By Joseph Tkach
The following is from a sermon Pastor General Joseph Tkach delivered in Pasadena Nov. 23 that was videotaped to be aired in U.S. churches in January.
In his sermon Mr. Tkach cast the vision for what he wants us as a church to accomplish in 1997.
Knowing how much God loves us and the lengths he has gone to save us and reconcile us, should infuse an intimate passion in us to go out and do the same thing.
To know that all-encompassing love that Jesus has for us, to die for us while we were yet sinners, should empower us in a way we have not been touched before.
When we recognize what infinite love God has for us it requires us to answer a question. How much do we love Jesus? Do we love him wholly or partially? Does it include our entire being? Our heart, soul and mind? Or do we leave out our emotion?
A relationship exists between how much we love God and the vision we have for his church. The health of the church, the spiritual growth of the church, the success that the church will experience in doing its work, depends on how much you and I love Jesus.
What does God want us to do this year?
God loves everybody, even people who to us may not be so lovable.
Some think you should love God with your mind but leave out your emotions. Is that loving God totally?
Deuteronomy 6:5-7 commands us to love God. This is known as the Shema in Hebrew. Israelites make this their daily prayer.
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, and when you lie down, and when you rise."
Reciting it didn't automatically transfer godly love into their heart, mind and soul, yet the prophets predicted a time when hearts would be changed.
They predicted a time when the Messiah would come and the new covenant would be written--written in the blood of the Messiah, and written in people's hearts.
The law could not and did not change their hearts. It could not, and did not infuse the love of God into their hearts. But hearts are changed through faith in the Savior, the one who is the full expression of God and through whom God demonstrates his indescribable love to us.
God indeed changes us, not from the outside in, but from the inside out. The heart is not only the center of spiritual activity, but of all the operations of human life. Our intellect, our emotions, our commitment, our contentment, the general character of our being is represented in Scripture by that word heart.
The natural state of our hearts is wicked and deceitful above all things. And it contaminates our whole lives because our hearts as humans are broken. They are at war with God's perfection. The Bible says the heart must be changed.
Before we can willingly obey God we must have heart surgery. Hardness of the heart manifests itself in pride, conceit, ingratitude, unconcern about others, unconcern about what the Word of God says. It shuns correction and has a general disinterest in the things of God.
It's not uncommon to hear a Christian say, I gave my heart to the Lord. In times past we didn't like that kind of language. Some people don't want to say that to God. They don't want to say, "I love God totally."
Ezekiel 11:19 says: "I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God."
They had the written law, but what they failed to have was that invisible, unwritten, spiritual law behind the written code, which is love.
And in the fullness of time, we're told in Galatians 4, God sent his Son to make this happen. So the invisible, unwritten, spiritual, holy and just law that is the foundation behind the written code will be infused into our hearts.
When we answer God's call we see ourselves as we are, in our sinful broken state. We see our need for repentance. We see our need for God's mercy. We see our need for him and the salvation that only he can give.
We have a debt of sin, and we can never pay it off. We can't fix our brokenness, and our supposed righteousness, the best we can offer, are nothing but filthy rags in God's sight. All our efforts to keep that written code are filthy rags in God's sight because we don't have that invisible, holy law behind the written code.
We see our insufficiency, but the good news is that Christ is sufficient, and not just sufficient, but abundant.
We have hearts of stone, but when we submit to Jesus Christ as our master, Savior and king, he takes this heart of stone and he performs miraculous surgery on it. And he's the only one who can do that kind of heart surgery.
As Jeremiah wrote, "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.... For I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more."
If we are to become authentically Christian we must have a new heart. Jesus Christ comes to live in our hearts. He brought us together as a church, as a collection of people. He brought us together for a purpose, to be part of the body of Christ and fulfill his will. To actively take a part in fulfilling the commission that he has given to the church. And God is moving us together toward his kingdom.
Many people have asked, where is the church headed? To the same place we always wanted to be headed. The kingdom of God. We're citizens in that kingdom.
When we're called to be Christians we embark on the Christian walk. It's commonly known as the straight and narrow.
On our Christian walk, we make mistakes, we sin. But when we are citizens in the kingdom of God, when Jesus Christ lives within us, his grace covers us.
