Do you remember your first day on a job? Got up in the morning, excited but apprehensive, thinking “What should I wear? formal or informal?” Got to work early and you looked for your boss. You had a name, but didn’t even know what he looked like. You finally found him. He gave you some instructions, new office, a list of names of people to talk to and left you to yourself.
What were you feeling? Didn’t know anyone, no one knew you. Weren’t quite sure what to do. Anxious, uncertain, not 100% sure if you had what it took to please your boss and to make it on the job. Not sure if you really belonged. That’s an uncomfortable feeling, because we all want a place to belong. We want a place where we feel safe, a place where we know people and they know us. We want to belong in a place where we have something to do and we believe we can do it. A place that will be there even though jobs may come and go.
In this message series, we are looking at the 7 statements of Jesus in the book of John where he says, “I AM …” When you boil it all down, there is only one ultimate answer for your needs. Jesus is God’s answer for our needs. We’ve looked at His statements “I am the bread of life” and “I am the light of the world.” Today, we look at Jesus’ third I am statement found in John 10. Jesus was explaining about shepherds, flocks of sheep and sheep pens but the people just couldn’t understand what he was talking about. So Jesus said in John 10:7 “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep.”
Jesus is the gate into a place where you belong, a place where you have a relationship with God and a place where you have a relationship with God’s people. In the Bible, a flock of sheep is one of the images God uses for the church. So today, I want to focus on the church, the local church, as a place where you can belong. Every believer is a part of God’s spiritual family, a part of His flock if they have entered through Jesus. You enter through the Jesus gate by trusting your life to Him. Every believer is also to be part of God’s flock in the local church, a group of people who have committed their lives to Jesus and committed their lives to each other to follow Him together.
A believer who has not committed themself to a local church is like a child who has run away from his family, it doesn’t make any sense, something is wrong with the picture. The church is a place for every believer to belong. The church is big part of God’s answer for your needs. So today we’re going to look more closely at the church as a place where you belong. What are the benefits of being part of the church? What are the benefits of being part of Life Church?
To hear more about this topic, listen to my August 7, 2005 message entitled Where Can I Really Belong?
I don’t feel like I belong anywhere.I’ve been baptized 5 times.Once as a baby and the others in churches so I could belong.The churches have all made me feel like I don’t belong.I’m disabled.One church said that my committed an ultimate sin to make me this way.In all the relationships I’ve had I’ve been used badly just like the churches.I had a daughter out of wedlock.I don’t mean to but I swear.