More Than a Bible Study | Romans 12:9-13

[Music] if you have a copy of scripture you take it out it turns me to romans chapter 12. you guys know we started a brand new sermon series last week called made for more here was the big tag line if you weren't here this will get catch you up uh but if you were here it'll be a good a quick reminder the path to christian growth isn't easy but it is simple okay uh it's not i'm not saying that it's easy but it is not complicated you know many times humans have a way of taking what actually is simple and making it very complex and thereby we're able to sort of you know release ourselves from kind of the burden of it you know i'll give you another quick example of this uh sleeping well at night is not easy but it is also not complicated there are a few things that people can do to sleep well at night all right uh you know you take a cold shower at night make sure you got a pitch black room at night exercise during the day okay and to watch no screens one hour before you go to bed now i'm not saying okay that those things are easy i mean not watching screens before you go to bed during college football season i need help okay i mean to not be able to do that but my point is i'm not saying it's easy but it is simple all right it's not that complex if we will do those things we will go far down the road of health and sleep i'm not saying that's all there is to be done either okay i'm not saying there's not other things that you can do but what i am saying is those four things will take you a long way down the road of being able to sleep well and that's very similar to what we've been looking at last week and this week and the next two when it comes to our christian growth okay i am not saying that these are the only things in the world that will make you grow in your faith are the only things in the world that you ever need to do what i am saying is that when we lean into these four we will go way down the road of christian growth and maturity here's the four this is the acts 2 flywheel that mercy hill has been leaning into for about nine years now gather groups give go when we gather on the weekend we hear the word taught when we get in groups we get the life caught part of discipleship hey it's not just a theory now we're working out on our life and talking to each other about what's going on and how we can you know do better and where we need to be shaped if we want to grow in our spiritual life if we want to get deep not just wide but deep if we want a spiritual base not saying this is all we ever need to do but i am saying that man and this is a bold statement okay if you never did anything else but you leaned all the way into these four you would grow you would move now god's got to bring the growth he's got to bring the desire okay we're not going and checking boxes and all that i'm talking about getting all the way in the pool if you get all the way in the stream you'll move in the current of christian growth and maturity today we're going to talk about the second part of this flywheel and that is groups okay we're going to talk about relationships friendships i want to show you today that christian fellowship big idea is about more than friendship okay there is something about christian fellowship being part of the body spiritually speaking there is something about loving one another and practicing hospitality with you know with the stranger there's something about outdoing one another in honor that goes way beyond friendship i don't know that i got to convince anybody that we need friends okay i mean we all sort of know that we look for friends at work we look for friends at the gym all right every high school kid in the world before they walk in they want to know who they're going to sit with at the lunchroom table i mean we know that we need friends uh in our life i think a year and a half of kind of social distance and and saying hey you actually have to get away from each other has has done uh you know gone a long way improving i think emotionally and spiritually and and relationally that no we actually are meant to be together like we it's a loss when we're not together we know that relationship is something that we need i thought about this because i saw an article uh about soul cycle or crossfit okay or one of these kind of kind of things like this where you get a group together and you and you kind of do the workout and all that and what the article was saying was a lot of people we know this i mean the western church a lot of people have left the church and there's a decline uh sort of in church attendances maybe nationwide but a lot of people have what they used to rely on for relationship they've kind of gone and now try to find somewhere else so what do you see in crossfit or what do you see in soul cycle it's a group of friends trying to accomplish a mission together with a pastor i mean soul cycle coach that is there right and that person is kind of coaching them along and it's sort of become a substitute my point is you still need the building block we understand we're made to be relational one of these soul cycle coaches by the way said man they didn't prepare me when i was getting my soul cycle certificate that i would get text messages at four in the morning that asked if this person in my class should divorce their husband or wife like they didn't cover that part it's like people are my point is you've left the church but you're still looking for a group that's on a mission with a shepherd you know you can't get away from that