Faith FULL | Part 4 | That Person

[Music] y'all are so quiet sitting out here i asked the van i said are they even alive goodness gracious thank you bill i yeah i should anyway okay hey everybody welcome back it's good to see everybody over in the west auditorium welcome back i hope you enjoyed justin over there kind of warming up the crowd um justin's got a lot of cool stuff going on we're going to tell you about in a couple weeks excited about that um if this is your first time with us and you're watching online we have something specifically for you even if you don't live in the atlanta area so make sure you go to the tab on your website if you're watching on the website and click um i'm new and we have stuff for people who live outside the atlanta area and then if you live here in the atlanta area we'd love to invite you to one of our atlanta area churches if you're in the building with me today and this is your first time we have an environment for you call connections and if you're over here with me just right out those doors to the right if you're in the west auditorium just exit left and it's a room just for people who are trying to find out more about our church and we're going to give you a free gift and it is a bribe i'll just say it up front we want to meet you we'd love for you to meet some of our staff to check out connections right after the service and speaking of guests i try to invite somebody to church every single week i just said come sit with me come sit with me this week sandra and i invited a couple who were on the phone talking about some stuff and this week i invited my dad and he came to church the legend yes um i got some of his brain power but not that wonderful voice but he said he said andy i'm tired of sitting at home on sunday i'm like it's bad for the preacher to sit at home on sunday so come to church so i'm so thrilled he's here and not a bit nervous about preaching in front of him anyway um so also um oh yeah we're doing this really cool thing that i got to tell you about um we're calling it a bike drive but it's a bike drive where you don't actually have to ride a bike in fact dravius told me your first bicycle was a mountain bike and you lived in florida yeah made no sense at all right yeah there's not a mountain to be seen anyway so what we're going to do we um every once in a while we go to the school systems and we study the school systems hey how can we serve you last time we asked i said we need books and if you'll remember you collected about 600 books for fulton county schools this time around they said you know what we need we need bicycles we need bicycles for children middle school and high school students to help get to work this summer to get to school um and and we just realized there are a lot of kids who don't have bicycles and it would be a life changer for them i said i didn't say it but our team our intersect team said we're on it so here's what we're gonna do for the next two weeks we're gonna collect bicycles in fact you saw some out there in the lobby so if you have a gently used bike don't bring us something that's rusted out that you've been wondering what to do with we're not interested okay gently use bike or a new bike or you go to walmart or target and buy a bicycle um we want to collect and i told our staff let's pray big we would like to collect 500 bicycles for fulton county schools now that's a lot of bicycles all you got to do is just bring them to the church all week long for the next two weeks drop them off on either side of the building we'll have some signs out now if you're watching online or you're thinking i don't have a bicycle i'd love to participate you can actually just donate money and 100 of this money is going to go toward bikes all you have to do is just go to northpoint.org slash bike drive in fact you can do it right now if you get bored with the sermon you can do it during the sermon but we want to provide the kids and underserved elementary schools and middle schools and high schools in fulton county with these bicycles but here is the real thing on may 16th is where we're gonna finish this may 16th sunday may 16th just happens to be my birthday so what i would like for my birthday and i haven't said this since i was eight years old i want 500 bicycles for my birthday and we're going to give them all away okay so bring your bikes buy your bikes we'll need them for all ages all sizes of bicycles and we're going to deliver these and give these to some kids make their summer better help them get back and forth from school so it's going to be a lot a lot a lot of fun so don't miss that opportunity and um if one more thing if you're here for the first time you need to know you're around some of the most generous open-minded you know get it done people in the whole city or whatever city you're that you're whatever campus you're watching from and our our mission is really simple is to inspire people to follow jesus and as we're going to discover today in the message jesus didn't simply invite people to believe things he invited people to do things because of what they believe so these kind of initiatives are things we do all year long so even if you're not a person of faith we would love you to participate with us in the things that we do in the community that make a real hands-on difference but at this time we're going to sing so john's going to come lead us in this first song let me tell you about these lyrics this is so cool the opening line of this song says this i was buried beneath my shame and all of us have had seasons of life where we did things that just kind of weighed on us and we thought people know and people are looking at me funny i was buried beneath my shame who could carry that kind of weight we weren't meant to carry that kind of weight it was my tomb until i met you and the great news of the gospel is that through the forgiveness we receive through jesus not only are our sins are forgiven our sins forgiven but the shame that goes with our sin is removed and our heavenly father looks at us not through a filter of shame but through a filter of love so stand up wave at somebody and john's gonna lead us in this first song here