Matt Sturdevant: What’s the Lord been teaching you lately? It was five weeks ago now that I invited you to think about how you wanted to grow, how you wanted to be different by the time that we got to June 1st. Well, today is your checkup, because tomorrow is June 1st. It’s hard to believe that that much time has gone by already. How has the Lord been teaching you? What have you been learning? How have you been growing? I’m going to give you just about 20 seconds to write down the first thing that comes to your mind when you think about that topic of growth.
I shared with you that one of the things that I had on my list was a growth component that was not for me but actually for my daughter. I wanted to teach her to ride her bike without the training wheels by June 1st. For my daughter, Kensi, that day came back on May 9th. We went to the park, and she had a chance to ride on her own, and she just took off. Since that day, she’s been riding and riding, and I think that she’s working on becoming a professional now. That just gave me a lot of joy as a parent to get to see my daughter take that growth step, but it was also for me one of the things that I wanted to do and accomplish during this time that we’ve had.
If you learned a new skill or maybe something that God taught you, I want to invite you to drop that in the chat box and let us know. Maybe you learned how to cook a new recipe or some other skill. Or, you learned another language. Whatever that might be, if it’s appropriate to share with the world right now, let us know what you learned during this time. Today, we’re wrapping up our series, Standing Strong When Things Go Wrong. This is a journey that we’ve been on for six weeks now. While we’ve been in the middle of this major journey that we’ve all been on with the Covid crisis, with this pandemic that we've been going through. During this series, we’ve been taking a look at some Biblical principles. What does God’s Word have to say about how we can stand strong when things go wrong? Not just right now but when things go wrong in the future, because one of the things we talked about is this world just has trouble in it. There will be problems in the future, and if we can learn how to stand strong when things go wrong, life will be much better for us.
Before we continue the conversation we started last week and wrap up this whole series, I want to do a quick recap for you. For many of us during the last two and a half months now, it’s felt more like “blurrsday.” It’s hard to remember what we did from one day to the next, and April, even though that was just last month, feels like it was a couple of years ago, at least it does to me. I want to do a quick recap with you. We began the series looking at three questions that come up. These three questions can come up when we find ourselves in the middle of problems or the middle of crisis. They aren’t always questions that we are verbalizing and articulating, but they’re the questions that are behind what's going on. They are sort of at the root of what we might be feeling as we walk through problems and uncertainty. These questions are: Is there more to life than I’m experiencing? It’s really easy for us to just get caught up in the moment of all that we’re experiencing, and we wonder if there’s more.
We also ask, “Is there even purpose to life?” Then, the question that we looked at that we spent the most time on is : What kind of foundation am I going to build my life on? We looked at what God’s Word says about building the foundation of our life and that Jesus is the firm foundation that we can build our lives on. When the storms of life are raging, if we have built our life on Him and He is our Rock, then we can stand strong during those storms. Then, over two weeks, we talked about the real challenge that we face in crisis is not just to go through it but to actually grow through it. During that two week discussion, we did some myth busting looking at some myths that get in the way of us moving forward. We looked at what not to do, and then we looked at what God might be doing in the middle of the crisis, some things He might be trying to do in our lives and some ways He might be trying to grow us and stretch us. Then, we looked at some next steps we could take when we find ourselves in crisis.
After that, we talked about connecting with God and people and how we weren’t made for quarantine or social distancing, but God actually made us for a relationship with Him and a relationship with others. We desire that closeness with other people because that’s what God put in us. Then last week, we started a two week discussion that will end today on deepening our walk with Christ. Since Jesus is the firm Foundation that we need to build our lives on and He is the One that gives us the ability to stand strong when things go wrong, the deepness of the relationship that we have with Him is directly related to our ability to stand strong. It’s not enough just to know about Jesus but to actually know Him personally.
