SPEAKER_00: Here at Spring Valley Baptist Church, we exist to make disciples for the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: Disciples who worship and grow and serve and go.
SPEAKER_00: Last week we rolled out this newly articulated mission statement for our church and this pathway of discipleship.
SPEAKER_00: What does a disciple do?
SPEAKER_00: What do they look like?
SPEAKER_00: What are the marks in their lives?
SPEAKER_00: Laser focusing.
SPEAKER_00: I brought up the football, right?
SPEAKER_00: Talked about Vince Lombardi going in front of all of his players saying, this is a football.
SPEAKER_00: Of course we know that.
SPEAKER_00: Of course they knew that.
SPEAKER_00: But we are getting back to the basics.
SPEAKER_00: We are not assuming anything.
SPEAKER_00: And so we rolled that out last week.
SPEAKER_00: And we hear the word disciple or discipleship, and some of us have different ideas when we hear that word, right?
SPEAKER_00: That sometimes maybe you've been, uh maybe you're new to church and you hear a disciple.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a part of your like everyday vocabulary, but you have some understanding of what it is.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've been in churches for a little while and you have a very specific vision and outlook on for what discipleship looks like, and maybe it's like one-on-one or a leader with a small group of four or five, and you're going, meeting at the coffee shop every week.
SPEAKER_00: That's a form that it can take.
SPEAKER_00: But I read an article years ago that just absolutely shattered my paradigms for discipleship.
SPEAKER_00: I read it, I started to understand a little bit more, and I started to reflect on my own life, and I started to resonate.
SPEAKER_00: I was not discipled by one person in particular.
SPEAKER_00: I was discipled by the church.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to this article, some excerpts from this article.
SPEAKER_00: Somewhere along the way, I picked up the idea that discipleship was about finding one mentor who could, with his wit and wisdom, heal my wounds and bring me closer to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I thought there'd be notebooks and coffee and in-depth Bible studies.
SPEAKER_00: I imagine he'd be older and wiser and profoundly interested in my life.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe you found that kind of person.
SPEAKER_00: And if so, great.
SPEAKER_00: But here is what actually happened.
SPEAKER_00: I was discipled by the church.
SPEAKER_00: My regular old normal church.
SPEAKER_00: I showed up and heard sermons, I attended classes and groups and get togethers, and I was shaped to look more like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I was discipled by the church.
SPEAKER_00: And I reflected on this and I looked at it in my own life and following Jesus, and I realized this is what had been done for me.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, I don't always use alliteration, but there are some times where it's helpful.
SPEAKER_00: And all of these things I found were starting with the letter P.
SPEAKER_00: Alright?
SPEAKER_00: And so I was profoundly discipled by various people, Sunday school teachers, youth leaders, different ministers in the church.
SPEAKER_00: I was discipled in programs within the church, VBS, Vacation Bible School, youth camps, Wednesday night activities.
SPEAKER_00: I was discipled through different projects.
SPEAKER_00: So mission trips, serve days, evangelism outreaches.
SPEAKER_00: I was discipled by pastors.
SPEAKER_00: This was a fun exercise of going back through and remembering and giving thanks to God for Brother Charles, Pastor Dave, Pastor Fred, Pastor Bill, Tim and David, and the pastors that had shaped me and had labored over the word and fed and shepherded us through the riches here.
SPEAKER_00: I was discipled by pages, books that I read, resources that were given to me, things that I could grow in knowledge and understanding.
SPEAKER_00: And I was discipled by my parents, Tom and Sandy, as they sought not to outsource discipleship to the local church, but to be the primary disciplers, partnering with the church to point me to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I have been discipled by the church, this beautiful tapestry of men and women leveraging relationships and resources who loved and served the Lord and sought to help me follow Jesus, to look like Jesus and to tell others about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So here, as a part of this new mission series and emphasis on making disciples, we're not going to be rolling out like a new discipleship program where it's like everybody's going to get in small cell groups of four or five people.
SPEAKER_00: And we're not going to exclusively focus on the things that you do as an individual, as important as those are, and we'll kind of touch on those in some next week.
SPEAKER_00: But what we're going to be doing is emphasizing what we do together as the church, creating an environment where we together as the church make disciples for the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: We exist to make disciples for the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: Disciples who worship, grow, serve, and go.
