Latest / Disciple Radio / Living a Legacy - 2026-10-10 The DNA of the Church Series: Who We Are?

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Living a Legacy - 2026-10-10 The DNA of the Church Series: Who We Are? · Disciple Radio

0:01
S1: There's no such thing as a Christian that says, well,
0:03
S1: I know Jesus, but I don't want to love God passionately,
0:06
S1: and I don't want to share my faith. Well, that's
0:09
S1: that person doesn't exist. That doesn't exist. This is part
0:13
S1: of the DNA. This is the DNA of anyone that
0:17
S1: says that they're a follower of Jesus Christ.
0:23
S2: This is living a legacy. Featuring the Bible teaching ministry
0:26
S2: of Doctor Crawford. Lawrence Crawford served as senior pastor of
0:30
S2: Fellowship Bible Church in Roswell, Georgia. Well, for the past
0:33
S2: several months, Crawford's been leading us in a series called
0:36
S2: for His Kingdom A Study in the Gospel of Matthew.
0:39
S2: We're going to take a break from that series for
0:41
S2: a few weeks to look at another very important topic
0:44
S2: the function of the church. More specifically, what is supposed
0:47
S2: to be at the core of the church? What is
0:49
S2: the DNA? Now, at the time this series was recorded,
0:53
S2: much of the focus of these messages was on the
0:55
S2: future direction of Fellowship Bible Church. But the principles of
0:58
S2: church substance are applicable to all evangelical churches, our local
1:03
S2: assemblies everywhere. Today's message is called who are we? And
1:07
S2: maybe it's a question your church should be asking in
1:10
S2: view of changing cultural trends. Our text will be Matthew
1:14
S2: chapter 22, verses 34 through 40. Now there are two
1:18
S2: key points in Crawford's outline. Our great command and our
1:22
S2: Great Commission. And we'll get to that first point today.
1:26
S2: Let's join the Congregation of Fellowship Bible Church now. Again,
1:29
S2: our text, Matthew chapter 22, verses 34 through 40. Here's
1:34
S2: Crawford on living a legacy.
1:40
S1: The other day I, I looked at myself in the
1:42
S1: mirror and I gotta tell you now, if you're 20
1:44
S1: years old, I want you to write this down. Write
1:46
S1: this down and seal it until you're about 40. Okay. The,
1:51
S1: the older you get, the more you only look in
1:54
S1: the mirror for necessity purposes. You don't do this anymore.
1:59
S1: And you don't do this anymore. No. Oh, look at this.
2:02
S1: You know that's that's over. It is what it is, honey.
2:04
S1: It is what it is. And it ain't changing. It's
2:08
S1: what you brought to the dance and what they're going
2:09
S1: to put in the casket. That's it. And so I
2:13
S1: ain't getting no facelift. I ain't getting no. You look
2:16
S1: like a prune. I'm not doing that. It is what
2:19
S1: it is. But I was looking I looked at myself
2:22
S1: and I said, man, the older I get, the more
2:25
S1: I look like my father. Now, if he was here,
2:28
S1: he would say, well, what's wrong with that? But, you know,
2:31
S1: but it is, it is true. It's uncanny. You can't
2:35
S1: run from the DNA. You just can't run from the DNA,
2:40
S1: you know? You know, what's in you is going to
2:43
S1: be you. You miss that high pitch. What's in you
2:48
S1: is going to be you. It's going to be you.
2:52
S1: This is one of the reasons why I tell younger
2:54
S1: folks all the time, watch your habit patterns. Watch your choices. Sweetheart, sweetheart. You. What?
3:01
S1: What what what is. What you doing is becoming you.
3:04
S1: And if that's in you, it's going to be you.
3:07
S1: And so what's in you is going to be you.
3:11
S1: This is an irrevocable principle of all of life, whether
3:14
S1: it's character organizations, whatever it is, what's in you is you.
3:21
S1: What's in you is you. And I wonder, just as
3:25
S1: the older I get, I look more like my father.