we go [Music] all right let's sing it together come on [Music] you could carry that kind of [Music] i was breathing but not alive and all my failures i try to hide [Applause] [Music] you call my name [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Music] my soul and now your freedom is all and i know you call my name out of the darkness is [Music] [Music] [Music] just one touch [Music] [Music] yeah just one word just one word you hear what's broken inside just [Music] my [Music] oh you can't break [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Applause] god [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] and bless the [Applause] [Music] like never [Music] and bless the lord [Music] like [Music] i will worship [Music] [Music] boredom we just pray that today is a reminder that no matter what we walked in here experiencing in our lives what circumstances were we're seeing that your name is worthy of our praise [Music] god and that there has never been a day where you have not been right by our side [Music] so lord we thank you and we praise you it's in your name i pray amen no more point thank you guys for singing with us y'all go ahead and have a seat [Music] [Music] so here's something that um we've all said um in some form or fashion at some point in all of our lives um i'm so glad i am so glad he showed up in my life when he did or um i i'm not sure i'm not sure i would have made it through without her or i wouldn't be i would not be where i am today apart from them if it wasn't for him if it wasn't for her if it wasn't for them as soon as i put these statements up here all of us can think about that one person or that group of people or a couple of people that you think wow if they had not shown up when they'd shown up or if they had not been in my life i certainly wouldn't be where i am today doing what i'm doing today obviously i would not be doing what i'm doing today without my dad i think a lot of us would say it was a parent or your parents that kind of set you up for success you're so grateful for your parents you weren't always so grateful for your parents but you are now others of us have had mentors in our lives charlie renfrow as a mutual friend of our family i was a mentor in my life charlie taught me so much about organizational life and how to navigate organizational complexity he used to walk in and we'd have breakfast he'd say andy what you working on big what you working on big and i wasn't working on anything big but he you know he helped me think big and when i think about the people in my life that kind of dropped in at the right time he's one um another guy who dropped into my life at a critical time was a guy named steve steve was my counselor and steve used to ask me these awful questions that just would drive me nuts and i would kind of have worked myself up into thinking oh no this is going to happen and that's going to happen this is going to happen this will never happen i would worry and then steve would he would say things like this he said andy do you do you think god's hands are tied what an awful wonderful question is that because i you know i had sort of predicted my own future and i'm sure things are going to work out he'd say things like do you think god's hand so again just came into my life at just the perfect time and then of course sandra my wife um you're going gonna think i'm just trying to be a sweet husband i probably promise i'm not exaggerating people who knew me before um sandra and i were married are so grateful for sandra here's what they say i promise i'm not exaggerating they would say we're sure we are sure he would not be where he is today apart from her and they are not wrong so i think all of us if you just given a couple of minutes you can think of those just in the nick of time or just at the right time people that just came into your life um they added something we needed in some cases they gave us opportunities we wouldn't have had in other cases they gave us insight or provided us with encouragement sometimes they just give us some perspective sometimes just hope sometimes correction sometimes confrontation and you didn't like it then but you look back and you're so grateful for it now and your life would be very different and those people had not just dropped in to your life so real quick anybody come to mind you ever thanked them do they know the role they played in your life and how pivotal it was for you we'll come back to that in just a minute today if you've been tracking along with us we are in part four of our series entitled faithful faithful fueling our faith in a world or fueling your faith in a world on empty and the premise behind this whole series is that in the first century when jesus invited people to follow him it became very evident that his agenda for his first century followers and for his 21st century followers is that they would be people and we would be people of extraordinary faith not the kind of faith that you just keep in your head but the kind of faith that shows up at home and shows up at work and shows up at the community faith that actually works itself out because of our internal confidence with god um faith that doesn't change things and change the faith that doesn't confront things is really not a very useful faith in fact as we saw james the brother of jesus said that kind of faith is dead it's actually useless and this explains this whole idea of an active gritty in the real world faith is why jesus or it explains jesus initial invitation to people his initial invitation was not believe me or even believe in me his initial invitation was follow me was follow me in fact and jesus never changed this invitation and if you are part of one of our churches or one of our faith communities we talk about this all the time that the invitation is actually to step into the real world and to step into the environments we live in and work in and play in and to live our faith out in such a way that people know there's something in our minds and in our heads and our hearts that perhaps is different and jesus never altered this invitation now as we said before the church came along and kind of watered it down and kind of dumbed