10 The ABCs

Welcome back to our final time together. In this Start Here Course that we've done, we've covered everything from salvation to baptism to the gifts of the Spirit. And all these concepts have focused on a vertical relationship. But we don't live our Christian life in isolation.

In this session, we would love to cover the A's, the B's, and the C's—the essential elements that we need to live a fruitful Christian life within the family of God. Let's do that now. Welcome back to our final session of Foundations. And in this Foundations course, we've looked at many things.

We've looked at salvation. How we get saved. How God views us. What happens to us. And how Jesus has died for us. And what we should do in order to live a fruitful Christian life. We've looked at some of the practices of Christianity.

What we should do in order for this fruitfulness to present in us. Concepts like baptism, baptism in the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues. And to finish off, let's take all these things that happen to us individually and link it to church. Church is always a collective.

You are a member of a body, a stone in a temple, a soldier in an army. And so we probably can live an individualistic Christian life, but it's definitely not going to be a life that's full of abundance. Because Jesus has come to give us life and life in abundance.

And so to look at this concept of living an alive Christian life, I want to use an illustration out of the medical field. In first aid, there's this principle called ABC. If you find someone on the ground, you check the A, the B, and the C: the Airway, the Breathing, and the Circulation. Because without those things, you cannot live. And so what are the A, the B, and the C for us as Christians? So let's start with the A. The A is for Abide. The B is for Belong. And the C is for Contribution.

A Is for Abiding

A is for Abiding. Jesus said in John 15:5, "I Am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, He it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing."

Without being in Jesus, without our vertical relationship in place—through the leading and the guiding of the Holy Spirit, through the mediating blood of Jesus Christ, and through aligning our lives with the plan of the Father; through prayer, individual prayer, through corporate prayer; through praying for one another, through praying in tongues; through the Word, reading of the Word, sitting under the Word in church; through all these practices where we expose ourselves to the living Word of God that lives inside of our hearts—we have to keep Abiding in Jesus.

It's like oxygen. And it's the Holy Spirit that leads us day by day. Just like the Israelites got manna every day in the desert, the Holy Spirit will provide you a place of eating every day so that our spirits can be fed and we can be kept alive; so that our airway can be open so that we can breathe. As Christians, we have this responsibility to find these pockets of oxygen so that we can live.

How many of you have held your breath underwater? You get anxious. Then you are desperate to come up for some air. That relief and finding the Holy Spirit—whether it be in reading your Word, whether it be in prayer, whether it be in speaking in tongues, whether it be in worship, whether it be in Christian conversation—it's essential for us as Christians to, on a daily basis, find that pocket where the Holy Spirit brings that spiritual life of God into our lives.

And so that's what it means to abide. We have a responsibility as Christians to seek and find those places to abide, on a daily basis, like our quiet times or devotional times with the Lord. And there's no specific time when you have to have a devotion, but Adam walked with God in the cool of the day.

I think if you start your day with God, in the cool of the day—before the WhatsApps start coming through and the phone calls and the business and the problems of life—if you start your day early in the morning with the Lord, it sets a base for that airway to be open and to propel you into what He has for you for the rest of the day. And so the first thing as Christians that we have to prioritize is finding that abiding place with the Lord so that we can have an airway.

B Is for Belonging

The second place is the B. It's the belonging. God hasn't made us to be isolated. He's placed us within a body and within a group. And there I've got three words to explain what belonging means: it's friendship, it's fellowship, and it's family.

Belonging Through Friendship

1. Friendship. It is so important for us as Christians to not just come to church and not to have friends at church. Church is about spiritual matters, like the prayer, and the Word, and the preaching, and the teaching, and the worship. But actually, the Bible doesn't make a distinction in life, because Jesus lived His life for the disciples.

So, watching rugby, or soccer, or going to the beach together, or going on hikes with our Christian friends, is just as life-giving as maybe some spiritual practices. And so we shouldn't divide the two. I want to encourage you to find friends, to find friends within the church.

And sometimes that might be difficult because people have got different hobbies. And they might be different to you, but I want to encourage you to persevere, to push through, and to make friendships. As we sow the seed of friendship, we will reap from it a reward.

And sometimes we can feel lonely in church. You can come to church and you can feel like you don't really have friends there. Or I'm inviting people to my house, and they're coming over for suppers, but I never get invited. I want to encourage you at that time of despair and hopelessness to keep on sowing.

The Bible says, if you sow, you will reap. And like a farmer, when you sow, when that seed goes into the ground, do you get your crop immediately? No, you've got to wait a while. It's going to take six to eight weeks before it comes up.

And then it's got to grow and mature, and then eventually it bears its fruit. And so sowing and reaping is very much like that. And so if you might find yourself in a church, you might not have friends, I want to encourage you to sow, and you will bear fruit.

Choosing Friends Wisely

Also, with regards to friendship. Let me just find that scripture. In 1 Corinthians 15:33: "Do not be deceived: 'Bad company ruins good morals.'" And so it's good to have friends that are outside the church, but make sure that you have the right friends outside the church.

