A Disciple Belongs in a Community

good morning everyone before the creation of all things the triune god father son and holy spirit existed together in unity and community perfectly and without need of anything and while that is really hard to actually grasp it was out of his love and unity that god created all things including us mankind genesis 1 tells us of this beautiful truth would you read this verse along with me it says in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth god was not lacking anything he created all things he is a sovereign god over all things and not dependent on anything and because of this he can

give freely to us and that's the good news he gave the free gift of jesus christ for us and so this morning we just want to stand and celebrate that great gift would you stand with us this morning as we worship i'm going to ask for some more participation than usual we're going to try to clap we don't often clap in our church but let's see if we can include that so are you ready we're going to clap before i even play so here we go [Music] this dry in desert land myself keep walking on [Music] hear something up ahead waterfall [Music] an everlasting stream

your river carries me home let it flow let it flow [Music] [Music] an everlasting stream your river carries me home and if all my fountains on [Music] running through all my fountains are in you [Music] come on and rain down on us rain down on a floor come on and rain down on us rain down on a slope [Music] rain down [Music] living water all my fountains are in you you're strong like a river [Music] is [Music] give yourself a hand that was awesome in this world and especially right now hope just seems lost i'm a teacher and i i constantly hear teachers talking about

like is this going to get any better and i'm sure in a lot of our jobs it just feels the same where people are just searching people are searching far and wide to something that they can cling on to that that's going to carry them through this tough time and in reality the tough time has just not ever ended since adam and eve it's just continued and we're just we just continue to be reminded of that this world is broken and so this next song we're singing it talks about the hope that we have and and as jesus says there there's water that we can

drink and we're just going to continue to thirst and continue to thirst and and that's what a lot of this world is dealing with is they're trying to search for a water that that's going to satisfy and this morning we just want to celebrate that we know that we know the water that will satisfy forever and ever and we will never thirst again and so whether it's a high or a low whatever comes our way we can celebrate that we have hope and the hope's name is jesus so let's sing this song it's called hope has a name [Music] [Music] there is a song [Music]

i know it will a melody that's never failed on mountains high in valley's low my soul will rest my confidence in you alone hope has a name his name is jesus my savior's cross [Music] his name is jesus oh christ be praised [Music] there is a light salvation's flame christ undefeated trampled the grave see now the cross [Music] [Music] his name is jesus our savior's cross has said the sinner free pope has a name his name is jesus o christ we praise victory who has [Music] jesus the savior's cross has said the sinner free who has a name his name is jesus oh christ be

praised [Music] there'll be a day my hope complete now home in glory your face i'll see my pain no more my fear will cease my eyes on christ my key about my life i fix my eyes on christ my king hope has a name his name's jesus my savior's cross has said this his name is jesus oh christ we praise i have victory let's declare the hope that we have name is jesus our savior's cross has said this who has a name his name is jesus oh christ we praise i have victory [Music] oh christ we praise [Music] [Music] i love you lord [Music] oh

your mercy never fails me all my days i've been held in your hands from the moment that awakened until i lay my head oh i will see of the goodness of god [Music] all my life you have been faithful [Music] all my life you have been so so good with every breath that i am able i will see of the goodness of [Music] your god you have led me through the fire in darkest nights you are close like no other i've known you as a father i've known you as a friend and i have lived in the goodness of god [Music] so so good with

every breath that i am [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] it's [Music] i will is [Music] i will [Music] lord we thank you that you are good that you are good to us and you are good in all things lord we love you and we praise you for that this morning as as jordan was mentioning lord sometimes we can look around us and we can wonder in all of the chaos and all of the um the fear and the hopelessness that we can sometimes feel or that you are nonetheless good and you are nonetheless working all things for good lord protect

our hearts and our minds when satan tries to convince us that um maybe you aren't good and maybe you aren't wise and maybe you aren't faithful lord because we know the truth and we know [Music] who you are and i pray today as we continue on in our worship and we continue on in just learning and growing in you that you would you would help us and you would shape us and continue to fill us with your truth we love you so much and we thank you for this church and that we can meet together this morning it's in your son's name we pray amen

you guys can go ahead and have a seat for a time of confession so obviously um as everyone can know we live in a culture that is very individualistic um we a lot of times do our own thing do our own thing with our families sometimes our friends we keep pretty tight-knit and we keep pretty individual which is not necessarily a bad thing sometimes that can be really good for um most importantly our faith you know no one can have our faith for us you know we alone have to come before the lord and accept him as our personal savior but at the same time