One of the things that God wants for us is that we become like Jesus, that we become like Him in character. In order to do that, we don’t just need to know about Him but to actually know Him. How does He think? How does He respond in different situations? It’s actually the deeper walk that we have with Him the more we’re able to be successful when we walk through problems. We’re able to have that certainty that He brings, even though we don’t have a certainty of the outcome. He brings peace and comfort and direction and help in our lives as we walk through things.
As we move forward and we seek to deepen our walk with Him, we talked about the fact that we need to keep Christ at the center of our life. And, we need to learn how to actually walk in the Holy Spirit. The New Testament talks a lot about walking in the Spirit, and that’s something that we need to learn how to do as a follower of Jesus. I shared with you the WHEEL illustration and how it has been helpful for me over the years to grasp what it looks like to be an obedient Christian in action. We looked at the vertical spokes of the WHEEL last week, the Word and prayer. This week we’re going to take a look at the horizontal spokes of fellowship and ministry. It’s really to the extent that we engage in these four activities that we move closer to Jesus, that we deepen our walk with Him as we engage in these activities which give us the ability to stand strong when things go wrong.
Just as a quick review… Simply stated, the Word is God speaking to me. If you want to know what God says or thinks on a topic, all we have to do is pick up His Word and read it. God has already spoken on so many things. He tells us exactly what we need to know in His Word, so the Word is Him speaking to me. Then, prayer is me speaking back to God, sharing my heart with God. It’s me sharing my requests; it’s me praising Him and honoring Him. It’s me communicating with God. The vertical spokes are how we maintain our personal relationship with God through Jesus. The horizontal spokes—the ones we’re going to take a look at today—fellowship and ministry are about primarily our relationships with other people.
One of the things I was thinking about as I was going to make this shift this week from the vertical spokes to the horizontal spokes is that as we’ve been in this time that we’ve been walking through for over two and a half months now with social distancing and stay at home orders, really the vertical spokes haven’t been affected at all. I can read God’s Word, and I can pray pretty much anywhere anytime. Actually, I’m able to do it more effectively when I’m alone. That’s why we spend some quiet alone time with the Lord each day. But as I was thinking about it, it’s really the horizontal spokes of fellowship and ministry. Those are the ones that have been most affected during this time during this Covid crisis that we’ve been walking through. It’s during this time that we’ve had to pivot. We’ve had to shift; we’ve had to change how we’ve been doing fellowship and how we’ve been doing ministry. We’re not taken off the hook. It’s not like we can just set those aside and don’t have to do them during times like this. We have to rethink them, and we have to get more creative maybe and find other ways to engage in fellowship and in ministry. But, they must continue, as well.
Again, one of the things I mentioned last week is that there have been books and books and books written about each one of these topics of the WHEEL—of the Word and prayer. Then also, there have been many books written on fellowship and on ministry. My goal here today in the few minutes that we’re going to spend looking at this is not to tell you everything there is to know about fellowship and about ministry. But rather, my goal is to look at basically what they are, how they help us deepen our walk with Christ. The question is first: What is fellowship? In order to answer that question, I want to take a step back for just a moment, and I want to look at the bigger picture of what happens when we decide to follow Jesus.
When we decide we want Him to be our Savior and our Lord, we actually begin a new life in Christ. We’re adopted into God’s very own family. We become sons and daughters. We become His children, those of us who are followers of Jesus. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” So we, those of us who are followers of Jesus, are a new creation, and as a follower of Jesus...something we talked about in the very first week...we have a purpose. We have a point. There is purpose to our life being a follower of Jesus. That purpose, very simply stated, is to do God’s will here on the earth. Now as a Christ follower in thinking about how to deepen my walk with Christ...when it comes to fellowship, the simple definition is going to be this—connecting with other Christ followers. The key here is that word “other Christ followers.”