John 6:44 tells us that no man can come to the Father unless he draws him first. Do you know how God draws people to him? He uses us.
Some seem confused about that. They think they don't need to do evangelism, they don't need to talk about how they love Jesus.
No, that's exactly what a Christian needs to do. That's how God uses us to extend his call to people.
Our job is to promote the kingdom of God, to advance the kingdom of God. We are walking, talking examples for Christ. Inherent in that calling is that we be people who promote and advance the kingdom of God.
In the Worldwide Church of God we need to live by four values, which I call the four Rs.
The first is repentance. Repentance is one of our founding values. It's one thing Mr. Armstrong taught. When we see we're wrong on something we'll change. That's part of our personality profile as a denomination. We take the Bible seriously. We hold it in highest regard. And as a fellowship we deeply desire to follow our Lord and Master and obey him.
Reaching is another one of our values. We've always preached that Christianity is a way of life. That's something we reach for. The commission Jesus gave the church is to preach the gospel and make disciples. The disciples are those who take up their crosses and follow him.
And another one of those four values is reconciliation. God's children have been given the ministry of reconciliation. God uses us to tell the story of what he has done in our lives, to build bridges between people, to bring down barriers that separate people from each other and separate people from him.
The last R is relationship. People can move in only one of two directions in a relationship. You are either moving closer to someone or you are retreating, moving farther away from someone.
Standing still is just an illusion. The role and function of the Holy Spirit is to bond us together in unity by comforting us, by consoling us, by strengthening us, by empowering us and by leading us into truth.
These are our corporate core values. They always have been and they always will be.
We have about 8,000 members in 122 congregations in 20 countries in Africa.
God is performing a miracle there with what is known as a people movement. More than 4,000 have joined us in the last 18 months.
In Australia and Asia we have more than 4,600 members in 65 congregations in 10 countries.
In the Caribbean and Spanish-speaking areas we are in 31 countries with 74 congregations.
We're 81,434 people, the Worldwide Church of God. Now given a week as a sample, you might find that attendance would be about two thirds of that.
One thing that burdens my heart is that a lot of members don't seem to carry the commitment they used to have. I pray they won't forget the values of repentance, and reaching, and reconciling and relationships. These values affect everything we do.
Let me talk about some goals we should achieve this year and how they are tied to these four core values for our church.
Repenting is the first one I mentioned, and we have made doctrinal changes to repent of errors of the past.
God has done something in our church that is unprecedented in the history of Christianity. He has chosen us, and that is an incredible thing to consider. What an honor.
There will always be ways in which we need to grow. There will always be ways in which we need to grow. There will always be ways in which we need to improve. There will always be ways in which we need to draw closer to God and conform to his will and follow the lead of the Holy Spirit. And repentance isn't a one-time thing or a one-time value. It's a forever value.
One improvement we have made is for the women in our fellowship. The role of women in our church and Scripture tell us that God imparts spiritual gifts to everyone for the edification of the body.
Over the years women have often been left out of that. We see that that was wrong. Women are just as essential to the process as men.
That doesn't mean that we are going to have women pastoring all our churches. But it does mean that along with men, women need to be equipped for service according to their spiritual gifts.
Many are already becoming involved in women's ministry. They nurture, they pray, they care for the special needs of other women.
Many are getting involved in other meaningful forms of service in the church, and they need to be equipped to meet those needs. One of our goals is that each congregation in our fellowship will have a women's ministry program.
How will that be achieved? It is not going to be achieved by us just saying, we need to do this, everyone go out and do it tomorrow.
No, we need to help all members become aware of their spiritual gifts. We will provide more instruction and understanding so that we all understand spiritual gifts.
I pray that by the end of 1997 all in our fellowship will know their spiritual giftedness and begin learning how they can use their gift-mix to serve the work of God. Not just in women's ministry but in children's ministry, in men's ministry, in youth ministry and even in reclamation ministry.
Reclamation ministry means building bridges between those 40,000 people who have left the Worldwide Church of God and have not joined a splinter group. They are sitting at home, going nowhere. We have a spiritual mandate to build bridges with those people and reclaim them.
God has shown us that reaching out with the message of life is something every member has a stake in, not just those on the editorial staff, but every member. We all have a goal of serving to spread the gospel, each according to our spiritual gifts, and to do that in harmony.
