Better Together

Well, it is great to see everybody in the room here this morning, and it's great to have you guys worshiping with us online this morning.

Would you join me if you're in the room welcoming all those that are here worshiping with us online at 11 a.m.

this morning?

Excited that you guys are with us, whether you are here in person or whether you're watching with us online.

Um let me tell you a little bit about my my testimony, and some of you have heard some of this, but I I grew up in the home of an angry father.

Loving mother.

Um she hopefully is watching right now.

If she's a good mom, she's watching us online right now, unless you watch at 9:15.

Uh but but loving mom, but I grew up with an angry, just just just hurting, joyless father.

And and he had grown up with an angry father.

And and and so as we grew up, our our home was full of hostility.

Um uh I'm very thankful for the living that my dad provided and for the home and all the material needs that I had, but but he just was an angry man.

And then on May 19th, 1992, uh things took a turn for the worse.

They didn't get better, they got worse.

Uh my dad received a phone call that morning, a Tuesday morning, um, telling him that his middle son had been found dead on the floor beside his bed in his house in Atlanta.

And so I received a phone call just a little bit later from my oldest brother.

There's three of us.

My oldest brother, we call him Butch, and and the middle brother was Eddie, and and then I was seven years younger than Eddie, nine years younger than Butch.

And and it took an angry man and it made him more angry.

But then you had you had the hurt, you had the depression, and he took a deep dive in a hole.

He ended up leaving my mother, and and I I could tell you all the details, but I'm not going to, but but the life of the butcher family was just not that pleasant.

But thank God for an old friend who came back into my father's life, a man by the name of Ralph Easterwood.

He is still living, he is a retired pastor of Glenhaven Baptist Church down in McDonough, Stockbridge area of Henry County.

And he had been a high school buddy to my dad.

As a matter of fact, they they were probably not really good together.

They got into a lot of trouble together in high school, and Ralph's life was transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And he drove down to Stockbridge and made a visit with my dad that would change his life.

And down at the barn behind our house off of Swan Lake Road in Stockbridge, Georgia, North Henry County, um, Ralph led my dad to kneel down and to put his faith in Jesus Christ.

And it now, when I say changed his life, I mean changed his life.

And it was, it was it was a pretty radical transformation.

Now, there were still some of the old Buddy Butcher personality that was a part of that, but but little by little, even some of those old characteristics began to change.

He began to have conversations with my mother that included apologies and restoration and reconciliation.

And the last years of their marriage were actually pleasant.

And they enjoyed each other.

And so, because of somebody who knew Jesus, my dad was introduced to Jesus.

And that's the power of the body of Christ.

It's the power of community.

And his life was transformed because somebody was willing to invest in him.

And he ended up joining Glen Haven Baptist Church.

He got baptized at Glen Haven Baptist Church, and he maintained that friendship and that relationship until the day that he left this world and stepped into eternity.

Now, I'm telling you that story because transformation happens in the context of relationships.

It does.

Obviously, people can come to know Jesus by themselves, but it's usually a community that leads somebody else to discover the hope and the joy that's found in Jesus.

And my dad went through a transformation.

Not only did he put his faith in Jesus, he went through transformation as a result of the relationships in the body of Christ, the relationships in the church, the relationships in community.

And see, we're changed.

Matter of fact, one of our core values is that growing people change.

And if my dad can change, I'm telling you, anybody can change.

He was one of those old Navy construction worker guys that had found a rut that he was going to walk in, and you weren't going to change anything about his life.

And Jesus changed his life.

As a matter of fact, the Apostle Paul writes about what happens when we go through this transformation.

It's a transformation that happens when we're introduced to Jesus, but it's also a transformation that happens when we rub shoulders with other believers in our life and people that encourage us, speak into our lives, and sometimes challenge us.

But here's what the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 12, 1 and 2.

He says, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

He says, Do not be conformed to this world.

Do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.

That word transformed in the Greek is the word metamorpho, and it's where we get the word metamorphosis.

It's the idea of the caterpillar becoming the butterfly.

And it's this transformation that takes place when Jesus comes and lives inside of us.