it down and reduced the invitation of jesus to simply believe in me and yes jesus invited people to believe in him but he invited them to believe in him so that they would follow him and make a difference in the world that they lived in and if that wasn't the case the the church would have never survived the first century but the thing is about believe in me believe in me is easier right um believe in me requires less of us it's safer it's less demanding but that believe in me without follow me is an invitation that basically leaves us exactly where we are no change is required but jesus did not invite people to merely believe things or even believe things about him because as we know belief all by itself doesn't make a difference it's doing it's following that makes a difference in our lives and it's doing and it's following that makes a difference in the world in fact belief alone if it only stays in your head and never gets into the activity of your life actually creates a feeble frail and fragile faith in fact this may be why you've lost your faith because it was all right here and no one ever taught you what to do with it or you never tried to do anything with it and faith as we've said is a muscle you already have the muscle but if you don't exercise it it gets weaker and weaker and weaker and through the years you've met people and maybe this is partly your story over time they just lost faith they don't know how it happened they don't know when it happened they just realized one day i don't think i believe anymore and one of the reasons that happens in fact i think the primary reason is we're going to see today that that happens is if you don't exercise it it just goes away so jesus invited us to follow we're invited to wake up every single day this is so challenging some of you have begun doing this to wake up every single day with this question in fact i would challenge you to begin this if you haven't before you may want to take a screenshot or write your own version of this question to wake up every single day with this question what would i do not just what would i believe what would i do how would i live how would i respond how would i react what would i attempt what would i initiate what would i avoid how would i respond to her i know how i have responded i know how i have responded to him but how would i act what would i do if i was confident if i was absolutely confident that god is with me that's what it looks like to walk by faith as we said last time walking by faith isn't coming up with some ideas and imposing them on god walking by faith is stepping into the real world as if god is who jesus revealed our heavenly father to be so in this series we are asking and hopefully answering this question what fuels what fuels or facilitates the development of active enduring faith in other words if we're to be people of great faith not just head faith but active faith what is it that creates that kind of faith that go the distance faith that in spite of faith that follow jesus anyway kind of faith what are the essential ingredients that if we stirred them together would create in us the kind of faith that we've seen in other people i'm going to tell you a story about one in just a minute the kind of faith that we see in people that gets them through very very difficult times and you watch them navigate those difficult times with faith and you think what i think what would i do if i were in their situation what would i do if that happened to me how would i respond if i had that kind of loss or suffered that kind of tragedy and as we said through the series based on the teaching and what jesus the teaching of jesus and what jesus modeled and based on literally hundreds of conversations with men and women who have maintained strong faith gritty faith throughout their life we've come to the conclusion that there are at least five things that god uses to grow up and blow up our faith um five things again there may be seven there may be ten but every time people tell their faith story they always 100 of the time they always get to all five of these things so we decided to unpack each of these five and uh two weeks ago we started with the first one practical teaching we said that when anybody ever anybody tells their faith story they always talk about the first time someone opened the scripture for them in such a way that they knew what to do with what they believed and so many times in so many churches unfortunately it's all about changing your thinking or it's different ideas or it's thoughts or theology but faith begins to grow when we begin to act on our faith and for so when people tell their stories they say hey i you know i believed a lot of stuff but then i went to this church and the pastor opened up the scripture in such a way that i knew what to do with it or i went to a campus ministry when i was in college and they opened up the scripture and for the first time i knew what to do with it i knew how to date i i knew how to respond to people i learned to be generous i learned to put my character ahead of my wants and my wishes i i finally discovered what faith looks like in the real world so practical teaching is one of the things that god uses to grow up our faith um because until we have handles and until we have application we don't know what to do and here's why it works we talked about this when our faith when our active faith intersects with god's faithfulness on the back end our faith grows that is when we experience god on the back end of a decision that we've made in terms of following jesus when we've done something sacrificial for somebody else when we've trusted god with the relationship trusted god with our finances on the back end when we experience his faithfulness our faith grows then last time we talked about this second what we sometimes refer to as faith catalyst and we talk specifically about personal ministry when people tell their story about their faith they say yeah i remember the first time i felt the nudge to serve somebody else to step in and lead a group to go on a mission trip to begin giving consistently to begin serving other people and i didn't feel adequate i didn't feel prepared