SPEAKER_00: Now are these the only four things that you will do?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: But these are absolutely mission critical.
SPEAKER_00: And today we're going to see how we as disciples at Spring Valley Baptist Church worship and grow.
SPEAKER_00: And just so you're prepared and you're not nervous when filling out your outline this morning, okay?
SPEAKER_00: We're going to spend about 25 minutes on the worship and all of the blanks there, and about 10 minutes on growing in groups at the end, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Now that is not because growing or groups are less important, but no, usually churches don't split over life groups, they split over worship, right?
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to spend just a little bit more time on worship this morning, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And so as we come to God's word, we're going to be in various places all throughout the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: So what you can do is you can try to flip there in your copy of God's Word, or you have all of the scripture references there in your listening outline.
SPEAKER_00: It'll be there on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: You can go later today, later this week, and you can read and go deeper in the study of each of these passages.
SPEAKER_00: So as we come to God's Word, as we seek His will for our lives, let's go to Him in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: So, gracious Heavenly Father, as we come to your Word this morning, I pray that you would give us eyes to see.
SPEAKER_00: God, that you would give us ears to hear.
SPEAKER_00: God, I pray that you would speak.
SPEAKER_00: For we your servants are listening.
SPEAKER_00: It's through Christ we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And so we see disciples worship the Lord to give honor and praise and glory to God.
SPEAKER_00: We've already sung it this morning that He is worthy of every praise that we could ever bring.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, worship the King, all glorious above, and gratefully sing his wonderful love.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all, there is such great care and attention given to the songs that we are putting before you each and every week.
SPEAKER_00: You need to take great care to what you're listening to and what it is that you're singing and is working its way into your mind and down into your heart.
SPEAKER_00: We are meant to worship God for who he is and what he has done.
SPEAKER_00: Well, who is he?
SPEAKER_00: He is the Lord of all creation.
SPEAKER_00: One God, three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: He is the maker of everything, everything that we could ever see, everything that we can't see.
SPEAKER_00: He is the ruler.
SPEAKER_00: And what has he done?
SPEAKER_00: He has made the world and he has redeemed sinners.
SPEAKER_00: Because even though he made the creation and we as humanity created in his image to reflect him, we did not reflect him but sought to replace him.
SPEAKER_00: We were supposed to serve him, but we sought to supplant him.
SPEAKER_00: We wanted the glory, we wanted the name.
SPEAKER_00: We wanted to push him to the side because we thought life could be lived on our own terms.
SPEAKER_00: And we were in sin.
SPEAKER_00: And now we are born into sin, and sin is running rampant through this world, and it has taken root in every human heart.
SPEAKER_00: But God did not just write us off, God did not just in one fell swoop get rid of us all, but no, he sought to redeem us, buy us back, make a way for forgiveness and life and flourishing again.
SPEAKER_00: And he opened up that pathway through his son Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The second person of the Trinity, truly God, truly man, coming to this world, perfect, never sinning, but wrongfully accused and sentenced and executed.
SPEAKER_00: And there at the cross, all of our sin was placed on him, and he received the punishment for our sin.
SPEAKER_00: So that, as God's word says, we might receive his righteousness, his goodness, his perfection.
SPEAKER_00: That we could be forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: That he now has done this.
SPEAKER_00: And we're like, well, how do how do we get into that?
SPEAKER_00: How do we take advantage of that?
SPEAKER_00: How do we leverage that?
SPEAKER_00: It's by repenting.
SPEAKER_00: That's the biblical word.
SPEAKER_00: Turning away, disowning that sin, leaving it behind, and believing, embracing, hands open, ready to receive his forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing I could achieve, there's nothing I could do, there's nothing that I could excel in to make me lovely or desirable, but I don't have to.
SPEAKER_00: I have been washed in his forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: I have been made new and clean.
SPEAKER_00: He is the maker and the redeemer.
SPEAKER_00: He is the savior.
SPEAKER_00: And because of that, we worship.
SPEAKER_00: Without that, without the gospel, that means good news.
SPEAKER_00: That's pretty good news for us here today.
SPEAKER_00: Without the good news, worship would be boring.