He says that by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good, acceptable, and perfect.

Now, I can't speak for you, but one of the things that I would argue for as far as a transforming agent in our life, in our lives, is other people rubbing shoulders with us, other people walking with us, other people journeying with us.

And listen, that's what helps us change.

If you want to stay stuck in a rut, then you live life by yourself.

And you'll stay angry and you'll stay hurtful and you'll stay joyless.

But if you want to change, if you want to see God work and change and transform your life, then you get involved in relationships with other people.

There's something about being with other people that exposes your selfishness, that exposes the depression, that exposes the hurtfulness, that exposes the blind spots that we have, and helps us grow in sacrifice, and helps us grow in serving, it helps us grow in how we love people, and how we can become more kind and have more joy and have change in our life.

That's what happens when Jesus transforms us.

He leads us to be connected to community, and it's the community of God that continues that transformation process.

So we begin this series a few weeks ago, finding freedom.

In the very first week, we said this when the right people gather together for the right reasons, God is there and he does the right things.

And then the second week we said that biblical community must be intentional.

It's not something we just accidentally fall into, it's something that we're intentional about.

It's something that happens on purpose.

And then last week Pat uh taught the story in Mark chapter 2 where the friends lower their buddy through the roof to get him to Jesus so he can find healing.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

And Pat said that God's people express God's love when they serve together.

And so this week, here's what what I want you to see this week is out of Hebrews chapter 10.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

I'm gonna read a few verses and I'm gonna uh jump around a little bit.

We'll be in 1 Samuel some, but but but Hebrews 10, the writer of Hebrews writes this Hebrews 10, 23 through 25.

He says, Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering.

He says, For he who promised is faithful.

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.

Look at verse 25, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

And we live in an interesting season in life, and a lot of people can't meet together as the church.

It's great when I see people come back that haven't been with us for a while, and I and it's good to see people feel comfortable coming back.

And there's a lot of people that aren't quite comfortable yet, and then you're just as much a part of our church if you're watching with us online and you can't gather with us physically.

We love you.

Well, you matter to us, you're just as much a part of our family as those that are in this room.

But but there's some that are neglecting to gather, not because of uh a crisis that we're in with COVID, but but just maybe because they're out of the habit.

As a matter of fact, I'm gonna say something that's a bit challenging, and and the reality is the people who need to hear what I'm about to say probably aren't in the room and they're not watching online.

But I'm gonna say it so you guys can hear it.

Some people have used COVID as a convenient excuse to simply avoid what they already have decided they want to avoid.

Hey, I I'm I I can't I'm not comfortable, you know, gathering with the family and going to the family gathering.

You don't want to be with your family.

I I can't come to that party.

You didn't want to go to that party.

I'm not ready to go back to church.

You're at the lake.

I mean, you could you could go on down the list.

We love using or finding convenient excuses to neglect what God has said is really important.

Now, if you're not here and you're watching online, then I and I know a lot of people that have legit issues and they're not comfortable yet.

Some of you guys have slowly come back to church and you've been watching with us online.

So this doesn't apply to you.

But but we've got to understand that God has called us to live in community.

There is no such thing as a long-ranger follower of Jesus.

God has called us to rub shoulders with one another so it will produce this transformation that the writer, that the apostle Paul is talking about in Romans chapter 12.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

This metamorphosis that we're all supposed to go through.

And so the big idea is this we are better together.

We are better together.

You see the testimony of the Christ's Pregnancy Center, and you hear you get to hear testimonies and witness baptisms, and you get to see what God is doing in our community as a result of us being a church.

We are better together.

We can reach more people together than we can alone.

And so if we're better together, here's three things we got to understand that we're better, that's part of being better together.

Together is God's plan.

That's God's plan, is that we're together.

We're to be together.

When God created everything in creation, when he created the earth and the six days of creation, he said at the end of every day, he said he stood back and he looked and he saw that everything was good.

And at the very end of creation, he said, Man, it was very good.

But there's one thing that God said that wasn't good.

And what was it?

It is not good for man to be alone.

And so he created a woman for Adam.

And so that's part of God's plan.

We are better together.

