Why we Grow Together

Victories: 1. VBS is coming 2. Noah will be preaching on Aug. 2nd

Prayer: Friendship Baptist Matthew Castle

Missionary Prayer: Rick and Mary Glover / AWANA - Praise for funding getting really close to fully funded

Intro

The Boy Scout Oath: "On my honor I will do my best To do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; To help other people at all times; To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight."

The Presidential Oath of Office: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

The Marriage Vow: I, Bob, take you, Mary, to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward for better and for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish until death do we part, According to God's holy ordinance. With this ring, I thee wed. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

All of you have heard these oaths before, all of you have said some kind of oath and in case you think you haven’t then I have one more for you.

"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Oaths aren’t just a collection of words put together with no purpose; quite the contrary. Oaths are thoughtfully and specifically written out in order to draw the individual into a verbal contract with others of likeminded interests or connections. In case of each of the oaths I just gave they are meant to be binding on the individual to complete what they started and to do so to the best of their ability. Sometimes they are just a verbal contract but often they are even legally binding, but in no way should you ever consider an oath to hold no sway over you or to be useless.

This idea of taking an oath is not a modern invention nor is it even a human invention. God made the first covenants with His creation. Genesis 2:15–17 “Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”” This is called the Edenic Covenant and essentially it is an oath that God makes with Adam and Eve that if they will be obedient to Him He will preserve and care for them, but if not He will take their lives. Later on we have the Noahic Covenant not to flood the earth again, and then the Abrahamic covenant to make Abraham the father of a nation and that coupled with the Mosaic covenant which established Israel as a nation that would be chosen by God to be His people with a purpose and a promised land. Follow that with the Davidic Covenant which created the lineage of kings through David, and then the fulfilment of that covenant for the rest of eternity with the New Covenant in Jesus Christ whose sacrificial death and resurrection brings us the forgiveness of sins and the promise of eternal life. These are all oaths made by God to us His beloved creation in order to show us His care and provision.

So why are we talking about this today? Well throughout all of these covenants we see that they are meant to draw God’s people into a formal relationship with God and therefore also drawing the peoples together as a whole. They were no longer to be individuals or even just individual family groups; instead they were to be a people chosen by God to be His. That is significant and special. We humans like to be part of something bigger than ourselves. Even the most hermit like among us wants and longs for people to love them and to be thought of. We all want to belong, we all want fellowship. In part that is what keeps you coming each week to this church. You sit in roughly the same space every week because you know the people around you and you feel a connection to those people. You attend a Sunday School class because you know those people and they know you. Church is meant to be a fellowship and it is meant to provide you with love and care.

Next week will will be having our Business meeting after the morning service and one of the main topics up for a vote is a Church covenant which is simply an oath that just like every other oath it is meant to draw us together as a church. 1 Corinthians 12:12–14 “For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. For in fact the body is not one member but many.” This is our membership. That we are one body; neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, but made into one Spirit. The point is that we are drawn individually together. What we want to do with our church covenant is remind ourselves that we are drawn together in a formal contract as a church body. This contract is to remind us that we aren’t alone, we are responsible for our own spiritual lives but we are also held responsible by others to further our walk with Christ and we are also held up to a Godly standard before the world.

Last week Andrew so wonderfully put this before us that we are held together by how we worship together. This week I want us to see how our spiritual growth ties us together and next week we will look at how the Great Commission empowers us to do God’s will but also draws us together for the furthering of the Gospel. Let’s dig into the covenant and Why we Grow Together.

Church Covenant

Having been brought by God’s sovereign grace to repent and believe in the Good News of Jesus Christ and His saving work, having been baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and having accepted the Bible as our sole authority of faith and practice, we do now, relying on His grace, solemnly and joyfully affirm our covenant with each other.

We are members of New Hope Baptist Church, individually and corporately, to see the church's purpose accomplished in worship and in deed. As a member, we worship, we love, we grow spiritually, and we evangelize.

We worship to build up God’s church that God’s name may be praised and made great among us, in our community, and around the world. We will not forsake the assembling together of ourselves for worship to further the cause of the Gospel in us and others. We pledge to give cheerfully and regularly to the support of the ministry, the expenses of the church, the relief of the poor, and the spread of the gospel through all nations.

We love the fellowship of the church, and we will stir one another up to love and good works. We will seek to serve each other through prayer, discipleship, reproof, and aid. We will seek to be a source of unity in this church, knowing that no one, besides Christ, is perfect and that our unity as a church will further the Gospel's example in the world.

We grow spiritually, seeking to maintain family and personal devotions; to religiously educate our children; to seek the salvation of our family and acquaintances; progressively growing to be more Christlike, so that God’s reputation is not put down by our failures. To do this, we avoid all gossip, backbiting, and excessive anger. We use our influence to combat the abuse of drugs and alcohol, the spread of pornography, and other practices that lead to moral and spiritual decay. We are to be slow to take offense, but always ready for reconciliation and mindful of the truths of our Savior to live them out daily.

We evangelize by spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ before our family, friends, and neighbors, and faithfully teach this great commission of the gospel to future generations.

We will, as soon as possible after we move from this place, unite with some other church where we can carry out the spirit of this covenant and the principles of God’s Word.

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Amen.

We Grow Spiritually

I want you to look specifically at the 5th paragraph that starts our with We grow spiritually. I have it up on the screen for you.