we are built to be in a group that's on a mission that is guided okay hey this is where we're trying to go we can't get away from that what i want to talk to you about today is that man the actual thing that we're looking for maybe you're looking for it today is that we need fellowship not just friendship if the goal of your life is comfort and have a little bit of fun while we're going around the sun before it's all over then go get some golfing buddies or a running club but if the goal of your life is to not waste it if the goal of your life is to not live your entire life having never known the very purpose for which god created you and to step into it now that's what you're trying to get and that's what you're accomplishing if that's the goal of your life now you need more than golfing buddies okay you know why because you were made for more than that if you were made for more you need more you need christian fellowship to grow to practice out doing honor to practice the love that we have been seen that we have seen you know and that's what we're gonna get into today all right the gospel pushes us to that i'm gonna push us to that i'm gonna push you to get in a small group getting a community group at mercy hill this is gonna be our time together let's dive in romans chapter 12 starting in verse one here's what he says i appeal to you therefore brothers by the mercies of god to present your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to god which is your spiritual worship do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of god what is good and acceptable and perfect now quick quick note here okay the the community part of this sermon is going to start in verse 9. and so i'm going to do that in just a second okay but before i do that we've got to talk about romans 12 1 and 2 and orient ourselves in the bible and this is where we're at in the bible okay in the bible the book of romans greatest theological treaties in the world by the time you get to romans chapter 12 here's what you learn righteous uh living it kind of flows from the gospel the truth in our life of god's grace and mercy breaks through into the practical a very theological way of saying this would say orthodoxy leads to orthopraxy okay if you got the gospel right it will end up getting your life right the mercies of god will break through into your actions if you get your heart right it'll it'll end up messing with what you do with your hands okay that that's the idea here and when you get to the book of romans he preaches the gospel chapter after chapter and lays out this incredible argument for the gospel and for what jesus has done in god's grace by the mercies of god but then he says this because of the mercies of god every day of your life should be a sacrifice to god every day of your life should be handed over to god the summary here i think you can say it like this is that this is the response to god's grace if you understand what jesus did man because of my sin i deserve the wrath of god jesus took the wrath of god on my behalf in his resurrection i give the chance to live the newness of life if i put my faith in him once you understand that it's it's like this because jesus lived and died for me now i want to live and die for him the right response to jesus laying his life down for you is that you would be willing to lay your life down for him that nothing would be held back now this is important okay because when he gets into sacrifice here i don't want anybody to get the thought that you're sacrificing yourself because of your own sin jesus was sacrificed for our sin okay he went to the cross for our sin the only hope we have to be right before god is that the blood the song we sang the blood is applied to us but the imagery here of sacrifice is not you sacrificing and making atonement for your sin it's just the simple fact that the point of a living sacrifice is that nothing is held back my heart is so alive with love for god man look what god has done for me in the face of his son jesus christ on the cross that now i am bursting with desire i want to hand my life over to him and hold nothing back jesus stood in our place on the cross he sacrificed his life for our sins so we live as a sacrifice to him that's the idea right so everything is handed over the point is this after the gospel we have a new orientation in our life you know comfort and safety can't be the goal anymore if it was golf and buddies and running club there's a new orientation that orientation is i want everything over to be handed over and i want god to use me and i want god to have his way in my life look at verse two do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind we could preach multiple sermons on that okay here's what i'll show you that by testing you may discern what is the will of god what is good and acceptable and perfect don't be conformed be transformed maybe we could talk about that preach your standalone sermon on that but what i want you guys to talk here for just a minute is this idea of okay after the gospel after you're handing yourself over to god what is this perfect will for your life that you are supposed to test and discern okay actually if you get back into the original language this idea of test and discern it it's it's it's more like this i'm testing and discerning to see if it's worth it i want to know the value of my life lived out in the middle of god's will and what he's saying is you test and discern what is god's will for your life and and here's the deal i think many times and i've