Southgate Romans 6
South Gate Missions • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Good morning Southgate and greetings from Rockaway Beach!
I want to personally thank you for faithfully supporting the advancement of the Gospel in Rockaway beach.
Here are some victories we have experienced in our community in the time that you all have supported us.
We have went from facing animosity as a church from city leaders and the community to now having 3 of the 5 seats on city council being voted in church members.
We went from owning zero property in town to having the 1926 building and 2 acres given to us, a 10,000 sq ft for worship and classrooms, purchasing the adjacent lot that is The Village and 2 vacant acres with community greenhouse, ball field, basketball court and future playground. Receiving a donated building that is now the home of Bridgefit fitness center. Opened 1 thrift store and a second one (Southgate with their pack the truck is the strongest church partner supporting us) Since 2022 we purchased The mercantile building, Someone gave us the ministry building that we tore down by hand this summer with mission teams, added a Distribution center and when we thought we were done.
The local pub went for sale. The owner was planning to reopen it as a bar but she put a for sale by owner sign in the window. We went by and the Lord started moving. The owner lowered her price for us. Many people jumped on board and January 15 this year Bridge of Faith purchased the Dockside pub.
This pub represented a lot of oppression for Amy and I. It was this pub that in the early days of ministry would entertain the parents of the children. We would throw events at the church to keep kids safe while their parents attended an event at the pub.
(Destroy everything in the pub)
Our Wednesday night ministry has exploded with each week close to 200 attend and about 120 of them being under the age of 18 in a town of 841.
Pizza stats from Jim Pitts
Words of affirmation for Southgate
This is a small piece of our story I have shared with you. I want to affirm you here at Southgate. You are a HUGE piece of this story. As I said, you are the most supportive church of the pack the truck events, you are literally living out the Acts 4 principle where we see believers bringing their access goods and laying them at the apostles feet so that we can redistribute them. This has helped enhance the dress of students and families in our community at a cost they can afford. Your feeding every 2nd Wednesday night of the month has been huge. Your monthly church support has been so encouraging. Many of you may not know but last May Southgate sent a group to help us with our spring Block party and Summers at the Beach sign up and over 500 people showed up. The group on the grill cooking was cooking for 2 hours straight. I would say that out of that 500 75% of them do not have a church home!
1 The Spirit of the Lord God is on Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners;
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of our God’s vengeance; to comfort all who mourn,
3 to provide for those who mourn in Zion; to give them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, festive oil instead of mourning, and splendid clothes instead of despair. And they will be called righteous trees, planted by the Lord to glorify Him.
4 They will rebuild the ancient ruins; they will restore the former devastations; they will renew the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.
(Pray)
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires.
Reign
be a king, reign as a king ; control completely
I want you to imagine with me for just a minute. A 5 Year old little boy.
At the age of 5, his house may not be like the house you grew up in. In his family, its not safe. Sin reign supreme in his family. It is completely in control and because of the accuser, satan, wants to kill steal and destroy at a young age this little guy is taken advantage of. (Represented as links around the arm)
The age of 6 the young boy discovers Alcohol and begins to drink Alcohol (more links on the arm)
By the age of 7 the accuser continues to torment and so the 7 year old second grader begins to experiment with Marijuana
13 And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness.
At the age of 10, all this pain from the accuser starts to come out in anger issues and so the cycle begins with treatment facilities, school absences, broken relationships in family, broken relationships with schools systems and broken relationships with the law.
The young man bounces around and looks for love amongst family. The young man starts to question why he is alive and perhaps his life is nothing but a mistake.
One thing that remains consistent is that Wednesday night Reach program keeps picking up the young man and keeps pouring in to His life.
At the age of 12, the young man begins to experiment with methamphetamine. 12 is 6th or 7th grade. (More links)
13 He begins to try and find love in all the wrong places. This leads to stealing a car and getting in a high speed police chase that results in juvenile detention. (More links)
16 Don’t you know that if you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of that one you obey —either of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness?
19 I am using a human analogy because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you offered the parts of yourselves as slaves to moral impurity, and to greater and greater lawlessness, so now offer them as slaves to righteousness, which results in sanctification.
20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free from allegiance to righteousness.
21 So what fruit was produced then from the things you are now ashamed of? For the end of those things is death.
Draw out the negative and slavery and bondage of these verses.
Some of the “fruit” in the young mans life is because of what others have done to him and some of the “fruit” is what the accuser desires his life produce.
The end of those things is death. The accuser comes to steal, kill and destroy.
The accuser desires to enslave young men and women in my community so that they offer themselves to moral impurity.
Now Look at the good news of this passage.
To this point it has been a pretty down message but let’s draw out the good news and this is hard for our brain to do some times because the accuser wants to keep us in shame and negative but not today!
13 And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness.
14 For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under law but under grace.
Because those who are in Christ they have been buried with Christ in baptism and raised with Christ
4 Therefore we were buried with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in a new way of life.
Listen to the liberation language
raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in a new way of life.
Sin will not rule over you
16 Don’t you know that if you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of that one you obey —either of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness?
17 But thank God that, although you used to be slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching you were transferred to,
18 and having been liberated from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness.
Listen to this liberation or set free language.
The pain of the young man’s past Jesus went to the cross to liberate and set us free from these things.
The accuser has no desire of this but Jesus wants to set us free.
19 I am using a human analogy because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you offered the parts of yourselves as slaves to moral impurity, and to greater and greater lawlessness, so now offer them as slaves to righteousness, which results in sanctification.
22 But now, since you have been liberated from sin and have become enslaved to God, you have your fruit, which results in sanctification —and the end is eternal life!
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I am thankful that Southgate has invested time, money and resources in the community of Rockaway Beach through Bridge of Faith so that students can be liberated or set free from the bondage of Sin
We share the Good news about being set free from the bondage of Sin with students in our community. We do this in many different forms.
We then work to train them as disciples on how to use their whole beings as weapons for righteousness
We teach financial literacy and how to use finances as a weapon for righteousness
We teach leadership development
We are training them to be entrepreneurs that use their business for righteousness
We have Bridgefit that teaches them to care for their bodies
We teach gardening to help with what they put in their body to use them as a weapon for righteousness
We hire them as high school students to work for us and desire for them to come back as college mentors
We have a thrift store that has helped to clothe and provide for them.
We have OneHeart wholistic counseling center with lay Biblical Counselors to help them walk in Biblical Counseling
We have positive spaces like playgrounds, basketball court, The Village, coffee shop, baseball field, and hiking trails to reconcile into community.
Share the story of Darius
Plea for Southgate to go further in liberating people from sin.
15 And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who announce the gospel of good things!