Last week we began our celebration of what God has done through this particular ministry in Quartzsite. In the first step of that celebration, we talked about how God desires his people to be in his vision as the Church, individual ministries, and as individuals, so that his work of bringing the Gospel to all nations will be done. Vision always proceeds building, but once God’s people start on the path of his vision, he begins to build upon their work.
The story continues of that early group of eight vision motivated people, who left the comfort of their upper middle class congregation to reach the immigrants flooding into New York City in the 1880s. The small group rented a hall and put an ad out in the paper for their first service. Come Sunday morning, nine people showed up, the original eight, plus one. THEY WERE GROWING! Soon it was seventeen people on fire for the ministry, and by 1882, two years after that pastor came to New York, the Gospel Tabernacle was established, and a Bible training school, that would eventually be called Nyack Bible College, began.
In 1887, a preacher from Chicago, came and spoke at a summer conference in Main, the theme was the Second Coming of Jesus, and the focus was Matthew 24:14, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” It became the mantra of the people, bring back the King and another piece of the puzzle to the vision that God had given to those eight individuals just a few years earlier. Two groups were then established: the Christian Alliance, who would promote fellowship between believers of different denominations and seek the deeper life of Christ at home in America. The other group was the Evangelical Missionary Alliance, who would train those called to the missions field and send them all over the world.
Stories of Christians coming together during conferences, worship times, and small groups, giving whatever they had on them to the ministry. Rings, watches, tie pens, in addition to cash, gold, and silver, were placed in offering baskets to train and send missionaries. And these early missionaries would gather their things together in a pine rectangular box, which served as their luggage and their coffin.
Those early missionaries led the way to the modern Alliance funding over 700 missionaries in 70 countries. Not to mention local missionary sites in places like Watts, CA and the Navajo nation.
God blesses those who are about his work, who walk in the vision that he has for his kingdom.
In Genesis 6:14, as God calls Noah to vision to build the ark, Noah walks in that vision, and for 120 years, God builds on his vision. Then in Genesis 7:1, God again speaks to Noah saying, “The Lord then said to Noah, ‘Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation.’” After this, when all the animals and his family were inside the ark, the rains came, the earth faced judgment, but Noah was saved. And to him and his family, God reiterated his great vision for humanity in Genesis 9:1, “Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.”
To Abraham, God’s vision of making a great nation through him which God spoke in Genesis 12:1-3, arrives nine chapters later, or 25 years after the initial promise. It comes through the boy Issac, who is given to Abraham when he’s 100 years old. Issac, then has two children, Jacob and Esau. Esau would go on to be the ancestor of the Edomites, while Jacob would go on to be the ancestor to the Israelites. The Israelites would continue to grow, and roughly 800 years later, they would establish the Davidic dynasty and the first God ordained monarch of the nation.
It is through the Davidic dynasty that Messiah Jesus would be born, and it was the continuation of that promise that he speaks about in Mark 12:35-37, “While Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, he asked, ‘Why do the teachers of the law say that the Messiah is the son of David? 36 David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared:
“‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.”’ 37 David himself calls him ‘Lord.’ How then can he be his son?’” Jesus was building upon their understanding of God’s vision for Abraham, that not only would the Messiah, the Savior, be of David’s line, but that he would be God himself come down to take on human flesh.
Jesus connected all the strings in the promise of Israel, from the first hope in Genesis 3:15, to the vision God gave every person along the way, of arks, of promised children, and of suffering servants. So in John 12:27-28, as Jesus speaks of his coming death he says these words, “27 “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name!” The fulfillment of so much work that was built on the vision of God, for thousands of years, comes in the moment of the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Th Apostle Paul then connects Jesus’ death and resurrection back to Abraham when he states this in Galatians 3:6-9, “6 So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” 7 Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. 8 Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you. 9 So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.”
The work that was started with Noah in the ark, and continued through Abraham, was to establish a pathway for Jesus to descend from his throne in heaven, wrap himself in flesh, walk this earth in perfect obedience, be crucified though he didn’t deserve it, and rises from the dead, so that anyone who puts their trust in Jesus as their Savior, repenting of their sin and moving forward in following him, will be a part of the blessing that was promised to Abraham.
They are what God has built upon that vision roughly 4,000 years ago. And which God is still building on today.
That small group of young believers meeting for a Bible study in the late 1970s, who then grew to organize as a congregation, who then partnered with the Christian and Missionary Alliance, went on to impact the teens and young families of this town with the Gospel. A few years after my wife and I arrived in 2007, we were invited to a meeting with other groups in the town. There, in the presence of other town leaders, the town manger singled us out and told everyone how the Alliance Church had done so much with the young people, that since the ministry hired a youth pastor in 2004, teen crime had dropped to almost nothing. In the time I was allowed to be the youth pastor, we saw an 80% Gospel saturation of teens in this town. A ministry that began to reach teens in Bouse, Ehrenburg, and Salome.
This vision of God for this group of people continues today. You and I are a part of this vision of God as he builds upon it. Not in brick or mortar, not in wood and sheetrock, but in transformed lives of seeds planted, disciples trained, believers baptized, and the Gospel proclaimed. God builds upon his vision and he calls his people to be a part of that building process.
This is what God calls each of us to. Its why Paul speaks of the Church as a body in 1 Corinthians 12, starting in verse 12, “12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15 Now if the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
“21 The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ And the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you!’ 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
“27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. 28 And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30 Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? 31 Now eagerly desire the greater gifts. And yet I will show you the most excellent way.”
The Church is built to be a unit that is diverse in role, but united in purpose. The Alliance Church in Quartzsite is seeking to walk and build upon the vision that God has given us, that we might be united with our brothers and sisters across Gospel proclaiming denominations as the body of Christ united in his purpose. Because God is achieving his great vision of blessing the nations through Abraham with Jesus in salvation.
My challenge for you this week is to seek God in how he is using you to build his Church and his Kingdom. What are the gifts you have that facilitate this building? What has God done in your life, that you might minster from both your strength and weaknesses? What is God teaching you about him, that would be beneficial for others? Take this week to be steeped in prayer, seeking the Holy Spirit’s move, that you might be better utilized in God’s work, for the next faze of God’s vision building.
We are a people that follow a Carpenter, our God is a builder by trade, and we are called to that same construction site, so let us be utilized for his work, in whatever way he desires. Amen.
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