Gospel Centered Community

Carson their grandson Some of you know what's going on there some of you don't have a clue But trust me just just pray for that family in a powerful way And then for all the others that we have listed here on our list continue to pray for them and in your own very way I know that you have something going on in your life that you need to pray So let's just all go to the Lord in prayer, and I will lead us right now father In the name of Jesus we give you praise and glory We are so glad to see Don and Carol here this morning Father I know they are glad to be in the house of the Lord to give you praise to give you honor To give you glory even though they have gone through some difficult very difficult circumstances But in all things and all things we know That you have good that you have something good to come out of all this father And while we may not yet know what that is Father you do you have a plan and a purpose for each and every one of us in this place Father I pray for Richard and Maggie and for their grandson I pray father that Almighty God would just intervene and they would sense the power and the presence of God in their life this morning Father I pray for everyone in this room that they would just that we would all Me included father Would have a keen sense of you an awareness of who you are and that you would rain down on us in a mighty way And father just as these men are laying hands on the Elliot's father May we sense the power and the presence and the hand of God on each and every one of us today And we will give you praise and we will give you honor for it's in the name above all names the name of Jesus We pray amen Thank you gentlemen for doing that I Love this time of the year the next two Sundays are probably my favorite time to preach Next Sunday we'll be focusing on spiritual gifts, but I will also be focusing on the cross as We remember as we take the Lord's Supper next week So I hope that you will invite someone to come and be a part of this community of Believers today, we're talking about Biblical community I've listed and named my sermon gospel centered community I was privileged to be able to grow up in a small community of Stonett, Texas, and if I were to ask all of you this morning What community you are a part of many of you would say? Great Bend, Kansas some of you might say, Hoisington some of you might say Yellinwood some of you might even say Seward radium I don't know, but you are part of a community and we define community in that kind of a way as a group of people living in the same place or having a Pair a particular characteristic in common being part of community in Stonett little town of less than 2,000 everybody knows everybody right and I knew back when I was in high school. I I knew the police Chief personally he just lived a few houses up the street for me, and we just called him H I don't know what H stood for him, but H. Wilbanks was one of the kindest gentle but firmest policemen I've ever met in my life and I I made a mistake one day One night I was cruising Main Street. That's what we did back in the 60s right you you cruised, Maine You know back and forth One drive-in is on one side of town and the drive other drive-ins on the other side of town And we just went back and forth driving around well I I reached down to pick up a 8-track anybody know what an 8-track is Kids it was a little thing kind of like a well y'all wouldn't understand And I reached down to put that in my 8-track player and One car stop Jackie Hayes stop Keith didn't stop Ran right into the back of Jackie's Ford Fairlane and my Chevy Impala just kind of And my Chevy Impala just kind of and bent and I hit my chin and and my dad came and got the car and pulled it up the house, and he was a little perturbed with me and H didn't show up, but my dad got there before H. Did but H showed up at my house And he said now Keith he said I Got to give you a ticket It was your fault. I said yes, sir. I know it was he said I hate to give you a ticket You're such a good kid. I had him fooled, but anyway He gave me a ticket. He said now you go down see Harvey Blagg and said Harvey will take care of that I Don't know what he meant by that, but I went down a couple days later, and I said Harvey. I got a ticket I need to pay my ticket off He looked at me and said well Keith I don't see any ticket around here at all said you'll just have to come back said okay a few days later I come back said Harvey. I'm here to pay my ticket. He said well I don't guess I got a ticket for you to pay. I said I just wouldn't worry about it if I were you So I don't know if that was legal or not But that's what he did and I never paid the ticket, but I kind of think H. Kind of took care of me Those same those same eight tracks got stolen a few months later out of my car I left my car unlocked one night. You didn't lock your car in Stenette, Texas They got stolen, and then I called H. I said H. I said my eight tracks got stolen He said well Keith. I don't know if we can do anything about that or not, but the next day the next morning My eight tracks were sitting right by my car, which was locked that night and H knew who had done it H found out who had done it and H had had them bring it so H was this in this Community was a man firm in his love Firm in his love he knew how to correct wrongness But he but he loved his community and we all loved H And that was some of the great advantages of just living in that kind of a community now What