We grow spiritually, seeking to maintain family and personal devotions; to religiously educate our children; to seek the salvation of our family and acquaintances; progressively growing to be more Christlike, so that God’s reputation is not put down by our failures. To do this, we avoid all gossip, backbiting, and excessive anger. We use our influence to combat the abuse of drugs and alcohol, the spread of pornography, and other practices that lead to moral and spiritual decay. We are to be slow to take offense, but always ready for reconciliation and mindful of the truths of our Savior to live them out daily.

I want to break this down into 3 different parts. The first is our own personal spiritual growth which is your responsibility to further. The 2nd is our corporate Spiritual growth which is not only your responsibility but also what you are to hold others of this church accountable to as well as what they are holding you accountable to. Lastly, we will look at how this is applied (Applied Spiritual Growth) as we leave this place and we are living out our Personal Spiritual Grown and our Collective Fellowship of Spiritual growth before a world who sees all of it as foolishness but however is dying to receive it.

Personal Growth - Sanctification

First off in our covenant of Spiritual growth we formally agree that it is our responsibility to further our relationship with God. We are told in Psalm 119:11 “Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You.” and in 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18 “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” These are to be formal promises you make before God and before your fellow church members that you will hide God’s Word in your heart. You are to teach God’s Word to your family and you are to be in prayer. We call this in theological terms our Sanctification which simply means that we are being set aside by God for His good purposes.

Now I assume you know that you should be furthering your relationship with the Lord, but here is the thing; “assumptions are the mother of all mistakes.” That is just one saying I have heard about assumptions and there are multiple other sayings surrounding Assumptions and some of them are not so church approved.) So an assumption is the mother of all mistakes because what I assume should be a foregone conclusion you may have never heard and therefore have never put into practice. So Let me make this clear, “Your responsibility as a Christian is to further your relationship with the Lord through Bible Reading and Prayer.” I would also like to add to this that you should be doing more than just reading God’s Word; for the words alone are not what bring life . It is the application of those words being added to your faith that create the change that God wants in you. So if you are to Hide God’s words in your heart you need to be applying them to your life and consequently also memorizing them so that they are falling out of your heart and mouth when they are in greatest need.

Prayer too should be a constant. The statement there in 1 Thess. is meant to remind us to be always in prayer. You know those movies that had a red phone on the desk. What did that red phone do? It was a direct line to the president. Can you imagine having access to that? At any time of the day you can pick up the phone and be immediately in contact with the President of the United States. My brothers and Sisters in Christ we do and it is so much better than calling the president for your Creator God and Father desires for you to talk to Him at any time and for whatever reason. What a joy. And it is more than that; for God does not reluctantly answer our prayers, He longs to be in communication with us for He loves us as His beloved children. The Awesome creator God of the Universe wants to hear from you and through His Word He answers you. That should make us desirous of prayer.

Fellowship Growth - Edification

However, our Sanctification is not complete in just our own personal Spiritual growth. Now again I don’t want to make any assumptions here. If you don’t already know this you need to be in church, you need to be here for several reasons and the first of those is what Andrew spoke about last week with our need to worship God. The second reason is the fellowship of believers. This is the rubbing up against each other that helps us to grow. We must do as Solomon told us in Proverbs 27:17 “As iron sharpens iron, So a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.” We must be built up in our faith together surrounded by a fellowship of believers.

Sure you can do a lot of spiritual growth on your own but with the help of others you are multiplying the amount of growth you can add to your faith and let’s not forget that Church attendance is not a suggestion it is a mandate. Hebrews 10:25 “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”

This is the edification of our faith meaning that our faith is made better through the uplifting, instructing, and reproof of others. This is the act of the church and it is pretty much the greatest benefit of showing up each week. You are here for many wonderful things not the least of which is to worship the Lord your God together with fellow believers but what you get to take home is the edification of those believers who are breathing into your life the truths of God for the building of your faith. And not only that but you too are edifying your fellow believers, just as Hebrews 10 also tells us to do. Hebrews 10:24 “And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works,”

Influential Growth - Application

That brings me to the last point and this is the most important point because it is here that we use the Personal Spiritual Growth and the Corporate Spiritual Growth. God expects us to do something with the gifts that He has given us. We are to show the world that our lives are different. We are to show the world that knowing Jesus as our Savior matters. We are to show the world Jesus. As we add to our faith daily through Bible reading and prayer we are able to know God more and therefore we have the ability to show Him to those around us. As we become the workers that God expects us to be from 2 Timothy 2:15 “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” then we unashamedly go into all the world and declare the name of Jesus for He has saved us. Amen

We are given the opportunity to share that.

Gospel

Jesus died for our sins, and because He did, we can place our belief in that sacrifice. 1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” We have the promise of God that if we ask for forgiveness and believe in the saving power of Jesus, we will be saved. And from the saving power of Jesus, we become new creations. 2 Cor. 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” This means that as Christians, we get a fresh start, we aren’t who we used to be, and we have the power of God behind us to change who we are becoming. Glory to God in the highest, for He has saved my soul, and He can save yours too if you will let Him. If you aren’t sure, then you can confess Him as your savior. If that is your desire today, you can say this prayer with me. Bow your heads.

Dear Lord, I know that I’m a sinner. I’m sorry for my sin, and I ask you to forgive me. I believe you died for my sins and rose from the dead. I repent of my sins, and I ask you to come into my life and take control. I make a commitment to follow you, and I trust you as my Lord and Savior.

Friend, if you prayed that prayer today, I ask that you come and speak to me after the service.

For those of you who are believers-

Benediction: Ephesians 3:17–19 “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”