Rick Warren - You’re Not Alone… You’re Part of God’s Family

We're in part three of a series that we started

a couple weeks ago on what does it mean to

really follow Jesus. And we're looking at words that describe

what it means to be a follower. The first word

we looked at is the word disciple. If you missed

that message, I want you to go online and listen

to it. It is a very important message on the

five definitions of what it means to be a disciple

of Jesus Christ. Then last week we looked at another

word that defines what it means to be a follower,

the word ambassador. The Bible says we are ambassadors for Christ.

The third word that I want us to look at

this weekend is the word member.

The word member.

The Bible says that to be a follower of Christ

means to be a member of his family and a

member of his body. Following Jesus is far more than

just believing. It's not enough just to believe in Jesus.

The Bible says we're not just believers, we're belongers. We

are to belong in the family of God, which is

called the church. And once we belong, then we become.

So we believe, then we belong, and then we become

all that God wants for us to be in the

first place. Now the Bible says this, there on your outline, Romans.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

Chapter 12, verse five. Let's read it aloud together.

In Christ, we who are many form one body, and

each member belongs to all the others. Now circle the

word belong. The Bible says that if you're a follower

of Jesus, you don't just belong to God.

You don't just belong to Jesus.

You belong to me, and I belong to you, and

we belong to each other, and you belong to every

other believer. You're in the family now. You're in God's family. Now,

it's interesting that in the Bible, two of the descriptions

of the church are the church is a body and

the church is a family. The church is the body

of Christ, and the church is the family of God.

And in both of those cases, membership, means something. In fact,

the English word member that we use for membership actually

comes from the Bible. And the word membership has far

more to do with life than simply like wear a

hat or secret signal or say the password or handshake.

Membership means far more than just put your name on

a roll. It means you're vitally connected. The Bible says

your hand is a member of your body. If it's disconnected,

it shrivels and die. The Bible says your ears are

members of your body.

They're members.

If you cut off your ears, they're worthless. They have

no value at all if they're detached from the body.

If you cut off your legs, your knees, your feet,

they are members of your body. If you cut it off,

a disconnected foot is worthless. It has no value. It

shrivels and die. You will shrivel and die spiritually if

you're not connected to the body of Christ. And in

the same way, you're a part of a family. And

the Bible says that we have family responsibilities to each other.

In fact, look at the next.

Verse there in your outline. The Bible says in Galatians

chapter six, let us do good to all people, especially

those those who belong in the family of believers. Now

notice it says we're to do good to everybody. You

can't mistreat anybody. You can't hate anybody. You can't show

disrespect for anybody, not to be a follower of Jesus.

The Bible says as a follower of Jesus, I am

commanded to love everyone, to respect everyone, and to be

kind and loving to all people, regardless of who they are,

what they believe, their lifestyle, what they do to me,

I am to return love for them.

So let us do good to all people.

But he says, especially those who belong to the family

of believers. Now again, circle the word belong. In both cases,

you belong. You belong as a member of the body

of Christ and you belong as a member of the

family of God. Now this is a very different understanding

of a church than most people have. If you ask

most people what do you think of when you say church,

they think of a building, a building. Or they think

of it as an event. And church is something you

see on a corner or church is something you go

to to attend. The Bible says that's not a church

at all. Church is neither an event nor a building.

Church is a relationship. It is a family. It is

the family of God. In fact, it's going to outlast

your physical family. In fact, it's going to outlast everything

on earth. The Bible says God created the entire world

because he wanted, and the universe, because he wanted a family.

And that family is the only thing that's left. One

day there isn't going to be an IBM, a Microsoft,

a Hewlett-Packard, a Dell computer, or anything else. There aren't

going to be any businesses. One day there isn't going

to be any nations. There won't be a Russia, America, China.

but there will be a family of God because it's

gonna last forever. It's the only thing on earth that

has permanent value, God's family. Now, the Bible tells us

that you cannot be a follower of Christ unless you're

a part of being tied into a church family. I mean,

I hear people all the time say, well, I love Jesus,

I just don't wanna be a part of any church.

