like the 90s, has created a desperate sense of loneliness and emptiness in the lives of people.
There is a driving search for significance, significance that is found in community with others.
People are longing for a place where they can feel accepted,
where they can learn about the fundamental things in life,
where they can find meaning and purpose of being human.
Community is found in many places in our world, not all of them good or healthy,
but nonetheless it is found in many places such as bars, gangs, country clubs, service clubs,
athletic teams, and the list can go on.
But none of these communities can really pull off what the human heart longs for.
The best place in the world to find the kind of unity and community that people are longing for is in the church.
Not that the church has always been the community it ought to be,
but it's the place where God intends nonetheless for community to be realized.
That's why we say about ourselves that Grace Church Roseville is a community of believers.
We are not a perfect community of believers, nor are we a community of perfect believers.
Both are true.
But that is our ideal, that is our goal, to be a community of God in this world.
The word community comes from the Latin word meaning common.
And so a community is a group of people who have things in common.
The unity comes from those things that the individual members share in common with one another.
Community is where, despite the normal diversities of being human,
there is nonetheless a basic foundation of things that people share in together.
Grace Church Roseville seeks to fulfill this ideal found in the Scripture for the church.
We are called by God to be a community of believers.
Not merely for our own sakes, by the way, but for those who are still searching for community.
As part of this community, you and I need to be reminded occasionally of those things that we hold together in common.
What are those things that we agree about that unite our hearts together in our diversity?
Well, the message this morning is broken into four parts that I'm going to call four pillars
that uphold the community that God is making us.
The first realization and pillar is this, that our community rests upon faith.
It rests upon faith.
We hold to certain teachings or doctrines of the Bible as being important and essential.
We say that without these, we would lose something of our commonality,
because our community rests upon our faith.
In our church constitution and in other things that we sometimes distribute, we include a statement of faith.
It includes nine paragraphs about different doctrines,
not all of them fundamental and foundational doctrines in the broadest sense.
Nonetheless, doctrines that we as a church feel are essential to who we are.
They help define our personality.
They help tell us who we are as a people of God.
These statements include the Word of God, the Trinity,
what we believe about God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit,
our teaching about regeneration, the last things, the church, and the ordinances of the local church.
I don't have time to read all nine of those paragraphs,
but I hope that if you're a member of the church, you're familiar with them,
and if you're in the welcomeers class, you certainly will hear something of them.
If you're coming into our church in the future, you need to understand that we are a community that rests upon faith,
and it is our intent by the grace of God not to fail in this pillar.
We believe that faith is the key ingredient to what a church is and accomplishes.
There are some communities in the church that have lost this pillar.
The result of that is that while they are still a community of human beings,
they have lost the essence of what they are called by God to be in this world,
because a community of the church of Jesus Christ must be rested upon faith.
What we teach, of course, goes beyond those nine paragraphs.
These nine paragraphs form the foundation for everything else that we teach here,
but these nine paragraphs we agree upon.
We share these together.
We don't have to agree upon every jot and tittle beyond them, for sure, and we don't.
There ought to be room in the Lord's church for some latitude on nonessential things,
but when it comes to that statement of faith upon which our community rests,
there we must agree together that these things are important to us as a community of God's people.
The second pillar I want to point out is the pillar of purpose.
Our community rests upon purpose.
We have a common purpose or understanding of our mission.
You will find it on the back of your bulletin if you want to look at it this morning.
In fact, it's on your bulletin every week in that little block that lists our staff.
It says,
Grace Church Roseville is a community of believers whose purpose is to worship the Lord Jesus Christ
and prepare itself through biblical instruction, service, and fellowship in order to evangelize the world.
We have a common understanding of what we're about.
Growing out of this mission statement, we have a vision of ourselves.
We see ourselves as a mission center and ourselves as missionaries.
We see what takes place in this church as being for the training and equipping of missionaries
to go out to their God-planned fields of service.
I was talking to one of our men on an evening during this week
as we were sharing his own understanding of what this means in his life.
I congratulated him for the fact that he sees his ministry
as not being only within the walls and the programs of our church,
but being out there in the community where he is a teacher in public education.
He sees himself as a missionary of Jesus Christ, and that's how all of us want to see ourselves.
Our community as a church rests upon this purpose.
Now, not everyone's going to have that kind of purpose, and that's fine.
There are churches that can accommodate all kinds of individual differences and definitions of what purpose is.
But for those of us who call ourselves a part of Grace Church Roseville, this is our purpose.
