Discipleship Class #1 - Introduction

Welcome to our introduction. This is our very first class for discipleship. It's one out of six. And this is more of an introduction of who House of Rest is, our belief statement and our history and what we're about. But first I want to start off with the name House of Rest. The name House of Rest came to me and it was through a dream, through a vision. I actually woke up and I remembered hearing that name House of Rest and I wrestled with God about it because I didn't know if that sounded like a church name, to be honest with you. And I remember asking God, I said, Lord, if I find this in the scriptures, then I will know that this is from you because I've never heard the term House of Rest, to be quite honest with you. It started, I remember the first time I heard it in my heart and my mind, it sounded like a funeral home. But I searched the scriptures, I went in my concordance and I was looking and seeing if that term was used in the Bible because I had never heard that term before. And sure enough, in First Chronicles, chapter 28, verse 2, it says, Then King David rose to his feet and said, Hear me, my brothers and my people. I had it in my heart to build a house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord and for the footstool of our God. And I made preparations for building. The moment I read that verse, I knew that it was from the Lord. And this was, I want to say, two years before I planted the House of Rest Church in the basement of my house. But from that moment on, I knew that the name was from the Lord. So aside from that, I wanted to show you the nine belief statements that we have here at House of Rest. Many of them coincide with Grace International, who I'm going to talk about in a little bit about who Grace International is.

But let's go to number one, the scriptures. What do we believe about House of Rest here about the scriptures? Well, we believe the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the verbally inspired Word of God, the final authority of faith and life, inerrant in the original writings, infallible, and God breathed. So here at House of Rest, we know that the Word of God is the inspired Word from the Lord, the Old Testament and the New Testament, the final authority. We don't add any books to it. We don't add any other things to it. The Word of God is the Word of God. It's inerrant in its original writings. What does that mean? We know that, for instance, chapter headings, chapters, scripture, numbers, those things were added later on by the church just so we can go back and reference back to it. But what we're saying is that in its original writing in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, that it is inerrant, it is the inspired Word of God, it is infallible, and it is God breathed. We know that. We believe it. According to 2 Timothy 3, 16, and 17, Hebrews 4, 12, 2 Peter 1, 21, and Isaiah 40, verse 8, and Psalm 119, 89, and verse 160. The second is who is God. We believe that the one true God is the God of the Old and New Testament. He's the Creator, the Redeemer, the Restorer of all mankind, who has revealed himself as Yahweh and Emmanuel, which means God with us. So here at House of Rest, God is the God of the Bible. There is no ands, ifs, or buts about it. The Old Testament, the New Testament, he is the Creator, he is the Redeemer, he's the one who restored all mankind, he revealed himself as Yahweh in the Old Testament. The reason we say Emmanuel in the New is because God is with us. Because God came to be born of the flesh through Mary and revealed himself to us.

In other words, It's fulfilling scripture. We know that scripture is tied in, there's a woven thread from Genesis to Revelation and the one true God is the God of the Bible. There is no other God but Him. He alone sits on the throne. So those are according to Genesis 1.1, Isaiah 9.6, Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 4, the Gospel of John chapter 1 verse 1, Matthew chapter 1 verse 23, Colossians chapter 1 verses 15 through 20, 1st Timothy chapter 3 verse 16, and Revelation 1 verse 8. The third belief statement here at House of Rest is Jesus Christ. We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. We believe in His virgin birth, His sinless life, in His vicarious and atoning death, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the majesty on high, and in His personal return with power and glory. I want to talk about that a little bit. What do we mean by we believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ? That He is God. He is not a lesser God. He's not a secondary God. He is the deity. He is God. Jesus Christ is God manifested in the flesh. Even the scripture says it. We believe in His virgin birth. Why is that important here at House of Rest? We believe in His virgin birth being an important event because if He was born through Joseph, then He would be born in sin. If He was born in sin, He would be unable to redeem us. Here at House of Rest, we believe in His virgin birth. We believe in His sinless life, that He had no sin.

