there might be other factors at all, but these are

the three these. Okay. Next, first thing is distraction. Distraction, distraction.

I told you can be good, can be bad having

good music in church? Is that wrong? Of course?

Not?

Actually? I mean I served on extreme. I appreciate a

good worship set. It's definitely this something that I look

forward to. But it's worship above, the most important thing,

above everything else. And sometimes worship is because do I

enjoy the music? Do I think the band is tight?

So I think we have the full band? Where is

Christ in all of this? So distraction sometimes that's the

thing we invest into things. But then when we are

looking at it, are we getting people more Christ centered?

Or are we doing it more for popularity? Again, all

this is not wrong, you know. And the example here,

right is you know when Mary and Martha Jesus want

to visit them. If Jesus comes and visits your house,

of course you want to clean up the house. Last, right,

you won't I think I as we would be like, hey,

suddenly vi Ip coming to the house. I wouldn't just

go and sit down there Jesus and like, okay, tell

me all your stories. You know, a lot of us

would be probably in the matter position, but we have

to recognize that being in the matter position is not

Christ centered. She was doing everything else except being with Christ,

and sometimes that's meaning. Yeah, so we can be doing

a lot of ministry, but are we pointing people towards Christ? Okay,

so they say, a matha, matha. You are worried and

upset about many things, but few things are needed, indeed

only one. So in our lives, in how we do church,

are we doing what God wants us to do? And

are we making sure that Christ is the center. The

second thing is disappointments. When you are disappointed, right of course,

suddenly it's very difficult to put Christ in the center

because you have unanswered prayers. You know, suddenly everybody's sharing testimony,

and then you'll be like, where's my testimony? Suddenly the

job that you're praying for didn't come true, or someone

fell sick, or you are serving and you're doing everything,

but it seems that people who don't go to church

are prospering. You know, these are real stuff, and it's disappointment.

And when you're disappointed. Then sometimes if we are not careful,

we start blaming God and that takes us away from God.

And then we've studently start thinking that, hey, we have

to do it on our own strength. We don't have to.

God is not working. God there doesn't work, you know,

And then disappointments happen. So why sums for the two

verse eleven, Why my soul are you downcast? Put your

hope in God. So when we are downcast, most of

the time we try and fix it in our own strength.

But if we are Christ centered, we surrender it to Him.

And the third part is disobedience. So disobedience is basically

we hear what God tells us to do and then

we choose another way. That's like Jonah right, Jonah in

the whale. So we know what's the right thing to do,

but we decide to do otherwise because it's not comfortable,

because it's inconvenient, because it causes sacrifice, and we are

not willing to pay the price. If you're not willing

to pay the price, it means that self is centered

and Christ is no longer center. So that is why

it says in Luke six forty six why do you

call me Lord Lord and do not do what I say?

So you cannot call God God and disobey. That means

you are obeying your own flesh instead of what God

tells us to do. Okay. So these are the three

different things that will call cause us to drift from

being Christ the centered. Okay, next one, So what does

Christ's centeredness look like? What does Christ's centeredness look like? Okay?

If we say that Jesus is the center. So you

know the story of the wise man who built his

house upon the rock. Okay, so let me let me

just turn to deather, which is in Matthew seven twenty

four to twenty seven. Okay, give me a sack that

you Okay, so it's easier. Therefore, whoever hears these sayings

of mind and does them, I will liken him to

a wise man who built his house upon the rocks.

And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the

winds blew and beat on the house, and it did

not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But

everyone who hears these sayings of mind and does not

do them will be like a foolish man who built

his house on the sand. And the rain scented, and

the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on

the house, and it fell, and great was its fall.

So what does it look like to be Christ centered?