i knew they were going to ask me questions i couldn't answer i knew the kids in the class were smarter than me i knew i was going to be around a bunch of adults who'd been a christian longer than me but i just i just felt this nudge and when i stepped into that environment of serving other people in jesus name something happened on the inside of me my faith grew god came through and when god came through my faith grew so today we're going to talk about the third of five things that god uses to grow our faith and we refer to it as providential relationships providential relationships when anyone tells their faith story and if you were to stand up and tell your faith story every faith story has this component of and then i met this girl then i met this guy then i met this couple um then we had these new neighbors that moved in and we found out they were christians and it kind of freaked us out a little bit but they were like the nicest kindest people then they invited our kids to their church and we thought we need to check that out and then we've become people of faith and it was it was like god dropped them into our lives um maybe your story is that your mom remarried and your stepfather your new dad was a christian and you were introduced to faith but when any people and people tell their stories they always talk about then i met these people then these people came into my life somebody invited me to their small group this group of girls in my college campus invited me to a small group i'm like what's a small group sounds kind of strange but it was in that small group that i was introduced to faith in jesus or maybe a coach i mean it goes on and on and on but the point is this when you consider your story and when you consider those people in your story it's as if god dropped them into your story right it's like he dropped them right into your life at just the right time and in the moment you don't know that but as you look back and you think about what a defining moment that was for you when you think about the change that happened because of that relationship you can't help but feel that it was it was somewhat providential it was like it was like it was divine intervention in fact it may have been an intervention right a couple of friends showed up said we got to talk to you and you knew what they wanted to talk about and you did not want to talk about it and they talked about it to you anyway and it was a reversal for you a change for you and as much as you resisted and as angry as you were because they were sticking their nose in your business you look back now and you think you know what you say those were some of the best friends i ever had that was providential god brought them along at just the right time and i don't know where i would be today if it weren't for those two guys for those two girls for that group of people now the other side of this is a lot of you many of you maybe all of you have actually played this role in somebody else's life but you didn't know it you were just being a good friend you were just being a good boss you were just being a good citizen you were just doing what you knew to do but when those people tell their story you're in their story because god brought you in and dropped you into their life at just the right time but for the person on the other side of your defining of their of your defining moment you know the person that god dropped into their life again we don't know when it's happening we always know in retrospect we only know when we're looking back now defining moment you know what a defining moment is it's that moment you look back and think wow it defined me for good or bad defining moments always always involve other people they always involve some sort of relationship again either good or bad i'm so glad i met them or i wish i had never met them right so we shouldn't be surprised we shouldn't be surprised that one of the things that god uses consistently to grow up and blow up our faith are relationships um because this is actually how christianity began you know how christianity began it began like this that god sent his son into the world as one of us to interact with us to change us that's that's the gospel that the whole christian story began that the word god was made flesh he became one of us showed up on planet earth and began intersecting with the lives of people and anybody whose life intersected with jesus it was a defining moment it was clearly providential because jesus had been sent from god and then those people began to intersect with other people's lives and again those were defining moments providential relationships as well i want to tell you about one real quick it's kind of one of my little favorite little jesus narratives that doesn't get a lot of attention um jesus comes to a gentleman a young guy named philip and he says philip i want you to follow me and he invited peter andrew james and john he says philip i want you to follow me and philip instead of just saying okay i'll follow you philip says okay but i need you to wait here for just a minute and philip goes and he gets his buddy nathaniel and he says nathanael you're not going to believe this we have met the messiah and nathanael's like sure you have sure you have i mean we've been waiting for the messiah for hundreds of years you haven't met the messiah besides who is this messiah and philip's like no no it's jesus of nazareth and nathanael's like no the messiah doesn't come from nazareth in fact nothing good comes from nazareth nazareth can anything good come from there so he this is jesus hometown i mean nathanael is just not interested at which point philip if he were like most of us would be like okay you just stay here and have your little itty-bitty insignificant life i'm going to go follow jesus we're going to change the world my name's going to be in the bible your name's going to be nowhere okay so that would have been that would have been the logical thing to do i'm gonna follow jesus i gave you a chance okay for the rest of your life you're gonna look back on this deal you should have bought google stock and you should have followed jesus okay but you missed it okay so anyway um