A New Heart – Part 4: Need for Community

Now, if ever I love Thee, my Jesus, tis now.

Well, Father in heaven, we're so thankful once again to be here.

And we ask that your Holy Spirit would be in this place, that you would be present in our hearts.

And Father, I know that there are many of us in this room who are struggling and dealing with various things in our lives.

Lord, from health issues, to spiritual things, to family things, God, there's just an endless world of circumstances and hurts and pains that affect us so much in our day-to-day life and our relationship with you.

Father, we pray this morning that your Holy Spirit would be so present and so fulfilling that, God, we would feel the power and the grace and the peace that just surpasses anything, any situation, any circumstance in our life.

Father, God, we know that we need you, or we can feel it in every ounce of who we are, God. You've written it on our hearts. You've written it on our minds.

And I pray, Lord, that you would speak and work and move in a powerful way this morning.

Lord, you know we have a lot of people coming up this week and the next several weeks who are going to be having a lot of surgeries and procedures. So, God, we lift all these people up to you.

Pray that your hands would be with them, but also be with the doctors and everyone who's going to be involved in all those things.

Lord, we pray for our shut-ins. God, we ask that your Holy Spirit would be present with them now, even as you are here with us.

And, Father, as we read your word, I pray that you would speak in a powerful way, that you would help us to grow, help us to mature, and, Lord, help us to surrender more and more to your will and your way.

Father, God, we love you. We thank you so much for the opportunity to be at church, to be able to worship you, and once again to surrender to you.

Lord, we love you, and we thank you, and we ask all this in Jesus' name. All God's people said, Amen. You may be seated.

Well, we are super excited to have everyone here today. It is a really special day as we get to have some baptisms and get to celebrate in that way. Always fun.

Just a reminder about this evening as we do the Fall Festival. If you have not signed up yet, it's not too late to sign up. You don't even have to sign up.

Show up with a car. Show up with some candy. Hang out. Have a good time. Give the kids some candy this evening. Come play the games. Have a good time. We would love for you to be here. Five to seven people. Don't forget about that.

But we have been talking about in our sermons what it means to have a new heart, and we've talked about this desire to receive it. We talked about the transplant, to realize the need that God needs to come into our life and take out what is there and replace it with something better.

And this understanding that you have to get to a point in your life where you realize that God has something better for me, and it's worth losing what I have, maybe even part of who I am, maybe relationships, maybe hobbies, whatever it may be, that it's worth losing that in order to receive what God has for me because he has something so much better.

And so as we talk about having the transplant, we talked about last week, then we will receive this purpose, this purpose that God puts in our hearts and our lives and this need for us as people to have a purpose, to know that there is something that we are meant for that is beyond ourselves, even beyond our own wants and our hopes and our dreams.

And today, we're going to talk about this one final thing. And it's one of the greatest needs that we have as people. And we miss this a lot. And we talked a little bit about it last month, but we're going to talk about it again today, this need for a community.

You know, it is this great perplexing thing that we live in a world where we can communicate with one another at any given moment in time.

We know more information about people than we ever knew before. And yet, we live in a place where we are lonelier than we have ever been.

When you think about this need that we have in our hearts and our lives for a community to have relationships with other people, it is one of the most basic needs that we have as human beings.

And I was watching a video and this guy was talking one time. He said, you know, if you look at people, what you find is that people who are starving don't kill themselves.

So it's like one of the most basic needs that people have of food, shelter, and we have like tons of homeless people moving around.

And you look at people who are lacking like the most basic needs that we would say in life, that people who are even starving do not kill themselves.

But what you find is, is that loneliness is one of the highest indicators of suicide risk in our country, in the world.

Loneliness, something as simple as that. And so you could almost argue that the need for relationships, the need for community would even be more important than food and shelter, that you could go hungry and your physical body would waste away.

And yet there is something inside of you that still fights to live. But if you are alone, if you're isolated and separated from the people around you in this world, no matter even if you like to be alone, there is still a need for you.

To have that community, it is one of the things that causes people to end their lives more quickly than anything else.

