Is Being Involved In Relationship Groups in the Church Necessary? - Pastor Greg Addison - Feb. 18, 2024

Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years, welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible teaching ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.

You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.

Thank you for listening.

Wow, y'all, that was good.

Praise the Lord.

It's uh it's exciting uh to see, and uh man, our our choir, you guys were awesome today, choir and orchestra.

Thank you for that.

And uh, you're gonna want to be here next week for a couple of reasons.

Next week is going to be a big, important Sunday for us as a church.

First of all, we're excited, uh, if you'll notice in your bulletin, two things.

Number one, we're having a multi-generational uh service next week.

So, as a part of the uh leading us in worship next week, we'll have kids, we'll have student praise team, we'll have all of our adult choir and orchestra.

It's gonna be incredible.

We're gonna bring out the whole family and get them all up here, and we're gonna have some church.

And so we're excited about that.

So you'll want to be here for that.

Also, you'll see on there an announcement next Sunday night, a uh a church family meeting, kind of a town hall setting meeting.

And here's why we're having that next Sunday night.

Because next Sunday morning, I will be making a presentation to us as a church that is uh that could be very, very significant for us as a church family in our future.

So we are very excited.

We've been working through leadership uh with this presentation.

It relates to uh the Chaffee area, and so I think you'll want to be here, want to be a part of that.

You want to be praying for next week, uh, both for the worship and for that time.

We'll make a presentation in the morning, and then in the evening we'll have a time to come back and start asking questions and start the discussion uh for us as a church.

So that should whet your appetite.

Are you excited?

Turn with me in your Bibles to Colossians chapter 3.

Colossians 3 · chapter mention

We've been talking about identity, so we'll just move back into that study.

And as uh, you know, a lot of times people say, What does the pastor do all day?

Well, since I've been here in Fort Smith, my handicap on the golf course has come down six strokes, and I'm about to get my percentage of win rate on two suit spider solitaire over 50%.

It takes a lot of practice to do that.

I've put on about 20 pounds from all the donuts and lunches and all of that, so we're working through that.

No, I'm kidding.

What do we do as pastors?

Well, we pray for you, we pray for sermons, we minister to people, we're praying, we're going to the hospitals, we're doing all that.

But one of the things that we do is we study what's happening.

How do we as a church impact our community with the gospel?

What are the trends and missions that we need to be a part of?

What are the questions that people are asking that we need to answer?

And so recently I read an article by a lead pastor, and uh it's highlighting what some of the people who study, some of these researchers tell us.

And here's what happens.

Coming out of COVID, we know that across the board, for the most part, church attendance has dropped.

Now, praise the Lord, we're one of those churches that our attendance is going up.

But we are smaller than we were well before COVID.

So, you know, we're growing, but we have work to do.

But a lot of churches didn't come back, a lot of churches are struggling with that.

They tell us attendance patterns in churches.

People have gone from three times a month to two times a month, and two times a month to one times a month.

They tell us, they challenge the relevancy of two major things.

One, they challenge the relevancy of us gathering together like we're doing to study God's word collectively together.

They're in modern generations and modern culture, as more and more of our people step away from church and all of that, they're telling us that they're asking this question is what we're doing this morning even relevant for our modern culture or effective for us?

And the second major challenge they're bringing to church life is our groups, are being involved in a group, being connected in what we would call Sunday school.

Some churches call them life groups, some churches call them Bible fellowship classes, some churches call them small groups.

It's the same thing.

It is people coming together in either a stage of life or relationships that they have, like a men's class or a women's class or whatever.

We coming together to, in a relational setting, encourage each other and study God's word together.

Sunday school attendance or small group attendance has dropped even more than large group attendance.

We also are facing something people have a lot of names for.

How many of you have heard the term the nuns?

The nuns in church world.

So what we're describing are people who are now saying they just don't have any connection with church and they don't really have an affiliation with the Lord.