instead of that philip's not gonna give up you know what he does this is so powerful philip says okay look nathaniel i don't know about the nazareth thing i don't know about where the messiah is supposed to come from but i'm just telling you look look come and see this is the greatest invitation just i can't answer your questions i can't explain it just come and see and nathanael meets jesus and recognizes who jesus is and nathanael thanks phillip for the rest of his life because he had a ringside seat nathaniel got a ringside seat to what god was doing in the world to bring about the salvation of the world and he would have missed it if it hadn't been fulfilled and philip almost allowed him to miss it but he just didn't say he just wouldn't give up and don't you know i mean every time jesus did something amazing that you know nathaniel would turn to phillip and say i'm so glad you invited me i'm so glad you invited my i almost missed it now that little piece of narrative reminds me of something that happened to to me and to to sandra and to me that i want to tell you about years ago many years ago a couple moved from the northeast to alpharetta around here where we live and their neighbor nick realized they weren't church people they weren't faith people and didn't seem to be interested so nick decided to invite them to his church he didn't attend one of our churches he had attended a church in their community so he invited them church tim the husband was like i don't know carla was a little more open but you know nick just stayed on top of it so he finally got them to attend their church they went and then they came went to a couple of special events tim the husband's like i really don't want to do the church thing and carla was trying to be polite to the neighbor so after four or five or six visits to their church tim and carla said nick thank you but no thank you we appreciate it and just no more that well if you're nick you're thinking i get extra credit i invited my neighbors to church and they didn't want to go to church but god you know i've been persecuted for my faith and rejected and you know will forget this right you know what nick did this is amazing nick was so convinced that tim and carla needed faith in their life he said okay well i want to take you to a different church and nick and tim's like i don't want to go to any church not even a different church no church carla was like okay and nick just stayed on time and so nick invited carla to north point community church brought her to the nine o'clock service then on the way back to drop her off had to explain what they had just experienced because this was really different than anything she'd experienced in church before drops her off and then he went to his church and the next sunday he did the same thing and the next day this went on for so long for so long their two kids said to their dad daddy where does mr nick and mommy go every sunday morning this is kind of strange true story so eventually carla brought the kids and nick would just go to his own church afterwards he wasn't trying to change churches he just felt like this couple needs to be in church his family needs to be church carla brought the kids the kids got involved and loved it finally tim like whatever so tim began to come to north point and as carla said to me this is a quote when i called her this week to make sure i had all these facts straight she said and andy the rest is history they got super involved i met him on the baseball field his oldest son and my oldest son andrew um have become lifelong friends their friends to this day went to the same high school we're in the same small group here tim joined a guest services team they both just got super involved they joined our small group in fact i heard this story in our community group when we were going around sharing stories how did you you know get into church what's your faith story that's that's the story they told the talk about nick so we've become lifelong friends and then in 2013 tim was diagnosed with als this horrible horrible terrible disease that you know about and his doctor said you have three to five years to live tim so our community group became you know the the tim group we were team tim and carla we're just gonna carry them through this awful time that was 2013. um tim is still alive today um so but during that time as we watched him slowly deteriorate i'm telling you watching his faith and watching carla's faith is one of if not the most inspiring things that has happened to me as an adult as it relates to my faith in fact uh several years ago we our parts of our community group would go do the als walk or the walk to defeat als so one year when i was there i took this picture i want to show you this picture i took with my phone this is not tim this is tim and i saw tim coming and this is a buddy that was in his his a support group that has since passed away tim saw us he's walking over then he saw his buddy and he immediately so emotional to me went down on one knee and just took him in his arms and tim pastored his als support group i think all of them have passed away he is the lone survivor he's like the survivor he's like the granddaddy of the bunch he's since lost his voice i'll tell you more about that just a minute but watching his faith and watching his love for these men and women but primarily men who are are navigating this dreadful dreadful disease i'm telling and sitting in a small group in fact tim you know als generally starts low and goes high or high and goes low for tim it started high so he early on began to lose his voice and as it was more and more difficult to understand when tim spoke he said to me one time he said andy he said i would like to lead our small group as much as possible until i can no longer lead it that's tim tim's on a guest services team i told you about some of you know tim tim kept trying to quit the guest services team because he was it was you know it's hard to understand it was difficult for him to walk as time's gone has gone by i'm only laughing because he told the most hilarious stories and and the guest services team here wouldn't let him quit like tim you are you're