That's really sad. And the thing that God wrote that on our hearts to need to be a part of a community. And I'm talking to all you men in here this morning, because men are the worst at this.

Like we're the ones who like, I need some peace and quiet. You can ask my kids, you go ask my kids today, what does daddy want? Peace and quiet.

That's what I tell them all the time. Peace and quiet. And they'll tell you like, what does daddy want? Peace and quiet.

We want peace and quiet. We like our alone time. We like to kind of like stay away from stuff. And the older we get, the work we get with it, the more we kind of want to isolate ourselves and we purposefully do that.

And in reality, we need to be united with other people. We need those relationships. People who have relationships live significantly longer.

Loneliness increases early mortality by 26%. You will die 26% sooner, according to statistics, if you suffer from loneliness.

And so today we're talking about this idea of this natural thing that when God comes into our lives,

God instills and writes on our hearts and he writes in our minds, not only his laws, not only to help us to be obedient and to give us a purpose,

but to also instill in us this desire for a community. So I'm going to read to you Acts chapter 2 verses 42 through 47.

Acts 2:42–47

And this is the account of when the Holy Spirit comes on the disciples and all over Jerusalem and revival takes place in the church begins. So verse 42, let's read this together.

It says that all the believers devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship and to sharing and meals, including the Lord's Supper and to prayer.

A deep sense of awe came over them all and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders and all the believers met together in one place and shared everything that they had.

They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. They worshiped together at the temple each day, met in homes for the Lord's Supper and shared their meals with great joy and generosity, all the while praising God and enjoying the good will of all the people.

And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved.

Now, point number one, I want to see this morning as we talk about this that we could spend a lot of time on this passage.

But we're talking this morning that if Jesus Christ has truly came into your life, now you can you and I'm gonna I'm gonna make some of your cringe this morning.

There's a lot of people who's prayed, Jesus, forgive me of my sins.

There's a lot of people who's prayed, Lord, I want you to come into my heart and laugh.

And, you know, a lot of people who have done and said things that someone has told them to do when they were kids or even as an adult because you were just told to do this thing.

But for someone who has truly received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, there's something that's significant that happens in their lives.

And I think that's that's something that we miss a lot.

Like we we promise a lot to people. And yet they're sitting here and like, well, I did that, but I don't feel it. I don't feel what you're talking about.

And that's what we're talking about this morning that when Jesus Christ truly comes in our hearts and lives and he saves us, then there's things that happen like it has a tremendous impact on who we are as human beings.

And the first things I want to take note of this morning. Point number one is new hearts will devote themselves.

This morning, if you are a true believer in Jesus Christ, what you will see for the disciples and all the people who are getting saved in acts to when the Holy Spirit came upon them, they were devoting themselves to the apostles teachings, to fellowship, to sharing in meals and to prayer.

They devoted themselves to it. A lot of people claim to be followers of Christ. Very few people devote themselves to the things of Christ.

Is that true? It's true. A lot of people claim to be followers of Christ. Very few people devote themselves to the followers of Christ.

So as we sit here this morning and we look at scripture and you really remind yourself, OK, what do I believe?

What do I believe about Jesus Christ? What do I believe about God's Word? Do I really believe in this and do I count this as truth?

And so if you look at Acts chapter two and you look at the purest form of the men who sit in that upper room for 40 days and they prayed and they did what Jesus told them to until the Holy Spirit comes and the Holy Spirit came on them.

And then instead of all hell breaking loose, all heaven broke loose and they start speaking in different languages.

And it's at the most perfect time when all of the people who are who are seeking God for Pentecost and they're coming in to worship the Lord and they're all speaking different languages and they really don't have a whole lot in common.

And they all come in and God works and moves and does this amazing thing and burst the church into existence.

And you have all these people who are so different from one another are all of a sudden devoting themselves to one another.

That's weird, right?

I mean, you look around this room and let's just be honest, we're all probably not going to hang out with each other on an everyday basis for various different reasons.

We all have different interests, different hobbies, different schedules.

Our careers require different things from each and every single one of us.

There's a plethora of different things going on in our lives that may hinder us from being with one another.