They don't really care if you do, that's fine, if that's good for you.

Your truth is your truth, and my truth is my truth, and I'm just, and they're just none.

They have no religious affiliation.

In fact, that is becoming the largest demographic group in terms of religion in the country.

The other thing that's happening is something called deconstruction, where people who were raised in church or had some pattern of church attendance, as they interact in the world and people around that, the world is telling them, well, what they're saying is not true.

Pastor Greg, he's just a lunatic.

That's really not true.

Well, Pastor Greg may be a lunatic, but that doesn't have anything to do with whether Scripture's true.

But when we are in life trying to figure out answers, they are looking around and they're saying, well, maybe there's a different answer somewhere.

There are challenges to our faith, and they're going back and they're looking at what faith they were taught, and they're deconstructing that belief system and deciding, well, there's other ways to do this than just what we would say is true.

And those trends are happening all over.

They're happening in the River Valley, they're happening all over Arkansas, they're happening all over our country.

And as I was reading that, one of the most important things to me as a pastor is our involvement in what we call Sunday school, again, what some churches call small groups, what some churches call Bible fellowship groups or classes or whatever you call it.

It is the getting together in relationship, doing life together, strengthening each other, encouraging each other, raising our kids together, raising our grandkids together, doing marriage together, whatever it is, we're getting together and doing that.

That is the most important thing, I think, that we do as a church.

There's a lot of things that are highly important.

What we do in this room as we're studying God's Word together is right at the top of the list as well.

But the first number that I look at every Sunday as a pastor, and the staff will tell you that, and all of that, the first number I look at is our Sunday school number, our group number.

Because I've spent my life in church, and what I can tell you is you take on the attitudes and the actions of the people you're around the most.

You take on the attitudes and the actions of the people you're around the most.

And what happens in Sunday school is where we are in each other's lives, and as the Bible says in Proverbs, iron is sharpening iron, or we're making each other better, we're equipping each other, we're encouraging each other.

And that is the guts of our church.

That's the strength of our church, that's the engine that drives the train.

And here I am every week looking at that, working through that.

We're starting new groups as fast as we can.

And yet I'm reading that people are saying that's not important and it's not even relevant anymore.

And it just dawned on me in my prayer and study time, if this is where I spend the most of my time leading, where we have the strongest cadre of church lay leaders in any ministry involved in teaching our Sunday school classes, whether it's in the children's ministry or the student ministry or our adult classes, some of our greatest leaders are putting their most effort in that deal.

If that's where we are putting the strength and the focus of our work, and the world thinks they're not even relevant, we've got to be able to answer that question.

We have got to be able to say as a church, this is why the Bible says that is important.

We must be able to explain and to call people to the value in small group ministry, in relationship ministry, in what we call in our church Sunday school, or on a Wednesday night setting, women's discipleship and men's discipleship groups.

So that's what I want to talk to you about today from Colossians chapter 3.

Colossians 3 · chapter mention

There you are in Colossians chapter 3.

Colossians 3 · chapter mention

We've been working our way through this passage, but I just want to directly head on why being involved in a Sunday school group or that relation group, whatever term you want to use, why it matters.

You're there in chapter 3, verse 1, and let me remind you about the opening lines in this letter.

You stay where you are, and then I'll pick up there, but listen to what he says in Colossians chapter 1, verse 3.

Colossians 1:3

We looked at this earlier when we started this identity study.

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you.

Paul is talking to the church.

For we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints because of the hope reserved for you in heaven.

I love Winston's testimony setting up that song.

Heroes of the faith.

Not just in Scripture, but as he described it, heroes of the faith in our church.

The heritage of men and women who have led many of you to Christ, pastors who've stood here and preached the word long before me.

Men and women who've invested in you in children's Sunday school or youth group, or they've discipled you in your walk.

All of that because of heaven.

It's the call of heaven, and that we'll be in heaven together.

It is that hope that that gives us, and they invested in your life because they wanted you to know that and to know that Jesus.