Yesterday, Nov. 22, I had lunch with treasurer Bernie Schnippert; Curtis May, Pasadena pastor; and pastors of 12 church congregations not in our denomination.
One pastor said: "I have watched and have been praying for the Worldwide Church of God for 10 years, so it came as no surprise to me that God has used you in this unprecedented way." He feels that we have a gift, as a fellowship, to communicate in the written and spoken word.
He said the PT is going to do something. "Please continue your work with the magazine," he said. "Please continue to make videos. The whole body of Christ will benefit from it."
He sees that we as a church have that as a spiritual gift. It comes at a time when, ironically, some ask, Why don't we just abandon it?
Now, we don't want to abandon the gift God has given us. God has blessed us with experience in publishing. Our circulation of just over 100,000 is good, but it is not enough. Our goal is that next year we will be at 150,000, and I pray it will be more.
The way that it will be more than 150,000 is if we all work together to support it. And not just the magazine, but we have two videotapes planned. One is Victory in Jerusalem and another is Millennial Madness. God willing, both of these will be of great value in proclaiming the gospel and teaching the biblical message.
Our international areas are free now to publish the PIain Truth magazine, although they are going to use names that are more culturally appropriate in their countries. In the United Kingdom the magazine is already the No. 1 Christian magazine with only a circulation in the mid-30,000s. I hope to see them double that. And I hope all our regions will promote Christ in their literature.
Reconciling is another one of our core values. Christ's atoning work has reconciled us to God, and he has given us the ministry of reconciliation. He commissioned us to preach that gospel. And sharing the gospel can be done in part through our preaching and publishing efforts, but the most effective way that people of God are evangelized is through personal evangelism. Friend to friend. One person telling another person. Friends inviting friends. Person to person contact.
The first step to giving that message of reconciliation is spiritual renewal for ourselves. We need to express to others what we believe and feel, and you can't express love for Jesus if you don't feel it and believe it.
That is why small group worship and Bible study are so important. Our congregations need to be nurtured and build themselves up in this love.
We hope that regional pastors will set these goals in their regions and that each regional director in the international areas will set goals. If each congregation would add just three members to their congregation in the United States that would be more than 1,000 new people.
That's not a difficult thing to do. It happens through relationships. The closer we draw to God the more powerfully he uses us to build relationships with others.
Being a spiritual family is a serious matter. As Christians we are new creations in Christ. We have unity through the Holy Spirit. We experience community through this bond with our brothers and sisters.
When the church was founded in the first century it operated largely house to house. Small group evangelism was how it spread. People discussed what they learned together. They prayed together, and when people pray together miracles happen because it extends a prayer covering over the entire fellowship.
Tragedies will still happen, but miracles will come along to show God's glory. And miracles are happening in our fellowship. (See the Dec. 17 WN, page 12, for accounts of the healing of Darcy Reinagel of environmental illness; Katie Deal, after being run over by a truck; and Steve Burks, after being shot eight times.)
Miracles happen when people pray together. We have just over 1,100 small prayer groups in the United States in our fellowship. Those 1,100 small prayer groups are extending this prayer covering over the church. And the more groups that we have praying, the larger that covering will be and the more miracles will occur.
We have just over 200 prayer groups in South Africa and more than 200 in Canada. We hope to see at least 25 percent of every congregation actively involved in a successful and meaningful small group by the end of 1997.
That's an ambitious goal, but I believe if we all pray for that goal God will bless it, because that is what God wants.
Prayers are a sweet perfume to God. You can't order people into small groups. You can't shame them, you can't coerce them. Each person must want to be there. They have to see the fruit and value in other people.
Our brokers, Grubb & Ellis, are making excellent progress on the sale of the Pasadena property. Many don't realize the complexity of selling such a property. It took nearly four months just to get a legal description of all 72 buildings.
This is considered the most significant real estate sale in Southern California in the decade. We want to do it right. We want to bring glory to God in all we do. And that includes the sale of this property. Our goal is that it will be sold by the end of 1997.
I want to do God's bidding. I believe that all of you want to do God's bidding as well. I pray that God will direct my paths. I pray that I can be the best representation I can be for Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God until the day I die. And I hope you pray the same way.