But you look at all these people from all over Jerusalem, all over Judea, all over the surrounding area who had come in and they got saved and the Holy Spirit filled them and they devoted themselves to one another even though they had nothing in common.

That's the power of God.

That's God working and moving when things happen that doesn't make sense to anyone else.

That's what we see.

And it is only the power of God working and moving in us, giving us new hearts, filling us with the Holy Spirit

to help us experience this amazing movement, this amazing change in our lives where we would be willing to devote ourselves to something that doesn't make sense to the rest of the world.

It probably isn't very appealing to the rest of the world.

The fact that you're here this morning and you're in church is a form of devotion.

You're doing something that doesn't make sense to anyone else.

And if you're like me, I like to work. I like to stay busy.

And anytime there's something like to do, I think, man, I could be doing this or I could be doing this.

And there's always something that I could be doing that's other than what I'm doing.

But it takes devotion to sacrifice your time.

Most of you could be sleeping. How many of you would still be sleeping?

You could still be sleeping. You could be cutting grass. You could be fishing.

I don't know if anybody would be going swimming right now. It's starting to get a little cool.

There's tons of stuff that you could be doing. It takes devotion.

To come and be a part of something like this.

So there's something in your heart that's already drawing you to the devotion that's there.

But there has to be this change within you that you are willing to devote yourself to the things of God.

And it doesn't just stop it showing up at church once a week.

I mean, it's an everyday thing. When you look at what they said,

they devoted themselves to the apostles' teachings.

They devoted themselves to fellowship.

When we talk about community and we talk about God writing this on your hearts,

there should be something within you that just desperately longs to hang out with other believers in Jesus.

There should be something in you that just I need to sit down with somebody

and talk about what's going on in my heart and life.

I need to have the spiritual conversations.

I need to have the questions.

I need to say, hey, is this weird? Should I be thinking about this?

Is this something I should be giving up?

Is this something I should be doing more of?

Because I don't know, but I want to do the right thing.

Fellowship to sharing in meals and to prayer.

Devotion does not just happen because someone wakes up one day and says,

yeah, I just think it'd be cool to do all the things that a Christian is supposed to do.

Most people, because of the sin within us, spend our entire lives fighting that.

We know that it's right.

There's something within us that knows that it's right.

And yet we fight it and we push against it.

And the only thing that brings us to the point where we're willing to devote our lives to God

and to other Christians is when God comes in and gives us a new heart

and fills us with His Spirit.

And then we're willing to devote ourselves because we know.

It's exactly what we're supposed to be doing.

Point number two, new hearts will have awe.

You know, I just looked up the definition really quick

because I want to make sure that we understood what having awe means.

But it's a feeling of reverence and respect along with fear and wonder.

A feeling of reverence and respect along with fear and wonder.

And one of the things that you see so many times in scripture

is that when people had an encounter with Christ,

they were in awe of what happened.

No matter what it was, no matter what the situation was.

And for us as believers, when we receive a new heart,

when Christ really does a work in our life,

there should be a sense of awe within us as believers.

It's not just, okay, I did that, now life goes on.

There is such a sense of reverence and respect and fear

and wonder about what's taking place in your life

that now even though you feel free,

there's still a little bit of responsibility in your life

to say, I have to make sure that I do this and guard this

and be who Christ is calling me to be.

And I don't know what that means and I don't know what that is

and I don't know exactly how I'm supposed to talk

and how I'm supposed to live and what all I'm supposed to do,

but I know that it's supposed to be different than what I've been doing

and I want to do the right thing.

There is a sense of fear and respect and wonder in our lives

that we need to have.

And one of the fun things we've been doing

is going through the Gospel of Mark.

I just pulled a passage from Matthew 8, 27,

but there's so many instances as you follow the disciples

who were literally walking with Jesus every day for three years,

they walked with Him, they saw Him do the miracle,

and it never failed.

It didn't matter how many miracles Jesus did,

it was always like there was just something new,

something amazing that got their attention.

And in Matthew 8, verse 27,

Matthew 8:27

when Jesus calmed the storm,

it says the disciples were amazed.