preached on this before many times christians man we get this weird idea of god's will like it's this kind of you know like you need a spiritual decoder ring to figure out god's will for your life okay and uh people are looking around and they're thinking man where you know god am i supposed to do this job or that job are you supposed to go to this college or that college and you're looking for all these answers for god's will in your life and you're looking in a bowl of cheerios and asking god to spell it out and all he ever says is ooh okay and it's it's kind of like man i you know god's will god's will god's will y'all you don't need to find god's will for your life because it was never lost it's not a lost and found okay god what he's saying here is it's not go find god's will it's are you gonna test it and discern if you're willing to give everything over to it if it's worth it to you all right so what it says you know what the bible says in first thessalonians 4 is that for this is the will of god the will of god in your life is your sanctification it is your christian growth it is not about which job it's about the type of character you're going to have in whatever job you are all right it's not about which college to go to it's about how are you going to rock that campus for god's will you know for god's glory whenever it is that you get there that's the idea of god's will it's his growing you are we testing and discerning it's worth it to be grown god's way you could say it like this what is god's will for your life god's will is that you would grow in your faith and make an impact for the kingdom that's what his will is that's first thessalonians 4 3 that is sanctification now why do i bring all that up and why do we lay all that groundwork before i've ever said anything about community here's why because part of testing god's will part of deciding to throw yourself into god's vision for your life is totally bound up in the relationships that are around you if you're gonna live a life that is totally given over if you're gonna live a life that is sacrificial to god if you're gonna live a life that is in the very center of his will it is going to be done with a lot of other people around you where they are pouring into you and you are pouring into them and they are seeing blind spots in you and pointing them out and you are seeing blind spots in them and pointing them out and spurring them on and stirring them and rubbing them and irritating them a little bit and we're all going to end up going in the right direction if we will get together and that's what we're going to see now right part of god's will for your life is to practice christian love to practice hospitality okay to practice outdoing each other and showing honor and it's gonna happen in a group it's gonna happen in a smaller group of people all right who are loving one another in this way okay it's like the old hymn that many of us may have sung growing up have thine own way lord have thine own way though i am thou art the potter and i am the clay mold me and make me after thy will that's not about which college or or you know what job you're supposed to take this is about who god is making you to be that's his will for your life and if you want god to mold you according to his will what i'm going to argue now for the rest of this sermon is you can't do that alone all right and and none of us have to there's a church right now with a website called regroup okay that is saying hey we have organized environments to get to organic relationships that you can jump into and not have to do this christian life alone skip down to verse 9 with me all right i don't have time guys to comment on every single thing in this in this rich passage in romans but i want to point some things out about the christian community about love about honor all right about hospitality let's point some of those things out i think we're going to be able to see pretty easily man that we can't do this stuff alone let love be genuine abort what is evil hold fast to what is good love one another with brotherly affection outdo one another in showing honor let your love be genuine all right now when he says let your love be genuine i think that goes to show us pretty quick that if he's calling our love to be genuine love can be fake okay it can be fake it can be self it can be selfish instead of selfless it can be sentimental it can be pretentious it can be showy and what paul is calling us here in romans he's saying hey let your love be the real thing void of deception void of hypocrisy let it be the real thing let it be a selfless act you say what is love well jesus got at it pretty good when he said greater love hath no man than this then somebody would lay their life down for their friend in john 15. it's a serving love it is a selfless love our student pastor tanner hogue last week when he was preaching to the students said it like this love is a passionate pursuit of someone else's good with no strings attached church you better get your students in a small group you better get them over there to hear him preach okay with the student ministry because it's on fire and with preaching like that the idea is a selfless love okay now love that is genuine is easily detected harvard did a study uh consequently right after covid and surprise surprise what they're saying is that loneliness in our nation is up 40-something percent okay deep loneliness and what they said was that uh these these groups that are really affected by loneliness they went and they