Your faith is personal.  You can’t live off the faith of your parents, your neighbor, your coworker, or the person in the pew next to you.  You can’t even live off the faith of your pastor.  You must have a personal encounter with the gospel.  You must repent of sins and embrace your Savior.  

Gospel Reminder: The gospel is the spiritual reality and the theological truth that Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the world and rose from the dead to give you abundant life here on earth and eternal life in heaven someday soon.

Your faith is personal but not private.  God never intended you to follow Jesus in isolation. 

“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” – Hebrews 10:24-25

Some might say: I can do this on my own!  The church is filled with hypocrites!  I recently saw a church sign that read, “We’re not full of hypocrites.  We still have room for you.”

I want to show you the importance of gathering in community by using the Lord’s Prayer as example.  Jesus provides it as a model prayer for the church:

“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.

– Matthew 6:9-13

Notice you don’t find it filled with I, Me, Mine.  Rather, it is filled with Our, Us, and We.  The model prayer is communal.  

Your faith is personal but not private.