We value true community because the Gospel ! brings us into relationship with Jesus and with Jesus’ people. This message was given on November 2, 2014 at New City Church in Calgary by Pastor John Ferguson. For more info visit: www.newcitychurch.ca

1. The Core Value of Community
~ 1 Peter 1:22-25 ~

2. God Gives Us His Words of Eternal Life
1 Peter 1:22-25
Found on page 868 in our guest Bibles.
Today’s Scripture:

4. “I love mankind,” he
said, “but I find to my
amazement that the
more I love mankind
as a whole, the less I
love man in particular.”
~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

5. FACEBOOK
in a
CROWD
by Hal Niedzvviecki
The New York Times( )

6. crowded
l o n e l i n e s s

7. Our DNA at NCC
Gospel - Community - Mission

8. Gospel
Community
Mission
+
+
Three Gifts

9. Gospel
Community
Mission
Three Conversions

10. When we join with Jesus, we join
his community and his mission.

11. The Core Value of Community
~ 1 Peter 1:22-25 ~

12. Having purified your souls by your
1 Peter 1:22
obedience to the truth for a sincere
brotherly love, love one another
earnestly from a pure heart…,

13. Like salvation, sin is a word that
belongs to the traditional Christian
vocabulary. ‘I am not a sinner,’ people
often say, because they seem to be
associating sin with specific and
rather sensational misdeeds like
murder, adultery, and theft.
“

14. But ‘sin’ has a much wider
connotation than that…. What the
Bible means by sin is primarily self-
centeredness…. For God’s two great
commandments are first that we love
him with all our being and secondly
that we love our neighbor as we love
ourself.
“

15. Sin, then, is the reversal of this
order. It is to put ourselves first…our
neighbour next when it suits our
convenience, and God some where
in the background.”
“
”~ The late Anglican minister, John Stott

16. Having purified your souls by your
1 Peter 1:22
obedience to the truth for a sincere
brotherly love, love one another
earnestly from a pure heart…,

17. Having purified your souls by your
1 Peter 1:22
obedience to the truth for a sincere
brotherly love, love one another
earnestly from a pure heart…,

18. Imagine CALGARY…
…as the city of BROTHERLY LOVE

19. …since you have been born again,
1 Peter 1:23-24
not of perishable seed but of imper-
ishable, through the living and abid-
ing word of God, for “All flesh is like
grass and all its glory like the flower
of grass. The grass withers, and the

20. “…flower falls, but the word of the
1 Peter 1:23-24
Lord remains forever.” And this word
is the good news that was preached
to you.

21. The Gospel births Christians
AND
Christian communities of love

22. We value true community
because the Gospel bring us
into relationship with Jesus
and with Jesus’ people.
Main Idea

23. Realize LONE Rangers
are DEAD Rangers
1

24. • show hospitality to one another
New Testament Christianity…
• pray for one another
• stir one another to love & good works
• build one another up
• encourage one another
• bear one another’s burdens
• through love serve one another
• outdo one another in showing honor

25. LOVE
what Jesus loves
2

26. “Husbands, love
your wives, as
Christ loved the
church and gave
himself up for
her…”~ The Apostle Paul in
Ephesians 5:25

27. “A new commandment I give to you, that
you love one another: just as I have loved
you, you also are to love one another. By
this all people will know that you are my
disciples, if you have love for one another.”
~ Jesus of Nazareth, in the Gospel of John 13:34-35

28. “By this we know
love, that he laid
down his life for us,
and we ought to lay
down our lives for
our brothers.”
~ The Apostle John
1 John 3:16

29. Take the next step
towards true
community.
3
image: csedward:

30. “Now concerning
brotherly love, you
have no need of anyone
to write you for you
yourselves have been
taught by God to love
one another. But we
urge you , brothers, to
do this more and
more.”
~ The Apostle Paul in
1 Thessalonians 4:9-10

31. “We proclaim that God is love, and that
Jesus Christ offers true community. We
insist that the church is part of the gospel.
God’s purpose, we say, is not merely to
save isolated individuals, and so perpetuate
their loneliness, but to build a church, to
create a new society, even a new
humanity, in which racial, national, social
and sexual barriers have been abolished....

32. “...People searching for community ought to
be pouring into our churches…. For there
are Christian communities all over the world
where true, sacrificial, serving, supportive
love is to be found. Where such Christian
love flourishes, its magnetism is almost
IRRESISTIBLE.”
John Stott
The Contemporary Christian

33. Rachel Melton: http://www.flickr.com/photos/agentmelton/8270417673
Simone Artibani: http://www.flickr.com/photos/asa-nisi-masa/4995679871/
mafleen: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mafleen/8472558582/
flickr images courtesy of:
csedward: http://www.flickr.com/photos/29422041@N04/4391015676/