coming you're going to show up we're going to give you a vest finally he couldn't walk and he couldn't talk so they they put him in a golf cart with a middle school girl they said you drive she'll do the talking and there are some of the things that happened that it would take too long for me to describe that are so funny because he has maintained his sense of humor in the midst of this dreadful dreadful jesus i'm just telling you for the folks in our community group that have walked this walk with him our faith is bigger and our faith is richer and our faith is more gritty and real worldly watching them maintain their faith in god through these difficult difficult times that's the power of providential relationship but again we couldn't have chosen that we don't you don't choose a providential relationship in fact you can't create a providential relationship if you created it you it wouldn't be providential right but here's the thing we should all and we can all be proactive in getting into relationships with people whose faith informed their decisions and whose faith informed their responses to the difficulties of life this is the part we can do because being in proximity as we're going to see in just a few minutes is one of the things we can do to ensure that our faith grows because of who we're doing life with now the author of hebrews leans in on this weighs in on this hebrews is a book in the new testament it's not actually a book it's like a long complicated sermon we just call it a book because it's part of the new testament we don't know who wrote hebrews you probably know that probably a man and in one section of hebrews the author is urging these galileans and these judeans these sons and daughters of abraham not to give up their faith in yeshua and jesus and messiah so they believed in god but they were new to faith in jesus so he's urging them don't give up don't give up don't give up your don't give up your faith and so here's what he says as he uh as he you know urges them to hang on he writes this he writes let us talking about that faith community primarily jewish believers let us hold love this word unswervingly we've all driven swervingly this is unswervingly let us hold unswervingly that is a straight direct line to the hope we profess for he who promised and here's our word is faithful he's like you can't you can't let go of your faith and god if you let go of your faith in god where are you going to place your hope because god has done something right here among us this was written in the first century there are still eyewitnesses of the resurrection he's like you can't you can't let go of your faith because he who is has promised is faithful but they were going through very difficult times so consequently he's like hey don't give up don't give up and then he says this in order to facilitate in order to facilitate us holding on unswervingly he says this and let us consider that is let us think about it contemplate let us focus on let us consider how we may and here it is spur one another on he's like if your faith is going to remain rock solid if you're going to maintain your faith you're going to need some other people and some other people are gonna need you he says i want you to give some thought to how you can spur other people on in their faith and then this is this is the great part but not just faith that's here he says toward love and good deeds in other words he's saying i want you to help each other live out your faith in the real world why because when our faith intersects with god's faithfulness on the back end our faith gets bigger so he's like i want you to spur one another on i want you to get in each other's face i want to make sure you're still getting together and i want you to hang on to faith and i want you to hang on to faith in such a way that it shows up in the real world and then he says this in fact what he says next is the verse of scripture that i'm sure over a hundred people texted me voice mailed me emailed me during 2020 not giving up meeting together in fact some of you emailed me this verse andy we're supposed to not give up meeting together which is always curious to me and i was not rude to anyone but here's what i thought do you really think we've abandoned giving up together do you know how many chairs we own we own more chairs in all of our atlanta area churches than any other organization i know about we have not abandoned giving up together we just took a pause we just took a break but anyway lots of people sent me this first which is always curious to get verses from people like oh i've never seen that my whole life okay but anyway those are what things i think not the things i say except to you okay so let me read it again not giving up not giving up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing but in here it is again but encouraging one another now here's the question why this is this is huge why well why when it comes to our faith and when it comes to our faithfulness and when it comes to recognizing god's faithfulness to us this is so important when it comes to our faith the the you know the grit and the reality of our faith when it comes to our faithfulness that is doing the things we feel nudged on the inside to do and when it comes to experiencing god's faithfulness proximity matters proximity matters proximity and relationship are faith builders now here's here's my observation and this may be your story in fact this what i'm about to say next may explain why you've lost faith or why you're losing faith here's my observation that people that people drift from their community of faith people drift from their community of faith before they drift away from faith that people don't drift away from faith because they read a richard dawkins book or they heard something in a freshman class in school it's like suddenly boom faith is gone i mean those things happen i mean there's an intellectual side to faith no doubt about it we talk about those things all the time here but in terms of actual experience people tend to drift away from their community of faith before they drift away from faith and this is what the author of hebrews is getting at or let me just