kind of interviewed them and one of the people said this they said about half of the lonely people in the survey reported that not a single person in the last few weeks had taken more than just a few minutes to ask them how they were doing listen in a genuine way that really caught me because we all say to each other how you doing but what these lonely people were able to articulate is there was something that had nothing to do with the selfless love that should be found in the fellowship of faith all right it wasn't genuine man now we and we can man we can see it even unbelievers can see it i mean i know there's i know there are sociopaths out there that can fake this stuff pretty good okay but generally speaking you know when somebody is self-serving or when the love is genuine what the bible is calling us to is love in a genuine way man how can you how can you command somebody to love how can the bible just say love in a genuine way because we have been loved in a genuine way we have been loved in a selfless way i mean jesus selflessly went all the way to the cross because of our sin in order to bring us into a relationship with him and if we stare before that it helps us to be able to love in this way look at verse 10 i can't comment on every single thing here okay love one another with brotherly affection out do one another in showing honor a genuine love is an affectionate love there is words there are thoughts there is even physical touch okay that goes into being affectionate with one another within the body of christ you could say it like this christian love isn't stoic we should treat each other in the way that a good family an affectionate family treats each other you know we have hey i want us to celebrate this across all of our campuses 30 new people came through the weekender and are plugging into groups and serving we praise god for that just last weekend all right so we praise god for that excited to have you guys jumping in and figuring out how to use your gifts and all of that every time we're at the weekend or pastor bobby use the same metaphor or use the use the same kind of kind of teaching point where he says hey the greatest metaphor by in terms of numerically in the new testament for the church is the metaphor of family it's this idea of us being a family that the world would look in and they would see stuff in our relationships and they would say man that's weird because you would think that would only happen with family so i'll give you an example i heard a story of one of our community groups just last week where there was a family that got connected to a community group in wahlberg even though they lived in mcleansville okay and they got so deeply involved in this group that just a few months ago they've moved from mcleansville to wahlberg to be in the immediate vicinity of their community group now a lot of people would look in at that and they would say that's weird you would think only family would do that the church is a family it's supposed to be a family all right it's supposed to have a brotherly affection that is to it now i know listen when i say brotherly affection there are some dudes in here that are immediately like man affection's a cuss word okay like i'm not affectionate i don't know how to you know words and i'm already feeling weird you're just talking about this well let me give a quick aside here i don't have time for this the church isn't immune to manhood misinformation okay you guys know this a lot of times in churches when we talk about manhood you get one of depending on what church you go to you get one of two ideas that are probably equally wrong one of them is sort of this underplay the other is the overplay in the underplay scenario you've got manhood as being no passion anything that smacks of traditional manhood is misogyny all right it's getting after this get in touch with your feelings and get in touch with your feminine side and this this type of guy's favorite television and movie you know series is romantic comedies and and they're you know taking enneagram all the time and crying a lot okay and it's like that's sort of the picture over here and it's like man that's totally wrong like we get that from the world you don't get that from the bible of course the other side depending on what church uh you're in is just as bad where it's like well manhood means stoicism and no emotion and they're not gonna sing and they can't talk about anything except football and nascar and they grunt a lot and affection is a cuss word and all this they can't they can the idea of words and thoughts and all that kind of stuff equally wrong it's overplayed it's like man this is not what we see in the scripture what we see in the scripture is an example of a man adam being formed and put in the garden and he's strong and he's a defender and he's a worker and he's affectionate and he's a lover and what you see in david okay you see david david kills a giant as a teenager and yet he's a poet and yeti and he writes and he worships and he dances i mean this is kind of uh don't ask me to dance okay so um but you know you understand what i'm saying all right bro brother so we got to get we got to get that out of our mind we've got to look at the word and we've got to realize what the word is saying is there is something in the church brotherly sisterly but it says brotherly brotherly affection that we would have for each other y'all that's in words that's in thoughts man don't don't get weird that's in physical touch okay it's being able to hug somebody all