If we look at 1 Corinthians 1:9, it says, “God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship…” ...which is the Greek word, Koinonia... “...of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” The word that we translate as “fellowship” is actually a Greek word—koinonia. Koinonia involves a relationship. It involves mutual participation and mutual exchange. Basically, it’s reciprocity within a community of relationships. We do good to one another. Christ followers bless and benefit and do good to one another. We do good to one another because of the good that Christ has done for us. There’s this connection that all Christ followers have with one another through the Lord Jesus that you just can’t have with someone who is not a follower of Jesus.
We can have friends; we can have close relationships with people who are not followers of Jesus, and we can even have a level of exchange and a level of reciprocity. But, we don’t have true, spiritual fellowship with those who are not followers of Christ. Over the years, I’ve been able to travel literally all over the world working with different mission teams and different organizations and partners that we have all over the world. One of the things that I find fascinating that is a great illustration of fellowship is that I can go anywhere in the world, and I can meet a Christ follower. There’s this instant connection that we have in Christ simply because we both follow the Lord Jesus. We can relate to one another. We connect on a deeper level with someone that I just met in another country that is a Christ follower than I may do with people here in my own country who don’t yet follower Jesus.
There’s this connection that we have in the Lord Jesus, and that’s where our fellowship comes from. Fellowship can involve and often does involve social gatherings, but it’s much more than just socially getting together. There’s so much more that’s happening when believers get together and fellowship. There are elements of encouragement and protection and so much that happens. Let’s take a look at Hebrews. A couple of verses from Hebrews—-first, Hebrews 10:24-25 says, “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 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. “
It’s so important that followers of Jesus get together that they don’t neglect meeting together, and one of the big purposes is so that we can encourage one another. That’s why, as a church, we never closed. We never stopped church during this entire time. We had to change some of the methods of how we were meeting, but our mission has continued since the beginning of this pandemic. We never once stopped church; we just changed how we were gathering, primarily virtually. It just means how we are doing right now. Another place that talks about this is Hebrews 3:13; it says, “”But exhort one another every day as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”
If you really want to deepen your walk with Christ, you need to do more than just listen to sermons. I’m going to do my best to communicate God’s Word and God’s Truth to you, but there is more to growing as a Christ follower than just listening to messages. We’ve got to have people in our lives, people who are there next to us in our lives who can encourage us and strengthen us, who can offer help when we’re in need. I’ve been so encouraged over these last two and a half months to learn of so many stories of how you, as followers of Christ and members of Hope Church, have been doing just that. You’ve not stopped fellowshipping with one another even though, maybe primarily, it occurred virtually through Zoom or some other platform like that. You have been meeting the needs of each other. You have been sharing what you have with those who don’t have. You’ve been encouraging one another during this entire time, so we have continued fellowship even though it’s looked a little bit different.
God made us for relationships and life as a human being but especially as a follower of Jesus Christ just has so much more fullness and richness when we’re involved in the lives of other people. This is also one of the reasons we have groups here at Hope Church. Since Hope was started over 42 years ago, we have had group life in one form or another, and this is where fellowship often takes place. We’re encouraging one another; we’re strengthening one another, helping one another. We’re meeting one another’s needs through our groups. We’re also studying God’s Word and praying together, as well. In fact,
I want to invite you as we get ready to start signing up for our summer groups. I want to invite you to be a part of a summer group and experience fellowship this summer. Don’t let the fact that our spring semester of groups is finally winding down. Don’t let that stop you continuing to meet together with people. In fact, we’re going to have groups this summer that are going to be in-person groups. So if that’s something that you’ve been craving and you’ve been looking for, we’re going to have some of those options available for you, as well. A very simple definition of fellowship is “connecting with other Christ followers.
Now if we switch gears and take a look at ministry for a moment. Ministry at its simplest definition is “teaming together with other Christ followers.” When we decided to follow Jesus, we didn’t just get a new identity and join a new family, but He actually gave us at least one spiritual gift and a role to play in building up and serving the body of Christ, which are other believers, and expanding God’s Kingdom here on this earth. Ephesians 4:11-12 says, “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherd, and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ.”