this individualism can kind of be distorted into a selfishness almost so where we can put ourselves over others and it can kind of convince us that what i need or what i um yeah what i need to do or the person i need to be is more important than the collective whole of of the body of christ and of the community and that mindset can easily creep into the church of saying you know i don't want accountability i don't want to be challenged i don't want someone else to call out my sin only god can judge me as is often said i don't have time

to reach the community i don't have time to minister to people in need and individualism though we can acknowledge the good things is often a destructive force in that sense it says that i can live my christian life without fellowship without accountability encouragement guidance and the sacraments it sometimes avoids authority responsibility and community and it says that i can live the christian life without the church without everybody in this room but the bible talks a lot about god's love for his people which is the collective church and his desire for people to live in community and to unite with each other and that's why we

gather here every sunday morning most sunday mornings listen to what paul says in ephesians 2 verses 11 to 13. um paul's encouraging the church to remember who we are um and that we were brought together as the people of god it says therefore remember that at one time you gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision which is made in the flesh of in the flesh by hands remember that you were at that time separated from christ alienated from the commonwealth of israel and strangers to the covenants of promise having no hope and without god in the world but now

in christ jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of christ it says that we were once far off but because of the blood of jesus we now belong to the church the district church and the global church which is just beautiful and just an amazing thing um the church as we know the church is the only community that exists into glory you know we're not going to be married anymore in glory but we're going to still be the family and the body of christ there are a lot of people today who even though they claim to be believers

they they say their their spirituality or their religion doesn't need the church that you know i just need my bible and you know two people in my living room and where the bible does say where two or more are gathered there i will be also there is a beauty in the church and a beauty in um the structure of the church and the leadership of the church so this morning in our time of confession let's just go before the lord and confess um you know those times or those mentalities where we've not really honored the church or not really honored the the collectivistic community of

the church as much as we valued our individualism so yeah let's take some time to pray and then i'll close this out in prayer in our lives it is so easy lord to just get used to our routines and used to our our lives just going you know day by day and lord so often church can become just another event we attend just another thing to wake up early for and lord a lot of the times we forget and we yeah we just don't take the time to consider what church is what we're doing here this morning and we we just thank you so much

that we don't have to do this life alone that you in your grace and in your goodness you've provided for us a community of believers to do life with to be encouraged by to be sharpened by lord i just want to specifically lift up in our church dwayne and josh and kelsey and the wrights and everybody else who you know small group leaders and worship leaders everybody that just helps us and is just an instrument that helps us to come together and to celebrate this community and that they've worked so hard to create those opportunities for us to be in community and be in fellowship

lord and so would you forgive us for the times where we don't value the church as we ought and we don't value the opportunities to serve together as we ought lord would you shape us as we spend time today and the rest of our service and in this week would you just continue to shape us and convict us of those areas in our lives where you know sometimes we prefer to do our own thing we'd prefer to stay individualistic and and not reach out for help or not reach out for encouragement not reach out for advice or accountability lord would you help us to just

turn our eyes out turn our gaze out and um to really live our lives differently and live our lives in a way that you have called us to so we thank you so much for the blessing that is the church the global church and the district church for the friendships and community that we have been able to experience here we love you and we praise you and we thank you that you're here with us in jesus name amen amen good morning church we'll go ahead and dismiss our three and five-year-olds and the six and seven-year-olds to their classrooms and as they're heading out if you've

got your bibles go ahead and open them up we're gonna be in uh starting out in genesis one and then from there we will we'll bounce around to uh a few different passages um as we open this up but we're continuing in through our epiphany series um and you might be wondering like what does that even mean epiphany uh it's just a fancy word that is talking about the manifestation of christ um and so it's how christ is revealing himself to our world how he's making himself known to our world and epiphany is something that the church historically has has followed on the liturgical calendar

as it follows right after advent so christ being born is what we celebrate in advent and the coming of christ an epiphany is then looking at now that christ is here how is he making himself known how is he kind of taking from that birth announcement to now be being able to walk around and say this is who i am this is why i came this is what i can do and this is ultimately what you should follow uh what you should put your trust in and so the manifestation of christ and there's different ways in which you can preach the manifestation of christ and

so each year we kind of take a different angle and how we look at that and and the way that we're looking at it this year as we walk through is how he manifests himself in the life of the body because the church is yes the church it is a community it is a people it is a family of god we use all of that language but the language that the bible uses most often for the church is it being the actual body of christ and so it is the hands and feet of jesus it is the embodiment of when jesus went back to heaven