right i think about um i think about one of the guys one of our old elders keith okay uh keith has now moved on and he's he's uh he's at he's at mercy church actually church that we planted years ago helped plant and uh he's there with them and knocking it out okay but he was an elder here for a long time before they moved and he got connected to mercy hill because they came to a christmas service at huggins auditorium okay uh down in greensboro and it was probably 2013 and he gets out of his car and the first thing he sees is two 20-something year old dudes run across the parking lot and massive embrace interlocking beards right in their face okay and and he just said like man he he told that story he said man it it radically affected him you know he's in his late you know probably mid mid late mid 40s man from oxford north carolina and he's just like why are they acting like that like why like why do they love each other like that well he got involved in the church got in a community group and probably formed some friendships that are lifelong right now still keep in touch with them it's like there's a brotherly love and affection that is supposed to be played out in the church all right so it's a genuine love it's a brotherly affectionate love you know it's a familial love look what it says in verse 10 outdoing one another and showing honor do not be slaughterful and zeal fervent in spirit serve the lord rejoice in hope be patient in tribulation be constant in prayer guys don't have time to hit everything in here but i want you to hear this please hear this all of this stuff is in the context of community all of this stuff is in the context of relationships being pushed this way because of the community that is around you but look what it said very specifically in verse 10 outdo one another in showing honor what he's saying is give people more than they even deserve outdo them honoring is treating someone even better than they deserve maybe i should say out doing an honor is treating even better than they deserve treating people with respect man deferring to each other praising the accomplishments of another philippians 2 3 consider one another consider somebody else better than you consider yourself right and you know it doesn't and this is what i love about the church a church should be this way it is becoming increasingly hard in our cultural climate to be this way but you know what in group churches should be able to practice saying i am going to outdo an honor even if we disagree on coveted policies we should be able to outdo and honor even if we disagree with some of the cultural things that are going on and maybe we have different views on this stuff we should be able to outdo in showing honor even if maybe we have secondary not first tier but secondary and tertiary kind of uh kind of theological positions on end time stuff or maybe the exact nature of election or whatever it is like man i can still love you through that and show honor and outdo one another in showing honor this is indicative of the christian community look what it says in verse 13 contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality the word is actually fellowshipping with the saints in their needs okay it's the idea of entering in christian let me ask you something man i don't know if you have this view in your mind that christianity is like you and a bible and the latest christian bestseller okay and jesus and a starbucks and i've said that a bunch but if that's your idea of christianity you are doing american christianity not bible christianity okay bible christianity is participating in the needs of the saints and i don't know about you but i've thought about this i'm not sure the answer how can you know the needs of the saints if you don't even know the saints if it's you and jesus in a bible and panera and a christian best seller how in the world can you participate and fellowship in the needs you know me and anna every month and it's not a ton okay it's not a ton of money but every single month we have a line item on our budget that is above the tithe okay and what is it for directly it is directly for the needs of the saints it is when we get a chance to hear that somebody's having a hard time maybe they have a miscarriage going on maybe a parent is in the hospital whatever that we can send them a grub hub we want to plan for that like we want to have a little bit set aside to be able to do that or we or we see somebody that's like man they're they're raising money for an adoption like it may not be much but we're like man we want to be able to sow into that why because it's fellowshipping in the needs of the saints but you got to know the saints the fellowship and the needs of the saints then it talks about hospitality here and i don't have time to go into that y'all hospitality is so much bigger than the way we think about it hospitality is to strangers hospitality is the one thing you can do that cannot be reciprocated because it's about how you treat somebody you don't know they can't pay you back because then you know each other and it's not hospitality anymore okay it's it's the way that you treat the stranger man in the early christian church this was a big deal because there wasn't a lot of money and there was a lot of christians doing a lot of missions and people needed to be able to stay in each other's homes and all that and we see a ton of that at mercy hill okay when people are doing that uh man we've got we've got training set up right now y'all there's 10 afghan families that