One of the things that this verse talks about is as church staff our job is to equip you, the church members, to do ministry. The staff is not the one doing all the ministry. In fact, the way we talk about it here at Hope Church is we do the work of the ministry. We set the table so that you all can feast at the table. You can actually do ministry together and ministry to one another. Also in Ephesians 4:15-16, it says, “...we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ, from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”
What this verse is saying is that as you as an individual follower of Christ grow in your walk with Him and deepen in your walk, you’re actually building up the entire body as you grow individually. We are meant to join together to team together to do God’s will in the earth. One of the great privileges we have as followers of Jesus Christ is to serve God and to serve others using the gifts and abilities that He’s given us. The thing that always strikes me is that God doesn’t need us. He doesn’t need me to accomplish His purposes on this planet, but He lets me have a piece of the action. He gives me a role that I can play, and I get to be a part of what He’s doing in the body of Christ, as well as drawing people to Himself.
One of the privileges we have as followers of Christ is to tell people about Him, to tell of the life change of the firm foundation that we have as we stand on Christ and as we deepen in our walks with Him. There’s so much peace and freedom that the rest of the world is looking for, and we have the answer to that. We get the privilege of sharing Christ with others who are looking for hope in this world. That’s one of the roles that God gives us to serve one another in the church and also to serve those outside the church and share Christ with them, so that they can be brought into the community, that they can be brought into the family of God through having an opportunity to make Christ their Boss and their Leader, as well.
The horizontal spokes of the wheel are fellowship and ministry. I’m want to give you a chance to get to hear from some of our own members here at Hope Church who over the years as they’ve engaged and fellowship and ministry how they’ve deepened in their walk with Christ.
Kurt: I’ve been serving in NRG Zone for nearly 30 years now, and that verse...and I’m going to butcher this verse… Ecclesiastes 4:9-11, I think...but I’m just going to tear it up...says that “two are better than one because they have a good return for their work…” Then, I’m going to jump toward the end. It says that “a cord of three strands is not easily broken.” I’ve really seen the truth of that verse just serving with men that all different abilities. I do not enjoy teaching, but every year there’s a guy that does enjoy teaching. I enjoy administering...kind of leading it…and God has provided all kinds of men to come alongside, who have different abilities, to serve. I’ve seen just a real love for those men grow as they have chosen to serve. I’m just truly grateful for their lives. So, that’s how I’ve seen God use NRG Zone in my life.
Jon: I’ve been a part of groups in some way over the last 30 plus years. There’s a lot of advantages there and lots of things I really like about it, but one of the coolest things is you're around a bunch of people that are like-minded. But, everyone has a slightly different perspective and slightly different ideas on things, and that just helps to grow my understanding of what it means to walk with Christ.
Candi: Hey! Serving in the HSM has been a huge blessing in my life for many reasons, but probably the biggest one is just the people. The students in the HSM and the HSM leaders have been such a source of encouragement and challenge and calling me forward in my own relationship with God. I have found the times in my life when I have grown the most are because I’m around other people that are wanting to do the same. That’s what I’ve found in the HSM, plus the students and the leaders are just an awesome and fun group of people to be around.
Woody & Stacey: One thing that’s helped deepen my walk with Christ over the years serving in the Sunshine Factory is really evident in the saying, “If you can’t teach something simply, then you don’t know it well enough.” That’s something we have to do week in and week out is teach something simply.
Yeah, each week we’re having to dig into God’s Word and really understand it so that we can relate it to the life of a preschooler.
Ben: One of the ways that I have grown with Christ while being part of the young adults ministry group is just better understanding the value of the opportunities that we have right now. Something that really helped with that was getting time with the other guys to kind of bounce ideas off each other to better understand it. I might have understood something a little bit, but then another guy says something that really just cracks it open and really makes it make a lot more sense.
Beau & Kelly: We’ve been making these videos with our kids in our home, and that’s actually been a challenge to model when we need help and where we get help and then to be thankful to God regularly for who He is and for how He helps us.