God has given me his love for all of you. You are my family. I pray that he gives you that same love for each other and for me.
God is pleased when his people respond in obedience and faith. That's what the Worldwide Church of God has done, in doing something unprecedented in all of church history. And you're a part of that. Every one of you is a part of that, and it is to God's glory.
Through what God has done here, he is moving other churches to take the word of God more seriously. To submit themselves to his will. To reexamine how they are doing.
I have heard from hundreds of pastors and denominational leaders across the country and internationally who say what the Worldwide Church of God has done has been encouraging to Christians everywhere. It has given them hope.
We are honored that God used us in this way. God has touched the hearts of pastors to say that their churches need to grow that way too.
God is active here, brethren. What an inspiration to know that he has used us in such a way, because we are so unworthy of it. What a blessing to know that he loves us so much.
On Jesus' behalf I thank all of you for what you've been doing. For following God's lead in the church. I thank you for staying, for praying, for donating. For giving of your time and your talents and your treasures.
God has acted on our behalf with glory and power. But now how are we going to respond to his love? Partially or totally?
God has used us in a way that is good for all of Christianity. That's wonderful, but now what are we going to do? Will we allow God to continue to use us in a profound spiritual way?
God has called us together into a community, as an interdependent part of his body. We are connected to the head, which is Christ, and I pray that you will not just be listeners but doers.
We just had a national election where U.S. citizens voted for a president, voted for Congress and voted for certain issues.
I ask you to vote today for the kingdom of God. I ask you to vote with your mind to determine for yourself that God wants you to preach the gospel. I urge you to commit yourself to God with your new hearts like you never have before. Let's commit to working together. Let's stop worrying about our individual disagreements and views about how we think the church should be run and let's commit to work together.
I ask you to vote with your hands and with your feet. We don't want people to just pay and pray. We want people to pray and pay, yes, but we want them to participate as well. We all need each other to promote and advance the kingdom of God.
I ask you to vote with your checkbook. You are a steward of your time, your talent, your treasure, your energy and your health. If your heart is in doing God's work then you will manage your treasures to properly support these goals for next year.
Until we sell the Pasadena property I ask every member who is able to commit to giving $10 more a paycheck to the church. I know everyone can't do that, but I ask you to commit to what you can give beyond what you normally give.
If you can't do that, don't feel guilty. You don't have to write me. Dozens of people on fixed-incomes write to me and tell me they feel so guilty, they want to do more. But I am impressed with those widows who do make sacrifices and give. We're going to see them in the kingdom of God when it comes in its fullness and they will be the brighter lights and surprise us all.
Brethren, I believe that if all of us will commit ourselves until this property sells, I believe that the Worldwide Church of God, your church and mine, the one God has called us to, will be able to pay its expenses, will be able to meet all its goals and continue its training programs and proclaim the gospel in a way we have never done before.
I ask that you commit to pray every day for God to touch the hearts of every member in the church for reconciliation, for them to experience the peace that surpasses all understanding.
I ask you to commit to praying every day for those 40,000-plus people who attend nowhere, and that we will all feel the urgency to make contact with them. Stoke up the flames of friendship again. Be the salt and the light to those people.
Paul wrote in Colossians 2:2-5: "My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine- sounding arguments. For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how orderly you are and how firm your faith in Christ is."
I love all of you, and I pray God's blessing upon all of you. I hope you pray the same way.
Mr. Tkach then closed with prayer: Merciful, Almighty God, we seek your blessings today. We thank you Father for your love.
We beseech you for your love to be extended to everyone. We ask for your emotional healing, we ask for physical healing. We thank you for these miracles that we are hearing about and pray that they continue.
Please Father, continue to manifest your power in these ways so that the unbelievers may be challenged. We pray Father for you to help each one of us with our vision. Help us to see ahead into the future. Help us to see the commitment that we need to have.
Please touch each and every heart. We pray Father that you will manifest yourself mightily in each one of us to know our spiritual gifts and to use them for the building up of the church. Stir the hearts of our people to renew the spirit of sacrifice and service and commitment. And we commit them all in your hands in Jesus' holy and righteous name, Amen.
Jan. 21, 1997, Worldwide News, page one
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