SPEAKER_00: Worship would be kind of like, uh, what?
SPEAKER_00: Why are we doing this?
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot better ways that I could be spending my time.
SPEAKER_00: But no, we worship him for who he is and what he has done.
SPEAKER_00: He is the most glorious and he has achieved the greatest thing for us.
SPEAKER_00: And so now we, in response, live lives of worship, and we get to come together every single week to remind each other of that.
SPEAKER_00: Because we forget.
SPEAKER_00: We are forgetful people.
SPEAKER_00: I heard it many years ago.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of times we need to be reminded more than we need to be instructed.
SPEAKER_00: You need to remember something old rather than just always craving something new.
SPEAKER_00: To returning to why it is that we were created.
SPEAKER_00: We learned last week, we were created to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.
SPEAKER_00: We are called to worship Him.
SPEAKER_00: And so when we gather together as a church, our corporate worship, when I say corporate, I don't mean like, you know, suits and ties and briefcases in a big building downtown.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about that kind of corporate.
SPEAKER_00: Corporate, us as a body together.
SPEAKER_00: What does our corporate worship look like?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we worship through a few ways this morning.
SPEAKER_00: You can go ahead and fill it in first.
SPEAKER_00: We worship through song.
SPEAKER_00: We are a singing people.
SPEAKER_00: Maria beautifully read for us Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3, and I don't know if you saw them right there next together, how similar they are.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're just going to look at Colossians 3 this morning.
SPEAKER_00: But listen to what the Apostle Paul, in writing to the church at the city of Colossae, what he wrote to them and what he said, let the word of Christ dwell in y'all richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
SPEAKER_00: And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.
SPEAKER_00: And so, what does worship through song look like here at Spring Valley Baptist Church?
SPEAKER_00: Well, based on this passage, and we want the word to shape our practices, right?
SPEAKER_00: We want to be anchored and standing on the road.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to just throw stuff up against the wall and see what sticks.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to just be like, well, well, yeah, I think that sounds good.
SPEAKER_00: Let's do that.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: We want to tie as much as we can what we do to the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so looking at this passage, what does worship look like?
SPEAKER_00: What does worship through song look like?
SPEAKER_00: It's, did you notice in here, one another?
SPEAKER_00: There is some one anothering going on in our singing together.
SPEAKER_00: We need to hear and see one another.
SPEAKER_00: So that's why we keep the lights on.
SPEAKER_00: So that we can see one another.
SPEAKER_00: Now, some of you might think it's very loud in here, right?
SPEAKER_00: But it's we could always, you know, bring the fader down just a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: But we are not just blaring and washing music over you.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because one of the most beautiful things that I can hear in my entire life is all of us together singing and lifting up the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so I don't want you just to come and hear the professionals.
SPEAKER_00: We need to come and hear one another.
SPEAKER_00: We can testify to one another.
SPEAKER_00: For us, we want to be filled with the Spirit and the Word of Christ dwelling in us richly.
SPEAKER_00: You see this?
SPEAKER_00: Paul said, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.
SPEAKER_00: How?
SPEAKER_00: Teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: And another way that it can be, another way that the Word of Christ can dwell, remain, abide richly in us, is through singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual psalms.
SPEAKER_00: And to have hearts, hearts that are engaged, making melody and filled with gratitude for it to be a fountain of thankfulness to God.
SPEAKER_00: And there is a great variety of how the word of Christ can dwell in us richly.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul says in Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3, through psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
SPEAKER_00: Psalms that are straight from God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Singing the Psalms and hymns, time-tested, rich language, and then spiritual songs, newer, fresh, simple statements of truth.
SPEAKER_00: We need all of them.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's why, y'all, we're not far away from going back to multiple services in here.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of hard to find a seat.
SPEAKER_00: Don't know if you saw it, notice that.
SPEAKER_00: Praise to God.
SPEAKER_00: That's a wonderful problem to have.
SPEAKER_00: But one of the things that we are not going to do is to break off into different worship services based on style preference.
SPEAKER_00: Not going to have a contemporary service or a traditional service.
SPEAKER_00: We're not just going to split off into the older people and the younger people.
