A Place To Belong: Part 2 - What does it mean to Belong?
1 Corinthians 10:31, Ephesians 1:12, Isaiah 43:7, Matthew 28:18-20
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
I'm excited today. We're going to be wrapping up our series called A Place to belong. And the main part of the series is to really explain what the church is, why we exist, and why we, Spring Valley, why are we here? What are we doing? What's the thing we got going on here? And so Pastor Andre last week, he kicked us off and asking why the church. And he went into detail. He talked about the universal church, which is more like the greater church. If you were to kind of take a zoom back from the area, you see all the different neighborhood churches and all the churches around the globe and around the world, they are all a part of what we call the universal church. And then you have the local church, which would be us here. Spring Valley Church is the local church. And so he answered the question of why is the church even necessary? It's just really good questions. And the church is necessary for the advancement of the gospel. It's to make disciples, to be in the family of God, is to reflect God's glory and to continue Christ's work that he began when he was here on earth. And so then what does it look like to belong to a church? And he gave us four good reasons of why to belong to a church. And it is to attend, is to connect with others, is to serve and use what God has given us, and then is to care for one another.
And so today, we're going to continue in the same light and to walk through some of these questions of why the church or why to belong to the church. And I've been asked from time to time as a pastor and conversations I've had with different people of what church should I attend? Well, I love to tell them you should come to Spring Valley Church. A little bias there. I love this place, but I have probably like five different things I like to tell them every single time. And when people are looking for churches, especially if someone in our church we love and we care for and their job is maybe taking them somewhere and they're moving somewhere else, they have a question of, Pastor, how am I going to find a church like Spring Valley? What does that look like? So I have a couple things. I always tell them, I tell them, find a church that preaches the gospel. Find the church that preaches the gospel. And I mean the whole gospel, all of it, the whole thing, the whole Bible, that sermons come from Scripture and the gospel of Jesus Christ and that Jesus himself is central. Because if you were to go maybe to a church and to attend and you hear a whole sermon and a whole teaching and the word Jesus is never mentioned, I would argue to say that you probably just went to a TED Talk. And I'm sorry to say that and maybe call out some of my peers and other pastors, but that's the reality, that if we don't share the gospel of Jesus every single week, then we're just giving TED Talks every week. And there's plenty of those on YouTube for you to watch whenever you want to. But the church should preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Number two, I pray and I hope that we are this, but that we are warm and friendly. I think a church that you should attend should be welcoming, should be hospitable, to live in a way that we have been transformed, right? If Jesus comes into our life and transforms us, we should live that out. There's a big fancy word for that term with this that would be called sanctification. It's an idea of every single day is an opportunity to live more like Jesus. And as we live like that, we should treat other people in the same way. And so when people come in, when people are here, a part of our church, I pray that it's friendly and warm.
I think the members should be spirit-filled. Those who are part of the church, I think there should be what we have been talking about lately, abiding and being part of the vine and seeing spiritual fruit. There should be some essence of feeling that there is something here that the Holy Spirit is doing. People should reflect things of God like his love and his care, his grace, his mercy, which also ties in again with the whole being hospitable and welcoming. I think what we members of a church should be concerned about what God is concerned about. There are things in life that God really cares about. And sometimes the church is silent on that and it breaks my heart. And I think we need to be bolder in our faith to speak into those things. And I think that people that we have been transformed, we are continuing to be transformed through the power of the Holy Spirit.
I think the church should emphasize missions, not only local, but around the globe and around the world, that we can focus on the kingdom of God outside these four walls that we call Spring Valley Church. And we're going to be doing a series in May. I've been having Zoom calls with some of our missionaries, and we're getting to hear some stories from them. And so we're going to be doing a series after Easter that we're going to be able to share some of the stories of what God is doing through them around the world. It's some really cool stuff. I can't wait to share it with you guys.