3:27
S1: I wonder if people who come to visit fellowship over
3:31
S1: a period of time, if they want to be like
3:33
S1: what they see. I wonder about that. Now, that's not
3:37
S1: a put down. It's not a negative, but it's a
3:39
S1: corporate sense of responsibility that we have that you got
3:43
S1: to be careful, that you look like what you're supposed
3:46
S1: to be. I want to say that again. You look
3:49
S1: like what you're supposed to be. One of the problems
3:52
S1: we have had, um, you know, DNA doesn't change. It
3:56
S1: just doesn't change. You can change all the other stuff.
3:59
S1: DNA just doesn't change. Um, one of the struggles that
4:03
S1: we have had, we have gone back about a year
4:06
S1: or so ago. You remember that I, we did a
4:09
S1: series here called magnetic Becoming a people of Holy attraction
4:13
S1: that triggered in all of us as elders. Uh, we
4:16
S1: need to step back and wrestle with, okay, who are we?
4:20
S1: What do we what do we need to steward? What
4:24
S1: do we really all about? Now I'm going to get
4:26
S1: to Colossians 128 and 29. That really has not changed.
4:29
S1: But what you're going to hear today is more of
4:31
S1: a clarification and, and, uh, becoming more specific about what
4:36
S1: that means, but who really are we? And we didn't
4:39
S1: want to be cute and come up with, you know,
4:42
S1: yawn another mission statement or a little cute little pithy
4:45
S1: byline that, you know, you memorize and slap on the
4:48
S1: website and letterhead and this kind of thing. And so,
4:50
S1: and then it sort of fades into oblivion. We wanted
4:53
S1: something to be rooted in truth, God's truth. Now, I'm
4:56
S1: going to come back to that in a second. But
4:58
S1: let me just review what I said. It's important for
5:01
S1: us to understand this. That whole series magnetic becoming a
5:05
S1: people of holy attraction. In terms of an identity series,
5:09
S1: it's probably the most important series of messages I've done
5:12
S1: here in eight years to date. Not because it was
5:17
S1: eloquent or anything like that, but because it really ties
5:20
S1: down what really what really makes us attractive. It was
5:27
S1: lodged in the whole concept in theology of the peoples
5:30
S1: of God. And I don't mean to get real heavy here,
5:32
S1: but throughout time, the only reason why, the only reason
5:36
S1: why God has peoples meaning the nation of Israel groups
5:42
S1: meaning the disciples peoples, meaning the church. The only reason
5:48
S1: why he has that, the only reason why he has
5:50
S1: that is to demonstrate his glory in human history. What
5:55
S1: makes the people of God attractive? What makes us attractive
6:00
S1: Is God's glory. It's the pursuit of the presence and
6:07
S1: glory of God. God is here and at work in
6:10
S1: our midst, transforming lives. And I don't want us to
6:13
S1: mess with that. I don't want us to mess with that. You, you,
6:17
S1: you can come up with nice marketing statements and leveraging statement.
6:19
S1: And I'm not saying any of that stuff is necessarily
6:21
S1: wrong down the road. We might do that. There's programs.
6:24
S1: There's nothing wrong with people knowing about what you're doing
6:26
S1: and that this is a place where, you know, people
6:29
S1: who have broken lives can come together, and we need
6:31
S1: to advertise that. And nothing unspiritual about advertising. I'm not
6:34
S1: knocking that at all. But what I don't want us
6:36
S1: to get to is where we have a bunch of
6:38
S1: transactional programs, and we sell that as our identity. That's
6:42
S1: not our identity. What makes us attractive is that God
6:45
S1: is here. And if people get out of their cars
6:49
S1: and they walk in here and they're struck by the
6:51
S1: manifest presence of our great God, that that's what makes
6:54
S1: us attractive. And it transcends generations, ethnicities, and all these
7:00
S1: things that makes us, makes us attractive. So as we
7:04
S1: wrestled with that and we thought to ourselves, okay, how,
7:07
S1: how can we summarize God's heart for us? Not not
7:11
S1: a nice little saying that is true and pithy, a
7:15
S1: nice little slogan. We can come up with slogans. We
7:17
S1: don't have to spend all that time fasting and praying about.