when he ascended after his 40 days appearing to the disciples and giving them that last charge he then went back to heaven and the way in which jesus from there continues to move and do his ministry on earth is via the body of christ being the church the gathered saints who come into the fold the family of god and so because the body of christ is jesus being embodied throughout our world and how he's making himself known we wanted to spend a series looking at how that actually functions how do we relate with one another how do we find unity with one another and so

that's what we looked at the first week josh unpacked for us the unity of the body of christ the unity of the church being united to christ and then us being united to one another and then we started walking through okay how does this flesh itself out and what the new testament kind of uses as the 59 one in others all right it's the way we one another one another it's the way we relate to each other it's the way we encourage and love and so we we've taken those 59 more than others and we've broken down into really what our mission as a church

is and so as we exist as the district church to glorify god like that's our main goal we want to honor and worship god in all things that we do the way in which we honor and worship god is by making disciples it's by teaching people and training people to be able to see jesus know jesus love jesus worship jesus follow jesus it's making disciples of jesus and so as jesus has commanded us we were to make disciples of all nations through and this is really our four buckets of ministries in the church gospel-centered worship gospel-centered community gospel-centered service and gospel-centered multiplication and in those

four buckets we really call those kind of the discipleship traits and so as we as we look through and just kind of distill throughout the scriptures what a disciple what a follower of jesus looks like well it includes these four things a disciple worships and so last week we looked at what that meant what does a disciple do in worship and the way that again jesus himself boils that down is into the great commandment love god with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself so so loving god and loving others is is kind of the

umbrella term that is used for worshiping god you want to worship god love god with all your heart soul and mind you want to worship god love one another because he includes that in the great commandment and so that's how we we kind of use that as really the resolution for our lives every single january just just keep that ongoing resolution my my goal what i want to resolve for this year is to love god and to love others like that's what he's commanded me to do and so that's what i'm going to devote my life to in bringing him worship and so last week

go back and listen to that one because here's here's the reality you can't do it like you can't love god and you can't love one another in your own intellect in your own energy in your own strength in your own merit in your own fill in the blank you can't do it but god's commanded us to do it so then how do we do it well we need the means to be able to actually fulfill that mission which is jesus christ himself we need jesus to live in us so that he can live through us how to love god and how to love one another

why because jesus did it perfectly in his life he did it without sinning and so he earns that righteousness for us to then come live in us so that we can live a life that is worshiping him and then he provides the method for us which is what we're going to start fleshing out now the method for us is love one another just as i have loved you so how do we love one another how do we love god well we do it the way jesus did it and so that that calls us to then dive deep into how jesus spoke how jesus thought how

jesus served how jesus told stories how jesus taught how jesus went and healed people like anything and everything that has to do with the life of jesus we are to devote ourselves to studying because it is the method for us it is how we love god and how we love one another and so we're gonna we're even gonna dive into later on as we uh close out this series we're gonna jump into jonah for about six to seven weeks after we get done with jonah and this will be following easter we're going to then dive into one of the gospels we're going to dive into

the book of luke and this is going to be if you were around with us back in our acts series where you were like is this thing ever going to end that's going to be luke for us as well all right so we're going to dive into luke and we don't know how long we will be in luke but we'll be in there for longer than you're probably at this point in your sanctification willing to be in it and that's okay all right we'll get there we'll get there but we're going to be looking at the life of jesus and it's going to be a

good thing for us and so today as we move into it we're just moving through kind of the vision of the church gospel center of worship then draws us into gospel-centered community a disciple belongs to a community of faith a disciple belongs to a church all right so there is no idea of us being able to do christianity alone to do christianity in isolation why because god did not create it that way god did not design it that way actually god didn't design anything in the way of doing it in isolation that even includes just our our entire uh creation in and of itself none

of it was done in isolation and so the two things that i want to show for you today are the foundation for community and then the function of community and so where last week we looked at 13 of the 59 one and others were the command to love one another today we're going to be looking at 27 of the 59 one and others that draw us into community and how we are to relate to one another in that community this is what we this is this is how we one another one another this is how we do that and so we're going to be walking

through that today funk or foundation and then function and so beginning with foundation this idea of creating community i want you to see this in genesis 1 26-28 and i know we've we've taught on this passage i mean extensively throughout the life of our church up to this point because in order to really understand what god is doing and how god is ordering things you've got to always go back to how he started how he created things to exist because that is our foundation like we can't form our own ideas in order to say i think this is how things operate i think this is

how things work no we got to go back to oh wait god created me he created things he created people how did he order it so that it then orders me so that it then allows me to rightfully think through and categorize those things in the way that they should function and so genesis 1 looking at 26 then god said and if you if you've got bibles in front of you or notepads you can underline or highlight if you're on a device there's there's ways you can do that i'm not the best when it comes to that but but figure it out i want you