If He had sin, then He would be infected by sin, so once again, He would be unable to redeem us. We believe in His vicarious and atoning death. Not only did He die on the cross, but He died to pay the cost for our sins. We believe that and that He bodily resurrected. There is some doctrine that believes He rose again in spirit or He rose again in another body. No, we believe what the Bible says, that His body, the same one that was whipped, the same one that had the crown of thorns, the same one that was nailed to the cross, that same body is the same body that resurrected. And we believe in His ascension to the right hand of Majesty on High, that after He preached, that He rose again, that He ascended up to heaven. Matter of fact, the angels were there when the men were looking up, the believers, and the angel said, what are you looking up for? In the same way He left is the same way He's coming back. So we believe that He ascended and we believe in His powerful return with power and glory because He said that He's coming back. And because He said He's coming back, we believe it. Here are the scripture references for this. John 1 1-5, John 20 28, Colossians 1 15-17, Matthew 1 22-23, 2 Corinthians 5 21, Romans 3 25, Matthew 28 5-7, 1 Corinthians 5 7, Acts 1 9-11, Ephesians 4 8-10, Philippians 2 5-11, Hebrews 1 2-3, 1 Thessalonians 4 16-18. Number four, salvation. We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful man, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential. Salvation is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ alone, through grace alone. Both justification and sanctification are the works of the Holy Spirit in those who trust in Jesus. So in other words, Salvation is for all of us. We are lost and we are sinful.

So therefore, the regeneration by the Holy Spirit is essential. Salvation is by faith. We do not automatically get salvation because Jesus died on the cross 2,000 years ago. Even though He died on the cross for all of mankind, there is a requirement and that is to have faith that He died for us. That He is Jesus. That He is the Anointed One. And therefore, because He died on the cross, we are saved by grace alone. Meaning we cannot do anything to earn salvation. We earn it. I'm sorry, we can't earn salvation. So therefore, we are given grace. We are receiving something that we could never repay back. And we are both justified and sanctified. In other words, we are found just and we are set free. We are washed by the works of the Holy Spirit for those who trust in Jesus. So the scripture reference for this is Ephesians 2 8-10, John 1 12, Ephesians 1 7, and 1 Peter 1 18-19. The belief statement number five is titled, The Doctrine of Man. Here at House of Rest, we believe that man was created in the image and likeness of God. But that through Adam's sin, mankind fell and inherited a sinful nature. Thus becoming alienated from God, man is totally depraved and is of himself utterly unable to remedy his lost condition. This is important because we do know that according to scripture, we were created in the image of God. We know that because of the fallen state of Adam, that because of that, all of mankind fell. And because mankind fell, we inherited that sinful nature. Thus it alienated us from God. It broke the bridge. It broke our communication and our relationship with God because of the fall of Adam.

And because of that, we are totally depraved and we are unable to remedy our own condition. In other words, there is nothing we can do to save ourselves. There is no amount of tithe. There is no amount of church attendance. There is no amount of helping others. We cannot earn our salvation. We cannot be good enough to earn salvation. We are unable to remedy ourselves. I've said this many times that we were infected with something that was no vaccine for us to do to take the sin off of us. So again, the scripture reference for this is Genesis chapter 1, 26 through 27. Romans chapter 3, 22 through 23. Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 and 2. And Ephesians chapter 2, verse 12. Belief statement number 6. Work of the Holy Spirit. Here at House of Rest, we believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit. In other words, we believe that the present ministry of the Holy Spirit is ongoing. It's for today. It's not just in the book of Acts. It's not just in the Gospels. And by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the Christian is enabled to live a godly life. The Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, baptizing all believers into the body of Christ. The Holy Spirit is the supernatural agent in regeneration that indwells and seals believers unto the day of redemption. So here at House of Rest, we believe in the operating gifts of the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit's gifts are of today, that prophetic word is of today, that laying hands on the sick is of today,