Now read with me in chapter 3, verse 1.

So if you have been raised with the Messiah, seek what is above, where the Messiah is seated at the right hand of God.

Set your minds on what is above, not on what is on the earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with the Messiah in God.

When the Messiah who is your life is revealed, that's the day that Winston talked about.

That's the day we're looking forward to that the choir sang about is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.

That's that hymn of heaven.

Therefore, because we are saved, our identity as someone who Jesus has brought his life into, therefore, put to death what belongs to your worldly nature.

Sexual immorality, that's sex outside of marriage, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry, because of these, God's wrath comes on the disobedient.

And you once walked in these things when you were living in them.

In other words, there's a difference in your life that Jesus brought.

Your identity is different because of your faith in Christ.

Now you must also put away all the following, and look how these are all relational characteristics.

Put away the following anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy language from your mouth.

Do not lie to one another, since you have, and again, see the difference, put off the old self with its practices, and have put on the new self.

We are different because of our identity in Jesus, and we do life differently, and our focus is different.

You are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator.

In other words, again, we're being transformed in the image of Jesus in this walk, because his life is in us.

In Christ, there's not Greek and Jew, circumcision, uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free, but Christ is all and in all.

Therefore, God's chosen ones, holy and loved.

Now we're going to put on Jesus behaviors like we talked about last week, and every one of these is described in the context of relationship.

Put on heartfelt compassion.

How can you do that by yourself?

Kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

Accepting one another and forgiving one another.

If anyone has a complaint against another, just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive.

Above all, he says, above everything else, put on what?

Theological integrity?

No.

Put on love.

The perfect bond of unity.

And let the peace of the Messiah, to which you were also called in one body, control your hearts.

Be thankful.

Let the message about the Messiah dwell richly in you, and then he goes right back into relationships.

This is our identity as believers.

Teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom and singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.

And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

Right there, again, our identity as believers, our identity must, by definition, mean that you are engaged and invested in the lives of other people.

It is so important in today's culture that we confront this issue.

Being a part of the body of Christ, you are not sufficiently meeting your identity or the demands of the one who died for you if you are just occasionally attending a worship service.

Now, please attend.

I'm not trying to run you off.

I'm trying to help.

And let me just say on our television audience, I am so grateful for our church since the 50s providing this ministry because there are so many people at home, homebound others who can't be here, and we are their church family, and they are doing all they can do to be here.

Our homebound ministers ministry.

It's also an incredible evangelism tool.

We are preaching the gospel around the river valley, and as we're online, we are so grateful you're attending.

So please understand, we are so grateful to provide this ministry to you, and we want you to be engaged and we want you to hear about Jesus and learn.

But listen, all of this is calling people into the relationship with God that He has for you, and that relationship, by definition, is being invested in and your life invested in from others in the body of Christ in a relationally engaged, meaningful setting.

Let me give you two definitional truths that are highly important.

Jesus, first of all, commands us to serve others.

I could have gone to twelve different passages, and I looked at a bunch of them in the context of this.

Because it is a major theme of who we are in Christ throughout the teaching of Jesus and the New Testament.

But we've been in this one, and this is a great identity passage, and you see it in here.

But I want to remind you of two things Jesus commanded.

In John chapter 13, verses 34 and 35.

John 13:34

You can write that in the margin of your Bible if you want.

John 13, verses 34 and 35.

John 13:34

Jesus said this: A new commandment I give you.

Only God Himself can give us commands.

And so our Savior, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, is giving us a command as his followers.

That you love one another as I have loved you.

It's a command, it's not an option.

And then he follows up with this This is how I know if you're obeying me.

This is how all men will know you're my followers, that you love one another in the way that I loved you.

And how did Jesus love us?

He went to the cross and died for us.

So that brings us to number two.

When we talk about love one another in this passage, or we talk about serving, whichever word you want to use, it is biblically defined as this.