to underline some things here or make mental notes then god said let us all right underline let us make man in our image underline our image after our likeness underline our likeness and let them underline let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth so god created man in his own image in the image of god he created a male and female he created them underlined them and god blessed them underlined them and god said to them underline them

be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth now one thing to point out here up until this point through god's creative order it's been let there be let there be let there be let there be light let there be land let there be some let there be day let there be night so forth and so forth this is the first time in his creative order that he changes his language from let there be to let us let

us which means what he's doing there is he's now drawing a higher intrinsic value in the creative order than he's done up to this point he he's ascribing to what he's about to create higher value than what he's already created because he's doing something that he's now doing in this creation that has not been there before he's about to put his image into what he's going to create that he's not put in before now a lot of times people say well you know creation is the fingerprints of god he's got his fingerprints on everything absolutely he's got his fingerprints on everything when you go and

you stand before the grand canyon there's a reason why you stand in awe because you could not do that like it it is it is pulling you in to see that there's something bigger than you like when you see the ocean for the first time there's a reason why you kind of step back and it almost takes your breath away because you're like it's so expansive because again it's bigger than you there's there's fingerprints that are bigger than you this it is creation is preaching the fact that there is creator 100 percent but that creation does not bear the image of god it does not

have that intrinsic value for it let us make man in our image and the interesting thing to hear see is let us there is a community that is about to create a community there is and this is where we first start to get the trinitarian language this is not god being schizophrenic and you know not really understanding who he is and he's just like let us because like i don't know what i am but i'm just going to say let us know there is a community of father son holy spirit that have existed for eternity in perfect holy matrimony fill in the blank whatever you

want to call it and this community is making man a community in their image in their image and in their likeness which means they cannot exist without the other cannot exist without the other why does this matter because it shapes how you prioritize your life and it shapes how you then relate with one another and how you view one another when you begin to view others with the lenses of how god views us god views us as humanity as the image of himself the image of god there's which means there's higher value there's higher worth there's higher dignity and here's here's this is what separates

us from the animal kingdom all right i know i got some animal lovers in here and and i will we'll fight we'll debate over this all right like we'll go that far your dog does not hold the value of my son alright you might call it your you know you might call it your child but it's not your child all right it's a pet it does not bear the image that god bears it does not hold that same intrinsic value i mean we and we expect like you lose pets you cry over them 100 percent all right that's that is good that's good in our

family this is a side note i don't even have this in our notes but in our family my wife's mother has a dog the dog passed away just a few months ago sad story okay like there's there's tears there's weepers crying and and our kids loved coco all right if you've met coco coco's a cute little dog loved coco ezra's got this tapped in already coco we go to have a conversation with him because we know we're going to be going to tennessee and coco's not going to be in tennessee when we get there and we didn't want him to have this like existential crisis

of like what happened what is death what is all this so we just wanted to kind of get ahead of the curve and just talk to him about it and we say okay hey just want to let you know buddy that coco has died and coco is no longer going to be there and without skipping a beat we can just get another dog he understands the intrinsic value that we're talking about here okay yeah you you can just go get another one and i know that that's like that's like a weird kind of dark side of the coin but here but but it's just kind

of true people humanity hold a higher intrinsic value of worth and dignity and god has created us to exist in a community in which we see one another with this higher intrinsic value and it's going to prioritize the way that you live your life because god has called us to exist in a community in a community so what this means is if you prioritize hobby over community you're doing it wrong if you prioritize business over community you're doing it wrong if you prioritize whatever it is fill in the blank over community and doing those things in isolation then what you're actually doing is you're robbing

yourself of the joy and the goodness of life the gift that god has given you with community this is a foundation here and what god has done is not only has he created us to exist in community we then broke and fractured that community when we sinned and we separated adam and eve separated cain and abel separated when they killed each other like the community was broken and fractured and what god is doing with the church is he's now redeeming that community and purchasing it by the blood of jesus to then bring us back together so that we can continue to live life with the

way god designed it to be done to live life in such a way that we are as it says in first peter 2 9-10 you are a chosen race you are a chosen race you are a royal priesthood this talking about christianity here is not individual this is group okay this is a people you are a holy nation you are a people for his own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous life he called you out of darkness into his marvelous light that sounds individualistic however he called you out of it into a people

into a holy nation a royal priesthood a chosen race once you were not a people once you were on your own left your own devices and it wasn't going to well for you it wasn't going to end well for you but he's redeemed you and brought you into a people and so now you are god's people once you had not received mercy but now you had and have received mercy so before becoming a disciple of jesus really the only person you could rely on was yourself and how terrifying is that like no one has lied to you more than you've lied to yourself it's just