7:19
S1: We you know, I know a lot of people. Everybody
7:21
S1: else knows a lot of people, you know, in advertising, marketing,
7:23
S1: we could probably spend about a couple of hours and
7:25
S1: there's something like that that's quick. People will identify with
7:27
S1: and we put it on the cards and that kind
7:28
S1: of thing. Let's rock and roll and go on to
7:30
S1: the next thing. But we wanted something that was lodged
7:34
S1: in what God said about us. LA and where Jesus
7:39
S1: is going in human history. La woged in good, solid
7:44
S1: biblical truth. So it passes the yawn test. It passes
7:49
S1: the little, little slogan test. It's it's, it's a conduit
7:53
S1: for reality. And so what we came up with as
7:57
S1: we wrestled in prayer, and I tell you, this was
7:59
S1: a long process. Um, because we knew that this was
8:02
S1: important and we did not want to have the saying
8:06
S1: of the next two years. And that gets out of
8:07
S1: fashion and old or dated or, you know, the nomenclature
8:10
S1: changes and then we're on to the next thing. And
8:13
S1: so this is what we came up with as we
8:15
S1: as elders wrestled in prayer, read the scriptures, fasted together.
8:20
S1: This is what we concluded. And this statement is short
8:23
S1: and memorable, but it summarizes God's dream for his people
8:30
S1: until Jesus comes back. And here it is. We exist
8:34
S1: to make to glorify God by making disciples of Jesus
8:39
S1: who love God passionately and love others unconditionally. You say, well, Crawford,
8:44
S1: that sounds a little bit underwhelming. Uh, think about that.
8:50
S1: That summarizes God's great dream for his people until he returns.
8:58
S1: We exist To glorify God by making disciples of Jesus
9:06
S1: who love God passionately and love others unconditionally. Now, the
9:13
S1: rest of my message is going to unpack that, but
9:16
S1: I want to. I want you to take a look
9:17
S1: at our vision statement. I don't this is kind of long,
9:20
S1: but a vision statement. Typically, it's the reality of what
9:24
S1: what will we become if we embrace this mission statement
9:28
S1: and becomes normative in our lives? If this becomes who
9:31
S1: we really are, we we exist to glorify God by
9:36
S1: making disciples of Jesus who love God passionately and love
9:39
S1: others unconditionally. When that becomes more than a slogan, but
9:42
S1: becomes the the lifeblood of who we are, what will
9:45
S1: Fellowship Bible Church look like? Well, you have to look
9:48
S1: real closely, but it says will be a people captured
9:51
S1: by God's amazing love for us who are committed to
9:55
S1: being disciples of Jesus, who love God passionately and each
9:58
S1: other unconditionally. as a community of faith made up of
10:02
S1: all ages and ethnicities, we are committed to learning and
10:08
S1: living the truth of God's Word. Each person is equipped
10:12
S1: to discover, develop, and use their gifts and strengths to
10:16
S1: serve one another and to expand Christ's transforming kingdom locally, globally, locally, regionally,
10:24
S1: and globally. And I want you to keep this in
10:26
S1: the back of your mind, because we'll be coming back
10:28
S1: to this often throughout the course of this year and
10:31
S1: down the road. And that is this. We are not
10:34
S1: we are not committed to having a strong ministry. We're
10:39
S1: committed to having a reproducing movement. And there's a difference
10:45
S1: between the two. This is not about us having a
10:48
S1: strong ministry. It's about us being a movement. And that
10:54
S1: is lodged in our understanding of what the Church of
10:56
S1: Jesus Christ is really all about. And you're going to
10:58
S1: see this in a few moments as we look at
11:00
S1: these these passages of Scripture. Now, the other thing that
11:03
S1: I want to say to you is this. No way.
11:07
S1: No way is that going to be accomplished, that mission
11:11
S1: statement to make disciples of Jesus who love God passionately
11:14
S1: and love others unconditionally? No way is that going to
11:16
S1: be accomplished by any level of programs. It's not going
11:20
S1: to happen. The only way that that's going to be
11:22
S1: accomplished is through prayer and the power of the Spirit
11:25
S1: of God. Remember, remember what makes us attractive, what makes
11:29
S1: us attractive is the manifest presence of God. This is
11:33
S1: not some little transactional thing that we can pull off,
11:35
S1: or we can go and get PhDs in theology and
11:38
S1: get a guy that has a PhD in marketing and
11:40
S1: somebody that has this, and we might do that because
11:42
S1: those things are important. But I gotta tell you, I
11:44
S1: gotta tell you, there's always gap when you're serving the Lord.