Then you don't really love Jesus. Let me just be

real honest, you don't love him because the body of

Christ is his church. You can't say, I love Jesus,

but I hate your body, or I love Jesus, but

I hate your bride, or I love Jesus, but I

hate your family. No, no, it's all together. It's like

trying to say, I wanna play football in the NFL,

but I don't wanna be a part of any particular team. Sorry,

ain't gonna happen.

You can't do it. It's impossible.

You cannot play in the NFL without being a part

of a specific team. It's like saying, I wanna be

in the United States Army, but I wanna be connected

to any specific platoon. Platoon, sorry, it ain't gonna happen.

You can't do it. You have to be tied to

a specific platoon in the Army. It's like saying, I

wanna play the tuba, but not be a part of

an orchestra.

Well, good luck.

Not many people like to hear tuba solos. You sound

a whole lot better when you're playing with a bunch

of other people.

A whole lot better.

Just as a bee needs a hive, you need a

church family. It's like an explorer needs a base camp.

It's like a sailor needs a ship. You cannot be

what God wants you to be. You cannot follow Jesus.

You cannot follow Jesus without being connected to his family,

and the Bible calls this membership, being a member. In fact,

if you say, well, I believe in Jesus, but I

don't belong, then there's a word for you. You're a

spiritual orphan. You don't have a family. You are a

spiritual orphan. Now, once a year, the Constitution of the

United States requires that the President of the United States

give a report to the nation called the State of

the Union. Here at Saddleback Church, we've had a similar

tradition for 30 years, that every year in the month

that the President gives a State of the Union message,

I give what we call a State of the Church message.

in which we take a different section of Saddleback Church,

a different part of our strategy, and I explain it

to everybody in detail. It's kind of an inside scoop.

We only do it once a year. But I wanna

do that this morning where I explain to you why

we believe in small groups and how they are designed

to help you develop your spiritual maturity. There are about 10,000

quote mega churches in the United States. A megachurch is

any church that has over 2,000 people coming on a

weekly basis. There are now about 10,000 of those in America.

There are probably five or six churches about the size

of Saddleback that run over 20,000 in attendance on a

typical weekend.

The media typically.

Treats churches like this as saying, these megachurches as if

they're some new phenomena, like they're some modern result of

marketing or something like that. Well, it just shows a

lack of knowledge of history because Christianity has a 2,000

year history of extremely large churches. Dating all the way

back to 2,000 years ago, the very first church that

started in Jerusalem, the very first church was five times

the size of Saddleback Church. Most people don't know that.

But the idea of a mega church is not a

new idea. Jerusalem was an enormous church And before we

look at the strategy, I want you to just see this,

to notice the growth, because the Bible is very specific

about it. Now, the book that tells us the history

of the church is called the Book of Acts. It's

the Acts of the Apostles, and it's actually the Acts

of the early church. And it was written by Luke,

the same guy who wrote the Gospel of Luke. Luke

was a doctor, a physical doctor, a medical doctor.

And in Acts, he gives us a....

A running progress report of the growth of Saddleback Church,

of the Jerusalem church.

He tells, yeah, I wish.

We're actually Acts chapter 29. But Acts records the exponential

growth of the church and he gives us very detailed

progress reports. So let me just quickly take you on

a little survey here through the book of Acts. When

Jesus Christ died and then rose again He told his followers,

I want you to wait here in Jerusalem until I

send my spirit, and that will be the beginning of

the church. And he goes back to heaven. And the

Bible tells us in Acts chapter 1, verse 15, that

Acts 1:15

there were about 120 believers. You can see that there

on your outline. 120 believers were meeting, waiting in the

upper room for God to send his spirit before Pentecost.

Then in Acts chapter 2, we have the story of

Acts 2 · chapter mention

the first day of the church. It's called the day

of Pentecost. And it says on that day, Peter preached

and 3,000 people were added to the church that day,

the very first day of the church. 3,000 people, it says,

were baptized and added to the church, so they were

a megachurch on the first day.

I would say you're not really a New.

