All In Week 1 GROW

Hello and welcome to All In- I am so excited to be here for this, I hope and I pray that each and every week of the all in journey will enrich and encourage you. I hope that that it will help you build relationships and get connected here in the church. My name is Aaron my. Stella and I are just honored to be able to be on the pastoral team and we're excited to be able to be here and host this today.

All In Intro

I want to jump right in. At your table, you should have a book that looks just like this. And this is going to be our conversation guide over the next 4 weeks. That's exactly how long the All in journey is. Now I say it's a journey because it is intended that after this four weeks that your growth and your relationship with God and the church would just continue, that it would never stop. But this particular class is 4 weeks long and over the next 4 weeks we're going to talk about these main points; Grow, Connect, Discover, and Serve.

Grow is talking about our relationship with Jesus Christ. Connect is talking about our relationships within the church. Discover is about getting to know yourself. And that's actually one of my favorite weeks. I call it a lab, where we will be doing some personality tests, some give assessments, some personality assessments, and really dive into the DNA that God has placed inside of you. And then Serve is talking about how each and every one of us can be a part of this local church, serving on the Dream Team and being a part of building this great thing called the local church.

GROW

So if you go ahead and turn in your book to page #3 it looks just like this. At the top. It says grow spiritually. And that's what I want to dive into and talk about today.

Church Membership

Now, I do want to let you know that the end of this four weeks actually. Each week there is a a Next Steps in and each time that you get a Next Steps form, there'll be an opportunity for you to fill out a membership application to be a part of the membership of this local body. However, I want you to know that we're not pressuring you to become a member of Living Faith. Church, although I believe that this is a great, vibrant church, I believe that we're doing amazing things in our city. We also know and recognize that there are times when people connect with other churches within the city. So we're not pushing you to be a part of this church, but we are hoping that as you go through the four weeks. Of this all in journey that you'll be encouraged to become a part of a local church because I believe that the local church is is vital to every believer.

Our Hope For You

So our hope for you today is that you it gets to know a little bit more about what living faith church believes. About living like a Christian and our spiritual disciplines. And I hope that we can give you some tools to help you develop your walk with the Lord. And I believe that really our walk with the Lord, it all begins with knowing God. And knowing God is more than just knowing about God, right? Knowing God is. About knowing his voice. It's about knowing his heart, it's about knowing his character. I believe that a lot of Christians know about God and a lot of Christians don't know God personally.

Let me illustrate what I'm talking about. A little story from my own, my own life. I went to Bible College in Dallas, TX. I went to Christ For The Nations. And when I was there, I worked for a company where I sold VeggieTale videos. Now, yes, I was a telemarketer, but I guarantee you nobody hated me because I sold VegieTails. And, and if you know what VegieTales is, you know exactly what I mean. Nobody hates a VegieTales movie. So one afternoon, as we're all having lunch on on the patio, I over hear this conversation. Now, you gotta understand that I was not in the “cool crowd”, OK? I wasn't one of those kids. And there was a guy on our team that everyone knew about. I had never met him personally, but I had heard of him, he was “cool” and his name was Josh Franklin. And I believed that naively in my mind that if. I could become his friend and get in his crowd that I suddenly would become cool. So this relationship could solve all of my relational issues.

So, I eaves drop, and I hear that they were talking about Josh Franklin. Now, remember, I had never met Josh, I didn’t know what he looked like. I just knew that he was popular and I knew that everybody liked him and all the cool people hung out with him. So they're over here sitting talking about this guy, and I said to myself, if I can convince them that I too know this guy, maybe I can get into the “cool crowd”. And so I just leaned back in my chair and I said “Josh Franklin is awesome”. And over my shoulder I heard this very alarming voice and it said… “Dude, I am Josh Franklin”. And that was the moment that I realized I had made a big mistake. I Didn't really know this guy. I didn't know his voice, how he looked. I didn't know anything about him. And yet I was trying to act like I did.

And I think that a lot of Christians do the same thing in their walk with Jesus. They know about Jesus. They might know some Bible verses, they might be able to recite some Bible verses.