This is the commonality that we have, this understanding that we are a mission center
and we are here to worship God and to prepare ourselves to evangelize a world that is lost and dying.
We are here to touch the lives of people outside this fellowship.
If we exist as a community only for our own comfort, then we have lost our way.
Because God directs us to come here together to be prepared and equipped
so that then we can go out and in the course of our lives,
in our going about of our lives and our routines, we should make disciples of Jesus Christ.
We see ourselves as a mission center. We've used a little diagram to express that.
There's a circle with a triangle in it.
The arrows at the top of that diagram represent us coming into the mission center, the circle.
Within the mission center we worship and we're prepared, we're equipped to do the work of God.
There is evangelism that takes place in the mission center itself.
But the real purpose of our coming into the mission center is that we then might go out
and through relational evangelism and cultural key kinds of ministries
where we touch the felt needs of people and by the establishment of branch churches,
we carry on the work of God outside the mission center.
That is our understanding of what we're about.
As we come to this 12th anniversary, it's good for us to remind ourselves this is who we are.
We're a community of believers committed to purpose.
The third pillar I want to point out this morning is our values.
We are a community which rests upon certain values.
These values are basic beliefs that we have about what's important.
It's an expression of what we value.
As I've tried to condense these in my own mind in preparation for this morning,
I decided to build around an acrostic.
I'm going to use the word grace, G-R-A-C-E.
These five letters can represent to us what I believe are five of the basic driving values of our church.
Value number one, God's Word.
Our basic value is this, that the Word of God is our final and ultimate authority in what we believe and how we behave.
Therefore, we study it, we preach it, we teach it.
We respond to it by worshiping God.
We give ourselves without reservation as living sacrifices to Him because of His Word.
We value His Word. God's Word is a driving value to us.
What is the measurement of our ministry?
It is the Word of God.
It is our adherence to what God, our Lord, our Savior has said to us in this book.
I don't think we could have a better value to start with than God's Word.
R represents reaching out.
That is a value to us. It is an essential value.
I am talking about evangelism and the nurture of new disciples.
The value that we adhere to is that we constantly have our arms open to newcomers.
We want to avoid the mindset that says, we are big enough.
We have reached enough people. We don't need to grow anymore.
That is a mindset that leads to a brand new church name.
The new church name would then be the Church of St. Rigor Mortis.
The mindset that we don't need to reach out anymore is a mindset that leads to death for us as a church.
This is a basic value.
In the ministries we have as a church, this is one way that we measure whether we are accomplishing what we ought to be or not.
Is this value of reaching out to new people and touching their lives and helping them to know Christ and to grow in Christ, is that being accomplished?
A, in the word grace, represents the value of acceptance of each other.
I think this is so crucial.
I thank God for the way that this is expressed in our church very often.
Never compromising holiness, we nonetheless want to extend grace and acceptance to others.
That is what Romans 14 and 15 are all about.
Accept one another in Jesus Christ, says Paul.
Accept one another in your differences, in your variations.
As God works out his purpose and his grace in your lives in different shades and colors and hues, accept one another.
One of the basic things we want to write in our hearts is that we are not called by God to fix one another.
That's not one of the one-anothers of the New Testament.
He doesn't say fix one another.
He says admonish one another, teach one another, love one another, and the list goes on and on.
But we're not called to fix one another.
That's not a spiritual gift.
We're called upon to accept one another with our variations.
We want this especially to be true of seekers, of those who are hurting, and of those who are immature in Christ.
We want to accept them where they are and lovingly bring them to Jesus and let him work out his grace in their lives as he desires to.
Just as in a family, an earthly family, we have to recognize individuality and practice loving, patience, and forgiveness.
So it is in the family of God.
Then there's a fourth value with the letter C. It is the value of change.
Change is vital. Without it we die.
We've experienced a good bit of change here over the years.
We have from the beginning been required to be innovative and flexible in our methods.
Some of the things that we've tried have worked, some have not worked.
That's all right.
If everything we try succeeds, then we're not trying hard enough.
We expect that there will be some failures as we experiment.
We value change.
And we face change right now as I talk in my column this morning.
As we enter into our 13th year, we're about to enter into a time of discussion as a church family about what the future holds.
There is nothing decided.
Information is being gathered and resources are being brought forward so that the congregation can be as informed as possible
as we enter into an important discussion about the future of our ministry.
We are facing change. That is nothing new.
And it is something that in fact we treasure and we value.
Someone has written, people are God's most important product.
They take precedence over all programs and structured activities.