And I think the final thing that a church should be, it should be evangelical and doctrine. There's some really big churchy terms. Let me break that down for you. There should be a strong emphasis on a personal decision to commit your life to Jesus. There should be a push and a regular calling of those who come in here because the reality is sometimes it's easy to go, well, I've been in church my whole life. That's great. But have you made a decision for Jesus? Sometimes we can attend and be a part of a church for a really long time have Jesus. But the reality is we actually haven't made that decision. And so sometimes I get asked, and we here at Spring Valley will regularly present the gospel and I'll get people who say, pastor, why are we doing it? Everybody here is Christian. Everybody here has been coming to church for five, 10 years. I was like, you don't know, man. You know what God's doing in their lives. You don't know where they're at. I'm glad they've been faithfully attending here and a part of the family, but maybe they never made the decision. We just don't know. And so there should be always and emphasis to move people towards making Jesus Lord and leader of their life. And then we celebrate with that. We celebrate through baptisms. We celebrate through sharing stories and testimonies of what God is doing in people's life. Because I think without that key element, we're a social club. We're nothing more than, and no dig on them, but a country club or the Kiwanas or any other local group, the Elks Lodge. Like, love them. They're awesome. They do great things in the community, but they're not doing that in the name of Jesus. We do that in the name of Jesus.
So what does it mean to belong? What does it mean to be a part of more shifting towards Spring Valley Church? Well, our vision and mission on the wall every single Sunday is to see our community saturated with the glory of God, and we do that through making disciples in the everyday stuff of life. Our vision is our why, to see our community saturated with the glory of God. So what does that mean? What does it mean, this term, saturate? Have you ever spilled water at a table with other people around? You can really test people and how quick their reactions are, of how quick they can move when that water cup gets knocked over. We have four children in our home, some of which are very wanting to be independent. And so we offend them sometimes with lids and straws on their cups. and so every now and then we'll gamble we'll roll the dice and we'll give them a cup of liquid with no lid and it doesn't go well we love them they're amazing kids but it just doesn't go well it's just not there and so we always have the test okay who's gonna knock it over at dinner time who's who's gonna be the one and i've done it myself i i will be guilty i've knocked it over myself quite a few times. But when you knock over a cup of water, what happens to it? It goes everywhere. It goes everywhere. It finds every single little nook and cranny. It finds the edge of the table so fast. I don't know. It's just like, I'm out. I'm free. There's the edge. It's like making a jail break. And it just goes everywhere. It gets on the stuff on the table. The napkins are soaked. Like it just goes everywhere. And I love this idea of seeing our communities just saturated with the glory of God, that it just goes everywhere. That Jesus himself fills us up. He talks about that in scripture, that then we go out with our cup of water of Jesus in our lives. Maybe not actually a cup of water, but we go out with Jesus in our lives. And I pray and I hope that as we interact with people in our lives, we leave maybe a couple drops of Jesus with them. We maybe leave a little imprint, a wet spot of Jesus on their lives because you and I might be the only Jesus that they ever get to experience in life. I hope and pray that there's more people in their lives that are Christ followers and speaking truth into them, but we might be the only people to share Jesus with them. So what does it look like? Well, spreading the glory of God in our community looks like sharing and showing up, showing up in people's lives when they're hurting, sharing kindness, sharing in generosity, praying for people, even if they don't know that you're praying for them. I love that. It's like undercover prayer. Like you're praying for your neighbors and your friends and your co-workers and they don't have no idea. And they'll come tell you stuff that's going on in your life. And you're just like, all right, God, add it to my list. I'm praying for And it's amazing what God can do. But this is meeting a very real practical need in people's lives. And we're not doing it for us. We're doing it for God.
I love what it says in 1 Corinthians 10.31. It says, so whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God. Everything that we do at Spring Valley Church, and I pray that that trickles into your life too, is for the glory of God. But who are our communities? It says, two communities are saturated. So who are our communities? Well, our communities are really simple. It's where we live, where we learn, where we work, and where we play. That's our neighbors. It's our coworkers. That's our friends. That's our family. That's our classmates. It's anybody in our life that we interact with on a regular basis. And maybe sometimes just random basis. There's times in my life where I'm having a conversation with a random person, and God says, just tell them that I love them. And I'm like, God, just tell them I love them. I just, hey, I know we just met. God loves you, man. Just want you to know that. And I get to turn around and walk away, and I just left a little Jesus on him. But that's what we're called to do.