John 3:16 NASB95

16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

They might know some things about God. He created the world. He created the world in six days and rested on the 7th. But they don't know the character of God. They don't know the heartbeat of God. They don't know the voice of God. And my prayer is that for each of us as we go through life. That we would learn to know God and not just know about God. And I think the first thing, if we're going to know God, we have to know one really important thing. We have to know that we have sinned. Every person has sinned. We have all sinned, as the Bible says, and fallen short of the glory of God.

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How To Become A Christian

And so if you're looking at point number one on page three it says how to become a Christian. The first blank is:

1. Realize

Realize that God has not been first place in your life and ask him to forgive you of your sin. It is possible for many of us, that God hasn't been first place. We put our own desires. We put our own wants, our own wishes, our own preferences over God's wishes and preferences and desires for our life. And the Bible calls that sin. So we do what we want to do instead of doing what God wants us to do. And and that's. Sin and so we need to repent of our sin and we need to ask Jesus to come into our life. The Bible says:

1 John 1:9 NASB95

9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Step number one to knowing God, and not just knowing about God, is realized that he hasn't been first. Confess your sins, and make him first.

Secondly is this we've got to:

2. Believe

Believe that Jesus is who he says that he is my friend Jesus Christ is the son of God. He died on the cross for your sins. He rose three days later. He now sits at the right hand of God. That's who Jesus is. And if you will believe that, and if you will confess that with your mouth, Romans chapter 10:9 says that he will forgive you.

Romans 10:9 NASB95

9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;

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3. Accept

Step #3 is we've got to accept this free gift from God. And I just want to reiterate the word free. This is a free gift. There is nothing any of us in this room could do to earn, to deserve. To buy, to forge, to steal this gift that God has for us, the freedom from your sins, the freedom from the guilt and the weight and the acceptance of heaven in our life. You can't do anything about that. That was all. God, look at this verse in Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians 2:8–9 NASB95

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Grace is the undeserved, unmerited, unearned favor of God.

He goes on to say, and this not of yourselves. In other words, it wasn't your works. It's the gift of God, not by works. So that any man can boast, if we could earn it, if we could buy it, then we could walk around with this badge of honor saying I did it. But no, God says it's all me. It's all my free gift.

4. Invite

And then lastly, we must invite him, invite him into our heart. Invite Jesus to be a part of you.

Romans 10:13 NASB95

13 for “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

And I'm going to give you an opportunity here at the end of this conversation to do exactly that. Just call on the name of the Lord. There might be some of you in this room that you've never done that. Now is the time you're sitting in this room. God destined you for this moment to open your heart up to Him.

Water Baptism

Now listen, as we're walking on this journey of a relationship with Jesus, there are some very important things that I believe that every believer must do. After you accept Jesus Christ to live in your heart. We believe it is vitally important, and it is modeled by Christ to be baptized. Now some of you might understand baptism, some of you may not, but let me just clarify. Water baptism according to the the way that we do it here at Living Faith Church is what we call full immersion. In other words, you actually. go down into a tank. It's kind of like a miniature swimming pool and we're gonna lay you down under the water and then you're gonna come back up out of the water. And that is so important because it models for us living an old life, and then coming up out of the water and new person. In other words, you go into the water with all of that old sin still on you, but you come out washed in the waters of forgiveness, washed in the blood of Jesus Christ. And if you know the Jesus story, you know Jesus was water baptized by John the Baptist, but he also, look at this, modeled it by his death. Now if you're to look at Jesus Christ on the cross, the Bible says that he became sin for us. In other words, when Jesus Christ hung on that cross, all the sins of humanity were on him. He carried the weight of that in. Himself. And when Jesus was laid in the tomb, he was there for three days. Those sins were on him. He died with that sin on him. But the Bible tells us that he resurrected from the dead, and he came out of that sin in a glorified state. He was in a glorified body and of course now he's risen he's in heaven. And and so we get this picture of us going into water it's like Jesus going into the tomb with all that sin laid on him, but we come out like Jesus with the resurrected body cleansed and purified by the blood of Jesus Christ. Look at this:

Acts 2:37–38 NASB95

37 Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?” 38 Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

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So by being baptized and there are four things that I want to share with you on page five.