One of our core values.

I mentioned one is growing people change.

The other is you can't do life alone.

That's another core value that we have.

You can't do life alone.

It's always harder to do life alone.

You ever seen somebody riding a 10-speed or a bike with a bunch of speeds and they've got it on the highest gear and they're going up a hill?

Man, their legs are going 90 miles an hour, but man, you could walk faster than they're riding.

That's kind of how that's the picture of us trying to do life alone.

We're trying to figure out how to do life, and we're we're expending way more energy alone than we would have to together.

Together is God's plan, but together isn't always easy.

Listen, we live in a world and in a society and in a culture where it's never been easier to be connected to more people.

But more people are experiencing loneliness than ever before.

One out of five people say they're experiencing loneliness.

But if you looked at their Facebook or their Instagram, they have hundreds, maybe thousands of friends digitally, but they don't have anybody that they're rubbing shoulders with and they're learning how to grow together as believers with.

You see, if you ever watch the Discovery or watch the National Geographic Channel and you see the lions and they're looking to pounce upon their prey, what do they always look for?

They always look for the zebra that's been separated from the pack.

They always look for the one animal that's been separated from the pack.

And that's the animal that they go after.

They don't go after the animals that are in the big groups of animals, they go after the one that's alone.

And Peter writes about this.

1 Peter 5, 8, 9, he says, Be sober-minded, be watchful.

Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.

We must fight for community and we must fight for being together.

We are better together.

And together is God's plan.

Together isn't always easy.

And together takes a conscious choice.

It takes a choice.

It takes a choice to get connected.

It takes a choice to get up and come to church.

It takes a choice to get up and watch online or to connect online.

It takes a choice.

Whether it's in person or digital, God has called us to live life together.

Praying together, supporting each other, speaking truth in each other's lives.

Proverbs 17, 17 says, A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

So if we are called to be together and we are better together, what do we expect?

And when we do life together, here's what we can expect.

Number one, we believe God's plan for each other.

We believe God's plan for each other.

We encourage one another.

Look at 1 Samuel 16.

Verse 12.

He says, And he sent and brought him in.

Now he was ruddy and beautiful and had beautiful eyes and was handsome.

And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him, for this is he.

Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers, and the spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward.

And Samuel rose up and went to Ramah.

So here's here's the context of this verse here.

And so he he goes up to Jesse's farm, Jesse's property, and he lines up all of Jesse's sons, and he sees all the handsome, the most handsome, the tallest, the most the oldest, the best looking, and he looks down at each son, and God says, No, that's not him, that's not him, that's not him.

And he says, Do you have another son that's not here with you?

And they said, Oh, yeah, it's the youngest.

He's out keeping the sheep.

Certainly he couldn't be the next king.

And he says, Have him come, bring him to me.

And it says, He believed God's plan.

That part of God's plan was to use a little shepherd boy.

And he believed the best for David.

He believed God's plan.

When we get together, we but we need to believe in one another, we need to support one another, and we need to rally around one another.

One of the things I love to see here at Church of the Grove is when we see young people that come up in the ranks and come up through our system and our discipleship and and the process of leadership that we have in our church.

I think of Nathan, who's preaching right now in social circle.

I remember when Nathan Boyd was a senior in high school at Loganville High School.

I remember when he wasn't even smart enough to know that he could do youth ministry without getting paid.

He was our first youth pastor, and he worked for free.

And then God provided an opportunity for him to become part-time with us, and then he became an associate pastor with us.

And then we'd already been dreaming about planting a church and social circle, and it made sense that Nathan would be the guy that would plant the campus and social circle.

I think about Nathan Boyds, and I think about uh Tyler Clouds, and I I think about um uh Luke Wilson and Lindsay Wilson, and I think about Emily Bowling that's singing here this morning and leading worship that just graduated this past May, and Reese Baker that's down leading worship in our social circle campus, and I think about the the people that God has raised up to be leaders in our church, and somebody saw something in them and saw the potential.

We believe God's plan for each individual.

Proverbs 27, 17, iron sharpens iron and one man sharpens another.

And so here's what we say around Church of the Grove.