are going to land in high point from all the mess that's going on and we've already been contacted and man we're starting to get training stuff together for that man how hospitable can we be okay all right here's here's the deal let me give you let me give you the application point grow in your faith man i've just tried to preach this is what it looks like all right just describing it love and hospitality and showing honor to each other all right and affection grow in your faith through participation in the christian fellowship some of us are making christian growth too complicated okay let me go back to the illustration i gave there is somebody and it would be like this okay it would be like somebody saying man i can't sleep i've hired a sleep coach okay i've taken medicine at night i've got a book on zen 2 000 year old tradition on sleeping and you got all this stuff and maybe that's maybe that's somebody's you know man i've gotten doing this i'm doing that and doing that and somebody just stops you and they say hey have you ever thought about exercising during the day so you'll be tired at night have you ever have you ever thought about you know getting off the screen and the person says oh no no like i'm reading the zen coach here and i've hired a sleep coach but oh no we lay in the bed and like we watch the tonight show every night together and then click try to go to sleep and it's like man this thing is getting way too complicated i'm not saying that this is all there ever is to sleep i am saying if you'll do these things you'll go way down the road i'm not saying that gather groups give go is the only thing in your christian life that you ever need what i am saying is that even if that's all you ever did and man and you went all the way in you would move in the current of christian growth and maturity i want to call you guys to be in a group you cannot do christianity alone all right you cannot be a lone ranger christian there's not 40 steps there's four steps so my questions are this y'all what's your group life like man are you convinced you can do christianity alone do you have your toes in the water and you've been kind of splashing around the edges at mercy hill for a long time i've never dove all the way in to a group well here's what you got to hear y'all discipleship is word taught but it's life caught all right you need the apprentice part of being a believer and that means yes man i'm going to preach as hard as i can every weekend you guys know it i'm gonna fit two sermons into one okay every time i'm gonna do everything i can do but at the end of the day if all you get is the word but you never have anybody to help you work it out or watch what it's like in life you know that's what apprenticeship is like it's like man i learn it but then i've got to understand how to actually do it we get that part in group genuine love brotherly affection outdoing each other in honor contributing to the needs of the saints and showing hospitality y'all these things happen in relationship you cannot do them alone and they are how you grow hey i don't want to just tell you i want to show you hey you guys come up hey we all on all of our campuses welcome kyle and blair all right you guys come on [Applause] man thank you thank you all right all right hey guys man uh hey so i want to introduce you guys to kyle and blair they are um nate and carson got two sons nate and carson um young sons so hey i've asked these guys to come up here uh today because they have a pretty cool story about going from not in a group to being in a group to now you guys are about to lead a group right but there's a pretty cool story in how some of that went down and uh so man just for the church i mean where what where were you guys at what was going on in your life before landing in a group yeah so blair and i both started attending mercy hill a good while before we joined group so we wouldn't necessarily recommend that but we were probably coming around for legitimately like two years consistently before we jumped in we came from a tough background we both maybe have some scars from church growing up but we had both come to terms with the gospel is true and we need to start coming to church um and so we showed up and we were trying to plug in and we kept learning we needed to be a part of this and to be obedient and so what actually happened was we we went to the weekender and on sunday night before my first monday night before my first film group on tuesday we actually found out we were pregnant with our first son and so we came from crazy background we weren't yet married i showed up to small group on a tuesday and my whole life in church i probably put on a mask and i told myself i'm gonna be honest with these guys and i wept with total strangers and they loved me and loved me through it man they practiced hospitality they didn't even know you man praise god low affection too a little tough that's right little affection good i like that brotherly touch um man and and kyle we didn't know each other we still don't know each other that well but we've had a chance to interact some and it was crazy because with your brother and i was actually i got a chance to pray with your dad through that when it was um uh some things went down with you guys years ago yeah um and so to see how god weaves all this kind of stuff together you know it's just incredible so um hey another another question that we have for you guys is um especially in this sermon we're talking about some of the differences between just friendship golfing