1. Example:

Number one follow the example set by Christ. I tell people it's like this. If Jesus need to be baptized, bro, you need to be baptized, OK

2. Changed

Number Two. Demonstrate your changed life. We do water baptism on Sundays and it's so exciting every time we do it. We tell people, bring your grandma, bring your mom, bring your friends, bring your neighbors. Lets have a party because people are demonstrating that their lives have been changed. We turn up the music, we celebrate, people have their cameras out. We just turn it into an all out party celebrating the life change that people are demonstrating.

3. Covenant

Number Three: We enter. Into a covenant . You know, when I got married and entered into a a lifelong covenant with my wife Stella, I did it on stage in front of a room of about 120 people. I was making a public declaration of my lifelong covenant with my wife and. We're doing the same with Jesus Christ and and there's an accountability in doing that in front of the church body.

4. Publicly - Privately

Lastly, number four: Water baptism declares publicly what's happened inside of you privately.

——- Baptism FAQ ———-

When should I be baptized?

And the Bible makes it really clear that baptism, just as you've read in Acts chapter 2, it follows our repentance. Now repentance is a willful turning away from sin to follow Jesus, and it must be in a conscious state of repentance.

Should I be baptized as an infant?

We should not be baptized as an infant because you're not making a conscious decision to repent and follow Christ.

Does baptism guaranteed their salvation.

Likewise, we don't. We don't do water baptism for salvation. Water baptism. Is a declaration of what has happened inside of us.

Should I be baptized after I come to know Jesus?

So we say water baptism happens after you make a after you repent and make a public declaration of your faith in Jesus Christ so important.

If you have never been water baptized, I will tell you this I am looking forward to. Watching you make that step with Jesus Christ.

Build A Relationship With Christ

Psalm 42:1 NASB95

1 As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for You, O God.

Now I have in my walk with Jesus I have gone through many stages, but as I continue to know Jesus and as I continue to pursue a relationship with Him. I can truly tell you that my heart longs to be with God. There have been days and and sometimes there are still days where you know, in my in my rush and in my hurry, I make the mistake of not honoring the morning time with Jesus and and that's. And that's that's my fault. But I can tell you that when that happens, I feel it inside and I, I can't wait to slow down my life and get back and say, Lord, I'm just here to be with you. My heart longs to be with him. And I want to talk with you for a moment just about some spiritual disciplines that you can develop in your life that will help you draw close to the heart of God.

Worship

And the first one is worship. What is worship? Worship is the posture of your life towards God. It's the posture of your heart. Some say worship is what we do on Sundays when we come in and we sing and we clap and we dance and raise our hands and. And I would say yes, that that's a part of it. But worship is so much more than just that. Worship is the posture of your heart. It's honoring God's putting God first. It's it's the way that you think and the way that you meditate throughout your day. You know, you can worship God in the workplace, you can worship God in your home, you can worship God while taking a walk through the park. You can worship God in many places and in many different ways. I spend the 1st. Part of my day, just giving time to the Lord and prayer and reading and meditation and, and in worship.

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How Do I Get More From My Bible

But let me talk to you for just a moment about reading the Word of God and how to get the most out of your Bible. So first of all, we believe here at Living Faith Church that the Word of God, 39 books of the Old Testament, 27 books of the New Testament are the infallible, inerrant word of God. In other words, there are no mistakes is without error. This is a brand new Bible that was just recently given to me and I've really been enjoying it.

1. Accept Its Authority

But I get the most out of it when I believe that it is the authority of my life.

What does that mean? Let me illustrate it this way, this is something most of us in the room have had to deal with. There is a little boy named Johnny. And Johnny's mom wakes up in the on a Saturday morning and says, Johnny, I need you to clean your room, It's a disaster. And he turns around and looks at his room and says to himself, it's not that bad. He waits for his mom to stop paying attention. Then he runs outside, and plays with his friends. Later that afternoon they come back to the house and Johnny's friends coming to his bedroom and they go. Johnny your room is a disaster bro, you need to clean this place up. Now, all of a sudden, he says to himself; Ohh my goodness, I do need to clean it up.