Christ centered is exactly here in verse twenty four. Whoever

hears these sayings of mind and does them as simple

as that. To be Christ centered is we learn from

what Jesus told us, and we do it, then we

will build our house upon the rock. Just listening without

doing is like building your house upon the sand. So

then when the storms come, then it will test to

see whether you practice what you preach, whether you believe

you did what you said you will do. Because when

the storms come, it's like an anchor. When the ships dock,

if they do not put their anchor down, or even

in the ships in the middle of the sea, okay,

when they are in a stationary spot, right, they will

usually put their anchor down on You put the anchor

down so that in the event there's a storm or

there's this thing at sea, right, you are not thrown,

of course, but that anchor keeps you in place regardless

of what hits you. But if you are not anchored,

you have an anchor Okay, you know what Jesus says,

but you leave the anchor on the boat, you do

not plunge it down. When the storms come, you will

be swung in various directions and at the end of

the day it'll be like that house during the hurricane.

I think Epos hurricane right recently, I think just two

days ago or something. And there right you will see

wish houses had the foundation strong, and wish found the

houses looked like they had strong foundation, but when the

storm came, they collapsed. Right, So it says heer. Here's yeah,

when Jesus is the foundation, he hears these words and

puts them into practice. If we are the foolish men,

we hear the words but do not put them into practice.

So actually, you know, right, you go to the any bookstore,

any bookstore. You know what's the one of the biggest

genre of books self help. A lot of people like

to read self help books, and but that's all they

do read. They don't self help. They don't practice what

they read. And then what happens. Then you buy another

book club, then you buy another book. That's how the

authors make a lot of money here, you know, in

terms of it and that's what the Bible tells us.

If we key on going to listen from sermon to sermon,

we are chasing speakers, but we are not practicing what

God told us in our quiet time. When the storms come,

we will be just swung onto at tenngent, you know,

and we will collapse next lighte right, so Psalms one.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord,

and in his law he meditates day. And like he

shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of

water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose

sleeves shall also not weather. And whatever he does shall prosper.

So for a tree to prosper, it needs to route

down and that's how and what we need to do

is to meditate on his word. The spirit of God

will lead us to the world of God. And when

we read the word of God, we center ourselves on Christ.

And that is how we grow, that is how we prosper.

See all this is in the Bible. It's just that

it's not what I'm saying right now, right, it's not you.

If you have been in church long enough, you have

ever heard it before. But it's whether we want to

practice what we want what we have read. Okay, then yes,

So now moving to the last point, So how do

we constantly keep Christ at the center? So you know

at the start, what moves us, what distracts us or

drifts us away from Christ? You know, the treetes, whether

it's distraction, disappointment, or disobedience. You know. And then what

does Christ's centeredness look like? It's like a strong house

that is built on the solid rock. It's like a

tree that is planted by the water that grows and

bears fruit. So how then do we constantly keep Christ

at the center? Because every day right now, right now,

also you're battling with a flash and I can see

your eyes. Is a constant battle? Then is a constant battle? Right?

So how do we constantly creep Christ at the center?

Does constantly keeping Christ at the center mean that we

have to let go of all our desires or our ambitions.

That means I don't have to have any ambition. Christ

is the center, so I do what Christ tells me

to do. Does that mean we have to not have

any desires, not have any ambition, not have any goals? No,

it does not mean that God has created each and

every one of us with different talents, with different gift things,

with different points of view, and that is how He

uses all of us. Okay. What is the problem is

when we put our ambitions and goals before Christ. Okay,

So how do we constantly keep Christ at the center?

Next light? So give you all a chart. I know

it's like very small, right, it looks very small. I

think I need to resize in clang. The screen is

bigger and it's so okay, so look at look at

the box, the box there right, I want a nice

thing and disappointed I don't agree these three things is

basically your distraction, your disappointment and disobedience. So your ambition

and goal is your ambition and goal, but if it

is not Christ centered, it becomes a distraction. So what

do I do with my ambition and goal? My ambition

and goal, what I should do is I should surrender

it to God and say that God, I want to

do well in my company. You know, I want to

get this promotion. So what do I do? If Christ

is the center, I will surrender it to Christ. Christ,

this is my desire. I want to get this job.