the truth no one's lied to you more than you lied to yourself and then you're going to try to put all the eggs in the basket that i'm going to rely on myself alone to live a good and abundant life and what god is saying is is he's redeeming you out of that posture he's redeeming you out of what hosea 10 13 says because let's say is this not counter cultural right now is this not going against what our society is calling us and preaching to us is look within you are your god you have all the answers you need you have all the energy

that you need you have all the insight that you need you have everything that you need within yourself and so just dive in to yourself and do as fleetwood mac says go your own way but here's what the bible has to say about that hosea 10 13 you have plowed iniquity you have reaped injustice you have eaten the fruit of lies because you have trusted in your own way you've trusted in your own way and so it's good news for the bible to actually tell us stop trusting yourself stop trusting your own way stop going with this light bulb but i think this is a

good idea let's give this a try and what we end up doing is we plow iniquity and we reap injustice and we eat the fruit of our lives the reason why we are preaching for you to denounce isolation and doing life by yourself is because the bible denounces it we are counter cultural right now and telling you that the worst thing for you to do is to look within yourself to find yourself and that the only thing that you need is you like that's not that's not what the bible is preaching and it's just not true ecclesiastes 4 9-12 puts it this way two are

better than one because they have a good reward for their toil for if they fall one will lift up his fellow but woe to him who is alone when he falls and is not another to lift him up again if two lie together they keep warm but how can one keep warm alone and though a man might prevail against one who is alone two will withstand him a threefold cord is not quickly broken so this is the biblical foundation for community the bible time and time you get like the bible did not just create one man and say hey go and steward the entire world

go and subdue it go and cultivate it created a helper for him he created a community so that together they can subdue the earth and have dominion over it and rule it and reign it it was a community that then brought forth be fruitful and multiply a community and god is ultimately calling us back to this when it comes to what the gospel is doing in our lives is that you cannot go your own way you cannot do this alone you need to do it in community and so that's the foundation that's that's what helps us understand then why we're here today is because god's

ordered it this way and so because that's the foundation that then leads into our function which is then how do we cultivate this community once we're in it how do we cultivate it once we're in it and i want you to see this in hebrews 10 go ahead and turn there with me hebrews 10 we're going to be looking at verses 19 through 25 19-25 and it starts out like this therefore brothers since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of jesus by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh and

since we have a great priest over the house of god let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near you're even starting to see some of these one and others flesh

themselves out in this as we read through it but there's a couple of things i want you to see here in this passage first you see the creating of this new family as the writer of hebrews refers to us as brothers all right that's a deeper intimacy than just like hey therefore friends no no he's using familial language here and what he's saying is with familial language here is um that i can't unfriend you like you are brothers like i i have a brother his name's corey he's two years older than me i can't just go to cory and say you're no longer my brother

like we're we're blood brothers and and us as the church our blood brothers and sisters because of the purchased blood of jesus because of what these first few verses are talking about that's we enter the holy places by the blood of jesus so this family is a blood-bought family that sounds weird but that is what we are we are a family of god where we consider one another brothers and sisters and that when he's talking about this faith that we're walking into he doesn't say since i have confidence to enter the holy places but since we have confidence to enter the holy places when we're

talking about christianity and we're talking about how it works out in our life it is never a personal relationship that i have with jesus it is a public and collective relationship that i have with jesus where i belong to a community of faith brothers and sisters where we together by faith are following jesus where we are holding to a confession over the house of god where we are stirring up one another to love and good works we do not do this alone and we do not do this by neglecting to meet together we must meet together in order for this to cultivate community and i

love this remember the language god was using when he was creating humanity let us make man in our image well this writer of hebrews is now also calling us to fulfill that same language of let us draw near to god let us hold fast this confidence and this assurance of faith this hope that we have in jesus like let us what we are what god has cultivated in the creative order we are now also cultivating and creating within the community of faith and really that is what god is ultimately doing in and through us as we know from our message last week like jesus is

working this out in our lives jesus is working this out in our pursuits of one another and how we reason with one another and how we encourage one another and how we pray for one another all of that is happening and an interesting thing that i want you to see here in this language that we have drawn out of hebrews 10 is actually first corinthians 13 13 and this is sandwiched between everyone knows the love chapter of first corinthians 13. love is patient love is kind it is and it goes if you've ever been to a wedding you've heard it but then it's also sandwiched