say it this way people lose faith when they lose contact with people of faith now here's this is important this doesn't make something true or not true in other words being with people doesn't make something true and not being with people doesn't make it untrue you're smart enough to know that it has nothing to do with reality it has to do with our faith it has to do with our confidence in and if you allow yourself or i allow myself to drift away from my community of faith it's only a matter of time that i until i begin to lose faith because proximity when it comes to faith matters because allowing god watching god work in other people's lives is one of the things that bolsters our faith we realize we're not an island we realize we're not on our own we realize we're not the only one and all this points to why relationships are critical to growing enduring faith put it this way when we see this is what happened to us with tim and carla when we see god's faithfulness in somebody else's life it's easier to trust him with ours when we see god's sustaining grace when we see god sustaining faith when we see god's activity in someone else's life in someone else's circumstances when we see it in other people it is easier to trust him with ours especially when we're walking through a valley or especially when things aren't working out and things aren't up to the right now most of us as i said at the beginning while most of us have experienced this in some sort of unexpected out of the blue kind of providential way again there is something we can do to facilitate this faith catalyst there's something we should do we actually have a role to play and that role is simply this we got to stay connected we got to stay connected staying connected to a community of faith grows and sustains and builds our faith and here's the amazing thing and it positions us to play a role in someone else's faith journey as well now when we started our church 25 years ago we knew about these faith five faith callous because of work we had done with students for many many many years so we organized our church around these five and we organized specifically to providential relationships we knew that we couldn't program a relationship and you certainly can't program or organize a providential relationship but we could organize to increase the potential of a providential relationship this is why we do community groups this is why we want you in small groups it's not just so you'll have something to do you've got enough to do but we want you doing life with other believers so you can experience their faith and they can experience yours again i cannot imagine the loss it would be to me not to know tim and carla live it would be a loss to me which sounds selfish but i'm just telling you apart from community group and being in group with him we would not have had this journey with them together and they would tell you they're not sure where they'd be without our group and the support that we've been through them we didn't plan that we just planned let's put people in groups and as people have grouped up these things just happen and many of you could stand to tell your own story the other thing we did from the beginning um and we were the first church that i know of to do this a lot of churches do it now with our children our middle school and our high school students when you serve and many of you signed up to serve last week we're so excited about that we still love to have more of you we connect adults and high school seniors or high school students all the time to children and the group leaders for children stay with those children three or four years the reason is because the relationship is as are or more important than the content when somebody plugs in with a middle schooler in the sixth grade our goal is for those adults to stay with those middle schoolers sixth seventh and eighth grade because the relationship is as or more important than the content the same with high school and so consequently we've been doing this for so long the stories we hear not about the content oh i'll never forget when they shared that one story i mean we get some of that mostly what we get is she was so influential in my life i don't know where i would be without him i'm so glad he was in my life because my parents they lost their minds but he fortunately my small group leader kind of helped me place all that into context and i can't even begin to remember all the parents through the years who have said i'm so glad i'm so glad my son my daughter had that small group leader for those years so again we've done everything we know to do organizationally and programmatically to facilitate the potential of providential relationships because providential relationships is one of the big five things that god uses to grow our faith and the payoff in terms of spiritual maturity has been absolutely huge so let me just say this to you parents okay you you i don't want to say you're crazy not to because that's too strong but as a parent who raised three kids in these environments you're you do yourself a disfavor not to have your kids here not so we can count kids we're not winning awards we're not competing with anybody it's just that your kids faith is contingent upon your faith to some extent but also the faithful adults that are around them that's why we do what we do and it's why as i said earlier i encourage you to invite people to come sit with you come sit with me this is potentially a life-changing invitation it really is a single invitation think about this a single invitation you never know i never know a single invitation could position you as a catalyst in someone's faith story a single invitation a single come sit with me come sit with me could be the first step in somebody rediscovering their faith invite someone why not you never know what's on the other side of that invitation and here's the thing when you make that awkward invitation and they eventually show up and then one day you sit here and you watch them baptized do you know what's going to happen to your faith it will not get smaller it will get bigger because that's the power of providential relationships and it's one of