I want to talk about today is not necessarily that kind of community although We are all part of that we're all need to be a part of some kind of community We all need to be involved in our community But what I want to talk about today is probably much more important, and that is being part of a gospel centered community Where we are feeling a part of a fellowship with others as a result of sharing the same biblical attitudes Interest and purpose that God has put in our hearts the church Henry cloud who is a well-known Christian counselor. He wrote if you want to become healthy You have to surround yourself with a group of people that are getting healthy And you have to be connected to a community that is doing what you want and need to do My aunt and uncle down in Oklahoma are good friends with the speaker of house Speaker of house Currently in the United States his mother-in-law and father-in-law live in the same town his wife Paul Ryan's wife was good friends, and this is not a political statement I'm going to get where I'm going to go here in a minute But Paul Ryan's wife was a good friend of my cousin and actually I had met her when we were all kids young years ago She was such a good friend, and so I find it interesting that Paul Ryan writes this comment He says every successful individual knows that his or her achievement Depends on a community of persons working together So I want to share with you before we get into the text this morning. This is my definition of what a gospel Centered community needs to be it is a group of believers living life together With the Bible and the Holy Spirit being the driving force within us So this morning my task for you is are you a part of a gospel centered community And what does that mean so before we get in the text this morning? Let's go to the Lord in prayer one more time father May you speak to our hearts about what it means to belong to the community of believers and to be a part of what? We call the local church, but it's more than that father. It's also being a part of a of a small group It's also being part of a of a bigger purpose that you've called all of us to be a part of so father speak to our Hearts speak to our wills this day father and may we be on task to follow your good and perfect will in Jesus name I pray amen. We're in Romans chapter 15 Before I read verses 1 through 7 in verse 13 I want to just kind of give you a background of what's going on in this passage Paul Is is writing a letter specifically to the Romans? But like most of the time when when you when Paul went from from city to city he would meet in the synagogues And in those synagogues would be a group of Jewish folks who had converted to Christianity But also in those synagogues were starting to be populated with Gentiles And so what what Paul was trying to get them to do is to understand that Both those who had who had come up through the Jewish religion and now converted to Christianity and also the Gentiles that the gospel Was for every group not just the Jews not just for the Gentiles But for every group for every ethnic for every culture that the gospel Penetrates those communities and it forms something quite new what we call a gospel centered a biblical Community that is on purpose to do what God has called them to do So it's in that context that we read this passage of Scripture Okay that he's speaking both to the Jews and also to the Gentiles we verse 1 who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and Not to please ourselves Let each of us Please his neighbor for his good to build him up That's a core thing there It's not part of my regular notes But but grab a hold of that our neighbors are part of our community our neighbors right setting next door to you are part of This church community and our objective is to build up one another not to tear people down verse 3 for Christ Did not please himself But as it is written the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me in other words, he died for our sin We get in our key verses now for whatever was written in former days was written for our Instruction that we through endurance and through the encouragement of the scripture We might have hope may the God of endurance and encouragement Grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus that together You may be with one voice glorified the God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ therefore Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God and then read on down in verse 13 If you will Please may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace and believing so that by the power of the Holy Spirit You may abound and hope Again the one key point this morning I want you to grab a hold of is that gospel centered communities are determined to follow out the will of God in their lives I want you to grab that and grab hold of that that is part of a gospel center community that we are Determined to live as God wants us to live and if we are determined in the first point that I want you to do How do we do that? We are directed by Scripture look there in verse 4 again for whatever was written in former days talking about the Old Testament Laws and the Old Testament book was written for our instruction it was written for our Direction that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures. We might have hope I want you to look a little closer at the byproduct of a gospel center community are the words encouragement and endurance Let me share with you that