Ephesians 1.12 says, So that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be to the praise of his glory. God fills us up. When we receive Jesus, we are filled up. So then we will go out and be the ones to be the praise for his glory. I love how it talks about in Psalms chapter one, where it talks about the person that is planted by streams of water. That's who we are. Jesus is our source of everything. We just talked about this in Corinthians in our series about Christ, who is our life. Christ is our life. He is our source. He is our everything. And so as out of that flows streams of living water, as it says in John 7, he fills us up to overflowing. We gather regularly together, but that's not the end all be all. Sometimes it's easy to just get caught up in Sunday morning, right? To just be like, I come in, I sit down, sing some songs, maybe take communion, maybe somebody prays for me. I hear an encouraging word from the Lord. I'm filled up, I take my cup and I go out and I hold onto my cup all week. I just walk around, I'm like, oh, I got my Jesus. I love it. Got my Jesus. Oh, don't want to spill it. Oh, I have to share this with somebody else? No, this is my Jesus. They can go find their own Jesus. But that's not it. Our gathering, our Sunday morning is actually just the beginning. If you've played sports, you know the game doesn't happen in the locker room, right? It doesn't happen on the practice field. It doesn't happen in a training session. It doesn't happen in the gym. It happens out on the field. And everything we do around that prepares for that moment on the field together. Because the reality is the world is watching and the world is looking. The world takes on these false promises that society and things and other religions and groups and communities promise to give them, but fall short time and time and time again. And we are out to go to saturate our communities with the glory of God.
So how does this happen? How do we go, okay, that's our why, our what? Well, our what is making disciples in the everyday stuff of life. Jesus gave us this commandment called the Great Commission to go and to make disciples. And see, our vision here at Spring Valley will only be brought about when each of us strive as a lifelong learner in the way of God. To understand how he's uniquely created us, how he's called us, and how he's commissioned us. Isaiah says this in 43 verse 7. Anyone who is called by my name, whom I'm created for my glory, whom I formed and made. Jesus has a calling for each and every one of us, and that is to first be a disciple of him. But it doesn't stop there. Each of us are included in God's great redemption plan. And each of us have a part to play in that. And the reality is that we are plan A and there is no plan B. That we are called. And being a follower of Jesus leads us into being a disciple in the everyday stuff of life. So Chris, that's great. What does that mean? Well, what it means is a disciple.
And the definition of disciple is someone who is following Jesus, being changed by Jesus, and is committed to the mission of Jesus. You see how like Jesus is kind of part of the whole thing there? That being a disciple is someone who is following Jesus, being changed by Jesus, and is committed to the mission of Jesus. Matthew 4.19, Jesus calls disciples at different times and he calls us and he says, Follow me and I will make you fishers of men. I always thought it was very interesting how he used this term and this phrase. But when we break it down, there's three parts here of what Jesus is actually doing. Jesus says, follow me. Change your head. Or, yeah, change your head. Who are you thinking about? Who are you looking at? What are you striving for? Jesus says, follow me. Change how your head is thinking. Then Jesus said, you will be changed. He says there, I will make. Jesus is the one that's doing the transformation. This is our heart. Jesus is transforming our heart through the Holy Spirit. And then what does he say? He says, I will make you fishers of men. He says, you are being committed to the mission of Jesus. That's our hands of how we do it. So it's a head, our heart, and our hands. And some of these final words of Jesus he's giving to the disciples is exactly what he asked and is calling us to do as well.
He says these. These are some of the final words of Jesus before he goes back to heaven. It says in Matthew 28, it says, Then Jesus came to them and said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I commanded you. And surely I'm with you always to the very end of the age. There is one imperative large command in that, and it is to make disciples. But then there's three participles that describe how we do that. The first of which is go. So that is the everyday stuff of life. As you are going throughout life, you are a disciple. You are to baptize. You are to publicly declare with your faith that you are a follower of Jesus. And then you are to teach. You are to teach those and to grow them up, to spur them on, to take them deeper in their walk with Jesus. And the disciple making is about entering into relationships to help people trust and follow Jesus. This is what it's about. It's to enter into intentional relationships with Jesus to help people find and follow and trust him. It's all about him. It's all about Jesus. But we have to change our mindset. We have to focus on Jesus who is working in us, allowing him to work, and to fulfill the way that God has uniquely created, called, and commissioned us.