Because of this, we value creative, relevant programs which encourage the involvement of individuals in the life of the church
and in ministry throughout the community.
Another way of saying that paragraph is that we value change.
Our programs, our structure, all of that needs to be reevaluated with some frequency
so that we can see if we're being effective and relevant in accomplishing our mission.
There's a little couplet that says it pretty well.
Methods are many, principles are few.
Methods always change, but principles never do.
We must keep in our mind that there is a difference between our methods and our message.
Our message is Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Our message is the Word of God and that must never change, but the methods that we use
to proclaim Christ and to teach the Word of God and to reach our community,
those methods must be open to change when it's necessary.
So we want to preserve a climate in our church where trying new ideas to serve people is encouraged.
We want there to be an entrepreneurship about you, about me,
so that we look at the task at hand and we say, now how can that better be accomplished?
And we let God create something brand new.
And then E, in the word grace, represents a fifth of value.
It is everyone's participation.
Our value is that everybody counts.
There is no one who is unnecessary in what Grace Church is about.
Every member of the body has a function and has a meaning by God's design.
He has told us that.
Paul in Corinthians goes on to write about it.
In this first chapter he speaks about the fact that they're enriched in every way,
and he suggests that they're enriched by their spiritual gifts.
He tells them in chapter 12 how God has called some of them to be various parts of the body
and others to be other parts,
but all of the members function together by God's design
so that the church grows and matures to the glory of Christ.
Everyone's participation is valued at Grace Church.
We're gifted to contribute to the total effort and the mission of our church.
And I think one of the most exciting things that one can do is to discover how to be plugged in to be fulfilled.
We may not be able to define and to decipher our spiritual gifts in language,
but to find that spot where we fit is a wonderful discovery.
If you have not discovered that yet in Grace Church,
there are ways to help you find it.
And one of the most popular right now, one of the newest ways,
is what we call the Welcomers Class,
which is not just for newcomers, it's for everyone who has yet to feel they have found a place to plug in.
I hope you might become a part of that if yet you're not sure how to participate in Grace Church.
It seems to me that these are at least five of the driving values of who we are as a community.
Our community rests upon these values.
If you begin taking them away, we're not going to be the same Grace Church.
We're going to be a different church.
Therefore, we're committed to these values.
Not merely in language, not just in the sermon, but in practice, we're committed to the values that we've talked about.
Then there's a fourth pillar that we need to talk about this morning.
I see this message is sort of like a four-legged chair.
If you have a chair, the chair you're sitting in, for example, and you have only three legs on it,
it's not going to do you a lot of good.
You're going to have to balance yourself very carefully,
and when you get a little woozy and snoozy, you're going to come right off the chair.
Maybe we ought to create chairs that are that way.
That's not a bad idea.
Talk about change and innovation.
We'll have Wes cut off one leg of all of the chairs in our auditorium.
The fourth leg, the fourth pillar to the message this morning is this, that our community rests upon commitment.
We can have the mission.
We can have the faith.
We can have the values, but if we don't have the commitment, then we're not going to accomplish much.
We'll be like a lot of other churches that are filled with orthodoxy,
but doing nothing to accomplish what God wants them to do and to be in this generation.
God has modeled commitment to us, of course, because He has committed Himself to us,
and He has been faithful, and God calls us to be faithful.
That is an old-fashioned term, I recognize, but it is relevant, it is important to the people of God today.
It is the word faithfulness.
It is a word that needs to describe our service for Christ, our living for Christ.
Faithfulness and commitment of time and energy, and involvement in the structured programs of the church and outside as well.
To say, God, my life is yours.
How am I serving you? How can I serve you?
How do you want me to serve you? I commit my time and I commit my energy.
And being faithful in that.
There's no place where faithfulness is more greatly needed in the walls of our church than in our children's ministry.
Where we have a rather constant rotation of people working with our boys and girls.
What we really need there are committed people who will say,
I see children as God's calling in my life, and I will commit myself to more than one time a month,
more than one month a year, more than one quarter a year, I will commit myself in my time and energy to work with them.
If we could go on down the list of all the ministries inside our church and the opportunities outside our church,
the message would be the same.
God calls us to commitment of time and energy.
He calls us furthermore to commitment of our financial resources.
That's God's plan.
In 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, in 1 Corinthians 16, verses 1 and 2,
Let each one of you lay by him in store as God has prospered him, says Paul.
Regardless of our income, we're to give.
The idea that we're too poor to give is unbiblical.
It doesn't meet the biblical standard. It's an excuse.
All of us can give and are called by God to give.