Testament church until you have at least 3,000 people, because

that's what they had on the very first day of

their church. Then, down in verse 47 in Acts chapter two,

as we go through the book, it says, the Lord

added daily, circle daily, those who are being saved. So

the church is growing on a daily basis. Now, how

many days in a year? 365, which means at least

365 people are being added to this church at a

minimum every year, at least 365 people. So it's growing

at least that much. Every single day, people are being

added to the church. Now, by the time we get

to Acts chapter four, it says, that in the church

at Jerusalem, Jerusalem Community Church, more and more people believe, no,

it says the number of men grew to 5,000. Now,

notice that says men. Everywhere you've got 5,000 men, how

many women and children have you got? At least 10

or 15,000. So by this time, by Acts chapter four,

the Jerusalem church is already at 20,000 people. That's about

the size of Saddleback on a weekend. So by chapter 4,

they've already got 20,000 people coming to the church at Jerusalem.

Then you get to Acts chapter 5, and it says

Acts 5 · chapter mention

more and more, excuse me, Acts 4, the number of

men grew. Then Acts 5, more and more believed and

a multitude was added. Now there's so many people, they're

not even counting anymore. It says the multitude was added.

It's just an innumerous amount. Then you get to Acts

Acts 5 · chapter mention

chapter 5, 28, and the critics come to Peter and John,

who are leaders of the Jerusalem church, and they say,

you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching.

Well, yeah, I guess so.

Because this church is growing, and it's exploding, and everybody

is hearing the news. And this mega church is having

a mega impact on a mega city. Then in Acts

Acts 6 · chapter mention

chapter 6, it says... The number of disciples rapidly multiplied.

Notice we've moved from addition, the added daily, 3,000 added.

Now we're going to multiplication, and they are rapidly multiplying.

This is what's called exponential growth. The church is growing

so fast, they can't even keep up with it. This

is God's will for the church. God wants his church

to grow, and God wants his church to grow fast.

The number of disciples rapidly multiplied. That's New Testament growth.

In verse seven, it says, the number of believers increased rapidly. Again,

rapid exponential growth. Now I could take you through the

whole book of Acts, but let me take you over

to Acts chapter 21. Acts 21 is approximately 25 years

Acts 21 · chapter mention

after the church has started in Jerusalem. How many people

have they grown to in 25 years? Saddleback's gonna be

30 years old on April 4th. The Jerusalem church and

25 years later, Paul comes back to Jerusalem and he

is told, notice, tens of thousands have become believers. Tens,

it literally is tens of tens of tens of thousands.

The word there in Greek is the word myrios. Myrios

literally means tens and tens of thousands. We get the

word myriad from it. Do you know what myriad means?

Too numerous to count. The church was so big, they

couldn't even count them all. Bible scholars believe that by

this year, the 25th year, the Jerusalem church had grown

to over 100,000 members. You say, well, how big was

the city of Jerusalem? Well, archeologists tell us that Jerusalem

was a city of about 200,000 people. So you have

a city of 200,000 people and 100,000 members of one church.

That's what you call church growth.

You know, this Christmas, you can enjoy the beauty of

God's Word with a brand new set of 52 stunning

scripture cards, each featuring verses about the birth of Christ

and adorned with elegant Christmas artwork. These are perfect for

memorizing scripture, tucking into gifts, or placing on your holiday table.

These cards are a simple way to bring meaning to

the season and share God's love with those around you. So,

whether you're starting a new tradition or looking for a

unique way to share the gospel with friends and family, well,

these cards are a perfect fit. Today, when you give

a gift to help Daily Hope take the certain hope

of Jesus to people worldwide, be sure to request this

very special collection of Christmas scripture cards. It's our way

of saying thanks for supporting Daily Hope.

The church at Jerusalem grew to 100,000 people in about

25 years. Where in the world did they put all

those people? I mean, you think we got a parking problem.

Think about 100,000 people trying to get together for one

church service every week and then going out.

Well, the Bible tells us the strategy that they used.

And it's very important for you to know the strategy

of the Jerusalem church because it's the exact same one

we've used here at Saddleback for 30 years.

It's there on your outline.