11:48
S1: God's work is supernatural and it's meant to tap into
11:51
S1: supernatural resources. And so we will only be as successful.
11:55
S1: And I put quotes around successful as we are dependent.
12:01
S1: We will only be as successful as we are dependent,
12:05
S1: and this calls all of us to press into our
12:07
S1: walk and relationship with God. Crawford is not going to
12:11
S1: be able to preach better messages to make this happen.
12:14
S1: Now we're going to work as hard as we possibly can.
12:17
S1: The other thing I'd like to say to you, too,
12:18
S1: as before we get into the text here, just to
12:21
S1: two other quick things. Number one is this. So you're saying, okay, okay, Crawford,
12:25
S1: what about Colossians 128 and 29? No experience and serve.
12:28
S1: Maturity in Christ. Is this kind of replacing that? No,
12:31
S1: it's not replacing it. And we have we have we
12:35
S1: don't feel much pressure at all to take that off
12:37
S1: our website or to take or to redo the signage
12:39
S1: around here or this kind of thing at all. Because
12:42
S1: what this is, is just more clarification. Paul's that's Paul's
12:48
S1: rendition of the Great Commission. Colossians 128 and 29, maturity
12:52
S1: in Christ. It's in the Bible. It's still, it's still
12:54
S1: what we're passionate about. And if you do those things,
12:57
S1: no experience and serve, then we're going to we're going
13:00
S1: to we're going to be people who make disciples, who
13:02
S1: love God passionately, love others unconditionally. And that's not just
13:05
S1: double speak, that's just reality. Okay, so we don't necessarily
13:08
S1: feel the need immediately to change that. Now, we probably
13:11
S1: will change that for clarity and alignment later on. But
13:15
S1: this is not a new direction. That's what I want
13:17
S1: you to hear. This is not a new thing. It
13:19
S1: is not a new direction. It is just further clarification
13:22
S1: and alignment of our language, uh, rather than rather than something,
13:27
S1: something that, that, that is new. And the other thing
13:30
S1: I want you to hear is this, we're going to
13:32
S1: come back to this in a few moments. This is
13:35
S1: not what the staff or the leadership is going to
13:38
S1: do for Fellowship Bible Church. It is our mission statement.
13:45
S1: It is our vision statement. It's not it's we we,
13:50
S1: we don't exist to do this for you. I'm not
13:54
S1: here to be a disciple for you to love God passionately,
14:01
S1: love others unconditionally for you. And what what I'm saying
14:04
S1: to you is that we own this. It belongs to us. Now,
14:10
S1: having said that, I want to go to two very
14:12
S1: familiar passages of Scripture. If you've been a follower of
14:15
S1: Jesus longer than a couple of years, I guarantee you
14:17
S1: you've heard these two texts of Scripture, but these are
14:21
S1: the two expressions of God's dream, God's dream for all
14:25
S1: of us. And actually, we separate them because they're in
14:28
S1: two different places and actually in the book of Matthew,
14:31
S1: but actually they go together, they go together. We call
14:35
S1: them the great Commandment, and we also call it the
14:38
S1: Great Commission. Now, I want to word this, take the
14:42
S1: definite article off of it and drop in the possessive.
14:46
S1: Because sometimes when you say the great commandment or the
14:49
S1: Great Commission, it detaches personalization and said, well, I don't,
14:52
S1: you know, it's sort of, no, no, no, I want to,
14:55
S1: I want to, I want to, I want to say
14:57
S1: it in a way that I think Jesus meant it.
14:59
S1: The Great Commandment and our Great Commission. This is what
15:07
S1: we own. This is the DNA of anyone that says
15:10
S1: that they're a follower of Jesus Christ. There's no such
15:14
S1: thing as a Christian that says, well, I know Jesus,
15:16
S1: but I don't want to love God passionately, and I
15:19
S1: don't want to share my faith. Well, that's that person
15:21
S1: doesn't exist. That doesn't exist. This is part of the DNA,
15:27
S1: part of God's dream and what God is doing in
15:29
S1: the world. There are three grand dimensions of biblical Christianity,
15:34
S1: and if you have one of them that's missing your walk.