Who is this man they asked?

Even the winds and the waves obey Him.

And you have Jesus who's like killing the sick,

He's raising the dead, He's feeding 10,000 people.

He's doing all this amazing stuff

and yet His power and His authority and His ability

even moves beyond the spiritual,

beyond the physical with people,

that even Mother Nature herself obeys His very command,

and they were amazed in it all at what Jesus had done in front of them.

Everything He did was something new and wonderful and amazing.

And guys, here's the truth.

I'm so thankful that Jesus Christ saved me.

I'm so thankful.

But I'm even more thankful

that He's continued to do more in my heart since then.

As wonderful as it was,

as a 16-year-old kid to be changed

and for God to do a great work in my life,

I'm so thankful that He's continued to work

and move in my life since then.

Because I'm a lot better than what I would have been

if I had just stayed like that 16-year-old.

You would not have liked a pastor who was saved at 16.

God could have still used me,

but you would have been really annoyed.

The great thing about God is

one of the things that will keep you in all of Him

is His ability to continue to work and move in your life.

To not just save you 20 years ago

and then for you to never feel Him again

or never have an encounter with Him again

or never have a conversation with Him again

or never sacrifice anything for Him again.

It was never just meant to be this one thing,

wham, bam, thank you, we're done.

That it was meant to be this ongoing relationship with Him.

God continually moves in your life.

And as He does, you continue to be in all of the things that He does,

of the prayers that He answers,

of the things that He reveals in my life

where I begin to think like, oh yeah, like I'm doing really good.

And then He reveals something in my heart.

It's like, God didn't even know that was in there.

Didn't even know how sinful I still was.

And I'm thankful for that.

Because as He continues to work and move,

I continue to benefit from it.

But we cannot benefit from it

if we're not allowing Him into our hearts

and into our lives and filling us with His Spirit

and maintaining that sense of awe.

And guys, I challenge you this morning,

if you're sitting here, it's like, I don't have that sense of awe.

I've never felt it.

But it's never too late to cry out and say, God,

I've prayed the prayer of salvation.

I've asked You into my heart, but I've never felt what He's talking about.

There's never too late a time for us to begin to ask and say,

God, I want to feel You.

I want to know You.

And I don't know how to do that,

but I'm willing to do whatever it takes in order to feel

and know You in my heart more and more,

and not just once but every day.

Because that's what He wants from us.

He wants to have that fellowship and that relationship with us every day,

and He wants to continue to awe us as we proceed in our life every day.

Am I going to lie to you?

You may not necessarily feel it every single day.

There may be times where you look up at the sun,

you're like, God, I'm praying, I'm crying out to you,

and I don't feel like you're listening or I don't feel like you're answering,

but there will be times where God answers as clear as day

if we remain faithful.

If we continue to cry out, if we continue to serve,

if we continue to live for Him, He will answer when the time is right,

and He will work and move,

and most of the time when you begin to look back,

you begin to see that He was working and moving all along.

You just couldn't see it in the moment.

We should have that sense of awe.

Point number three, new hearts will come together.

One of the most miraculous things that I've experienced in being a Christian

is the friendships that I formed with people who were very unlikely

to happen that were very different than myself,

and it wasn't anything like the other people were bad or anything like that.

I've made friends with many people, not only here but all over the community,

the world, the United States, with other people who are in ministry

and things that I would have never been friends with

had it not been for Christ to come into our lives and to save them and to save me.

And this is different from devotion.

Now, I want to make sure that we understand that this morning,

because as you are living for Christ, there is a need for us,

especially early on in our life,

to make a decision to devote ourselves to the things of God.

We need to do that because that takes faith,

and a lot of times we have to step out in faith

and do that to see the Lord work and move and to see the benefit from that.

And what you find is the longer that you serve God,

it's not like you have to wake up and say,

okay, I've got to do this today, I've got to devote myself to this today.

It becomes part of who you are, and it's a joy to do.

And you see the benefit from it.

How God works and moves in the midst of those things.

