ACBC: The Covenant - Part 2

A Person’s Great Need for Belonging.

Maslow’s third tier of human need..

A person’s most basic need is physical… food, shelter, water, etc. If one of those needs are absent in a person’s life, everything else will not work right.

The next need is safety and security. If a person does not feel safe and secure in there environment they cannot be healthy. Now sometimes the fear that a person feels may be not real but such as PTSD, or other trauma, but it still tinkers with you and can destabilize an individual.

Belonging and love. If a person basic physical needs are taken care of and they feel safe and secure, a person can build on that foundation and the next need it this desire to belong and to give and feel love.

Esteem grows out of that

Self actualization, or the need to feel that you are the best person you can be, grows out of that

EXP

Church membership speaks to that need....

And while I don’t want to make this message about a plea to add your name to the list, I know it is Biblical, and that there are truly some benefits from the covenant relationship that we enter into. I quickly want to say 2 things.

Membership is in the Bible. Much of the New Testament is written to a specific church to be read to members of that church. No place is that more evident then Revelations which was a prophetic letter written to seven churches. Some of the letters are written to specific members asking them to welcome other members.

You cannot do the same thing through text and social media. Body ministry must be shoulder to shoulder.. eyeball to eyeball. While your screen can provide and opportunity to meet, it is a pathway to person to person relationship.

Here’s what I do want to talk about.

Last week we looked at the first little sentence of our covenant

Freely

Joyfully

Covenant - we commit to belonging to one another

One Another (I promise to you and I understand your promise to me.)

Today I want to talk about the terms of the contract. Why?

Because I believe I go to a great church and I want to explore what makes it great.

If there are things we need to look at to make our church greater, then I want to do that for the glory of God

Today I want to look towards the Bible using our covenant as an outline to speak to the unity, love, and spiritual growth of our congregation.

The Covenant

Having been led by the Spirit of God to receive, by faith, Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, and having publicly confessed Him by baptism in the name of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we freely and joyfully in the presence of God enter into covenant with one another as one body in Christ.

We agree, by the aid of the Holy Spirit:

to walk together in Christian love, faithfully seeking by all means to grow in grace and in understanding of the truth of God;

to pray and work for the kingdom of God, seeking to have His will done in our lives, in our homes, in the affairs of our community and world, and to contribute to the support of the Church at home and abroad;

to be faithful to our commitments, watchful of our manner of life and speech, and careful to guard the name of the Church and its members;

to faithfully take the Word of God as the guide for our conduct, to remember each other in prayer, aid each other in sickness and distress and do unto others as we would have them do unto us, remembering always to set a worthy example.

Today..

We agree, by the aid of the Holy Spirit:

to walk together in Christian love, faithfully seeking by all means to grow in grace and in understanding of the truth of God;

By the aid of the Holy Spirit

We need help.

Isaiah 6:1–6 ESV

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar.

Isaiah 6:1-6

He is so high that beings way more incredible than us shout so loud about the holiness of God that it shakes the foundations of heaven.

Isaiah 55:8–9 ESV

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Moses was hid in the cleft of a rock and saw the hind parts of God and the results were that the glimpse was so powerful that people couldn't stand to be around him.

Abraham fell to his knees

Peter fell to his knees

John fell as if dead

Revelation 1:12–17 ESV

Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last,

Revelation1:12-17

For the most part when we read the commands of our God, we need to realized that we are only man(kind). We can’t get holy enough, we can’t get righteous enough, we can’t get loving enough, we can’t get there from here but what we can do is this:

Ask for help from the Holy Spirit knowing that he will give it.

Practice, knowing there is always room for improvement.

The Good News is that despite our lack, God grants grace and shows us His love to be worked towards us and through us.

Walk Together

There is a goal that Christ had for us that can be read in

John 17:21–23 ESV

that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

His goal is that we walk in UNITY… TOGETHER in Him.

When we walk in Unity the worlds sees God is real. When we do not, the message looks like a lie.

1 John 4:7–8 ESV

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Christian Love

And how do we walk?

John 4:7–8 ESV

A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.)

1 John 4:7–8 ESV

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Christian love must = the love that looks like Christs love for us.

Romans 5:8 ESV

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

It is eternally forgiving. It always welcomes. It stretches to reach the unreachable, the unlovely - even those who do and say wrong things towards us. It’s Christlike love.

1 Corinthians 13:4–8 ESV

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.

Real Christian love has nothing to do with the reward we get from giving it. It has everything to do with the reward we get when we come together. Because you know what, we don’t deserve it.

We want to be treated the way Corinthians tell us to love. Well with the help of the Holy Spirit we can seek to Love others the way we want to be loved.

Faithfully Seek

Faithfully Seek

We made this promise as Christians to the larger body and to each other to keep seeking a couple things

Grow in Grace

Ephesians 2:1–5 ESV

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

He made a promise to us to grant us grace despite the fact that we don’t deserve it. He is always faithful and just to forgive us our sins - and He did it before we even asked forgiveness.

We need to practice sharing that same grace towards the people we made a promise to.

To illustrate this I want to take you to a passage that has a little controversy to it.

Luke 17:1–4 ESV

And he said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin. Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”

Lk 17:

Luke 17:3–4 ESV

Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”

Luke 17

Sometimes I feel like I am the king of saying things I don’t mean. Through text people have accused me of being cold. Sometimes the stress of one area of our life spills over into other areas of our lives and we say things we shouldn’t say or do things to people who don’t deserve it.

If someone does that to you, which they have or will do, your job is to go to that person. It provides the opportunity for grace to abound. Can I say to you the biggest area of disunity isn’t because that person did something? It’s because we refused to do our part… when they sin we don’t go to them. Most of the time the tone we heard or the insult we took was not even intended.

Here is the real intention of this passage......

PROVIDE AN OPPORTUNITY FOR REPENTANCE AND BE READY TO FORGIVE.

Let me tell you a procedure right from the Bible...

“Pastor, so and so did ________.”

“I’m sorry that happened, did you go to them.”

“No. (can you? I cant I’m to angry… sad… etc).”

“Well let’s do that. Do you need me to do with you?”

“I won’t go to them.”

“Then I can’t do anything. And you can’t hold it against them. You have to give it to God. You have to grant grace.”

Matthew 6:14–15 ESV

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Mt 6:

Grow in Understanding the truth of God.

It’s the first thing thing we are to think on to protect our hearts and minds in Philippians.

Philippians 4:8 ESV

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

In this covenant we make a promise to point each other to the truth.

Truth is NOT how we feel about a certain thing and it can only be found one place.

John 14:6 ESV

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

jn 14:6

John 17:17 ESV

Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.

Psalm 25:5 ESV

Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.

Psalm 119:160 ESV

The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.

Psalm 119:60 ESV

I hasten and do not delay to keep your commandments.

ps

So the promise we made is that we make a promise to point eachother to the word of truth and to seek to understand it again.

John 8:31–32 ESV

So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Conclusion

John 8:32 ESV

and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

We made a promise in our covenant to be free and work towards the freedom of others and I want to pray towards that end and express to you that one of the main benefits of membership is we get to team up with God and help one another experience freedom in Him and with each other.

Dear Jesus,

Help us. Help us to look around and be the people you have created us to be. Forgive us for not loving the way you would have us love. Forgive us for not operating in the unity that you have desired for us to walk in. Help us to pursue grace with each other and knowledge of your truth. Help us to be tools in your hand pointing each other to your truth so we can be free.