Better You, Better We

Better You, Better We

I. Introduction

A. There is no effective without fully committed .

1. I Peter 2:5 (NIV) You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

2. I Peter 2:9-10 (NIV) ⁹But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. ¹⁰Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

B. Belonging has to be formed.

   Community has to be shaped.

   A healthy we has to be built, intentionally.

1. I Peter 2:1-2, 5 (NIV) ¹Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. ²Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation. ⁵You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

C. What we into community will eventually the community.

1. I Peter 2:1 (NIV) Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.

  Malice – I want you to lose.

  Deceit – Selective honesty used for self-protection or personal gain.

  Hypocrisy – The gap between who I portray and who I really am.

  Envy – I resent what you have.

  Slander – Turning someone’s private struggle into public knowledge.

D. I Peter 2:2 (NIV) Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation.

E. God is forming us into something that is simultaneously beautiful and marred, sacred and scarred, holy and human, beloved and broken—this marvelously flawed thing we call the Church.

F. God cares about who you are becoming because other people will be on you.

G. A healthy church creates where healthy is possible.

II. Healthy Church Movement

A.

B.

C.

D.

1. “When we live our lives in isolation, what we have is unavailable and what we lack is unprocurable.” (Saint Basil)

E.

F.

1. At this stage, spiritual growth is shaped primarily in two ways:

   How you lead yourself.

   How you lead others.

G.

1. Ephesians 3:20 (NIV) Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.

2. The core carries enough weight so the church can become the kind of community through which God does more than any one person could ever imagine alone.

III. Conclusion