as a gospel centered community the Bible is the center of all that we study and preach. As we begin to move into a pastor search team, I'm gonna talk more about that in just a moment, we need to understand that when we call your next pastor to be the pastor of this church, that he is focused on preaching God's word. Not only that, but when we gather together for small group ministries, for Sunday school, for any other small group, when we start the men's group or any women's group, that we are gospel centered by teaching and preaching the gospel straight from the Bible. Do you ever struggle what to say when someone is going through a difficult time and you just are not having the right words? Well, folks, that's why we encourage you to memorize scripture, because when you are going through or someone else is going through a difficult time, God will just bring those verses of scripture out and you're able to give that person or give yourself the word of God by memorizing scripture. So if you can't have a memorized scripture, make sure that you have a Bible close by so that when someone is struggling, you take that Bible. One of the things that we do when I go visiting and I take someone along with me, I always tell them, learn how to pray with that person. Number two, have some scripture that you can share with them that might be appropriate. Be ready for whatever, if you kind of know what the situation is, because God's word will always permeate our hearts. It will give us endurance. It will give us encouragement. And that's why we come together to study the God's word. When we leave this place, we should not be discouraged. We should be encouraged. We should be ready to go out and endure everything that comes upon us in this world that we live in. When we come to this place as a community, I will be resolved, we will be resolved at First Southern Baptist Church to preach and teach the words of the Bible. Now, as a byproduct of that endurance and that encouragement because of preaching the written word, studying the written word, knowing the written word, memorizing the written word, we will understand hope. We preached a sermon on eternity not too long ago. That word hope used in this passage of scripture is used more than just once. The reason we have encouragement, the reason we have endurement is because we know that things here on this earth are temporary, right? That our hope does not reside here on this earth. It doesn't even reside in the communities that we exist in. It resides in the hope of eternal life that God has given us a promise that if we believe in Jesus Christ as the resurrected living Christ, that we have the promise of a hope of eternal life. That is why we can live in joy. Now, how would we know that if we didn't have this book? There's a lot of good self-help books that you can read and they might help for a while, but we'll just slip right back into any practices that we have. But when we have this word of God, it is full of encouragement, it is full of enduring words, it is full of how we can live life everlasting and that, my friends, is the hope that we live by. So, a gospel-centered community, a church will always make the Bible that it is absolute and true center of what we teach and preach. The second thing that we share as gospel-centered communities, we are determined to stay unified in a biblical purpose. Look at verse five. May the God of endurance and encouragement that comes from reading God's word grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus. I'm sorry, Carl, I just can't think about this verse without thinking about you, because your name's there, okay? We're not gonna live with Carl. We're gonna live with one another, all right? And harmony, that word there, could also mean unity. Folks, when we come together as a church, we ought to take on the very spirit of Christ. He said, I didn't come to be served. What did he do? I came to serve. And if Jesus is our example that we are to live by, then we do not come to this place to be served this morning. If you came to be served, you came for the wrong reason. You come to be servants. And when servants are serving one another, that gives the church a spirit of unity. And when the spirit of unity is at work in the church, the church will speak with one heart and one mouth to give glory to God. Now, I have seen and have heard some mighty disunifying things happen in church, and I've seen some of them, really seen some of these horrible things happen in church. Let me just share a couple of them. Number one, I saw a woman slap one of the youth. Now, he probably deserved it, but inside of a church building, friends, that's not a good sight to see. And I don't think there's ever a good excuse for any of us to slap one of our youth, even though they might deserve it, okay? They don't deserve that. And that created, trust me, people left the church as a result of that, to be in harmony, would have been able to say, I'm going to serve you no matter how smart aleck your mouth is. I'm not gonna slap you. I'm gonna love you with the word of God. I have a friend who tells me a story in another state, nowhere close by. But I know it's true here in Kansas because I've heard a story here about a church, but this is not that story. This story is in another state. It's not Oklahoma, it's not Texas, it's not Kansas. It's somewhere else, okay? But literally this church was in a business meeting and the two gentlemen got into a huge fight and decided, and one of them