15:37
S1: And my walk in relationship with Christ is dysfunctional. Meaning
15:41
S1: that there's a personal relationship with Christ right there, a
15:45
S1: personal relationship with him. Number two. We live in community
15:48
S1: with each other. But thirdly, there is cause. There's something
15:52
S1: that God is doing. Now, if you don't have, we
15:55
S1: don't have any one of those three where we're actively
15:59
S1: focusing on them, then we have a dysfunctional Christianity. So
16:06
S1: as you hear this dream, you see these three things,
16:09
S1: not necessarily all explicitly stated, but cascading through them. Number
16:13
S1: one is this. This is our great commandment over in
16:17
S1: Matthew chapter 22. Surprise, surprise. Jesus has another little confrontation
16:27
S1: with the Pharisees. They become a little, little aggressive with him.
16:32
S1: What takes place here, beginning at verse 34, you, you
16:34
S1: all know that if you read the book of Matthew. Man,
16:39
S1: these religious leaders were dogging Jesus all the time. And
16:42
S1: Jesus was just kind of like, straighten him out. They're
16:44
S1: trying to trick him up. They're trying to get him
16:46
S1: in a ditch trying to discredit him. Well, here, here
16:48
S1: we have another one beginning in verse 34, it says,
16:51
S1: but when the Pharisees heard that, he silenced the Sadducees,
16:55
S1: they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, Ask
17:00
S1: him a question to test him. Okay. It's important line teacher,
17:05
S1: which is a great commandment in the law. Well, the
17:09
S1: first thing is, as he confronts Jesus, there's the big question.
17:13
S1: By the way, this was a huge question. We'll see
17:15
S1: this in a second. But you have to look at
17:17
S1: the motivation behind all of this. This is another one
17:19
S1: of the Pharisees attempts to discredit Jesus and and to
17:22
S1: put forward, uh, the idea that Jesus is is damaged
17:26
S1: goods and he really is not who he said to be.
17:28
S1: And by the way, the word lawyer, there is not
17:30
S1: not a barrister, it's not a trial lawyer, as we
17:33
S1: think of it. Literally, literally lawyer. There was literally one
17:37
S1: who was an expert in the law. This is the
17:40
S1: brain trust in Israel. These dudes had memorized the first
17:43
S1: five books. So they, they, they knew they knew the law.
17:46
S1: They were scholars. These were the brain trust of the Pharisees.
17:49
S1: And they went to them to get insights on things.
17:51
S1: So so this is the pro that they're putting up
17:53
S1: to Jesus. Now, now the, the line, the great commandment,
17:58
S1: which is the great commandment. I promise you, I'm going
18:01
S1: someplace with this. But you got to understand the tension there.
18:03
S1: There are all kinds of arguments that they used to
18:04
S1: have all the time about. Which one are the 613
18:08
S1: commandments was the greatest, and they would have these debates
18:12
S1: among themselves. There was a common thing there, and they
18:14
S1: tried to figure out which one was, was, was, was
18:16
S1: the greatest. And they, they, they had put the laws,
18:19
S1: the 613 laws into two buckets, two categories. There's what
18:24
S1: they call the light and the weighty, the light commandments
18:29
S1: of the law and the weighty commandments of the law. Now,
18:31
S1: in fairness to them, by light and weighty, they did
18:33
S1: not mean that that they were less serious, that there
18:36
S1: was someone less serious than others. What they meant, though,
18:39
S1: by putting those in the stuff in the weighty category,
18:42
S1: was that there are certain laws that tended to summarize
18:46
S1: the heart and intentions of God more than others. So
18:50
S1: that's what they meant. And again, so that's a context.
18:53
S1: And Jesus knew that. Jesus knew that this debate around
18:56
S1: the synagogue, the gates of the city, everywhere he turned
18:58
S1: and trying to figure out, okay, which is top, which
19:00
S1: is what's going on here. Can you give us can
19:03
S1: you give us a clear answer? And it was open
19:06
S1: to speculation. Now here's a clear answer. This is remarkable.
19:12
S1: Notice what Jesus says. He answers the lawyer. And he
19:16
S1: said to him, you shall love the Lord your God
19:18
S1: with all your heart, and with all your soul, and
19:20
S1: with all your mind. This is a great and first commandment.
19:25
S1: And the second is like it you shall love your
19:27
S1: neighbor as yourself. Now listen to me. Listen to me. See, unfortunately,
19:32
S1: we miss a little bit of the drama here. There
19:36
S1: are two things you automatically you ought to think about.
