Essential To Growth | Series: Essential Church | Rick Atchley

welcome to the hills i know i'm talking to a lot of people who are watching us online we're a church in fort worth texas with three campuses today it's my privilege to preach at our west fort worth campus so a shout out to all of you attending our north richmond hills or our south lake campus now if you're a part of our online community and you live within a drivable distance to fort worth i want to invite you next saturday to the north richmond hills campus for an event with bob goff and his friends bob has been to our church many times usually with our men's conferences and if you've heard bob you know he's going to make you laugh he's going to make you think and he's going to help you remember how wonderful and wise is the way of jesus so go to our website and get your tickets because this is an in-person only event you cannot watch this online now how's that for a segway because if you've been with us the last two weeks we're in a series called essential church so when the pandemic began many institutions schools organizations businesses and churches suspended in-person gatherings and churches like ours did our best to provide good content to people online sermons material for children and students worship music and it caused some to think if i can get all this online isn't that essential when we can for our churches to actually meet in person again during this season i came across some material by a man named ed stetcher a well-known missiologist professor and pastor i respect and he wrote church should be online but i don't think it should be an online church and that's the point i'm trying to make in this series please hear me say again i affirm the many blessings that are made possible by the online offerings churches can make available there are many people who simply cannot leave their homes there are many people right now that for health reasons or for those they're caring for need to stay away from large crowds of people there are people around the world in the military on business trips at on the foreign mission field who were blessed by the online offerings of churches like ours for example just last week i got this picture from catherine center of little louise louise the child of randall and catherine born this past summer was born with some difficult health issues and she's been in the hospital recently and catherine wrote that for 24 hours we could not get little louise to go to sleep we tried soothing techniques we tried some medicines but i'm in pediatric icu and decided to watch hills church online last sunday and as soon as you started preaching she went to sleep now i'm proud to say i have put some good people to sleep over the years in my preaching ministry you're having trouble going to sleep go to our facebook page start listening to one of my sermons and enjoy the good snooze and how awesome is it that katherine could be with her baby in pediatric icu and because of online offering she could join our church i love what we can do online it is vital for some but i'm continuing it should not be normal for most that every follower of jesus who can needs to be actively engaged in the kind of community that demands presence we said last week it's essential for our faith and next week we'll see it's essential for our mission but what i want to do today is contend that it is essential for our growth now to talk about growth is to ask the question who do i want to become the idea that i want to grow suggests or implies i want to become someone or something now to lead into that point let me show you a poster that has been sent to me recently it's a movie poster promoting a james bond movie and the reason people have sent this to me two different times is because people said i was at the theater with my family and one of my children said that man looks like rick ashley so let's just go ahead and get it settled i am not making movies on the side okay that actor is actually named daniel craig and daniel craig is sick and tired of people walking up to him saying you know you look like rick ashley okay we all though should want to be somebody's doppelganger somebodies look alike and that person is jesus it is god's purpose for you and me that we grow into the image of jesus look at this verse now we know first the first verse well we know that god causes everything to work together for the good of those who love god and are called according to his purpose for them romans 8 28 we use it all the time and it's a true verse god can work in any situation for his purpose for you but what is his purpose for you next verse for god knew his people in advance and he chose them to become like his son god's purpose for you is to become a doppelganger of jesus to grow into the image of jesus it's why our church exists to make and grow followers of jesus and when we say follower of jesus we mean somebody who in ever increasing ways resembles jesus in how they live and i believe meeting together is essential to meeting that goal or to put it another way coming is essential to becoming that becoming more like jesus requires coming together with other followers of jesus and here's why because content alone is never enough to transform people you didn't learn to ride a bike by reading a pamphlet you didn't learn to cook by just reading a book you didn't become a good teacher or a mechanic or break free of some addiction because you heard a lecture i'm not saying content is unimportant i'm saying content alone is never enough to change us into the people we want to become that when god looked at a world broken and in need of forgiveness of sin he didn't send a manuscript he sent a man jesus of nazareth and would we all agree that this man he sent is the expert on how to make disciples isn't that true no one knows better how to help people become like jesus than jesus and why is that important because jesus intentionally trained followers in community think about it nowhere in the gospel does jesus give anybody a self-discipleship plan nowhere does jesus say to anyone here you take this study and you just go home by yourself and become like me fellowship i just made up a word the intentional pursuit of the image of christ fellowship demands fellowship it did in the gospels and it still does becoming like jesus is not a solo sport it takes a team it takes a church now we've already said there is no such thing as a perfect church you'll never find a perfect church if i did find a perfect church i wouldn't join it because then it wouldn't be perfect there is no perfect church just as there is no christian who perfectly represents jesus but if jesus knows more than anybody how to reproduce people that look like him then it seems clear that connection is necessary for a better reflection following jesus as a team sport connection produces a better reflection that church is essential to growth let me give you some reasons why i believe that first is simply this that we grow in the image of jesus simply by gathering by the way did you know that jesus was a consistent public worshiper it says in luke 4 16 that jesus went to nazareth where he had been brought up and on the sabbath day he went into the synagogue as was his custom every single week jesus went to public worship now think about this has anyone ever lived who had more right to