The Bible tells us in one simple sentence the church

strategy at Jerusalem. Acts chapter five, verse 42. They met

day after day together in the temple courts and from

house to house. Now I want you to circle temple

courts and circle house to house because these are the

two different structures of a biblical church, temple courts and

house to house. What are we talking about here? Well,

you might write this down. It's large group worship and

it's small group fellowship. Large group worship and small group fellowship. First,

it says they met in the temple courts. Now I

want you to, this is maybe seem picky, but I

need to explain it to you. Circle the S on courts.

Notice it's plural. They didn't meet at the temple court.

They met at the temple courts.

What does that mean?

One church meeting in many locations. Now notice it doesn't

say that the Jerusalem church met in the temple.

They didn't.

They did not meet in the temple. It said they

met in the temple courts, which are around the temple.

Why didn't they meet in the temple?

Two reasons.

Number one, it wouldn't hold everybody. The temple certainly wouldn't

hold 100,000 people. But number two, they were forbidden to

go into the temple.

Jewish law... kept people out of the temple.

In other words, people couldn't just go into the temple,

only the priest could go into the inner court, and

nobody could go into the Holy of Holies, except the

priest once a year on the Day of Atonement. So

the temple wasn't like we built the day church or

auditoriums where everybody gets together and sings Kumbaya. Nobody went

in the temple. They went up to the temple, and

the priest went in the temple. So they didn't meet

in the temple because they weren't allowed to it and

it wouldn't have held them anyway if they could. But

they met in the temple courts and all around this

temple were these courtyards outside. Now I've been to Jerusalem

and if you've ever seen Solomon's temple and the courts

and the remains of it, it's very obvious that the

temple courts could have held maybe 50,000 people easily. And

so if they had two services on a weekend, they

could easily have 100,000 people at service because in those

days you didn't sit to worship, you stood through the worship.

And so they could have 50,000 people in temple courts.

But notice they didn't try to all meet in the

same court. Here's a giant church meeting in many different locations. Now,

why do we believe in small groups? The reason we

do it is because Jesus told us to do it.

And it's a biblical model. When Jesus started his ministry,

public ministry, he was 30 years old.

The first thing.

Jesus did was he was baptized as an adult. If

you haven't been baptized as your personal confession of faith,

Because of your decision, you need to be baptized. Now

Jesus was dedicated as a baby. Did that invalidate his dedication? No,

but at 30 years of age, he went down the

Jordan River and John the Baptist baptized him. There's a

difference between a baptism of confirmation, which was your parents' commitment.

I mean, you had nothing to do with it.

I don't even remember.

But there's the baptism of confession, which is your decision

as an adult. And we baptize people as adults in

this church, why? Because Jesus set the model. And if

he did it, we're gonna.

Do it his way.

Evidently, his dedication as a baby was not enough. He

was taken to the temple at day seven and dedicated

by his parents. But when he got 30 years of age,

he said, now this is my decision, it's now my faith.

If you haven't been baptized, you need to be baptized the.

Way Jesus was.

Then the second thing Jesus did is he started a

small group. He went out and he gathered 12 guys

and he said, you're gonna be my small group. And

for the next three years, he traveled with his small group.

Even Jesus needed a small group and he was perfect.

You need one even more than he does to make

it in life. Now there are four advantages of a

small group. Would you write these down? Number one, small

groups are relational. Small groups are relational. Now why is

that important? Because life is all about learning how to love.

And you can't love unless you build relationships. You have

to learn to love. Small groups are the laboratory for

learning relational skills. They're the laboratory for learning how to love.

You can't have a conversation with a crowd. I mean,

we can't have a conversation right now. You're just listening.

This is called sit still while I instill. It's one-way conversation.

And you can't say, hey, Rick, what about, and did

this mean, and what about that? But in a small group,

you can ask questions. In a small group, you can

pray specifically for each other. In a small group, you

can get support. You can share, and you can build

relationships in a way that you can't do it in

other ways. See, one of the problems of our culture

today is that we live among strangers. And people aren't

learning relational skills anymore. They're not very good at relationships today, why?

Because we don't have porches. People don't sit outside and

talk to their neighbors. You know one of the worst

things that created a nation of strangers? Electric garage doors.