I'm going to give you this definition, as being actively engaged with the purpose of meeting another's needs to influence them closer to Christ.

That's what serving loving means.

Oh, I love my church.

Now they're good words, and I hope you do, and I hope you go out and tell people you love your church.

But the Bible tells us in 1 John, my little children, let us not love in word or tongue, but in deed and in truth.

So love is an action verb.

And love means that you are concerned about someone else's needs and not yours, and that drives you to engage in their life in a way that you're not just meeting a need, but you are pointing them closer to Jesus.

You are encouraging their walk.

You are investing in them in a way that they are becoming more Jesus-like.

And so that's what he talks about.

For example, here in the scripture, in verse 16, when he says, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, what he's talking about is literally pointing, encouraging, equipping, holding them accountable, engaging them in their walk so they get closer to Jesus.

Becomes a different standard when we put the biblical definitions to these things.

Now, when we're answering this question, is Sunday school engagement relevant?

Well, there's two different folks that we can talk to this about.

We can talk to folks who are not followers of Jesus, and we can talk to folks who are followers of Jesus.

When we're talking to a person who's not a follower of Jesus, we're talking about some existential needs in your life.

Everyone's looking for community.

Everyone's looking to be to answer the question, Am I loved?

Everyone's looking to answer the question.

It's a fundamental question in their lives.

Does my life mean anything?

Am I going to leave any impact?

Does anybody need me?

And it is in that engagement and involvement that you answer that question.

But today, I'm really, really trying to speak to believers as much as anything.

Because if we tell people that there is meaning and value, and those questions are answered in Sunday school or small groups, again, whatever term you want to use, if we tell them that, but we don't engage in that ourselves, our message is flat and not credible.

We don't have fruit in our lives that call other people to want to be a part of that.

I remember when Janet and I were newlyweds, and or we were actually not newlyweds, but we were heading into that.

We were young marriages and we were heading in that time we had our first child.

And I was in my secular career at that point, and a person was in the office next to mine, and uh, lady, and she had a baby about the same time Janet had Mabry.

And so we're kind of working through that experience together, and uh, and and she finally came in one day, frazzled in my office, and she said, How in the world do you have it sewed together with a newborn?

We're like, my husband and I, man, we can't keep up.

We're drowning, we haven't slept in a month.

We can't eat, we can't, I mean, what are I don't we can't catch up on anything, none of our clothes are clean.

I mean, how do you do this?

And I said, Well, you know, the meal train is a help, and that helps us take care of things.

And then when somebody came over and stayed with Janet and helped me, and she goes, Well, she said, What's a meal train?

I said, Really?

You're not a Baptist, are you?

Because we can't do anything without food.

I said, Do you not have people delivering meals to your house every day?

She said, Oh my goodness, you're kidding me.

And I said, No.

She said, How do I sign up?

I said, Well, you get in a Sunday school class.

It's how we love each other, it's how we care for each other.

Okay, so in that situation, somebody who was not involved in church and not in a situation, the reality of that happening in our lives called her to the value of that in hers.

If we don't have that in our lives, we don't have anything to say to people who are looking.

And so we've got to understand and we've got to be confronted with the fact that as believers, your identity says you don't have a choice in being involved in people's lives.

Now I'm not trying to arm twist you or please understand.

I'm trying to answer this question so that we are equipped to deal with this question as we are working through this in culture.

So let me give you, there's a lot of reasons, and I've put them in three categories.

I've sort of put them in three buckets.

And each one of these you can run through and see kind of all the different ways you can explain each of these threes.

Reason one, first of all, loving and serving others is how we are transformed into the image of Jesus.

And Jesus is the goal of transformation.

Again, two weeks ago we talked about this.

The nature of what saves you is the nature that's in your life, and it is the nature of the fruit that must come out.

You squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out.

You squeeze a Christian, Jesus comes out.

If Jesus comes out, what does that look like?