between first corinthians 14 which is talking about the body of christ and how the members have gifts in order to serve one another and so sandwiched between the love chapter and the body of christ serving one another is this one verse that has some ingredients for how this functions together so now faith hope and love abide these three but the greatest of these is love if the covenant community the church were to be glued together with three ingredients to abide in jesus it's these three and we see this worked out in hebrews 10. draw near to god in faith hold fast the confession of our

hope and push one another to love and good works and so those three ingredients are what we as a church are constantly helping each other follow jesus in we're constantly helping each other with our faith we're constantly helping each other with our hope in the truth that he has proclaimed us that's the confidence we have in what we understand what we believe about him and then pushing us to when we have the faith in him and we have the hope in him how that then meets the road is the tangible expression of those things and how we love and do the good works how we

take that to others outside of us the three main goals we have in cultivating community is helping each other believe in trust in jesus helping each other understanding god's word and the sound doctrine preached in our confession of hope and helping each other put those things into practice and so functionally speaking if hebrews 10 is exhorting us to do this it's also exhorting us to do this by not neglecting to meet together all right like there's in our day and age and there's some there's some secular mindsets out there some secular intellects out there who are like you know the only reason why the church

met together two thousand years ago was because they didn't have technology they didn't have books that they could read they didn't have bibles spread across that they could read in their own privacy of their own home they didn't have podcasts that they could listen to they couldn't stream sermons they couldn't do those things so they had to get together and meet with one another and so what's the purpose now of getting together and meeting with one another if we have access at any time to be able to do that well one is because we want to be biblical not technological we want to be biblical

and not technological and here's what i mean by that there's three different ways and you're going to hear us kind of talk about this in like concentric circles there's three different ways in which the church does not neglect to meet together and one of those ways is the assembly is the assembly we could just call this our worship gathering this is where we come together as the whole church all right and i know we're not the whole church in here we've got people who are sick and out and traveling and that's but we still draw together and we don't just pull that out of anything

a lot of people say that started at the reformation when they were pulling together to be able to finally teach beyond the the ability of just a priest getting up and teaching the scriptures we want to be able to preach this to the people so let's teach them no this this goes way way back before that this goes all the way back to moses when god is literally pulling his people together and he creates a day of assembly where moses is to do one or do two things get the people together and teach them the words of god like that begins and again we're all

about creative order we're all about going to foundation for why we do what we do today the reason why we do this today is because it's the way god has ordered and created his people is by gathering them get together and letting them sit under god's words as we preach and teach that's the reason why we preach through books of the bible and you don't just get these topical messages where we're like you know what i want to help you i like golf and so we're not going to come up here and be like let's live a birdie life in a bogey world and so

i'm going to kind of attach you know a couple of scriptures that make that sound good and fluffy and then we're just gonna hope that that encourages you for a couple of days uh this week no that's not gonna do anything for you those are ted talks and you can go listen all the ted talks you want they're good but what we're called to do is to preach the word of god not dwayne's word not josh's word not ransford's word not we're called to preach the word of god so that's why we saturate sermons with scripture because that's what god called moses to do with

the people that's how he molded and shaped a people was by getting them under the word of god and so we sing the word of god we pray the word of god we confess the word of god we call people to worship under the word of god we do everything by highlighting this and this alone this alone we see that in deuteronomy 4 10 how on the day that you stood before the lord your god at horeb the lord said to me gather the people to me that i may let them hear my words so that they may learn to fear me all the days

that they live on the earth and that they may then teach them to their children also and you see this in deuteronomy 4 14 and the lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and rules that you might not do that you might do them in the land that you're going over to possess so the first gathered church services is is god telling moses to get the people together and preach the word to them and that's going to train them on how to live their lives and we continue to do that even more than there's so many other scriptures even new testament scriptures

where they're attending the temple daily to hear the word and then you'll see it here in a minute so that's the first thing we we do not neglect to meet together by coming together corporately as the assembly of god's church the body of christ secondly we also not neglect to meet together by getting together in smaller groups and everything we do is with intentionality we see this in acts 2 41-47 so those who received his word were baptized and they were added that day about 3 000 souls all right so we're talking this is the mega church all right this is jerusalem this is uh

literally 40 days after jesus is gone peter comes and he preaches a message and this is at pentecost and three thousand souls are saved all right like that's a lot of that's a lot of people okay if you if you don't know math how are we going to meet together with that many people in an assembly all right well they've got some theaters they figured that out back in the day but in addition to that how do they then also fulfill acts 2 41-47 which says and they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship to the breaking of bread and the prayers and