Authority is basically. Defined as the most valuable voice in your life? So when the Word of God becomes the most valuable voice in our life, it begins to shape our life. We give it the ability to speak into our heart, our soul, and our spirit. We believe that it is the final authority on life. We believe that every single one of us. Will be judged according to what God has called us to do in life. And we find that through the Word of God.

2. Absorb It’s Truth

So number one, we receive it with an open heart. And number two, we absorb its truth. Absorb the truth defined in the word of God. We hear it, we memorize and meditate it, and then we speak it. We hear the word of God. We listen to what it's saying and allow it to come into our heart, our soul, our spirit, and our minds. We memorize it, take portions of Scripture and commit it to memory.

Psalm 40:1–2 NASB95

1 I waited patiently for the Lord; And He inclined to me and heard my cry. 2 He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.

This is Psalms chapter 40 verses one and two committed to memory. Romans chapter 6

Romans 6:1–2 NASB95

1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?

And then lastly, we speak the word of God. Declare the word of God over your family, over your workplace, over your finances, over your health. Declare the word of the Lord. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Speak it over your life. You know the Bible says that the word of God is like a double edged sword, sharper than any double edged sword, dividing both soul and spirit going to join us tomorrow. The Bible tells us that it has the authority to change our life. It is living and inactive. The Book of Revelation says that out of the mouth of God comes a double edged sword. I think it's interesting because we think of a sword as something that you would hold in your hand and you would fight the enemy with it. But the Bible actually tells us that the double edged sword is a sword that comes out of our mouth. It's a spoken thing. The first edge of that sword is sharpened as it was spoken by God into the Bible. The second. Edge of that sword is sharpened as it comes out of your mouth and it attacks the enemy and destroys the lies of Satan. It's a double edged sword, but you've got to speak it over your life.

3. Apply It’s Principles

And lastly we have to apply it’s principles. This is the physical manifestation of the prior two points. This is the visible effects of allowing Gods Word to be your authority.

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Prayer

Another discipline that we have in our spiritual walk is prayer, talking with God. Some people would say what is prayer? Well, it is literally a conversation with God. But I would like to tell you that the most powerful prayers are the prayers that have already been prayed. Prayers that have been prayed by God in heaven. The Bible tells us that God is constantly praying for us. There are things that God desires for your life. And so when we echo those prayers over ourselves, over our finances, over our health, over our family and our workplace, we are agreeing with Heaven and I got to tell you, God loves to answer his own desire. And so the most powerful prayers that we could ever pray are the ones that are already initiated in heaven. And you can find those all over the Scripture, the promises of God, the declarations of God. but in our daily prayer time.

1. Daily Prayer Time

So, what shout we do in our daily time of prayer?

Spend Time With God

First we can simply spend time with God. Do you need new strength? Wake up in the morning and spend time alone with Jesus.

Isaiah 40:31 NASB95

31 Yet those who wait for the Lord Will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary.

Give devotion to God.

Hezekiah was successful.

2 Chronicles 31:21 NASB95

21 Every work which he began in the service of the house of God in law and in commandment, seeking his God, he did with all his heart and prospered.

Get Direction From God

And lastly, get direction from God. Just listen to God. This morning I was on my walk, just getting time alone with the Lord. I sat on a park bench. I didn't ask God anything, I just listened. Lord, what do you want to say to me today?

2. I Can Use A Model Jesus Gave

Your second blank is the word model and my prayer time. I can use a model that Jesus gave us. Let me read this model to you. It's Matthew chapter 6.

Matthew 6:9–13 NASB95

9 “Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. 10 ‘Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. 11 ‘Give us this day our daily bread. 12 ‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 ‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’

Christ is giving you a model for prayer. And if you're not accustomed to praying, I would say Matthew chapter 6, nine through 13 is a great place to start.

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The Holy Spirit

Now as we continue in our prayer life and as we continue to grow in our relationship with God, we're going to become a very aware of the fact that there is this thing called the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the active, or the executive agent of the Godhead.