SPEAKER_00: But we need the word of Christ dwelling in us richly through a variety of ways, through psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
SPEAKER_00: We need this.
SPEAKER_00: We need the time-tested richness of the hymns.
SPEAKER_00: We need the freshness of the new songs, expressing hearts of gratitude and thankfulness to God.
SPEAKER_00: We need the songs that are teaching us.
SPEAKER_00: We need the songs that are giving us prayers to God.
SPEAKER_00: We are being shaped by it all.
SPEAKER_00: We need psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we recently went through a process to bring Brother Jason here, Jason Burley, new Minister of Music and Worship, and he is stepping into a rich legacy here by Rick McCollum, our Minister of Congregational Care, who was our Minister of Music and Worship for 30 plus years.
SPEAKER_00: So I've had the privilege to work with Rick.
SPEAKER_00: I have the privilege now to work with Jason, and we were in that search process alongside a great team.
SPEAKER_00: Maria, who read scripture for us, was on that committee, a host of other folks that are sitting up here working in the tech booth, all scattered across campus.
SPEAKER_00: And as we were a part of that search process to bring our next minister of music and worship here, we were at the front side of that process and I was talking with a committee.
SPEAKER_00: And they asked me, Pastor Blake, what is it that we should be looking for?
SPEAKER_00: Where are we going to be going with musical worship?
SPEAKER_00: And so I put pen to paper or fingers to keys and I started just writing out what had been swirling around up here, what had been swirling around in here for multiple years, and sought to like distill down where we're going with musical worship here at Spring Valley Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: And I put it on paper, I shared it with the committee, and then at the appropriate time I shared that list with Jason.
SPEAKER_00: He reminded me about that this past week.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what I wrote.
SPEAKER_00: We will not fit the traditional or contemporary mold.
SPEAKER_00: If somebody wants high church traditional, there's a church for that.
SPEAKER_00: If they want ultra modern contemporary, there's a church for that, but it's not us.
SPEAKER_00: What we will prioritize is the word of Christ dwelling in us richly through psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
SPEAKER_00: We will sing ancient, time-tested songs that convey deep truth, aiming to make the familiar fresh.
SPEAKER_00: And we will sing new, fresh songs that convey connection, aiming to make the fresh familiar.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to pursue excellence and authenticity.
SPEAKER_00: We will have a choir that helps us to prioritize growing the congregational voice.
SPEAKER_00: And whoever it is, they need to love the doxology as much as I do.
SPEAKER_00: And we found him.
SPEAKER_00: And this morning, this morning, our service is a good example of this.
SPEAKER_00: Go look at your look at your bulletin.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the order of service today.
SPEAKER_00: We sang Psalm 8.
SPEAKER_00: We opened up with two glorious, time-tested hymns of the faith.
SPEAKER_00: And we've sung newer spiritual songs, and you're going to be singing a brand new song here at the very end.
SPEAKER_00: Spoiler alert.
SPEAKER_00: Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.
SPEAKER_00: An emphasis on congregational singing.
SPEAKER_00: And our particular flavor here at Spring Valley Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: Ministry of music with praise team, band, and choir.
SPEAKER_00: And y'all, I'm so thankful to say there's not going to be worship wars here at Spring Valley Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: There's going to be a worship feast.
SPEAKER_00: That's why it comes after the war.
SPEAKER_00: So for us, we will worship through song.
SPEAKER_00: And worship, it's so much more than music, so much more than singing, but it's definitely not less than.
SPEAKER_00: And so we worship through song, but next you're going to see we worship through prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Worship through prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Goodness gracious, I've got to speed up.
SPEAKER_00: I can talk about this all day.
SPEAKER_00: All right, 1 Timothy chapter 2, verse 1 through 4.
SPEAKER_00: There, Paul, writing to his protege Timothy, says this.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, then I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.
SPEAKER_00: This is good.
SPEAKER_00: And it's pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul, he's writing it to Timothy, and he's saying, When y'all are gathered together, you're a praying people.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to be praying.
SPEAKER_00: And so here at Spring Valley Baptist Church, prayer is not just a transition within the service.
SPEAKER_00: Prayer is not just a time that we conveniently move everybody off the platform.
SPEAKER_00: But prayer is us seeking to speak to the Lord of all creation.