We're not gonna let you be a part of this church family and remain average.

We want to see you grow.

We want to see you go through transformation.

We want to see the best in you.

The second thing we can expect is we call out to God for each other.

1 Samuel 23, verses 15 to 16.

1 Samuel 23:15–16

David saw that Saul had come out to seek his life.

So David is running from Saul, the former king, uh, the current king who would be soon the former king.

David was in the wilderness of Zif at Horesh, and Jonathan, Saul's son, rose and went to David at Horesh.

And listen to what it says, and strengthened his hand in God.

We all need people that will lift us up, that will pray for us, that will call out to God on our behalf, that will strengthen us, give us strength when we don't have it in ourselves.

It says he strengthened his hand in God.

There's people that I Know that have prayed me through difficult circumstances, that have prayed my family through difficult circumstances.

You know how you know when somebody needs encouragement?

You know how you can tell when somebody needs encouragement?

They're breathing.

That's how you know when somebody needs encouragement.

If they're breathing, they need encouragement.

They need affirmation.

There's nothing like an affirming word.

There's nothing like an encouraging word to lift you up.

What else can you expect?

We call out the truth to each other.

David, King David, after he had been anointed, after he had been king, after he'd already led Israel into its glory years, he sent the army out to fight while he stayed at home at the palace.

Some of you know the story.

David is out maybe on a on the rooftop of his palace, and he's overlooking the city, and he looks out on another roof and he sees a woman bathing.

And lust enters his heart.

And he sends to have that woman brought back to the palace.

And he ends up having an adulterous affair with this woman named Bathsheba.

Not only does he have an adulterous affair with her, he conspires to hide the affair by having her husband murdered Uriah.

And so David has this elaborate cover-up in place.

But as you know, and I know, you can't cover up sin but for so long.

Eventually your sin will be uncovered.

And so the prophet Nathan, can you imagine having that responsibility to go to the king and to call the king out for his sin?

But God told Nathan, you've got to go call him out.

This is part of your commitment to me.

It's part of your commitment to David.

It's part of your commitment to your brother.

In 2 Samuel 12, 7, Nathan said to David, he had told David a story.

And David said, if this had happened, this man should be, he should be killed, he should be held responsible.

And Nathan said to David, you are the man.

You're the man in the story, David.

You're the one who has stolen.

You're the one who's committed the sin.

Thus says the Lord God of Israel, I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul.

An awful situation.

But Nathan was willing to do his duty and to hold David accountable.

So sometimes when we're connected in the relationship, the body of Christ and in relationship with one another, we've got to do the hard things and speak truth into somebody else's life and hold them accountable.

That's happened to me before.

I've had friends call me out.

Rush, your attitude stinks.

Rush, your tone of voice was inappropriate for this kind of situation.

I've had them say a lot worse than that.

I can't say that so much at church, right?

And so there's nothing like community to help us walk in the transforming work that Jesus intended for us when we first put our faith in what Jesus provided, in his life, and his death, and his resurrection.

Now, it's one thing to hear me talk about it.

How much community has meant to him.

Billy Atkinson is one of our leaders here at Church at the Grove.

He and his wife attend our campus and social circle on a regular basis.

But I want you to hear Billy share about how important community has been to him.

All the way back in the Garden of Eden, God said it's not good for man to be alone.

We were meant to have fellowship with other believers.

Even Jesus gave the example with the twelve apostles.

He had many disciples, many people followed him, but the 12 apostles were the ones that were his closest group of friends, and they were the ones that he shared his meals with, the ones that he shared life with, and that's what it's about.

Hey, I'm Billy Atkinson, and I'm married to Tammy Atkinson, and we have three children, two grown boys and a 12-year-old daughter, and we attend Social Circle Campus.

Small group is a place where you can ask questions that you couldn't normally ask in church.

You can't exactly raise your hand and ask the pastor during the middle of a sermon a question about a certain verse, where if you're in a small group setting, that's the place where you can ask people, ask questions, and and hopefully be in a place where you would have someone with a little more knowledge.

And if not, it's a place to look and find the answers to those questions.