all came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles and all who believed were together and had all things in common and they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need and day by day attending the temple together assembly and breaking bread in their homes so were they were they sending 3 000 people and that's the bottom number there there was more than that were they sending 3 000 people to one home no they were all scattering into smaller groups in homes to continue praying with one another and encourage winning one

another they received their food with glad and generous hearts praising god and having favor with all the people and the lord continued to add to their number day by day those who were being saved so we also have this group of smaller groups where like it's easy for us to come in here and do what we're doing now but the accountability of being able to work out in your life how we one another each other isn't as easy to do in this context what's easy to do in this context and the reason why we do it is to preach the word of god this is

the best avenue that we have to be able to do that from a biblical perspective and so we're going to do that and there's there's people at least once a year we get someone who's like you know under kind of like an innovative mindset and they're like hey what's a different way in which we can preach the word of god i don't know but maybe go figure that out somewhere else this is what we're going to do we're going to give our lives to just gathering people and preaching the word of god that's what we're going to do in smaller groups this is another way

in which we then dive deeper into relationship with one another so that we can then be known and know one another and begin to hold each other accountable to the faith hope and love that we are called to do and how we we one another that was a weird one how we are together with one another and then there's a third one that goes even deeper and i want you to see this matthew 17 1 after six days jesus took with him peter and james and john his brother and led them up a high mountain by themselves and he was transfigured before them and his

face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light also when jesus goes to pray in gethsemane then jesus went with them to a place called gethsemane and he said to his disciples sit here while i go over there and pray and taking with him peter and the two sons of zebedee which are james and john he began to be sorrowful and troubled and prayed and asked them to watch so there's something that then jesus takes even deeper than than gathering the twelve gathering the small group is what we'll just call disciple groups d groups whatever it is but this is where it

gets down to the nitty-gritty of having one to two to three people in your life that are in pursuit of you as you are in pursuit of them and how you are living out faith hope and love how you are abiding in jesus because this is really the three considerate circles like jesus taught the sermon on the mount he taught to the masses he he he did not neglect to continue to assemble people just as the prophets did just as moses did jesus did that they attended the temple they reasoned with the the masses in that regard in addition to that jesus selected the twelve

and he had a smaller group that were with him for three years and even within that group he had the concentric circle of james peter and john where he was modeling for them hey this is how you pray and even rebuking them when they were falling asleep when when he was praying hey this is how you serve hey this is how you encourage others hey this is how you teach god's statutes to others and so what we're calling ourselves to do is to meet together within these these groupings because this is biblically what we see being fleshed out in the one and others so at

the very minimum it's biblical good and acceptable for us to gather or meet together as the full body of christ for us to also meet together in smaller groups and homes again kind of the size of jesus disciples about 12 people or so and then for us to also meet together in groups of no more than three or four and then in that to then let the 59 one and others cultivate these meeting togethers and what i want to do now is i'm actually just going to read through the 27 of the 59 one another's that really have to do with this idea of community

and how we relate with one another and what i want us to do now i'm not going to like pause and break down i'm going to break down one of them because it's a weird one but most of them i want you to just hear this word of god let it wash over you let it let it do the work in your mind and heart that god can do through his holy spirit right now and let this be what drives you and how you go about pursuing each other with this lens mark 9 50 says be at peace with each other romans 12 10 says

be devoted to one another in brotherly love romans 12 16 says live in harmony with one another romans 14 13 stop passing judgment on one another romans 15 7 says accept one another then just as christ has accepted you romans 16 16 greet one another with a holy kiss all right so that's an interesting one all right what do we mean by that and and what it really means by that is the opposite of what judas did all right judas betrayed jesus with an unholy kiss which means he did not honor jesus with the value worth and dignity that jesus deserved in that moment and

rather he sold jesus to profit his own gain in order to honestly destroy himself that's what happened because the guilt and shame that he then felt led him to his own suicide greeting one another with a holy kiss is just looking at everything jesus did and do the opposite we're seeing one another with the value honor and dignity that they possess and we are greeting them as if they're jesus and outdoing one another and honoring each other and pursuing one another in that regard when you come together to eat wait for each other first corinthians 11 33. greet one another with a holy kiss is

quite a few of these first corinthians 16 20. second corinthians 13 12 greet one another with a holy kiss galatians 5 15 if you keep on biting and devouring one another you will be destroyed by one another so don't do that galatians 5 26 let us not become conceited provoking and envying one another galatians 6 2 carry one another's burdens ephesians 4 2 be patient bearing with one another in love ephesians 4 32 be kind and compassionate to one another ephesians 4 32 forgive one another colossians 3 9 do not lie to one another colossians 3 13 bear with one another colossians 3 13 also