19:40
S1: If you know a little bit of the culture there,
19:42
S1: you're kind of like, say, you know, I'm kind of
19:45
S1: leaning toward the lawyer here a little bit. See, what's
19:51
S1: curious is Jesus said the greatest commandment. He quotes the Decalogue.
19:59
S1: Back over in Deuteronomy. But he didn't give one of
20:04
S1: the Ten Commandments. He did not give him one of
20:10
S1: the Ten Commandments. Now, the Jews obviously thought the Ten
20:15
S1: Commandments were sacred. They had been written with the finger
20:19
S1: of God. They were in the bucket of the heavy ones,
20:22
S1: the weighty ones. And why, why, why, why wouldn't Jesus
20:29
S1: drop one of the Ten Commandments on them and say, no?
20:31
S1: This one summarizes, this is the greatest. And the other
20:34
S1: thing is this. See, our Lord knows what he's doing.
20:39
S1: The other one is this. See see, see. He chose
20:42
S1: the most familiar commandment to all of them. He said, really? Yeah.
20:48
S1: This Decalogue, Deuteronomy six five. This Decalogue was recited every
20:55
S1: single day by pious Jews. Jesus chose the one that
21:02
S1: they talked about all the time and said that that
21:05
S1: was the greatest. Uh, there's a message here. In other words,
21:10
S1: Jesus says, hey, look, don't play with me. Don't, don't
21:14
S1: play with me. Now. I'm not going to give you
21:17
S1: a ten commandment. I'm going to give you one that
21:19
S1: you talk about all the time. You say it all
21:22
S1: the time, but you don't do hardly any of it.
21:25
S1: I'm going to tell anyone you say all the time
21:27
S1: you every morning you gather your kids together and you
21:30
S1: say there's some little mantra. You shall love the Lord
21:32
S1: your God with all your heart, with all your soul,
21:33
S1: and with all your mind. And this is the you know,
21:36
S1: you you do that, you do that, you do that.
21:38
S1: You know, the reason why I did that? I think
21:40
S1: the reason why Jesus did that was this. He was
21:43
S1: sending a message. Look, you don't need a new revelation.
21:45
S1: You need a new reality. You need a new reality.
21:53
S1: You don't need to be talking about God's love. You
21:59
S1: need to be loving God. You need to be so
22:04
S1: expansive about God's love. You need to be loving him. Oh, fellowship.
22:15
S1: This is what. This is what our heart is for
22:17
S1: our church. We said that love God passionately. We don't
22:22
S1: want this to be some slogan, but the folks here
22:26
S1: at fellowship are falling deeper and deeper and deeper and
22:29
S1: deeper and deeper and deeper in love with the Lord himself.
22:35
S2: Doctor Crawford Lawrence here on Living a Legacy, part one
22:39
S2: of his message. Who are we looking at? What's at
22:42
S2: the core of the church locally and the church as
22:44
S2: a whole? Next time, Crawford will explain how our great
22:48
S2: command fits in with the Great Commission. Now, during these
22:51
S2: past several months, we've been featuring Crawford's long running series
22:55
S2: for His Kingdom. But we're taking a short break to
22:58
S2: take a look at the church's DNA. Now you can
23:01
S2: hear this entire message again on our website, living legacy.org.
23:06
S2: CDs and MP3 downloads are also available. By the way,
23:09
S2: thanks for responding to the Living A Legacy roll call.
23:12
S2: We've been asking you to check in with us with
23:14
S2: your first name and where you listen from. Rosalind listens
23:18
S2: from Lutz, Florida, and she says she's really learned from
23:21
S2: this program. Kevin listens from Tampa Bay, Florida and enjoys
23:25
S2: every message. Thank you Kevin. And we'd be encouraged to
23:28
S2: hear from you. Go to our website and respond to
23:31
S2: the contact link. Living a legacy.org. This program is listener supported,
23:37
S2: and thanks for the role you play in helping to
23:39
S2: keep it on the air each week. For more details,
23:42
S2: follow the link at our website. Living a legacy.org. For
23:46
S2: Crawford Lawrence, I'm Bill Davis. Thanks for being with us today.
23:50
S2: This program is a production of Moody Radio.