I know for me, I have drawn closer to the Lord in my walk because of small group and the people who are surrounds you.

I remember especially there was a time where my wife had lost a child, and at that time I don't think that we could have gotten through it without that group of friends to just come around us and pray for us and lift us up and just show us true love.

It's a friendship that can't be explained, and sometimes it's even closer than family.

A couple of years ago, um I had a heart attack, and uh it was unexpected no heart attacks expected, but it was very unexpected.

I had no warning signs leading up to it.

And we are part of a group here that um meets on Sunday mornings.

We're still part of that group, even though we don't meet.

We're part of a group that meets here on Sunday mornings, and that group lifted me up in prayer and um reached out to us and showed us love in a time that was uh extremely scary, not just for me, but for my family.

And there was a peace that comes over you having people pray for you the way that people prayed for me at that time.

It cannot be explained.

I'm part of a men's group and we meet on Tuesday nights, and for me, it has been an amazing trip to be able to have a group of men that you can trust, that you can talk to, that you can learn from, that you can lift each other up, that you can go closer to Christ, learn about each other's experiences, share with each other the way that only a man can share with another man in a setting where you know that whatever's said is just between you and that person, or you and those people, and it won't go any further.

And there's been times when I've seen lives radically changed just by men lifting men up.

Uh, you know, the Bible tells us that iron sharpens iron, and it's men are to hold each other accountable, and it is for me, it has made me, I believe, a better father, a better husband, a better person all the way around.

I can um I can show love to my wife in ways that I've never been able to show her love just because of that group of men who hold me accountable.

If you were to ask me why it were important that you be a part of a small group, for me, uh it's the family group.

It is the group of people that we're around, uh, the love that we have for each other.

I I don't know how you would get through life.

I couldn't get through life without this group of people in it.

Would you pray with me?

Just spend a moment with our heads bowed, eyes closed.

And I want you to just think about the journey of Jesus.

When he came to this earth, and he got to the point where he was ready to go public with his ministry.

He didn't start with going to the masses, he started just simply asking for individuals to come and journey with him.

He went to fishermen and he he called him and he said, Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.

And he prioritized his time with that group, with that small group, with that family.

Those twelve men is where he spent the majority of his time and the emphasis of his ministry.

Yes, he he spoke to the masses, and they were drawn to him because he could cast out demons, and they were drawn to him because he spoke and he taught with authority and he performed miracles, but Jesus prioritized his time and his ministry with a few people that he knew that he could hand it to that would take it and share it with the rest of the world.

And so the example that we see from our Savior, the one who gave his life, the one who lived and died on a cruel cross and rose from an empty grave, he is the one who set the example for us that relationships matter.

And it was a small group that mattered, that we are better together, and he invested in them.

And so let me encourage you.

If you've never taken a step to connect yourself with others today, maybe that's your next step.

Maybe it's for some of you that have never put your faith in Jesus and you would follow uh Belle's example this morning, the one this beautiful young lady that we baptized and that went public with her faith, and she had put her faith in Jesus Christ and made Jesus her Lord and Savior.

Maybe that's your next step this morning is to put your faith in Jesus.

To admit that you're a sinner, to admit that you're lost without him, and to believe and to trust, repent and put your faith in what he provided in his life and his death and his resurrection and confess Jesus as your Lord.

If that's you this morning, can I encourage you to text, just start to follow to 9700, whether you're in the room or whether you're watching online, let us know so we can encourage you.

And if you have yet to take a step to move into community, to move into a small group of people, to move into a serve team where you'll be missed when you don't show up, where somebody will know your name, where somebody can encourage you, strengthen you, and lift you up in prayer, somebody that can give you affirmation, encouragement when you need it.

Take that step this morning.

Make sure that you don't live isolated and alone.

Father, we we ask that you would move, that you would work, that you would speak.

Father, my prayer is that people in this room this morning that they would make room in their hearts for Jesus, for you, but also make room in their lives for the relationships that you want to use to help them grow and to go through the transformation that Paul's talking about in Romans 12.

Lord, may we make room for the community that you want for us this morning.

Father, we love you and we thank you.

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Would you stand with me?