Maybe here I can share a testimony. I came to the Lord, and I grew in my faith. And I grew in my understanding, and I was in church. And then I went on a holiday, and I bumped into a friend. And me and this friend, we weren't good for each other.

He was like fire and I was like petrol. And it took me about 30 minutes to backslide. And then I backslid from the Lord for about four years. I ended up being worse than what I was before I got saved. God said to me, "Morne, come back. I'll forgive you. If you don't come back now, you're going to die." And whether that was spiritual death or physical death, I don't know. But I listened to the voice of the Lord and I turned. I repented, I turned from my evil ways.

And I came back to Jesus. And guess what? A couple of weeks later, this friend enters into my life again. Now, I hadn't seen him for years. And, he said to me, "Let's go out." And we went out that night. And I woke up the next morning with a hangover.

And then I thought to myself, "I've seen this movie." And so I had to cut that relationship with him. Not put him out of my life, but in my faith and in my person, I wasn't strong enough to not be influenced by him. For a few years, I just disappeared.

And I plugged myself into church and I grew in my faith. And then, four or five years later, I bumped into him again. And we went on a surfing trip together and on the way there he looked at me, he said, "You look different."

And I said, "Yes, I'm a Christian and God's come into my life and He's changed me completely." My friend kept on asking questions and asking questions and I answered all the questions that he had. And that night on the way back I said, "Well, I'm going to this church meeting. Would you want to come with me?"

He came with and he gave his heart to Jesus that night. I know we don't want to cut our friends off, but we have to. In wisdom, discern, "Am I strong enough to influence them, or are they influencing me?" And so find friendships within the church, because friendship strengthens us.

Especially when we're weak. Find good friends within a local church. Make sure that your friends believe the same things as you and are traveling in the same direction as you are.

Belonging Through Fellowship

2. Fellowship. We gather not only to watch sports and TV and soccer and those things. But we gather because of Jesus. We gather because of the mission of Jesus. And to be in fellowship means that we're running together. We're running together for a purpose, and God's purpose is that go into all the nations and make disciples. I want to encourage you to put your life into fellowship.

Start reaching out, start participating in what the church is involved in. If the church is going on an outreach to a Four12 church, get a bunch of friends together and go on a fellowship. Go on a fellowship quest. I love Tolkien's books, The Lord of the Rings.

They've made some movies of it, and I thought they did a pretty good job of those movies. Remember they had the Fellowship of the Ring? And they had this ring, which they had to go destroy. A whole bunch of different types of people got together.

But what kept them together was this common purpose of destroying this ring. Sometimes church is like that. When we go on outreaches we might be going with people older or younger than us. Or from a different culture than us or they have different interests than us.

And while we're traveling in the car and we're rubbing shoulders with one another, that's where you make your best friends. When we're there, and we're on a common mission, and we're making disciples of the nations. I'm going to tell you, if you go out, you will never be the same again.

Participate in Outreach and Mission

Participate. I've only talked about outreach. It's not the only thing that we do as church. But fellowship around the things that the church is doing in order to extend the gospel into the nations. And you will get cemented in, and you will find your purpose and destiny, and you will grow.

Church as Family

It's because as you go, God goes with you, and you grow. 3. Family. You know, we don't start off as family, but over a period of time, as we get to know one another, as we become friends. As we fellowship together in church, and as we go through the ups and the downs of life, we celebrate the marriages and we mourn the deaths.

We grow together and we become like family. The church has become to me almost deeper than my blood family. Because the church has been there for me in times when I've been at my most vulnerable. So maybe if I can share another testimony with you.

My youngest boy was about two years old and my wife got really sick and she had to go to hospital for two weeks. So I had a 2-year-old boy in nappies. Sarah was about three months old at that time. Newborn. She was still being breastfed.

We had to get her off the breast and on to the bottle. And as a man, I support my wife. I love my wife, but I'm not great with those things. And so I got stuck with these two little children. Not stuck, don't get me wrong, but I couldn't take care of them by myself.

It was a very vulnerable time for me as a father. And the church moved in with me. Neil and Moz moved into my house and helped me take care of these two little ones. And the church would come and they would bring us meals.

They would come and do our washing. It was incredible. In this time, my wife was about an hour away. So I had to travel an hour to get to see her during the day and then I had to travel an hour back. And so the church at that time, they came and they supported me when we were at our lowest.

And you know sometimes it's difficult to be vulnerable. We like to give but it's sometimes harder to receive than it is to give. I want to encourage you, the church is supposed to be a family. Be vulnerable. Ask when you need help. And when there are people in trouble, help.

Because the church is there to love one another. Jesus says that the world will know that you're My disciples by the love that we have one for another. That is our greatest testimony. And as we do this, we friendship, we fellowship, and we family together.