New commandment, I give you that you love one another as I have loved you, as I've died on the cross for you.

By this will, the folks who don't know Jesus will know you're followers of Jesus.

When you're squeezed, what comes out is dying on the cross for people, is what comes out.

And then they know that's what Jesus looks like.

You cannot be transformed into the image of Jesus without being engaged with people.

And with loving other people and pointing them to Jesus because that's who Jesus is.

There's no other definition or picture of Jesus.

You cannot find any other picture of Jesus.

And so we cannot do that outside of that.

Now think about the process, right?

We looked at the process last week.

It's right here in the scripture.

I want to remind you again.

Set your mind on Jesus.

Verses 1 through 4.

Set your mind on Jesus.

That's where your life is, that's who your life is, that's where it is.

If I'm looking at Jesus, then I'm going to become like Jesus.

I heard a story about a guy who's trying to prove mind over matter and that the human personhood that we're above all the animals and all that.

So he gets this, goes to his kid's goldfish tank, and he goes in there and he starts staring at this goldfish.

Now don't act like y'all hadn't done this before.

You're staring at that goldfish, and then you tapping on the glass, and he said, I'm going to win this.

His wife comes in and goes, What are you doing?

I'm going to win this battle with this goldfish.

I'm going to show mind over matter.

I'm going to show we're above them.

We're the highest life form.

And so he's looking at this goldfish, and then every now and then, when that goldfish staring, and it's just in that tank going.

And he'd look at that fish, and he'd look at that fish, and he'd go, with his eyes, try to make that fish move.

And he's standing, he's trying to do that.

His wife looks at him like, You've lost your mind.

What are you?

She comes in about 30 minutes later, check on him, and he's looking at that goldfish and he's going.

If you look at something long enough, it becomes what you are.

It becomes your perspective in life.

Right?

And so we set our minds on Jesus so that we can become like Jesus.

We can understand who he is.

We can understand what love looks like.

We can understand how that is.

We can understand how he reacted with people.

And then he says, once you're focused on becoming like Jesus, the transformation starts.

Your old self has to be put away, your new self has to be put on.

All of that transformation occurs.

And so you put off behaviors like Jesus.

No more malice, no more slander, no more lying to each other, no more any of that stuff.

Then we have to put on Jesus' behavior because we're becoming like him, we're shedding what's not like him, and the Jesus pieces are coming out.

And so he says, therefore, verse 12, God's chosen one, holy lump, put on, and every one of those is described as a character trait of how Jesus related to people.

Now, just so you saw, when you get down to verse 18 and you go through chapter 4, verse 1, he is giving a blow by blow, day by day, life by life, person by person, illustration of what this looks like.

They are all in relational context.

Look at verse 18.

Wives, be submissive to your husbands, that's fitting the Lord.

How many of you, when you got married, you figured out, I thought I was not selfish?

Holy cow, I'm selfish.

And you have to begin to work through loving someone else at a different level.

And then you think, boy, I've got that all figured out, and you have your first child, and you spend your life like dealing with nothing but poop and crying and colic, and you got all this kind of.

We had lunch with, we met our kids and like, you know, Killian, and I'm holding them at the lunch table, and he pukes up everything, runs right down my sleeve all the way to my elbow, right?

You get all that.

I mean, y'all been there, you got all that.

You got babies, young marriage, you got all that.

You're doing that with your kids.

I mean, that's, you know, you figure out, holy cow, there's another round of selfishness I didn't realize I had that gets pruned out as you have to take care of that child that's dependent on you.

And then you begin to have desires for your child or your grandchild, and you want them to flourish, and you want this to happen in their life, and you want that to be the case, and you're sacrificing everything in your life to do that for them.

You do that in the context of relationship.

Verse 18, wives.

Verse 19, husbands.

Verse 20, children, obey your parents.

Scripture says, children, you are to obey your parents.

21, fathers, do not exasperate your children so they won't become discouraged.