insist that private worship is enough but jesus understood better than anyone who's ever lived that we don't just meet together to worship god we worship together to meet god that the father likes to attend the gatherings of his children yes i know you can meet god anywhere you can meet him on a mountaintop you can meet him at the sunset by your favorite lake i know that but i also know that god especially chooses to manifest his presence when his children get together think about it where else do we intentionally ask god to join us we sing come thou almighty king holy spirit you are welcome here come flood this place and fill the atmosphere where else do you go where people intentionally invite the father the son and the spirit to join us and he does paul wrote the corinthian church in the first letter and he said so when you are assembled and i am with you in spirit and notice and the power of the lord jesus is present and this is another reason why satan does everything he can to ban public worship gatherings wherever he can do it because the enemy knows the transforming power of being in the presence of god to bring someone into a gathering of christians worshiping god is to bring them into a transcendent space paul talks about this in first corinthians 14 when he says the unbeliever will come and join your assembly and he'll fall on his knees and he will say god is truly here among you that happened in the first century it still happens today it happens a lot it happens a lot in conversations i have with people some months back a young man walks up to me after one of our assemblies he says i've never been in a church i don't even think i believe in god and i'm shaking because i'm feeling something i don't know what it is and i told him you have never been in the presence of god before like you have today and so you understand that our job as a leadership of a church is not each week to provide some kind of experience you can enjoy that the goal of our coming together is not to enjoy the worship the goal is to have an encounter with the living god we gather to meet with our god to sense his affection for us and by the way when we sense the affection of the father it turns our attention to our brothers and sisters and so another way jesus followers grow is by serving that if we're going to become like jesus we have to become servants because that's what he did philippians 2 verse 7 says that jesus gave up his place with god and made himself nothing he was born as a man and he became like the servant now let's just be honest digital community offers friends without the demands of friendship on digital platforms i have thousands of friends around the world most i've never even met and they expect nothing of me and i expect nothing of them and here's the thing no expectation of engagement offers no opportunity for development i cannot grow without that expectation i read an interesting article some years ago about a basketball player named yao ming now he was seven foot six uh a hall of fame basketball player from china and had a great career but he was asked after he retired why not many people from the largest nation on earth become great athletes in team sports that most chinese athletes excelled more at individual sports and he gave a bold and surprising answer he said it's because of our one child policy in china we didn't grow up having to share in team sports you said you need solidarity you need to depend on each other you need to trust each other and when you grow up as an only child those are virtues that you don't have to learn now think about it when jesus left us he did more than say until i come back just try not to sin okay he left us for a greater purpose than just not sinning saved people serve people and starting with their church now i really believe that we don't have time to look at the whole chapter today but in first corinthians 12 there's this long chapter where paul compares the church to a physical body and he says your body has many members and every part of your body has an important function you don't have something called in active members of your body and that's what he compares the church to and he goes on to say that every single christian is gifted by god to serve his body and build up each other and we believe that's a high value it's one of the next steps of the seal the hills church to serve others in fact you've heard me say they've done studies on why young people who grow up all their lives in faithful churches often leave church when they leave home and the study revealed one of the biggest reasons is because they were discipled to be inactive members that outside of perhaps a mission trip or two we never asked young people to serve you can't grow if you never serve we want every member of our church to serve in our body go to thehills.org serve and we'll show you all the many many ways you can build up the church through serving and by the way god has gifted you for this this is taught many places in the bible like first peter 4 verse 10 god has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts use them well to serve one another now please don't hear legalism i'm not saying you have to serve people if you want to get saved i'm saying save people serve people in other words we're not followers of jesus because we serve we serve because we're followers of jesus and we're trying to become like him and he was a servant and jesus notices he notices when we do things without needing to be noticed especially when what we do stretches our love muscles and that might be one of the most important reasons why i think we need to meet together if we want to become like jesus that we grow by gathering by serving and by loving and i think most of us would acknowledge that the way most people love people especially those they don't like or agree with doesn't look very much like jesus and i think we would all acknowledge the digital platforms are not helping us digital platforms are not creating stronger love muscles digital communities are convenient and they're customizable well i don't like what you posted i will unfollow you i don't like what you said i will block you i don't like what you think i will unfriend you think about it we didn't even have those words in our vocabulary a few years ago now unblock and or or block and unfriend and unfollow are just a normal part of our conversation digital platforms are teaching us that people that frustrate us are disposable but jesus is building a church where everyone is valuable and because jesus wants us to become like him he's building a church where we have to learn to like people we don't like think about what jesus did when he started his first band of followers the first group of people he picked to say come and learn how to be like me and he picked matthew a man who had turned his back on his own people and compromised to sell out to the roman government and collect taxes so their armies could stay in lands they occupied and then he picked a man called simon the zealot who was a part of a party who thought the only good roman is a dead roman now i'm thinking jesus you're just getting started those two will never be able to sit around a fire and look at each other with love don't start with those two they're two apart but jesus did it on purpose and he's making a powerful statement we need to listen to