So Chris, this is great. Great vision, great mission. That's awesome. How does this rubber meets the road? How does this practically play out? We call it our four Gs, and it is just so that easy to remember, is to gather, grow, give, and go. these are the four four focuses to help make the vision and mission happen here at spring valley church the first one gather what does that mean well gathering means to commit to gathering together regularly with the church body what does that look like well that looks like worship that looks like discipleship that looks like evangelism these larger big churchy words but what it means is Jesus matters, prayer matters, God's word matters, and Sunday matter. That's what it's all about. And that when we gather together, we will have these different elements when we gather. Again, if you guys have picked up on that, but every time that we have gathered together as a church, whether it's a men's ministry, a women's ministry, all of us together on a Sunday or some other spot. There is an element of this that is happening every single time. We don't gather just for the sake of gathering. But it's about being together with one another, with the presence of the Holy Spirit, living on mission and on vision for Jesus Christ.
The second way we do this is we grow. We meet regularly with a few others to encourage and equip you in growing up in Christ. because the reality is that growing people change. And I was thinking about this last night as I was walking through my notes of, I always thought of it as in the sense of a positive, growing people change. Sometimes we can grow in the wrong ways and we change in the wrong ways, right? But we are to grow in Jesus, to grow up in Christ because transformation truly matters. I think sometimes we sit around and go, I'm good with Jesus. I'm set. I'm good. I got my routine. I'm set. But the reality is that each of us can be transformed even more into Jesus. Some of the most seasoned veteran Christians that I looked up to and respect, you could ask them, hey, when did you arrive? And they go, what do you mean, when did I arrive? I said, well, when did you arrive when you were like, I'm a Jesus follower. I'm a disciple. I'm transformed. There's always something more to grow and to learn and be sanctified into Jesus Christ more and more every single day. Creativity matters. I think there's some awesome ways in which you have tradition and you do the same thing the same way in a church sometimes, and I love it, but I think also it's great to shake things up. We here at Spring Valley try new things all the time. And you guys are awesome. You run with us on some things. Sometimes it's like, wow, they came up with that idea. But we like trying new things because sometimes we learn and we grow and things connect with different people at different times. That's why we have a few different voices that teach on the regular. Because every person brings a little bit different perspective and understanding with their training, their knowledge, their experience with scripture, and it speaks to a variety of people. I think it's a huge, huge way that we can continue to grow in our relationship with Jesus.
The third thing is that we give. And yeah, I'm going to talk about it, but we support Spring Valley and we serve the larger body with the things that God has blessed us with. Maybe you've been around in the church. You've heard it before, time, talent, treasure. And I'm talking about everything because the reality is that God has blessed us with everything, right? Everything that we have received in life is from Jesus himself. God blesses that with us. And so then his calling in us as we are to be a disciple is how do we use what he has given us to further his kingdom? We desire to have a generous impact here at Spring Valley Church. And that for some means tithing. for others it means tithing and it means to use everything we have for his glory to give back to him to make a generous impact with everything we have because gratitude matters Jesus has given us everything he's taking care of our eternal salvation right everything else is just gravy right he's taking care of our biggest need and so how do we be generous the way he has been so generous with us. We serve one another. Service matters. Saved people serve people. Because if we're truly saved, then we should have the same heart of Jesus. And he was the ultimate servant of giving up of himself to the cross in his death. So we serve one another. We talk about that regularly, serving on teams. Some of you we probably reached out to at times said, hey, can you serve in this way? How can you love on our church congregation?
And so then finally, our fourth G is to go. As Jesus said to go, to be a disciple of Jesus who makes his disciples with others. We want to live in relational community with one another, but not just fun, not just dinners, not just movie nights or vacations or pool parties or fun times, but to live life together missionally, that we are intentionally encouraging one another, loving one another, saying, hey, how are you doing with Jesus? What are you learning? What's he teaching you? How are you growing in him? Evangelism matters. Unity matters. We have a church care team here that you may get a phone call from them randomly from time to time that just checking in. How are you doing? And it's beyond just the pastoral staff, but it's another team that really cares for our church because you guys matter. Pastor Lauren talked about it earlier, but these invite cards during Easter, during this season, to take time to intentionally pray for an opportunity to invite somebody to come with you on Easter Sunday. Because we're all called, When you became a disciple, you accepted Jesus, you became a minister of the gospel. You may not carry the title pastor, but neither did the 12 disciples or apostles. But they're all called to share the gospel and ownership matters and that we need to own that.