SPEAKER_00: I've heard it said before that prayer is the splicing of our limp wire to the lightning rod so that we can connect with God.
SPEAKER_00: For us, prayer is not just a transition, but calling out to God.
SPEAKER_00: And we pray for all people, those gathered here together, those not with us.
SPEAKER_00: We pray for leaders and situations, and we pray towards the beginning of our service.
SPEAKER_00: We pray asking for God's help and blessing.
SPEAKER_00: We pray towards the beginning of the sermon, asking for God's help and blessing.
SPEAKER_00: We pray at the end of the sermon, asking for God's help and blessing.
SPEAKER_00: We have a time of response where we can pour out our hearts to God, where we can ask Him for His help and His blessing.
SPEAKER_00: And y'all don't know this.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, some of you do, but we have a prayer room right downstairs, room A112, where people are praying all through our gathered worship today.
SPEAKER_00: Without even knowing it, you're being covered in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: That we are a praying people.
SPEAKER_00: We worship God through song, we worship Him through prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Next, we worship Him through giving.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians 9.
SPEAKER_00: The reference there is 6 through 15, but we're just going to look at verses 10 through 12.
SPEAKER_00: There, Paul writing to the church at Corinth says this He who supplies the sower, seed to the sower, and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: You will be enriched in every way to be generous.
SPEAKER_00: In every way, which through us will produce thanksgivings to God.
SPEAKER_00: For this ministry of this service is not only supporting the needs of the saints, but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God.
SPEAKER_00: God is the giver.
SPEAKER_00: And we are called to be generous with what he is given.
SPEAKER_00: And when we do this, God's word says it will produce thanksgivings and praise to God.
SPEAKER_00: Worship to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Overflowing.
SPEAKER_00: And so what does that look like here at Spring Valley Baptist Church?
SPEAKER_00: So a few years ago, in my first year here, we made the move back to bringing the passing of the plates or the popcorn buckets, right?
SPEAKER_00: Fried chicken buckets, whatever you want to call them.
SPEAKER_00: They've been called many affectionate things through the years, okay?
SPEAKER_00: We brought this back in, and why?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I felt it important to have it as a part of our gathered worship and not just as a receptacle on the way out.
SPEAKER_00: And no knock against other places that do that.
SPEAKER_00: No knock against our church when we did that for a season.
SPEAKER_00: But giving in worship can shape us in a positive way.
SPEAKER_00: Now, full disclosure, my wife and I, we give to our church online.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So that is a mechanism that we utilize, but what we do, even though we give online, whenever I'm sitting right there where Sharon is, and I take the bucket and I pass it down, I use that as a prompt for prayer and saying, God, all that I have is yours.
SPEAKER_00: And it is a joy to be able to give back a portion.
SPEAKER_00: I did it online a couple of days ago, but I'm using it and praying and thanking God for it here, gathered in our worship.
SPEAKER_00: And so for us, we recall what God has entrusted to us, and we are joyful to give back to Him.
SPEAKER_00: And so, church, you can give online.
SPEAKER_00: You can give in the bucket, you can drop it off at the church office, you can mail it in snail mail.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be in this room as a part of this service for it to count, but we emphasize this time us worshipfully giving back to God a portion of what he has graciously given to us.
SPEAKER_00: And that's everything.
SPEAKER_00: Everything that we have is because of his grace.
SPEAKER_00: And so knowing that, don't be lulled into thinking that your giving is anything other than worshiping God.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a tip for a good sermon.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a bill for religious goods and services or because we sang music that you liked.
SPEAKER_00: It's not dues for a country club or other some sort of fraternal organization.
SPEAKER_00: If anybody tries to leverage or really angle for something to happen, and if they're going to withhold their tithing, take your money with you.
SPEAKER_00: Take it.
SPEAKER_00: We don't need it.
SPEAKER_00: We will seek to honor the Lord and what he has called us to do.
SPEAKER_00: And so if your giving is a bargaining chip or something else like that, that is not the heart posture.
SPEAKER_00: God loves a cheerful giver, not a calculated one.
SPEAKER_00: And so for us, our giving is nothing else, other than worship to the living God.