It is a matter of spiritual discipline.
Just like love or faith or prayer, giving to God is a spiritual discipline or a muscle
that we build up and we become stronger in our Christian faith because of our exercise of it.
In fact, Paul tells the Corinthians to excel in this grace of giving.
Our giving is a demonstration of our genuineness.
It is evidence of our sincerity.
And it is a means by which God brings blessing back into our lives.
God has called all of us to participate in the financial undergirding of this community that we call Grace Church.
It is not for some to do the contributing so that all can enjoy the ministry.
That is not only unfair in human terms, it's unbiblical in God's terms.
His calling is for all of us to be investors in the work of Jesus Christ in tithing and in bringing our offerings to Him.
And then there's the commitment to prayer.
Our community rests upon commitment to prayer.
Whatever else we do well, if we do not pray, we've lost it.
We must learn to pray well also.
We must grow in our becoming a prayerful church, in expressing our dependence upon God
and seeking His will for the growth and development of the vision that we have.
I want to testify to you this morning as your pastor that I thank God for the hundreds of people who are committed
and who have committed, have proven their commitment to Grace Church and to Christ.
In some of the terms that we've talked about this morning as well as in others,
we have this fourth pillar in place in our church, but as in all churches, it needs to grow.
It needs to grow.
Our community rests upon our faith, our purpose, our values, our commitment.
A community is where people share things in common.
It is not a place where some provide for everyone else.
A community is a place where everyone buys into what the community is about.
It's where there is an ownership that pervades everyone.
That's a community.
I want you to know something. That's what the world is crying for today.
That's what people in our world are crying for, a place to commit themselves,
a cause for which to live and to die.
May we who know Jesus Christ give them an example of what commitment is, of what community is,
of what values are, of what mission means, of what faith is about,
so that in this community that we call Grace Church Roseville for our own purposes,
but in this community of God that He has placed here,
others may see that what they are crying for can be found here.
That their cry for significance and relevance, their need to belong, can be fulfilled here.
As in any community, there are certain requirements for membership.
If you join the Boy Scouts, there are some hoops to jump through.
If you belong to Rotary, there are certain requirements before you can join.
If you belong to a union, there are some requirements for that, and the same is true of a church.
Churches have somewhat different requirements, of course,
because of the kind of community that a church is.
But a church like Grace Church requires, first of all, a profession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
It does no one good to come into our church and by coming and thinking he becomes a Christian.
We become a Christian by trusting in the Savior,
and having made that profession of faith in Christ, we then are baptized by immersion
to signify our identification with Him.
Then we agree with what the church is about, its doctrines, its mission, its values.
And we willingly say, I commit myself to support these with my service, with my finances, with my prayer.
I am committing myself to this community.
We have nearly 700 people who have made that decision,
who have said by their life, I am committed to this community.
But there are many others who have not yet done that.
And this morning I want to give you an opportunity to make that commitment.
And to say by coming forward at the conclusion of this service on our 12th anniversary,
I believe in Grace Church.
I believe in what God is doing in this community of believers.
I agree with its values, its mission.
I agree with its purpose.
And today by coming forward I am saying I want to become a member of this community.
We have some folks who are prepared to take your names and help you understand the next step to take.
But I want to urge you to take the first step today.
But in addition to that, and beyond that really,
you have never made a public profession of your faith in Jesus Christ.
If you are not sure you are a Christian, or if you are a Christian who has done that in private,
who has made that decision in private, I want to urge you to come today as well.
It may or may not be related to church membership. I hope it will be.
But if you have never made a public profession of your faith in Christ,
I want to urge you to come this morning in obedience to His Lordship in your life.
He calls you to publicly stand with Him.
I invite you now to stand with me as we pray together.
Now Father, I thank you for who you have called us to be.
And in this brief message we have laid out in broad strokes some of that truth.
There are some friends who are here who I believe the Spirit of God would have respond
by saying, I want to belong to that community.
And so Father, lead them I pray by your Spirit.
And for those who need to come in profession of their faith in Christ,
lead them to come by the Holy Spirit.
Urge them to make this important step of obedience.
For Christ's sake I pray, Amen.
We are going to close by singing hymn 460,
All the Way My Savior Leads Me.
And as we sing this verse I want to urge you to step out on the very first part of the first verse.
Don't wait for anybody else.
We want to have you give an opportunity to speak with someone personally and privately about this decision.
And so I urge you to come as we sing the very first verse,
All the Way My Savior Leads Me.
Let Him lead you this morning.
And this important decision about community.
Let's sing together.