The reality is we can't accomplish all of this without you. that's the reality and that we are all called to be together on this team we are called to be part of this family and so what does that mean for you well we've been talking about it for a few weeks now and that means membership and membership in this church means about engaging and partnering with us who is the local church another way of saying it is hey i'm all in this is my church and it's a two-way street sometimes it can get thought about well church membership is just the church wanting something from me no no no this is a this is a mutual relationship this is a two-way street membership is about the church also saying to you we are committed to you we are committed to your faith journey we are committed to you in the every day this is a mutual thing it's not just a person to the church, but it's also the church to the person. And I don't know what you grew up in. There's different churches of different models and some you utilize membership and some don't. And that's fine. They don't have to have membership at all. But I believe that there is something that is missed for both the church and the body when there isn't membership. And you can attend and you can be here at Spring Valley without being a member. This is not a It's a hope and a desire from us. But you can serve here. You can be here. You can give here. You can be a part of Spring Valley without being a member. Now, there are some ministry and leadership roles that membership is required of. But we will never, ever stop anybody from not being able to be here at Spring Valley Church. The church is a gift from God. It's a beautiful thing. And it's a beautiful thing when you have believers who are committed to that gift. And it's something really special when all of that comes together.
So what does it look like? What does it look like to be a member here at Spring Valley Church? It's just five areas. First of which is engagement. What does that look like? Well, that means attendance. It means being present. It means praying for our church, praying for our pastors, praying for those who are walking through different situations in life, encouraging one another.
It means discipleship. It means spiritual growth. They used that term earlier, sanctification, or a pursuit of holiness to allow Jesus to transform us. You're committing to saying, I'm going to walk deeper in my faith with Jesus in a community, and that community is going to be there with me. It means service. It means attending to the needs of others in our community. Spring Valley, Rocklin, Roseville. There are over a quarter of a million people in this region of 65 and 80 from Roseville, over the edges of Lincoln, up to Loomis, down into West Roseville, over a quarter of a million people. There are not enough churches. And not everybody is attending church every single week. And so we have to serve and care for the needs of others.
It looks like generosity, giving of God's blessing that he's given to you in practical needs. Maybe it's through tithing. Maybe it's a special giving project. Maybe it's supporting our missionaries around the globe. Maybe it's giving of your time. You're like, hey, money is super tight right now, but I got time. I can volunteer. I can be here. What do you need? I need help. I'm here to help. It means being generous with the talents that you've been given. What I love about our worship team is these guys are incredibly talented and gals. They're so gifted. They could probably, and most, some of them are on a stage regularly in bands, performing and being paid to do a lot of stuff. They donate all their time and talent to be here. because they love this church. Guys, we are so blessed by them.
And it looks like inviting, like we talked about these invite cards, to pray for people. And we've said it here before, and I wanna continue to say it, that if you come in on church on a Sunday and it was encouraging for you, it was uplifting for you, it was special, God spoke to you, God, Jesus gave you something, Why not invite somebody to come experience that with you? Don't hold back on that. Don't hold your little cup of Jesus and just walk around and don't spill it. But share that freely with others because somebody at some point invited you in, right? Somebody at some point said, hey, come to church with me. I want you to find Jesus. And you found Jesus. And then you found Spring Valley. And we want to keep doing that time and time again. Membership is about finding a place to belong.
And SVC is better with you. SVC wouldn't be the same if you weren't here. And there's people who are going to become part of this church and are going to find this church soon, and they get to be a part of that. And it just continues to grow and expand. and we grow God's kingdom for his glory through making disciples in the everyday stuff of life.
Pray with me. Jesus, we thank you for the many blessings, God, that you give us every single day. Jesus, we thank you for how you died on the cross for us, for our sins. The biggest problem in our life, you took care of as a servant, as a humble, humble sacrifice for our lives. And Jesus, you gave this gift that is the church. And God, I pray as we move into after service to have our membership class, God, that those who are trying to figure out what all this looks like may stick around and just have some question and answer, Jesus. But I pray that they would see the church as this beautiful gift to them in life. And I pray, God, that if you were leading them into, that they would step into becoming a member. Then they would see how, God, you have provided a community and a place for them to belong. and that membership is not only them committing but the church also committing to them saying we are all in on you and that we will be here for you. We will pray for you. We will care for you. And so Jesus, I pray that Spring Valley would truly be a place that is warm, that is welcoming, that is caring, that stays focused on the gospel, stays true to your word, and has a heart for lost people to find you, Jesus. For us to see our community saturated, your glory, Jesus. And that we would step into being true disciples in the everyday stuff of life. Thank you, Jesus. We love you. Amen.