the primary things god uses to grow up and blow up our faith again we never i say this to you all the time we never know what hangs in the balance of our decision to obey god and trust god and we never know what hangs in the balance of our courage to say something and to invite someone now in our student ministry 9th through 12th grade we tell students all the time your friends determine the direction and quality of your life your friends determine the direction and quality of your life your friends determine the direction and quality of your life if you're sitting here thinking wow i wish somebody would tell my kids that okay anyway your friends determine direction and quality of your life but what's true for 14 year olds it's true for 40 year olds the people that we choose to do life with influence and impact the strength and the endurance of our faith and the depth of our faith again because when we see god's faithfulness when we see god's faithfulness in someone else's life it's easier to trust him it's so much easier to trust him with ours when we when we trust god with our lives our faith gets bigger stronger and more enduring and we only trust god oftentimes when we have the courage to step out and trust god in unusual ways because we've seen somebody else do it so here's the last challenge for you if during this season for whatever reason intentionally or unintentionally you've become you've begun or you've gotten unplugged from a faith community with people who believe like you do and are moving in the direction and value what you value you need to get reconnected even if it's a little awkward you need to get reconnected for the sake of your faith and if you're a parent for the sake of your kids faith because they're watching and if you know someone if you know someone who needs to get connected you should make that call you should send that email you should invite them into your group you have again you have no idea who needs a simple invitation and you have no idea what's on the other side of that simple invitation but here's what will happen if you make the invitation when they tell their faith story they're going to talk about you and who knows when you tell your faith story you may end up talking about them because god uses community proximity matters when we see god's faithfulness in someone else's life it is easier it is so much easier to trust him with ours and we will pick it up right there next time when we talk about the fourth thing that god uses to grow our faith but before you go i know you'll be shocked to know i have how many questions three questions for you right i'd love for you to talk about these in the car over lunch over dinner or in your small group this week if you're tracking along with the series in your community group question number one can you think of someone that god providentially brought into your life at just the right time and initially did you resist their input and why number two you may be hesitant to acknowledge this but have you played that role in somebody else's life have you been the person that they would look back on and say wow i'm so glad god brought you into their life and were you reluctant initially it's like i don't know if i should say anything i don't know if i should invite him i don't think they'd be interested were you reluctant why why why are we so reluctant sometimes and number three going back to where we began the discussion today are the people whose stories are the people whose stories shape and strengthen your faith aware of the role that they've played in your life and have you told them now this is a big deal and i'm done you should tell them there are people that you haven't heard from or spoken to in a year two years five years ten years and when you tell their your faith story you mention them they may not even know they're in your story and they may need to hear that because of what's going on in their current story so an email a letter a phone call even a text you have no idea what role that simple thank you might play in their faith journey because one of the things that god uses to strengthen and grow our faith is our relationship with other jesus followers i don't want you to miss that opportunity i want all of us to be in somebody else's story just like others have been a big part of ours i'll pray for us then we'll take off father thank you thank you thank you thank you for the men and women you've brought into all of our lives and somebody came to my lord for all of us even people here today who aren't people of faith there's there's just people so i pray that this week we would take the time to thank them because we have no idea what a big deal that might be father thank you for sending jesus to intersect personally with our lives thank you for becoming one of us so we could know what you're like and not have to spend our entire lives guesting and wondering thank you that the word became flesh and dwelt among us and faced every temptation and every sorrow and heartache that we would ever face and thank you for the courage that gives us to just keep putting one foot in front of the other father thanks for the time to gather today and to worship we love you we're super grateful in jesus name amen [Music] um if you're troubled heavy hearted [Music] come to jesus and find your peace if you'll run down empty-handed come to jesus and find your strength if you're one train in the darkness [Music] come to jesus and find your way just come to jesus and find his grace [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] we thank you guys so much for worshiping with us let's say you can clap thank you guys so much for worshiping with us we send you off with joy peace and restoration in jesus name amen y'all have a great week [Music] you

Channel: North Point Community Church

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Keywords: North Point Community Church, North Point, NorthPoint, North Point Atlanta, Andy Stanley, AndyStanley, Andy Stanley church, Andy Stanley message, Andy Stanley sermons, North Point church, NPCC, North Point youtube, Andy Stanley YouTube

Id: Fy_lIlocV8Q

Length: 56min 22sec (3382 seconds)

Published: Mon May 03 2021