SPEAKER_00: So we worship through psalm, we worship through prayer, we worship through giving, and we worship through the word.
SPEAKER_00: I could talk a long time about this, right?
SPEAKER_00: But I won't.
SPEAKER_00: We have two verses here, 1 Timothy 4.13 and 1 Timothy 5.17.
SPEAKER_00: We worship through the Word.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Paul writing to Timothy, the young minister in training who was over the church at Ephesus.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Paul was telling him should be a part of the gathered worship there in Ephesus.
SPEAKER_00: He said this in 4.13, until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: And then to the exhortation and teaching.
SPEAKER_00: And then in 1 Timothy 5.17, a couple of chapters later, he says there, let the elders, the pastors who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.
SPEAKER_00: Here at Spring Valley Baptist Church, we worship through the Word.
SPEAKER_00: We're shaped by the Word, and we together sit under the Word.
SPEAKER_00: I'll never forget, I was in seminary, and I had a professor who, I mean, he was like a bulldog of a man.
SPEAKER_00: Retired military, PhD in history.
SPEAKER_00: He got saved later in life.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't grow up in the church, but Jesus gripped his heart and he was never the same.
SPEAKER_00: And so he was able to leverage his educational background and he came in there.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember him one day.
SPEAKER_00: He was in his 70s, right?
SPEAKER_00: But he one day got, and I no, I'm not going to do it here.
SPEAKER_00: But he got on the desks and he said, Students, you're going to have to decide what kind of preacher are you going to be?
SPEAKER_00: Are you going to be someone who stands over the word and says, You will say this?
SPEAKER_00: Or are you going to be someone, and then he laid down on top of the desks, holding the Bible above him, and said, Or are you going to be a minister who sits under the word and says, Your word, in your ways, I will serve you.
SPEAKER_00: Are you going to look down on God's Word and say, you will serve me and my agenda?
SPEAKER_00: Or are you going to sit under the Word and say, tell me your ways and your agenda?
SPEAKER_00: What do you want to be done?
SPEAKER_00: And so for us here, what we're going to do is we're going to prioritize the Word of God, His self-revelation to humanity, the hope for the world.
SPEAKER_00: And so we devote ourselves here to the public reading of Scripture, the text for the day, or a complimentary passage.
SPEAKER_00: And then, yeah, we have a little bit of a liturgical move at the end.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are very familiar and comfortable with that, others, that's kind of strange, but we're warming up to it.
SPEAKER_00: Where we say, this is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Why do we do that?
SPEAKER_00: Because this is not man's word.
SPEAKER_00: You need to be reminded again and again, this is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: This is not something else like, or just the greatest among other human works.
SPEAKER_00: Categorically, nothing else like it.
SPEAKER_00: Alone, at the top.
SPEAKER_00: This is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And we receive it.
SPEAKER_00: And when we receive it, our collective response is thanks be to God.
SPEAKER_00: That is the right response for us to be able to have.
SPEAKER_00: We are glad to receive this with a generous heart.
SPEAKER_00: And then we preach the word.
SPEAKER_00: Directly, I'm proclaiming the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Indirectly, I'm teaching you how to read your Bible.
SPEAKER_00: That's all I'm doing.
SPEAKER_00: In different ways, I'm explaining, illustrating, or applying the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what you should be seeking to do in your time with God and His Word.
SPEAKER_00: To explain it, understand it, to illustrate it, and apply it.
SPEAKER_00: What does it look like here in my life?
SPEAKER_00: And so what does it look like here at Spring Valley?
SPEAKER_00: The regular diet will be preaching through books of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: So spoiler, right?
SPEAKER_00: In two weeks, we're starting the book of Exodus.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to be marching through.
SPEAKER_00: And then we have some occasional topical series that are sprinkled in.
SPEAKER_00: Good change-ups.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we're in right now.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're new, keep coming back.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to march through God's word together.
SPEAKER_00: And so we'll preach through books of the Bible, and we, you could expect from me each week to hear the good news, the gospel message of what Jesus Christ has done.
SPEAKER_00: Because I don't believe that the gospel is just a New Testament thing.
SPEAKER_00: I believe the gospel is from Genesis to the maps in the very back.