1. Encounters Your Life

And the Holy Spirit encounters your life in three areas. First, it's salvation. When you give your life to Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit comes and dwells inside of you. But there's a second area, that second way that he encounters you, and that's through what we call Holy Spirit baptism or being baptized in the Holy Spirit. And the difference, I'd like to illustrate is the difference between drinking a glass of water and jumping into a swimming pool. I firmly believe that if through salvation, all of the Spirit of God came inside of us that we would physically explode because God is so great and so vast and powerful. But we can experience an exponential increase of his power through Holy Spirit baptism. Take a look at Acts chapter one, verse 8. It's about halfway down on page.

Acts 1:8 NASB95

8 but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”

There is an exponential increase of power that comes through Holy Spirit. Baptism, and which we are now enabled to do. Miracles, signs and wonders, the gift of discernment, the word of knowledge, the prophetic at all comes through the Holy Spirit Baptism. And the Holy Spirit wants to baptize you in his presence, but not just one time. He wants to continually fill you. The Holy Spirit baptism is an on going work.

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2. The Holy Spirits Role

On page 9 you can write in that the Holy Spirit's role in your life is twofold

First He is your guide and second He changes us. He guides us and He changes us. He guides us through intuition. Through revelation or through what we might call the Rhema Word of God. This is when you read the word of God and all of a sudden it jumps off the page and you receive a word, you receive a direction from God. He guides you that way. But He changes you as we are baptized in the Holy Spirit, we begin to see that there are areas of our life, habits and addictions, bad attitudes, old thinking patterns that begin to just go away. But also there's this thing that we call conviction, and the Holy Spirit is the convictor. And that's when all of a sudden you become increasingly aware that your lifestyle was offensive to God. Maybe there is sin that you didn't recognize, and now, all of a sudden you realize, ohh my goodness, I need to change this about my life. That is the Holy Spirit convicting you.

Listen, it is our prayer that each of us would become lifelong disciples of Jesus Christ. Never stop growing, never get to that moment where you say, I think I've arrived. No, we all have a life of discipleship to live. But my prayer is that over the next few weeks. That you would grow in freedom, that you would also grow in your walk with God and that you would grow in your leadership.

Now listen, we do a thing every year, every fall called the Freedom Weekend Encounter. And this is preceded by freedom small groups. And I would encourage you. This fall to get a part of a freedom group, it's 11 weeks long and it deals with getting closer, a closer connection to God, and it ends with the freedom we can encounter. I've been through this four times and I can tell you that every single time I am eternally changed by what God does. In my life, but I also want to encourage you to get involved in small groups and we'll talk about that more here in another week. And we we're talking about growing a leadership. We're talking about getting a part of the dream team and and getting on a serve team. And we'll talk about that in week 4. So these are some next steps that you can take

Next Steps

Now your table hosts are going to hand you. A piece of paper and and at the top it says next steps. And I want you to think about this. What is my next step? Maybe your next step is being water baptized. Maybe your next step is getting on a serve team. Maybe our next step is church membership. I don't know what your next step is, but I want you to think about what could my next step be.

Salvation Call

You might be in this room and say my next step is I need to accept Jesus Christ into my heart. I want to take a moment right now and I just want to pray for you because I believe that this is the most important decision, the most important next step that you will ever make in your life. And if you're here in this room and you say, you know what I need to receive Jesus Christ in to my heart, I need the Lord to forgive me and I need to change my ways. I want to pray with you right now. Everyone, with our eyes closed in honor to Jesus, just echo this after me.

“Heavenly Father, I trust You to save me through Your Son, Jesus. Forgive me for all of my sins. Make me brand new. Because You died for me, I want to live for You. Fill me with Your Spirit, so I could follow You. Jesus, You’re now my Lord and the Savior of my life. Take my life. It is Yours. In Jesus’ name, I pray.”

Let’s give God some praise in this room! Thank you so much for taking time to do this with me today, it means a lot. And I know that these other three weeks are going to radically change your life. We're going to get connected. We're going to discover ourselves. We're going to begin serving. This, I believe, is the beginning of something great in your life. God bless.