Dads, man, if you don't know why that verse is in scripture, you need to come hang out at a ball field in any sport on a Saturday for about two hours.

Parents are losing their minds in the scriptures because their desire to brag to their friends about what their kid did on the ball deal is way beyond the level of how much the kid likes playing ball.

I mean, we're over there as dad screaming at umpires and screaming at the coach and playing my kid and all that, and our kids are out in right field stepping on bees.

I mean, you just think about we're embarrassing our kids, we're exasperating our kids.

I mean, you got all that.

I mean, everything in us, all of this Jesus process of beginning to be humble, of forgiving, of not talking about, all of that happens in the context of people.

All of the pruning that occurs in our life, the putting off and the putting on, all of that happens, it happens incredibly powerful, engaged in relationship with people.

And if you're not ever in church, you are not doing that.

I'm not trying to get on to people about it.

I'm just saying, look, if the image is Jesus that we have to be transformed, and what Jesus looks like is impacting and saving other people, engaging in their lives, chasing them down, walking down the street and looking up in a tree and saying, Zacchaeus, you come down, I'm going to your house today.

You can't do that by yourself.

Now, listen, I love fishing, right?

Hunting, kind of boring.

You guys can have that.

I know y'all are gonna run me over to Oklahoma and out of Arkansas for saying that, but all my fisherman buddies in Oklahoma will think this great.

But I mean, it's kind of, you know, but fishing, you I hear these guys, I just get so tired of hearing this.

I go there and I worship in nature.

You whatever.

Lie to yourself.

Go right ahead.

I mean, I'm all about going hunting and fishing and playing ball and playing with the kid.

Man, I miss the days when I was coaching Little League.

I mean, it's awesome.

I'm all about sports.

Listen, there are so many things we can learn in sports.

But let me tell you what, if you're doing that instead of church, you are not putting off and putting on Jesus, period.

You cannot.

It is an impossibility.

I'm not trying to be down on this.

I love that.

I love ball.

I love doing all that.

I mean, I grew up playing that.

We raised our kids.

I'm all about.

But listen, you've got to put things in balance and you've got to make the priority being engaged relationally.

And it takes time and it takes effort to get into people's lives.

But if you're not getting into someone's life, then Jesus is not coming out of yours nearly as effectively as he is trying to do because you cannot become Jesus-like by yourself.

And we just can't.

You just can't.

And we could run that to ground and we could go to all that, but listen, just let me ask you a question.

Who would say thank you to you for how you pointed them to Jesus?

And who would you say thank you to for their involvement in your life pointing you to Jesus?

You have to be able to answer those two questions.

You just have to.

Above all, put on love.

The perfect bond of unity.

You see that?

Why does love create unity?

Because I'm impacting your life, and you're impacting my life, and we are pursuing that together.

That brings me to reason two.

Here's bucket two.

The second reason is our, we have an existential need.

That means it is in the core of who we are, and we can't exist without it.

Your existential need for community is met when you engage with others through serving.

When you engage in their life and they engage in your life.

First of all, think about this.

You engage in community through service, not selfishness.

You're becoming Jesus-like when you're finding out what somebody else needs instead of demanding that they meet your needs.

This, again, I'm not being critical with this.

I'm just trying to illustrate the spiritual truth of this.

But it's just frustrating me at times as a pastor when somebody comes to me and say, Well, I'm leaving that group.

Nobody cares about me.

Well, first of all, I don't believe that's true.

I think we have a loving church, and I know that they care.

Sometimes we don't express it as well as we should, the collective of us at times, but listen, it's a loving church, so I don't believe that's true.

But number two, I think the bigger problem of that is that we are not putting off the old things.

Anger, all of that.

We're not putting on love because we are demanding that somebody meet us rather than stepping in.

And when I serve someone else, it forces me to deal with my motivation, the Jesus in my life, what God's calling me to, what my faith is.