It’s given me a deeper understanding and reminder of the body of Christ and how we all work together and contribute and help each other along the way.
Matt Sturdevant: So, why are we concerned with deepening our walk with Christ? What’s the point? What’s the goal? Well, really the goal of deepening our walk with Christ is this. It’s transformation. Let’s look at Romans 12:2 in the Amplified Bible. It says, “And do not be conformed to this world {any longer with its superficial values and customs}, but be transformed and progressively changed {as you mature spiritually} by the renewing of your mind {focusing on godly values and ethical attitudes}, so that you may prove {for yourselves} what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect {in His plan and purpose for you}.”
The goal, the point, the purpose is that we become like Christ; we become like Him in character that we ourselves are transformed, and we become like the Lord Jesus Christ. Then, we accurately reflect Him to those that we interact with as we go about our day, as we go about our week, and as we are witness to the rest of the world of the life change that is possible through walking with Jesus Christ. If you’re a follower of Jesus Christ, I want to invite you to think about the WHEEL for just a moment. Think about the four spokes of the WHEEL, and identify. Maybe there’s one that you’re doing really well at; maybe there’s one you could do some work on. Usually for most people, what we see is something like this. We have the WHEEL, and in the diagram the WHEEL is drawn with the spokes of equal length. When you have equal length spokes, you have a round wheel.
But often times, what we find is that is not how it actually plays out in our lives. Instead what we have is for many of us is maybe we’re really good at fellowship. We’ve been a part of groups. We are helping one another; we’re serving one another. Our fellowship spoke is pretty long, and maybe we spend a little bit of time reading the Bible but not all that much. So, our Word spoke is pretty short. Now, we do a little bit better on prayer. Prayer is little longer than the Word. Then on ministry we also do okay. We’re on a team, and occasionally we’ll help out if we’re asked to do something specific, but we haven’t really found the niche and the focus, haven’t really found out how God has shaped us for ministry to make the biggest impact.
What we find is we have a wobbly WHEEL. The WHEEL is wobbly, and when we have a wobbly WHEEL, it doesn’t just roll true. It actually will kind of wobble as we go forward. Now, that’s okay if that's where we’re starting. If we don’t know that, then we can’t ever do anything about it. But as we seek to deepen our walk with Christ, we’re able to actually make some changes. We’re able to identify the areas we need to grow in, and then we can work on those. We can maybe spend a little bit of time on those areas. I want to encourage you to identify which one you maybe need to spend a little bit of time on and then work on that. Make that a next step to work on this summer.
Before I wrap up, I want to come full circle. I want to go back to one of the three questions that we looked at on week one, and then I mentioned it a few minutes ago. That question is—What kind of foundation am I going to build my life on? You see, the answer to this question is crucial. What type of foundation we’re going to build our life on...the answer to this will determine if we’re going to be able to stand strong when things go wrong. It will determine our ability to endure not just go through the crisis that we walk through but actually grow through the crisis. As we consider this crucial question, the question of what we’re going to build the foundation of our life on, I want you to take a look at this video. This video was put together by the 17:16 Network, a network of churches that Hope is a part of. It really helps answer the question of—What will be the foundation of my life?