Because you can click the electric garage door, get in

your car, drive out, go to work, when you come home,

click the electric garage door, go on in and close it.

You don't ever have to meet your neighbors. And my

guess is you probably live on a street that you

don't know people who've lived there for years. And one

of the reasons why we're not very good at relational

skills is we don't have a laboratory to learn them.

And the evidence of that is the divorce rate in America.

People get married, and because they don't have relational skills,

they don't know how to solve their problems, they don't

know how to solve the conflict, and the relationship dissolves.

If Jesus said the most important thing in life is

learning how to love, and he did, it's called the

great commandment, love God with all your heart, love your

neighbors yourself, then the most important thing for you to

do is to learn relational skills. Loving God, loving other people.

And you do that, you can't do that with a crowd.

Now you don't have to know everybody in a church

for it to be your church. But you do have

to know somebody. You don't know everybody on your row

right now.

That's okay.

But you do have to know somebody, two, three, four people,

who when you get sick, they know you're sick. When

you get laid off, they know you're laid off. When

you're in the hospital, they know you're in the hospital.

When you need a babysitter, they know you need a babysitter.

And somebody knows your needs, and they help you. They

show up when you need them. You don't need 100

friends in life, but you do need three or four

really good ones. And small groups are a great way

to help people learn groups. See, a lot of churches,

all they have is public worship. They don't have the house-to-house.

And as a result, there's no way for people to

really get to know each other because you don't get

to know each other at worship. All you get to

know is the back of the head of the person

in front of you. You might like it or you

might not. But the truth is that's not a very

deep relationship. So small groups are relational, and that's why

we do it. The Bible says life's all about love.

Number two, small groups are flexible. And the value of

that is they're not like a worship service and it's

the same time every week. You can change the time.

You can change the location. Small groups can meet any time.

They can meet anywhere. They can be readjusted. You know,

the small group that I'm in right now, I've been in, oh,

five or six years, the one I'm currently in right now.

And a lot of times we all can't meet on

the same day. It was like, well, we can't meet

our normal Tuesday. Okay, we get on the email or

we get through phone or text message, could you meet

on Thursday? Sometimes it's like takes 10 or 12 messages

till everybody goes, yeah, we could all do on that one.

And we change where we're going to meet. We don't

meet at the same house every week.

We rotate.

Sometimes it's our house. Sometimes it's somebody else's house. We've

met at restaurants. We've met at Disneyland. We've met outside.

We even had an all-nighter one time. And it was

like an overnighter. And the result is you build relationships.

Small groups are flexible so they can meet anytime or anywhere.

You don't have to meet in church to have a

small group. The Bible says this, Jesus said in Matthew 18, 20,

for where two or three come together in my name,

that's called a small group, folks, where two or three

come together in my name, there am.

I with them.

There is a presence of God in the small group

that doesn't show up in other ways. And so you

just get two or three people together, and Jesus says,

I will be with you in that moment.

They're flexible.

Number three, small groups are expandable.

Jesus said, we must care. So we keep reaching out.

How do we do it?

Through small groups. They're relational, they're flexible, they're expandable. Number four,

they're economical. What do I mean by that? I mean,

we don't have to pay for them. There's no overhead

for the church. We believe at Saddleback Church is not

a building.

It's people.

And we are far more interested in building people than

we are in building buildings. We believe that buildings are tools,

not monuments. They're just tools for ministry. You don't build

them as monuments.

You know, this Christmas, you can enjoy the beauty of

God's word with a brand new set of 52 stunning

scripture cards, each featuring verses about the birth of Christ

and adorned with elegant Christmas artwork. These are perfect for

memorizing scripture, tucking into gifts, or placing on your holiday table.

These cards are a simple way to bring meaning to

the season and share God's love with those around you. So,

whether you're starting a new tradition or looking for a

unique way to share the gospel with friends and family, well,

these cards are a perfect fit. Today, when you give

a gift to help Daily Hope take the certain hope

of Jesus to people worldwide, be sure to request this

very special collection of Christmas scripture cards. It's our way

of saying thanks for supporting Daily Hope. Thank you.