I surrender it to You, and then you lead me

and you guide me, and suddenly it is no longer

on you to toil and strive and tear other people

down to get that job. You just have to do

what He tells you to do. So when we surrender

the desire to God, he either gives it to us

or he gives us something better. And sometimes the something

better is an unanswered prayer. And most of the time

we do not realize that the unanswered prayer was actually

a blessing in disguise. But if we believe that God

is good, then we will know that all good things

come from Him. So an unanswered prayer probably is a

good thing. And you can only come to that when

you are christ S centered and you surrender it to Him.

And then after that, my eyes stay on Jesus, and

then at the end I have peace. But for example,

if you say that, hey, I want this job, you

know I this is my dream job. I'm going to

go whatever it takes, so I will obsess over illa.

You know, Hey, who do I have to play golf with?

Who do I have to connect with? What LinkedIn posts

do I have to post? Who do I need to yeah,

buy coffee? Before you know, and then you start doing

all this and after that you're like, hey, this is

my competitor. I need to make sure that this guy

looks bad. Because your goal became your center. That job

became your center. So whatever it takes the same way,

like how Boeing shareholder profits became the center. So everything

else discarded. And when we do that right, you worry

about how and when to get it, and you start scheming,

you start planning, and you start burning a lot of

bridges if you're not careful, and because of that you

take your eyes off Jesus, and then there will be

anxiety and you start drifting off from Jesus. So even

as I draw towards a close right, it says here

in next light Luke nine twenty three, if anyone would

come after me, let him deny himself, take up his

cross daily and follow me. So the question just now

was how do we essentially keep Christ at the center right?

The answer is in Luke nine twenty three, let him

deny himself take up his cross daily, because every morning

you wake up, your flash weiks up. Oh, and if

you're not careful, you don't take up your cross. Taking

up your cross is dying to sell. So if we

have to die, to self day and then we can

follow Jesus. So this is the key to making Jesus

the center. So even as I get the band up,

I just wanted to close with this story as well.

So some of y'all, depending how young you are, might

have read this story in the newspapers, because I remember

I read this story in the newspapers in nineteen ninety nine, okay,

nineteen nineteen nine. So on January twenty, nineteen ninety nine,

an Australian Christian missionary, Graham Stains and his two young sons,

Philip aged ten and Timothy aged six, were burnt alive.

So this mission and his whole family they went from

village to village to help the lepers in India. And

they went to village the village helping and then also

bringing people to Christ to their work education, helping them

in leprosy. But then there was this group of rebels

who were really against Christian missionaries. So once they saw

that Graham Stains and his children were in this village,

after they finished the work and they were about to

leave the village, they got into the car. All these

fundamentalists they surrounded the car and they touched the car

and this missionary and his two young kids died that day.

It was news around the world. That's why I remember

reading it in the newspapers at that time. But what

happened was the wife, right, the Gladys Stains and her

daughter were the only remaining members of the family. Imagine,

sixty percent of her family died on All that left

is the mother and the daughter. What would you do?

What would you do? What Gladys did was supernatural because

after she grieved, went back to Australia, and then she

came back to India and continued to serve the community

in India and forgave the person who it really killed

her family and forgave all those people. And the daughter

grew up to become a doctor, to continue to say,

serve this community. Looking at Gladys and the daughter, right,

she went through the tree, d's Was she distracted? Of course?

She was distracted through pain, through suffering, She was distracted

through revenge. Was she disappointed? Of course, God, I serve

you with all my heart, my life, and this is

how you repay me. I mean, I can only imagine

what she was going through, what she faced with disobedience.

People are well, it's Okay, you don't go back. Why

are you going back? But she was Christ centered. The

seasons didn't change her, the environment around her, what happened

to her didn't change who she grounded her faith in

and that us how she lived her life and come.

I mean as of recent years, she's still in India

serving the people there and doing what Christ has called

us to do. So, church, this is not just saying

that we are Christ centered. This is living a Christ

centered life.

We hope you've been blessed by this message. For more

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I hit for you. God bless