So devotion is something that we have to make a decision in,

and we do that out of faith.

But if God has worked to move in your life,

and He's given you a new heart, what you will find is,

is that you will naturally be drawn together with other people

who are saved and have a heart for the Lord as well.

And it's amazing how that happens.

And to me, before I was saved,

I was always friends with people who were like me.

Looked like me, acted like me, talked like me,

played ball like me, like whatever we were doing in life.

I mean, even if it was just like sitting in English class

and these were the people in English class,

we were friends because we were there.

It was very much just what was going on and what was convenient.

That's how we made friends.

But I made friends with so many people,

was drawn to so many people in life

that are very different from me,

who Christ has called us both to the same purpose.

And even though they may be called to a different group of people,

in a different place, in a different community,

it's still amazing at how much we are able to have friendships

and bonds and fellowship with one another

because we love Jesus and what Jesus has done for us.

And that's enough.

I think that's the thing that as people, as believers in Christ,

we miss that a lot.

Like we think, oh, I don't want to hang out with them

because we don't have common interests

or we don't do the same things, we're not going to the same places.

But no, like we need to open up our hearts and minds

and allow ourselves to be drawn to other believers

in the way that Christ has always intended for us to be drawn to them,

to not put up the barriers but to take the barriers down and say,

I want to be friends with believers

because the truth is we're naturally drawn to those people.

And that's exactly the way that God has called us to.

It's a commitment and a covenant that we have with Jesus Christ

that draws us all together.

And that's something that we see in Scripture

that we very, very much doing in our lives

is allowing ourselves to be drawn to other believers,

spending time with other believers, spending time in that fellowship.

We talked a couple weeks ago about the need for us to have fellowship with God

and the need for us to have fellowship and community with one another.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 10, Paul wrote and said,

1 Corinthians 1:10

I appeal to you, dear brothers and sisters,

by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ to live in harmony with each other.

Let there be no divisions in the church,

rather be of one mind united in thought and purpose.

Last week we talked about that common purpose,

that God gives you a purpose.

And what you find is that people who have a common purpose

are drawn to one another.

And so this morning, you know, we said earlier,

you asked this question, is there all in your life?

Have you devoted yourself to Christ?

Like ask yourself that question, have I devoted myself to Christ?

To fellowshiping with other believers?

Is there all in my life?

And then this last thing, like, is there purpose in your life for Christ?

Or are you just like, I cannot wait to leave here,

so I can do what I want to do?

And I'm telling you, there's been a many a days I've sat in church,

and I've said, I can't wait here to go do what I want to do.

What is your purpose?

Because people with the same purpose, they're drawn to one another.

God has created us to be that way.

And God has called us to the same purpose of serving Him

and building His kingdom.

And every single one of us who truly have Jesus Christ in our life

will have that calling and purpose in our hearts,

and there will be something to naturally draw us to other people

who have that same purpose.

As Christians, we suffer together,

we sacrifice together, we worship together,

we celebrate together, we build one another up when it's needed,

we hold one another accountable when needed,

and most importantly, we all hope and patiently wait

for our eternal home that we've been promised.

You think about the purpose.

This world can give us a million different targets,

a billion, an infinite amount of targets to go after.

As a believer, if you've truly had Jesus Christ

moving your life and give you a new heart and fill you with His Spirit,

your purpose is going to be His kingdom and His eternal home.

What you'll find in this life,

whether it's career or hobbies or anything else,

you'll spend your entire life working on all these different things.

You'll find all these friends who were with you,

their hobbies and their desires and everything else will change.

Everybody will go in different directions.

Everybody will start families and they'll start doing their own things,

but what you find is that those who Christ has worked and moved in their life,

they're all moving in the same direction.

No matter how different life may be in this physical world,

they're all moving in the same direction.

God's worked in their life.

They're trying to help build the kingdom,

they're trying to help serve the Lord,

they're trying to make sure that they're moving in that same direction.

There's family members, there's loved ones that they care about,

that they're trying to make sure that they're moving in that same direction.

But what you find is that the only people in this world

who are truly moving in the same direction

are the people who God has worked and moved in their hearts

and they're moving towards eternal life.