buddies or whatever and fellowship you know so like how have you all grown in and being a part of the fellowship like what is that done maybe more than just a running club or golfing buddies or whatever yeah it's a really good question and so i actually before the way i landed in greensboro is i actually came to a substance abuse treatment center in greensboro didn't plan on it put roots down here like android said back in raleigh my folks went to summit church my brother had passed away in a terrorist attack i was in a plane wreck and life went off the deep end and so i actually had in substance abuse recovery a group of guys that loved on me and encouraged me and i had really quality friends from the way that the world would look at it and honestly they're great friends of mine they're best friends of mine um but they couldn't point me back to the promises of god they couldn't grow me in my christian walk i had to plug in you know and i had to figure out how to be obedient to what god calls me to do to be a part of the church and they have carried me and allowed me um like let's talk about where i taught life caught and i learned this walk from the guys that are around me man praise god well hey one more question for you guys um and uh man we're so pumped for y'all y'all are gonna be so you come all the way full full circle now and now you're gonna lead a group blair um you want to talk about y'all's group that you're going to lead are you excited about that or what yeah i'm really excited to be a part um to be a community group leader over the past few years you know the i've seen god show up in our lives through our community group leaders and the people in our community group and i'm really excited to be able to open our home up to people you know i had been around the church growing up but who never never really was a part of the church and this time you know i stayed long enough for the miracle to happen you know to go from death to life and it seems selfish to not open my home up so that maybe god can use me to be a part of someone else's story and so um yeah we're really excited about it and praise god i know i know uh i know the whole bins and other leaders that have been around have got to just be overjoyed to see you guys come in plug in and now being sent out hey will you guys thank them for uh for coming up thank you guys so much man thank y'all so much glare thank you well hey guys let me uh man let me just kind of let me just kind of land the plane i mean this is what it's about all right man we praise god for their story and the hundreds others that are that way um i couldn't even get into all the stories you know i got stories of a community group um that at the host home not at the people's home but at the host home um built a ramp onto their house in order that one couple from the group would be able to actually get inside to be able uh to go you know to group on a weekly basis i mean this stuff happens just all over the place we have a group uh here at mercy hill that has raised money to be able to kind of do some of the caretaking for a shut-in member of their community group i mean these story we got stories like this from all over the church all right from all over uh you know the different areas of the triad man this is christian fellowship it's more than friendship man if you if you if your life is about fun and about man i'm just trying to have a good time and i'm just trying to have be be comfortable then get golfing buddies and get a running club but if you want your life to be about more you need more than friendship then you need christian fellowship and you can do that guys you can sign up for regroup all right so there's groups that are open right now regroup is going to launch just here in a couple of weeks and it's a 10 week session groups at mercy hill are sprint they're not a marathon clear on ramps clear off ramps man jump in okay man jump in go hard and then we'll all take a break around christmas and we'll jump back in towards the you know towards after the new year all right so you can sign up there hey and for others of us man that maybe you've been in a group for a while hey what about what about committing in a new and kind of radical and fresh way where you say man i'm going all the way in maybe you've been sort of toes around the edge of the pool but it's time to go all the way to the bottom and i pray that you guys will commit to a group and see that life change listen life change happens in relationships all right let's pray father we come before you and we ask right now lord that all across our church father of high point clifton god the northeast team that's getting ready to launch mercy hill and espanol regional father i pray that we would just have hearts that are convicted all through the church to jump into a group and give it a shot god to grow your way father we're asking you to grow us but we've got to do it your way and you've called us to not live the christian life alone so lord i pray that we would take your example of loving genuinely for us god and we would want to bring that to our group in christ let me pray amen

Channel: Mercy Hill Church

Views: 300

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Jesus, God, Jesus Christ, Christianity, Bible, Scriptures, Mercy Hill, Mercy Hill Church, Andrew Hopper, online church, prayer, individualism, christian growth, spiritual growth, community groups, discipleship, group

Id: ig90RxiKXZg

Length: 36min 27sec (2187 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 04 2021