just said, well, let's just step outside and we'll settle this. Literally, they got into a fight and the policemen had to be called and some of those guys were charged with assault battery. Now folks, am I wrong? That ought not to happen in church. I shared with the pastor search team this week. They had their first meeting and after this, I wanna share with you that your pastor search team is gonna be giving you some updates as they meet. Hazi is the chairman of that committee. Roz is the vice chairman of that committee. If he can't be here, she'll be here and give an update as we go. And we're gonna meet in April. It's gonna, before we can get all together, we gotta spend a whole long day doing a lot of work, just getting a lot of preliminary things out of the way. And so it doesn't move fast because we're working with people's lives and schedules. And so it moves a little slow to get started and it'll start picking up later on. But they are going to share things with you. But let me just say, in a spirit of unity, don't ask them to tell you something they can't tell you. I have asked them to be very confidential with everything. That it doesn't do any good to share rumors, to share things that they might be going through. They're gonna give you an update. But one of the things that I also shared with them is this, is that the Holy Spirit of God lives on each and every one of them. And I believe that God has led this church to lead this people to be the pastor search team of this church to be able to find the person that God has ready to be your next pastor. And that the Holy Spirit of God lives in every one of those pastor search team, just like for every believer here, the Holy Spirit of God lives inside you. And I'm here to tell you that the Holy Spirit of God is not a spirit of disunity. He is a spirit of unity. And if we are on our knees before God, and I'm gonna ask you to pray for your pastor search team, religiously, please, that they will sense the power and the presence of God and everything that they do. And I shared with them that at the end, they should be unanimous on everything that they're deciding because I think the Spirit of God will be directing them. We'll be asking you in the weeks after Thanksgiving and April, we're gonna start 21 days of fasting. We're gonna give you some ways to fast, but I want you to be ready for that, that when we come out, we'll be spending that Sunday after Easter, that April 3rd, we'll be talking about prayer. And then that next week on the 10th, we'll be starting 21 days of fasting. And on that list every day, you should be praying for your pastor search team and for the next pastor that God is calling to come to this church, whoever that might be, whenever that might be. Prayer brings great unity to our church. I believe this unity comes because we are not centered on the gospel. A gospel-centered community will always be directed by God's word, will always be unified in biblical purposes, which leads to the third point. A gospel-centered community has a radical pursuit to glorify God. Look at verse six, that together you may, with one voice, glorify the God and the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. I've been reading a book. In fact, I listened to it for about, oh, five hours this week as I was on the road about that length of time, if not more. It's called, What's Best Next? How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done. And Matthew Aaron, he writes this. He says, there is a purpose to life and we can know it. The purpose of life is to know God, to enjoy God, reflect His glory back to Him in the pursuit of justice and mercy in all things, and do this in community with others through Jesus Christ. There is something to be said about a community that comes together and seeks the direction of God and is in a radical pursuit to glorify God and who He is. Folks, when a church is connected that way and we make that our aim, we make that our objective, we see that that is our purpose, to glorify God. And as I've studied this book, I have redirected my own personal statement, a purpose statement, saying my purpose in life, as Keith Bryant, is to glorify God by making disciples that make disciples. And I think that's what a church is meant to be doing too, is to make disciples that make disciples, but it ought to always be glorifying God. It should never glorify me or a preacher or the church. We do it because God commanded us to do that. Who is the most holy person you've ever seen in your life? Who's the most holy person that you know in your life or that you've seen? Who has made a difference with their pursuit in chasing after God? You and I both know holy people. I think my wife's grandmother, Owen, was one of the most holy people I've ever known. When I got up early, she always got up earlier than me. She was always in her chair. Sometimes she was asleep, but it was always with her Bible open, always. She loved the Lord and she served the Lord as long as she could in her life. She was a holy, godly person. Her pursuit in life was to glorify God, no matter what she did. Most of us know of Mother Teresa. We could all agree that she had a holy pursuit to glorify God, right? She did more for this world, but she said, I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples. In our Sunday school lesson this morning, our speaker, Randy Frazee, said, we were created for community, for biblical community. God knows that Keith Bright cannot change the world. There have been people in the world that have made a big dent, Mother Teresa, Billy Graham, many people like that. Even folks like, who am I thinking of, Jonathan Edwards. They made differences and we see great revivals and changes made in the life, but they can't do it alone. God wants us to do this together in community. I can't do it alone, you can't do it alone. So we need to be together to be on purpose for God. Which moves us to the fourth point real quick. Gospel-centered communities are determined to be open-hearted. Look at verse 7. Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. How did Christ welcome you into His kingdom? When you accepted Jesus Christ as your real and personal Savior, how did He welcome you? With an open heart. With an open hand. He said, welcome to the kingdom. When we who are sinners, saved by grace, receive His mercy and His love, He simply says, come unto me all you who are weak and heavy laden and burdened, and I will give you rest. That's who my Jesus is. In spite of my sinful nature, in spite of my wrongdoings, He loved me and He said, Come on, Keith, come on. Lay your burdens on me. I will take them. Should not the church be the same way? Should we not have this open heart, this open spirit to say, We welcome anyone into this house. I don't care what they look like. I don't care what their clothes are. I don't care what they smell like. I don't care what their color of their skin is. I don't care. I don't care. I am going to have the same open heart that my Jesus had when He received me as an old, dead sinner. That's what a gospel-centered community of believers acts like. As a community, we should never have a closed door. We should always allow people to come be a part of this community of believers. When I went to India, they treated me as royalty. As soon as I got there, those Baptist pastors thought I was a prophet or something. I don't know. I was treated just royally, and they didn't bow down to me or anything. But they made me feel humbled and honored to be there. And I was the keynote speaker that day on the very last day we were there. I noticed in the program that they had me listed as Dr. Keith Bryant. I am no doctor. You had a doctor here, and he was very, very smart. Your pastor, Dr. Dole Smith, he didn't like to use that title. But I admired him and the studies that he did. So I told them, I said, I am not a doctor. They said, please don't introduce me that way. I said, oh, okay, we won't. So they had this very fluent lady that spoke English introduce all the speakers. And she got up there and said, now, from Great Bend, Kansas, the director of missions for Central Baptist Association, Dr. Keith Bryant. I didn't change anything. I didn't tell them otherwise. I only had two thoughts. I thought, well, either they have given me my honorary doctorate today, or they didn't know that I didn't have my doctorate, and they would be too ashamed not to have a doctorate making this 25-year presentation. I don't know. But either way, I came back home and told my dad when I got home. I said, Dad, I got my honorary doctorate in India while I was away. And so I had a lot of fun with that. But as we were beginning to leave, and here's the real point, that was the same day. They had given me this lei that, oh, the smell was just strong. I mean, it was a beautiful flower arrangement around my neck, and it was just so strong. I was literally getting a headache. I couldn't wait to get that thing off. And I couldn't go on the plane with it anyway because they would not let me go through customs. So I was worried about customs. Customs was not the problem in India. You know, if you think that the x-rays are obtrusive and embarrassing here in the United States, you should go to India before you even get in to get your ticket. They were Army-led people with big, big guns and well-armed standing in front. And to get into the airport, you had to show them itinerary. We didn't have our tickets yet, but we had to show them our itinerary. And because I had bought my ticket separate from the other group, I was the only one that had an itinerary. I was the only one that could go in through the gate. The rest of them, I didn't know if they were going to make it home or not. So I had to go in and try to find some kind of a supervisor and say, hey, will you please let these people in because they have tickets waiting on them. And I started thinking about how we sometimes may have that same kind of spirit, not with guns, but with our attitudes if we're not careful when people come to our church. And we may not welcome them with open hearts, with just saying, glad you are here, shaking their hands and make sure that everybody gets at least five touches before they leave this. And what I mean by touches is that somebody says, hello, how are you? Glad you come to church this morning. With open hearts. Because what we believe is this gospel is worth preaching about. What we believe is our God is worth worshiping about. And we invite as many people as we can to come to this place of worship together. The last point this morning. Gospel-centered communities are driven by the Holy Spirit. This verse of Scripture in verse 13 is one that Jeanette and I, and I may have used it before, I don't know. Please forgive me if I have. But the day that they told my wife that she had cancer 16 years ago, we got the news over the phone and we were actually in her bathroom. And it hit both of us very hard. And she simply said to me, Keith, help me