Contribution to the Body of Christ

We grow together and we become a representation of what the church should be. A family. And then the last one is the C is the contribution. And there's a scripture: "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." It's Matthew 6:21, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Unless you invest you lose interest. Now that's an ambiguous statement. Unless you invest you lose interest in the sense that you lose interest in what's going on. If you are in the Body and you're not contributing, you're not giving what God's put inside of you to give, then you lose meaning, you lose identity, and you disassociate from the Body.

And you also lose interest in the sense that you lose return. Because whatever we give in this life, as to Jesus, we deposit in heaven one day as a reward for ourselves.

If we don't contribute, we lose interest in the Body and we might drift away, and we can also lose our reward because God saved you for a purpose. Jesus died so that you could be what God had made you to be, so that you could live out Your plan, purpose, and destiny within the church.

Contributing to the church, causing His kingdom to extend. And so God wants us to contribute. The Holy Spirit brings us to a place of contribution. And so as we contribute, we feel identity and meaning because we're fitting into this body. Maybe you're a finger, maybe I'm a foot, and together we cause this body to operate.

I want to say, each and every one of us has a purpose. You're not an accident. God has made you to fit into His body and to use you in whichever way He has seen fit. We have to find that. And so how can we contribute?

You can contribute with your time. You can contribute with your talents, and you can contribute with your treasure. As we walk this Alive Christian Walk together, doing the A, B, and the C, we find ourselves alive in God and in the Church. And I want to encourage you to do that.

Find Jesus, find the oxygen. Make friends. Go on outreaches. Contribute in the fellowship of the saints. Become family. Be vulnerable. Ask for help. And contribute with the things that God has put in you. Not just naturally your talents, but also the spiritual gifts and our time as we sacrifice it to one another.

And our finances, as we give into the Kingdom. So that the kingdom of God can extend. And then we belong, we get pulled tightly together and we have a reward waiting for us in heaven. And that's the end of the foundations. We've just listened to the ABCs.

Testimony: Belonging in the Local Church

How to live in a fruitful Christian life. And we've got an incredible testimony for you tonight on how to belong in the local church. And the impact that that has on our lives. As Fritz shares his testimony with us on how God challenged him to belong to a church.

And how he found identity, meaning, and belonging within the local church. My name is Fritz van Heerden and I had the privilege to represent our country in rugby. My rugby career started at school. As a school boy I was never in the A team.

I was always in the B team. After school I grew a bit in size and started playing provincial rugby. I was privileged to make my test debut in that game in Invictus, where Nelson Mandela came and watched. That was my first rugby test.

I was 23 years old and had the privilege to play with Francois Pienaar, a lot of the big springboks. It was such a privilege to represent my country for the first time. It was surreal to meet our president at that stage. That was the start of my career.

At the end of my career, I'd been a Christian. I was married already. We had our first child and I sort of felt that it was time to call it a day. And it is a difficult thing for a rugby player to call it a day.

I had a year left on my contract in the UK. And I had the decision to make. Was I going to sit and milk this thing as long as I can? Or was I going to trust God for my provision going forward? It was a big faith step, and we prayed about it.

Nellie and I, we fasted for two days and prayed about what we were going to do next. And I wanted to go into business. I'd had a law degree at that stage, but I felt that business was a way to go. Because I knew the Lord and I wanted to do it with Him, I decided to dedicate my whole business career to the Lord.

From the outset, we decided we're gonna do everything by the book. We are gonna pay out taxes. We're not gonna take any shortcuts. We are gonna treat people fairly. I just always felt that if you want to pray for the blessing of God in your business, then you need to act in such a way that He's able to bless your business.

That was a beautiful time. We worked really hard initially, still work quite long hours. But learned so many things. It's been a passion of mine, just the business side. And that grew from a passion for business to people. As I journeyed with God and specifically the role of the Church in my life at that stage.

And getting to understand leadership within the Church. I've been on eldership at Joshua Generation for five years now. And it's been such a privilege. And I think one of the big questions always is, do you want to serve God full time? I've been serving God as what we call double timers.

Marketplace Calling vs Full-Time Ministry

We are elders, but we also serve full time in the marketplace, in terms of salary. But I think there are some people that are called for marketplace and some people that are called for full time ministry. To determine which is which is up to each individual to hear from the Lord.

And for me, I just want to follow God with all my heart. If it does change, I'm hoping that I'll hear Him and then I'll be obedient. Mostly when He asks us to do things, it's not easy. It's very difficult and it's a challenge and it's going to require faith.

Obedience and Leadership in the Church

And for me, stepping up into leadership in the church was a big challenge. As with everything with God, there's such a privilege of looking back and thanking God for the changes. He changes us while we obey Him. And for some people that might mean just starting to lead a community, and for others it might mean leaving your job and becoming a full-time minister or a pastor.

Looking back, I can honestly say I'm just so thankful that I obeyed God at the times that I did. And it's a good thing to give your life to the Lord. I can encourage you: Be obedient to God. He really has the best in store for us.

Fritz's testimony, I'm sure, has impacted your life. And so let's discuss how we can belong and contribute with our lives into a local congregation as we break into our small groups.