SPEAKER_00: That we have God's saving work recorded for us, and Jesus is the only hope of this world.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's going to be the same message every single week.
SPEAKER_00: Coming at it from different ways.
SPEAKER_00: It'll sound a little bit different, some different textures, but I'm a one-trick pony.
SPEAKER_00: And it's the gospel straight, week after week.
SPEAKER_00: That's right, Bernie.
SPEAKER_00: For us.
SPEAKER_00: We worship through song and through prayer, through giving, through the word, and through fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: Through fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: Look at Hebrews 10.
SPEAKER_00: And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.
SPEAKER_00: Not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some.
SPEAKER_00: But encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
SPEAKER_00: Don't let us neglect meeting together.
SPEAKER_00: It's good to be together.
SPEAKER_00: I love to fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: I love to be with the family.
SPEAKER_00: And so, what does that look like here at Spring Valley Baptist Church?
SPEAKER_00: You know, if I could just encourage you when you're coming, get here a little early.
SPEAKER_00: It's a sweet time.
SPEAKER_00: I love walking around.
SPEAKER_00: I wish I could make touch points with every single person who comes and worships with us before.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have that time or that many hands to be able to shake, but like, it's good to be together.
SPEAKER_00: Get here a little early, stay here a little late.
SPEAKER_00: Enjoy being together.
SPEAKER_00: And when you come, don't just look to be a recipient of encouragement.
SPEAKER_00: But come, and maybe a good thing to do would be when you close the car door in the parking lot, use that as a prompt for prayer saying, God, use me to encourage someone today.
SPEAKER_00: Eyes up, eyes focused, seeking who can I encourage today?
SPEAKER_00: Who can I affirm in their walk with the Lord today?
SPEAKER_00: Who can I build up today?
SPEAKER_00: We worship through fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: And so for us, we think disciples worship the living God.
SPEAKER_00: And next, disciples grow.
SPEAKER_00: And disciples grow in groups.
SPEAKER_00: You can write that in.
SPEAKER_00: So the only specific picture of what we have, what life looked like in groups, smaller groups, is Acts chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: And there in Acts chapter 2, we see in verses 42 through 47 what the disciples were doing there in the early church.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to them.
SPEAKER_00: And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship and to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
SPEAKER_00: And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.
SPEAKER_00: And all who believed were together and had all things in common, and they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need.
SPEAKER_00: And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people, and the Lord added to their number day by day those that were being saved.
SPEAKER_00: That sounds pretty good to me.
SPEAKER_00: That sounds like something that I would want to be a part of.
SPEAKER_00: That's a movement that I would want to get caught up in.
SPEAKER_00: And for us, we here, we make disciples when we grow in groups together.
SPEAKER_00: There are many national parks that I want to go to.
SPEAKER_00: But probably one towards the top of the list, at least top five, would be Sequoia National Park out in California.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone been to Sequoia?
SPEAKER_00: A few raised hands?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you know exactly what I'm about to talk about.
SPEAKER_00: Though I haven't seen it, I've seen some pictures of these giant sequoia trees.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the screen.
SPEAKER_00: That is a full-grown human person right there standing at the base of one of these trees.
SPEAKER_00: That these sequoia trees are sometimes referred to as the largest living things on the planet.
SPEAKER_00: That they can get to almost 250 feet in the air and standing for as long as 1,500 years.
SPEAKER_00: And if I were to ask you, like I did my family on our family walk the other night, why do you think they can stand so tall for so long?
SPEAKER_00: Well, my family answered very much like I did when I was researching this week.
SPEAKER_00: And it's probably because their roots grow deep.
SPEAKER_00: What if I were to tell you sequoia tree roots grow about four feet deep?
SPEAKER_00: How on earth can these things grow so tall and stand for so long with roots that only grow about four feet deep?
SPEAKER_00: It's because of this.
SPEAKER_00: No sequoia grows alone.
SPEAKER_00: They're only growing ever in sequoia groves, like you see in this picture right here.
SPEAKER_00: Even though their roots don't grow deep, they spread out wide and interlock with the root systems of the other sequoia trees surrounding them, becoming stronger together than any one of them could be apart.
SPEAKER_00: And the analogy should be obvious.
SPEAKER_00: It was at this point that my wife on our walk said, So join a life group, right?