That's the same purpose.

That's the same heart.

That's the same mindset.

And the truth is,

for all the people who are walking along beside you

and heading in the same direction,

we shouldn't be distancing ourselves from those people.

We shouldn't be pushing against or avoiding those people.

We should be welcoming those people in

so that we're making that journey together,

encouraging one another,

holding one another accountable.

Hey, don't look back.

You remember what happened to Lot's wife when she looked back?

Don't look back. Where we're going is better.

Where we're going is worth it.

Sometimes we need to be reminded that where we're going, it's worth it.

What are we sacrificing? What are we giving up now?

It may be difficult, but it's worth it. Let's keep going.

Go with me.

That's something that we have to be reminded of.

In 1 Thessalonians 5, verses 14 through 19,

1 Thessalonians 5:14–19

Paul wrote to the church and said,

I want you to warn those who are lazy.

You weren't called to be lazy.

As a believer in Jesus Christ, we were not called to be lazy.

There's a lot of lazy people in general.

There's a lot of lazy people who claim to be Christians.

Warn the lazy.

Encourage those who are timid.

I don't know about y'all,

but one of the biggest things I had to get over with is being timid about Christ.

Take tender care of those who are weak.

Be patient with everyone.

See that no one pays back evil for evil,

because there's a lot of things that happen along that journey.

As we're all moving in the same direction,

sometimes people don't do what all they're supposed to.

And we sin against one another, but we don't pay back evil for evil.

But we always try to do good to each other and to all people.

Always be joyful.

Never stop praying.

Be thankful in all circumstances.

For this is God's will for you who belong to Jesus Christ.

If you're sitting here this morning, it's like,

especially for some of you young people when you're trying to figure out

where it is you're going, what it is you're going to do,

know this.

God does not care if you're going to be a doctor,

if you're going to be a lawyer, a professional athlete,

or if you're going to scrub toilets for the rest of your life.

It does not matter.

You with me?

It doesn't matter.

His will for you who belong to Jesus Christ is to be joyful.

Never stop praying.

Be thankful in all circumstances.

That's God's will for us.

The other stuff doesn't matter.

It's trivial.

Verse 19.

Do not stifle the Holy Spirit.

Do not scoff at prophecies,

but test everything that is said this morning if you're sitting here.

And if you don't know me,

I challenge you to test everything that I've said this morning.

Do not just take it as truth, but you go and you look it up in Scripture

and you research it for yourself and you think about it and you pray about it

and you ask God to speak to your heart as to what truth is.

Test it.

You're supposed to.

And hold on to what is good

and stay away from every kind of evil.

Because as we walk and as we move in the same direction,

there's an endless world of things that can distract us

and take away from what it is that we're supposed to be doing.

So the question is this morning,

is where are you?

Where's your heart?

Have you received a new one

or are you still dealing with the old one that's weak

and struggling and giving you problems?

We had someone a couple weeks ago at a sister church

who had a heart attack.

Pretty young guy.

You know what he said?

He said, I didn't realize how bad I was feeling

until after I got my stand in and now I feel so much better.

And the truth is like we go through this life with our hearts,

our spiritual hearts that we were born with, it's full of sin

and we think that we're fine like it's normal.

You don't know how bad you feel until God comes into your life

and he fixes all the mess in there and gives you a new heart

and then you feel so much better.

He's like, I did not realize how bad I was until he did the work in me.

This morning, I'm going to pray and I'm going to ask the worship team to come up

and we're going to baptize some people, which is really fun.

And I just challenge you to think in your hearts and your lives

as to where you are.

Is there all, is there devotion and is there community in you in your life?

Let's pray.

Father in heaven, thank you so much for everything you've given us.

Lord, I pray that you would speak into our lives.

Remind us once again of who you are.

Lord, as we sing, I pray that you would speak to us.

Lord, if there's anybody who needs to come to the altar,

Lord, the altars are open.

They can come as they need.

And Lord, I pray that we would give ourselves to you fully and completely.

For it's in Jesus name that we pray. Amen.