(Video) How has Covid-19 impacted you? In the wake of the pandemic, many people are experiencing invisible but very real side effects. For some of us, it’s a post-earthquake syndrome. Our sense of security has been shaken. Our jobs, finances, and safety are less stable than before, and in the mess, we’re looking for meaning and purpose. For others, it’s the new claustrophobia. Our house seems smaller each day. With our family now together 24/7, we feel pressed between job responsibilities and relationship tensions. At times, sadness, anger and fear close in around us. We feel trapped. The symptoms we are feeling are actually just the tip of the iceberg of a much larger need for rescue. We are adrift, cut off from the resources we need to experience meaning, purpose, love and peace. We hope to hear the sound of a helicopter bringing a rescuer. Human beings weren’t always in need of this Rescuer. God created the first man and woman to know Him and to experience His friendship, care, and love. He showed them how to live so they could make choices that would lead to life in all its fullness. However, Adam and Eve rebelled against God’s direction. They chose to do life their own way, and everyone since then chose life their own way, which is sin. As a result, we live in guilt and separation from God. The gap between us and God is too great. There are just not enough good deeds that we could do to restore the relationship. But out of His infinite and extreme love, God didn't let it end there. At an astounding cost to Himself, He took the initiative and made a way for us to be rescued. About 2,000 years ago, God sent His Son, Jesus, to earth to show us how to live God’s way, how to find the meaning and purpose we’ve lost. Jesus took upon Himself the sin and guilt of all mankind as He died a horrific death on the cross. His death paid our penalty, making a way for us to connect to God. Three days later, Jesus resurrected, came back to life, proving He is God. If we stop trying to live life our own way and commit to Jesus as Lord of our life, He provides everything we need to experience a truly full life now and eternal life with Him forever. It’s been almost 2,000 years since Jesus' resurrection. Since then, billions of people claim they have experienced the reality of Jesus rescuing them. They tell of a personal relationship with a loving God, strength and peace amidst turmoil, healing of inner hurt, and power and direction in navigating crisis. If you were in physical peril, just imagine how you grateful you would be to be found by a strong and competent rescuer. The Bible describes Jesus as a Rescuer seeking us, coming to us individually saying, “Here I am. I stand at the door and know. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in.” (Revelation 3:20) Accepting Jesus’ rescue parallels physical rescue which involves agreeing you need the rescue, believing the rescuer has the power to save you, and committing to do what your rescuer says. If you’re ready to open the door to Jesus and accept His rescue, it is necessary to agree you have chosen to do life your own way and ask God for forgiveness. Believe Jesus came to eartha nd died on the cross to pay the penalty for your sin. Commit to accept Jesus’ offer of rescue; respond to Him for who He is—Lord, in charge of everything, and your Boss of how you live each day. If you’re ready to accept Jesus’ rescue, you can pray and talk to God telling Him something like this: Lord Jesus, I believe that you are God. Thank you for dying for my sins so that I can be forgiven. I yield control of my life to you. Come into my life and make me the person you want me to be. Thank you for giving me eternal life.
(Pastor Matt) Have you made Jesus the foundation of your life? If not, what’s stopping you from doing that today? The only way that we can stand strong when things go wrong is to build our life on the firm foundation of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to invite you to do that today if you have never done that. If you have never decided to build your foundation on the Lord Jesus, I want to invite you to take that step today so that you can begin to learn what it’s like to stand strong when things go wrong.
Would you join me in prayer? Father, thank You that You created us to love us and to have a relationship with us. Thank You that You didn’t give up on us even though we’re the ones, Your creation, who rebelled against You. You didn’t give up on us, but You made a way for us to be able to come back to You. You made a way for us to have a right relationship with You and that Way is through Your Son, Jesus Christ. Thank You that by His death, burial and resurrection and what He did for us on the cross that we can come to know You and have a right relationship with You. We can have what we need in order to stand strong when things go wrong in life. Thank You that Jesus Christ is the firm Foundation, that He’s the Rock that we can stand on. Thank You that Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit can help us experience peace and power, protection and direction when we need it. Thank You, Father, that we can call upon You in our times of need and that You hear our prayers. Father, for our friends who are not yet followers of Jesus, I pray that You would please reveal Yourself to them in powerful ways. Help them experience Your love and Your power and find the answers to the questions that they may have. For those of us who are followers of Jesus, Father, please help us to grow in our walks with Him. Help us to deepen and strengthen our walks each day so that we can become the men and women that You want us to become so that we can do all that You want to do through our lives as we seek to make an impact in this world for Your Kingdom. Please, Father, show us what our next steps are, and then give us the courage to take those steps. I ask this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