Listen, when you look in the mirror and you say, I don't want to get involved in somebody else's life, you are in your head thinking through why, and the Holy Spirit is saying, What in that is Jesus like?

It is when you step into somebody else's life and you deal with, well, I really wanted to watch that movie, but I have to go to their house and check on them.

I really wanted to go do this, but I but I have to do that.

I really wanted to spend this weekend at the lake, but I'm worried about two families in our Sun School class, and I need to be there and encourage them, and I need to take them to lunch.

I I really want to do this, but I but they need me to do this.

There's just so many things in our lives that happen that when we put those off and step into somebody else's life, there is spiritual work that's done, and in that I am now getting my need for community met because when I step into somebody else's life and their response of love to me, that is so much greater than if I'm just sitting there waiting on people to come pat me on the head.

I have so much greater need met in my life because it is a valid response of us engaged together in true relationship rather than me just demanding somebody doing something for me.

There's a verse in Scripture that is highly misquoted.

Proverbs says this a man who would have friends must show himself friendly, but there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother.

Y'all heard that before, right?

And everybody at some point in their life has heard somebody say, Listen, if you want to be friends, you got to go be friendly to people, and they quote that verse A man who would have friends must show himself friendly.

That is not what that verse means, so please don't say that to anybody.

What that means is a man who is desiring of friendships, it's like the guy that goes to the bar and he's desperate for people to like him, and so he buys the beer so that everybody will thank him and like him.

It is his motivation to draw people to himself.

How do you know it?

Because the Bible says but.

And when you say but, not this, but that, you are putting things in juxtaposition to each other.

And so someone who goes in and is desiring to have friends and is manipulating people to be their friend, that is one type of deal, but there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother.

That's a person that you can count on who's in your business and you're in theirs.

And most likely, if you can count on them to that level, they know they can count on you to that level, and now we have a real relationship.

And my sense of community is met, and their sense of community is met.

Listen to what the Bible says.

Look at how this is put together.

Again, verse 16 let the message about the Messiah dwell richly among you, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom.

That is a joint back and forth relationship.

That is people engaged together, and you cannot do that by yourself, not in a relational setting.

It is impossible.

Listen to this quote from C.S.

Lewis.

I was reminded of that this morning.

I should have had it on the screen.

We'll post it on social media this week so you can see it.

But listen to what he says.

True friends don't spend time gazing into each other's eyes.

They may show great tenderness toward each other, but they face in the same direction toward common projects and goals, and above all, towards a common Lord.

Relationship is built when we are together in partnership, going somewhere and doing something.

And that's never more powerful than when in our identity as Christians we are becoming like Jesus and we are admonishing and teaching one another.

I'm in your life, you're in mine.

The way life works most of the time is I have some things I'm good at, and you have some things you're good at, and when we put each other in a relationship together and we're pursuing the Lord together, man, we make progress, both of us.

As we're engaged with each other.

And how in the world is everybody else's need for community provided if you are not involved?

If you're not involved in somebody else's life, who is?

How is it that we call the world here to our church and come be a part of this and get involved?

And we're not involved.

Or a little rain keeps us out.

Or it's a beautiful day.

I'm going to the lake for the third weekend in a row because I can watch online.

Now I got no problem going to the lake.

I was raised on the lake.

Go to the lake.

But be in church and be in somebody's life and let them in yours.

And the third set of reasons.

The third bucket is this your existential need for being needed and having impact so your life has value is met when you engage others through loving and serving.

If you're becoming like Jesus, Jesus' impact is saving people and transforming their lives.

And if we're being transformed into Jesus, which again it says in the scripture right here, look at what it says.

Verse 10, you are being renewed in the knowledge according to the image of your creator.

Jesus is the image that we're being transferred into.

And so what that means is when I am investing in someone's life, I am looking like Jesus, and now I am having a spiritual impact, and now I feel a sense of fruit and value in my life because I was doing what Jesus has made my identity when he saved me.

In fact, he's created us this way from the very beginning.