SPEAKER_00: I was like, yes, yes, that's the takeaway.
SPEAKER_00: We don't grow alone.
SPEAKER_00: We grow together.
SPEAKER_00: Growing in groups helps to make mature disciples.
SPEAKER_00: And y'all, it doesn't have to be here.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be Spring Valley Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: I'd love it if it was.
SPEAKER_00: I think we got a great thing going on with our groups here at Spring Valley.
SPEAKER_00: But as long as it's somewhere.
SPEAKER_00: And so for us here at our church, when we are together and we seek to grow in groups together, this is what it looks like.
SPEAKER_00: We have life groups.
SPEAKER_00: These life groups that some are multi-generational, some are based on age and life stage, but all of them are anchored in the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: Sound curriculum that we are teaching through, and it's a mix of teaching, a mix of discussion and reflections.
SPEAKER_00: It's a place where you can share with one another, where you can be in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Where, yes, you're together for about an hour on Sunday mornings, but it doesn't just stay there.
SPEAKER_00: So many of our groups link up for coffee or for meetings or for different events throughout the course of the week during the month.
SPEAKER_00: And then it's a place where you can give and receive care when times are especially difficult.
SPEAKER_00: We have one group, life group, there, you know, a lot of them sitting in the same section.
SPEAKER_00: One of our senior adult life groups, and there was a brother in that group who was going through a very difficult time, and he was truly all alone.
SPEAKER_00: No one else.
SPEAKER_00: No family to care for him, no one to support him.
SPEAKER_00: He had come to our church, he had gotten involved, joined as a member, and was plugged into the Prayer Warriors Life Group.
SPEAKER_00: He got a very difficult cancer diagnosis.
SPEAKER_00: He had a carousel of treatments and appointments and a lot of financial burdens and hardships.
SPEAKER_00: And rather than just some people coming together saying, Oh, we'll pray for you, brother, and then going on and living their life as they would in any normal way.
SPEAKER_00: They surrounded, the men and women in this class surrounded him in holistic care.
SPEAKER_00: He never went to a doctor's appointment or chemo treatment alone.
SPEAKER_00: Thousands and thousands of dollars, not coming through the church, not getting credit for it in any other way, but going directly through that class to be able to help him to pay for his treatment.
SPEAKER_00: Inviting him to the meal table, to go on visits, to do a Bible study.
SPEAKER_00: How to follow God when the news is bad.
SPEAKER_00: They were caring for him, visiting him, taking him places.
SPEAKER_00: He was a part of the family.
SPEAKER_00: Jack died a few weeks ago.
SPEAKER_00: And we had a funeral, and this entire middle section was a couple of family members, and the rest filled with his life group.
SPEAKER_00: No one grows alone.
SPEAKER_00: We are interlocked together, standing tall, supporting one another, and seeking to make disciples, holistic disciples, for the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: We here at Spring Valley make disciples for the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: Not the glory of a group, but not the glory of a staff member, not the glory of a church or a brand.
SPEAKER_00: We seek to make disciples for the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: And disciples, we've seen this morning worship and grow.
SPEAKER_00: Next week we will see serve and go.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'd encourage you, church, prioritize this.
SPEAKER_00: Show up.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, to receive, but also to give.
SPEAKER_00: Prioritize this for your flourishing and for his glory.
SPEAKER_00: I was discipled by the church.
SPEAKER_00: And I have made disciples by being a part of the church.
SPEAKER_00: You can be discipled by the church.
SPEAKER_00: And you can help make disciples by being a part of the church.
SPEAKER_00: All for his glory.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: So, gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you for the call to worship and for the gift to grow together.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you that your worship can look so many different faithful ways within our church, within churches in our city, state, nation, and world.
SPEAKER_00: Would you free us from the rigidity of it having to look one way?
SPEAKER_00: But God, would we experience freedom within the framework of how you've laid it out for us?
SPEAKER_00: We want to give you all the worship, all the glory.
SPEAKER_00: We want to grow deeper so that we can look more like your Son, our Savior.
SPEAKER_00: So help us, God.
SPEAKER_00: Do for us what we can't do for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Help us and keep us close.
SPEAKER_00: In Christ's name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.