to find the joy in this situation. I think I've shared that with many of you before. And then God gave us this verse of Scripture. Fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Now that's the NIV version because that's what I memorized it in. What we have discovered is that our joy is not determined by our circumstance. Our joy is that we have endured and we've been encouraged by the hope that we have in Jesus Christ. And because the Holy Spirit of God lives inside of us, He is going to give us the courage and the strength to continue to live. Now let me ask you this simple question. And please excuse me just for a moment because I'm going to say some things that I normally don't preach. Why is it important to belong to a community of believers? We're living in a society today where people don't want to belong to anything. They want to be isolated, left alone. Let me have my iPhone. Let me just communicate the world through social media. I don't need a church. I don't need organizations. There are a lot of great organizations out there. But the church is a gospel-centered community that has a message of hope that people should be longing to be a part of. Folks, we need to understand that church, being a member of a church is important. Being a part of a small group is important. In fact, one of the things that we often say is that if you want true pastoral care, you'll belong to a small group. If you're not in a Sunday school group or a small group of some kind, you need to get in one. You need to be in that community because you're going to get care like no other. I know Carol and Don would be the first to tell you how much care they have gotten from this church in this time of difficulties. People have loved on them. People have stayed with them. People have fed them. People have gone and see them. Because we have a common bond in the Holy Spirit of God who lives in them and lives in us and because it's part of our community, they go. That's why it's important to be a part of a community of believers that when we go through difficult times, people are there. But it's also important to belong to this church and the way you belong is by observing the ordinances of the church. We're going to be observing both those things in the next two weeks. Next week, we observe the ordinance of the Lord's Supper. As a community of believers, we come together to say we believe that Jesus died and that his body was given for our sake and that his blood was given as an atonement for that sin factor in our lives. Why would you not want to belong to a church that's going to proclaim that regularly and believe that Jesus did all those things for us? The second thing is baptism. The Bible says go baptized. It's quite clear that after our salvation experience that you should follow the Lord in scriptural baptism. Here's why. It shows the community of believers that you believe. Let's play like this is the water and that this is you. When you go into these waters and we stir these waters, that you go and you show to the church that you believe that Jesus died. When you go into the water that he was buried in the grave. And when you come out of the water, it shows the church that you believe that we serve a resurrected living Christ. You could have said amen right there. And we should say amen after somebody gets baptized because that's the picture. It shows the church that this is a fellow believer that's coming to be a part of this body of this community. And it shows to that person up there that this body of believers is going to pray for you. We're going to help you. We're going to be with you. We're on the same team and we are in this together and we're working on purpose together to glorify God, to make disciples that make disciples. So folks, if you're not in a Sunday school class, get in one. If you're not a member of this church, why not? I can't think of a better place to be than right here. If you've never been baptized, why not? It's a great experience. I often tell people if I could do it, I'd do it every week. And I get the privilege and honor to be able to lead in that worship. And it is a worship experience, folks. So if you've never followed the Lord in scriptural baptism, we encourage you to say I want to be baptized. Come and see me because I want to talk to you. I've got to quit. I've got to quit. A gospel center community like First Southern Baptist Church, we are to be determined to follow our Lord and our Savior. Jeanette and I had the privilege to meet a man named Tim Shepard years ago. Tim has written a lot of songs. You've probably have heard some of them. He's not as popular today as he was back in the 90s. He came and did a musical with us. We premiered a musical basically in Houston. A lot of fun, a lot of hard work, but a lot of fun. He got to sing the solo parts. He wrote this song and it was part of the musical. I'm just going to read the verse first in the Course. Darkness surround me, sorrow surrounds me. Though there be trials, still I can sing. For I have this treasure, my God reigns within me. And I am determined to live for the King. I am determined to be invincible till He has finished His purpose in me. And nothing shall shake me, for He'll never forsake me. And I am determined to live for the King. A gospel-centered community is the best community to be a part of, and we here at First Southern Baptist Church, you say amen if I'm right, we here at First Southern Baptist Church are determined to live for the King. Amen.