Let me just show you these two things.

Here's two more truths you need to understand about who we are and how we were created.

We are driven in this desire.

I've called it an existential need because it is made.

We are made that way.

First of all, we're made that way as humans.

The Bible tells us in the picture of creation, when he created Adam and Eve, he put them in the garden and he put them there to flourish and to be fruitful.

I believe that's a reason why when he says you're being renewed in the image of your, he could have picked Jesus, Savior, He's used Messiah all times in that chapter, all of those things.

Instead, he says, you are being renewed in the image of your creator.

And he's calling us to understand you are created to make a difference, to flourish, to be fruitful, to have impact in the place where we're planted.

And then when we've entered into this relationship with Jesus and our desire's there and our life is there, and we love him and we're becoming like him, then our desire is to please him, and that is to look like him, which is to bear spiritual fruit in people's lives through his work in us and through us.

And so my desire becomes to hear him say, Well done, good and faithful servant.

We are created to make a difference.

That's why that is such a drive at the basic human level.

And there is no eternal difference outside of what you are investing spiritually in someone else's life.

And because we love Jesus, and because he has saved us, and because he is our life, and we are setting our minds on him, and we know one day we're going to be in heaven, and the people that we have been a part of their lives, and they have been a part of ours, will be there with him as well.

How many people are you taking to heaven with you?

How many people are going to be there and welcome you and say thank you for how you invested in me?

And I've been looking forward to seeing my Savior because you have taught me more about how to love Jesus.

How many people are there for you?

So listen, when we ask that question, is being in Sunday school relevant?

This is one of those times preachers love, we stomp our foot and say, Yes, it's relevant.

It is biblically relevant, it is humanly relevant, it is spiritually relevant.

And I will never back away from calling people, inviting them, get involved, get in somebody else's life and let them get in yours.

The heritage that we have in this church is built on the preaching of God's word with unbelievably gifted preachers, lines of them before I got here.

But the spiritual heritage of this church is also built on the backbone of Sunday school and heroes of the faith, as Winston talked about, who invested in the lives of other people.

And so we want to bring that moving forward.

As we call people to Jesus, there's a credibility in what we call them to.

We have seen and looked at that Jesus loved us and he died for us on the cross so that he could forgive us and change us spiritually, that salvation is being transformed into his image, and it brings the hope and promise of heaven and forgiveness and all of that.

And if you need to be saved, whether you're watching online and you've heard us preach the gospel or you're here in the room this morning, I want you to know in just a moment, I'm gonna pray.

God's people are gonna stand and sing a testimony about Jesus.

We'll have, and then we're as we're standing and singing, we have pastors here at the head of our aisles, we have deacons with us.

If you want to be saved, you come.

If you're at home and you want to be saved there, you you just right there call out to the Lord and ask him to save you.

But the next thing I'm gonna ask you to do is if you're not involved in a deep relational group, Sunday school, a men's discipleship group in a committed way like on Wednesday nights, or women's discipleship group in a committed way like on Wednesday nights.

We have teenage girls who are meeting together on Tuesday afternoon, this afternoon at 2 o'clock.

There's a lot of places in our church to get involved.

If you want to find out how to get involved, you come find me after the service and I'll help you.

But I'm gonna ask you to make a commitment to get involved in somebody's life.

Lord, we love you and we thank you.

And we thank you that we have a heritage of this kind of spiritual involvement of teaching and encouraging each other in all spiritual wisdom.

And Lord, thank you for the fruit that that's borne in the lives of people generation after generation.

And I pray, Father, that you continue to build us moving forward with that same DNA and identity and help us, equip us, use us to invest in other people's lives and to receive that investment in ours so that we can model to a world that needs to know they are loved.

We can model the love of Jesus.

Give us the freedom to respond to you, Nate.

In Jesus' name we pray, and all God's people said.

We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.

Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.

Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.

Thank you for listening to chapter and first, the Bible teaching ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.