says forgive whatever grievances you have against one another hebrews 3 13 encourage one another daily james 4 11 do not slander one another james 5 9 don't grumble against one another james 5 16 confess your sins to one another james 5 16 also says pray for one another first peter 3 8 love one another deeply from the heart first peter 3 8 also says live in harmony with one another first peter 4 8 love each other deeply first peter 5 14 and again greet one another with a kiss of love so these are just some of the ways that again the new testament has commanded

us as this new community of faith that god has created and is redeemed out of a people who were not a people that we are to encourage and pursue and relate with one another and so i encourage you again i can send this list to you guys i'm always you know willing to just share the sermon with you if you ask me uh we'll email it to you to just look at these things and and pray again even over yourself that you would embody this christ-like behavior towards one another as we are meeting together in the different groups that we exist and that we have

as a church and bringing it all back together as we come to our table to our communion it really does bring us back to this hebrews 10 and how jesus created this body of christ how he created this people and that verse 19 of hebrews 10 therefore brothers brothers and sisters since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of jesus by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh you see what that means is that there was a time in our history where the people of god and even those not among

the people of god they had no access or even right to be in the presence of god could not commune with god and so god created the tabernacle he created the temple and he created it with sections and there was a section that he literally veiled so that nobody would go behind because that was where the presence of god resided and nobody could go there because they weren't worthy to go there they were sinners god cannot be in the presence and union with sin and so he had to solve that by sending his son jesus to again live the perfect life to be righteous and

to be in perfect union with him and then to go to the cross and sacrifice his life be put to death because that's what you and i deserved because of our sin we deserve to be put to death but when he is put to death and his blood is shed and his body is broken literally i mean there's not only does the new testament testify to this but there are even jewish historians who are not christian who testified that this actually happened that at the moment when jesus christ is on the cross and he breathed his last breath in the physical temple that was existing

the the thing that that separated the people from god's presence the veil it just miraculously tore in half and the reason why it tore in half because was because jesus finally provided the only way for people to enter the holy of holies that is to be in relationship with god himself jesus breaking his body and shedding his blood it forgives us of our sins and it gives us god's righteousness through christ and we're now able to enter in as we are purchased by this blood we are able to enter into this family of god the literally as it says in hebrews to the house of

god and we're invited we're in the house of god now like god resides here we're in it and not only that but we are the body of christ we are the body of christ in perfect union with him and it's only possible because of the work that he did on the cross in breaking his body and shedding his blood to pay what jesus to pay what god needed paid in order for us to commune with him and so as you go ahead and stand if you don't have the elements i want you to go and go back and grab them off the table as we

stand this is what we celebrate this is what we remember that god is creating this community of faith by the sacrifice that his son jesus offered on the cross that he broke his body and that he shed his blood and so we're remembering that we're celebrating that we're worshiping him and what he has done for us and it has created this community of faith that we then are able now to one another each other that we're able to pursue one another in the same way that christ has pursued us in all of these things father we thank you so much for what you have done

for us we thank you that you we thank you first and foremost that you created everything that's in existence you created the heavens and the earth you created the the universe you created the day and night sun and moon the land and sea [Music] and then you created us and you created us in your image with value and worth and dignity and to exist in a community that love you just as we love one another and that community has finally been ultimately redeemed in the church the body of christ the community of faith and it's all possible because of your son jesus and what he

has accomplished and so we thank you lord and we worship him and we pursue him now more than ever in faith hope and love it's in jesus name we pray amen let's remember now jesus christ for what he's done in the darkness we were waiting without hope without light till from heaven you came right there was mercy in your eyes to fulfill the law and prophets to virgin came the word from a throne of [Music] praise the father praise the son praise the spirit freed god of glory to see praise forever to the king of kings to reveal the kingdom coming and to reconcile the

laws to redeem the whole creation you did not despise the cross for even in your suffering you saw to the other side knowing this was our salvation jesus for our sake you died [Music] glory praise [Music] and the forever that you rose all are fed and held its breath till that stone was moved forward [Music] are restored and the church of christ was born and the spirit laid the flame now this gospel truth over [Music] for the love of jesus christ who is resurrecting [Music] god of glory [Music] praise the father praise the sun praise the spirit free [Music] praise forever [Music] heavy father we

just praise you this morning as one body is one voice we lift you high god we pray that as we walk out that you would open our eyes to the people who are around us the community your body god may may you teach us what it looks like to love one another so much that it becomes the light of the world that draws people into you god may may we be so attractive to this dark and dying world because we love one another so so well open our eyes allow us to see what that really looks like god we love you and we trust in

you as we walk out it's in jesus name we pray amen