jesus is calling us to love real people not ideal people and how can we grow in love if we never have to deal with people who frustrate us okay put on your seatbelt i'm about to start preaching i think few things today are hurting the witness of the church more than the refusal of some christians to fellowship except on the basis of compatibility that they're not going to love people unless they like them i saw it years ago regarding worship controversies i don't want to be at a church unless they worship the way i like to worship and i don't want to be a church of people who want to worship a different way i saw it later regarding race relations i don't want to be at a church that has a lot of people that don't look like me and here in the last few years i've seen it particularly in the realm of politics and more and more i'm becoming convinced that most christians are driven more by their ideology than by their theology i had a supper recently with a pastor about my age and he said how long are you going to keep preaching i said how long are you going to keep preaching and he said i can't do one more election i'll be out before then and i knew what he meant that more and more we're trying in 30 minutes a week in a sermon to disciple people who were hours a day are being fed by their favorite news sources i've had people leave our church in the last two years because they don't like my politics they don't even know what my politics are what they mean by that is i don't say enough about their politics no one's left and sent me an email and said because you didn't teach that jesus is son of god and lord because you don't believe in the inspiration of scripture you know what i've learned people will leave their church for the sake of their politics before they will leave their politics for the sake of their church and i don't believe we are convincing an unbelieving world that jesus is the answer when we live this way what should bind us together is not our compatibility but our commonality regardless of worship preference or race or political opinion we are all sinners in desperate need of grace and that's what should bring us together and what we need grace is what we need to extend to each other we cannot grow if we don't intend to stretch our love muscles you know jesus showed up for us in a tangible way and we need to show up for each other in real and concrete and tangible ways i've always liked the story of the older couple they're lying in bed it's dark and and she says you know when we first married you would hold my hand in bed and after a few moments he took his hand and grabbed her hand and then she said and when we were first married you used to cuddle next to me in bed and he laboriously moved his body along with a couple of groans but he got next to her and did his best to try to put his arm around her and then she said and when we were first married you used to nibble my ear and that he threw the cover off and got out of bed and she said what where are you going he said to get my teeth okay if you're gonna love somebody it's gonna ask something of you it's going to require something of you the most essential thing we can do is love god and love people and the church is where we get better at both listen to these words i'm about to read and every verse was written by an apostle to churches peter said above all love each other deeply because love covers over a multitude of sins john said dear friends since god so loved us we also want to love one another no one has ever seen god but if we love one another god lives in us and his love is made complete in us it means we're growing and listen to paul we don't need to write you about the importance of loving each other for god himself has taught you to love one another indeed you already show your love for all the believers throughout macedonia even so dear brothers and sisters we urge you to love them even more you never stop growing in love and so coming is essential to becoming and the more we come and love the more we come to look like jesus and that's very essential especially now like you my heart was really heavy last week more than usual the news coming out of haiti and particularly the news coming out of afghanistan last wednesday night at the north richmond hills campus i was a part of a powerful prayer gathering and it was good to be together and lift up our brothers and sisters in those two nations and don't let anyone ever tell you that prayer isn't doing something powerful for other people but i couldn't help but wonder well god what else can we do we can send money and we should we can keep praying but i felt the spirit impress upon me the world is full of so much evil and so many problems and what can i do here's what i can do i can love whoever god puts next to me that's what i can do i may not be able to love the whole world the way i wish i could but i can love the person in the ditch on the road i'm going down i can start there and love people better when i was a young preacher a preaching professor named haddon robinson had a big impression on me and i remember something he wrote when he was a young minister and his denomination had the practice to interminister you had to be ordained and that involved getting ministers of a town together to ask the candidate a bunch of questions and it's what you might expect what do you believe about scripture what do you believe about jesus whatever particular doctrine that denomination thinks is especially important but as they're getting to the end of this process one preacher asked the young candidate do you love people and robinson said you know i've heard there's no such thing as a stupid question but maybe that was i mean what do you think he's going to say uh no i don't love people i want to become a minister for the money no of course he's going to say i love people but he said you know i realized later it wasn't a stupid question because of the second question he said do you love people and the young candidates said yes i love people and the second question how do you know how do you know you love people because you hit like because you have thousands of digital friends listen post don't prove love presence does and that's why the church is essential because it provides a community where we can show up to serve and to love and to grow no church does it perfectly but when any church does it purposely the world gets a better picture of what jesus looks like and that's pretty essential pray with me please so god increase in all of us the desire to look more like jesus and holy spirit impress upon each of us this week what's one thing we could do to be more like jesus and give us god a greater affection for our church and the people that you have put in our church whether they're very much like me or not because they're your people and you have brought us together so that the world could get a better picture of jesus dear god help us make jesus look good and in his name we pray amen

Channel: The Hills Church

Views: 583

Rating: 4.6363635 out of 5

Keywords: God, Jesus, Essential, Why, Questions, World View, Why God, Church, Trust, uber, North Richland Hills, Texas, Rick Atchley, Hills Church, The Hills Church, Hard Life, Idea, What matters, Essential Church, Growth

Id: EaSEIVtwWW4

Length: 31min 44sec (1904 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 23 2021