that speaking in tongues is of today, and of casting out demons is of today. That because the Holy Spirit enables us to live a godly life, we can therefore operate in the power of the Holy Spirit today. We also know that the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin, of righteousness. Righteous meaning it brings us into right standing with God, and of judgment. And we are baptized. Baptized means full immersion. to be completely dipped, so we are completely engulfed, completely dipped into the body of Christ through the baptism of the Holy Ghost. And the Holy Spirit is the supernatural agent in regenerating us, in allowing us to grow, in allowing us to learn, in allowing us to walk in Christ. Because the Holy Spirit indwells us, seals us, until the day of redemption. Those of us that surrender our life to the Lord, we are stamped by the Holy Spirit that will give us access into the presence of God when we face him someday. The scripture references for this, John chapter 18 verses 8 through 11, 2 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 6, 1 Corinthians chapter 12, 12 through 14, Romans chapter 8 verse 9, and Ephesians chapter 5 through 18. Belief statement number seven, water baptism. Here at House of Rest, we believe in the New Testament teaching of full immersion water baptism, with our first example being Jesus Christ, also followed by his disciples according to Jesus' commission and put into practice throughout the book of Acts and the early church. It seems proper to say that when baptism is properly carried out, it brings spiritual benefit to believers. There is the blessing of God's favor that comes with obedience, as well as the joy that comes through public profession of one's faith, and the reassurance of having a clear physical picture of dying and rising with Christ and washing away your sins. Let me go back and explain some of this number seven water baptism. We see that baptism, first of all, is a Greek word, baptismal, which means to fully dip

or completely engulf one. We believe here that we completely engulf or completely dip someone in water. Our first example being Jesus. The Bible says that when Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, it says when he came up out of the water. Very clearly, lets us know that Jesus was fully immersed in water. We want to be like Christ. We want to follow his example. We believe in full immersion baptism. Not only that, but we see that baptism was put into practice when we read through the book of Acts. This is the early church. And it seems proper, like we said in our belief statement, that when it's properly carried out, it brings spiritual benefit to believers. When I mean properly carried out, I am not talking about the formula. I'm not talking about the words that are said when you're baptized. I'm not talking about that. What I'm saying is properly carried out is when it's a true heart that is crying out for the Lord for repentance. Because if it means nothing, then stepping into those waters is just making you wet. That is just the honest truth. So it's about your heart. It is about being properly carried out to say, Lord, I am going to lay it down for you. I am going to bury my old self so I can rise a new person in you. A lot of times I like to explain that water baptism is not a requirement for salvation, but there's a requirement of obedience that comes with it because the Lord tells us to do it. Now, for instance, this is how I simplify it, is that imagine a child getting ready for a wedding and you get that child ready and they're wearing all white. And after they're ready and dressed, you tell them, sit on the couch, just watch your cartoons.

I'm going to get ready now. And you go and take a shower and get ready and you come out, the child is completely filthy and dirty and muddy. And you're like, what happened? And they say, oh, well, the dog had to go to the yard and I followed him to the yard and then I fell. Then I started to play and they're completely muddy and dirty. Well, obviously as a parent, you're going to get upset and they're going to see that, but they're going to begin to cry. And out of the compassion, because you realize that this is just a child, you forgive them. So you have forgiven them even though they're still stained. So the best thing to do now is wash it off. This is how I teach water baptism. When you surrender your life to the Lord, he has already forgiven you of your sins. But for conscience sake, the Bible says that it's good to go into the waters of baptism, not only unto the Lord, not only unto you, but for the rest of the church to see that even though you have been forgiven, you want to signify. by that washing away of those things that were on you. So that's when I say for it to be, it's proper to say when baptism is properly carried out, it brings spiritual benefit to the believers. Also, there's a blessing of God's favor that comes with the obedience of it. There's obedience that comes with it, of a public profession to your faith, of having a reassurance of a clear physical picture of dying with Christ and rising with Christ. The biblical scriptural reference for that is Matthew 3, verse 16, Matthew 28, verse 19,

Acts 2, verse 38, and Acts 8, verse 3. Number eight of the belief statement is marriage and family. Here at House of Rest, we believe that marriage and family are institutions ordained by the Lord God himself from the very beginning of human history, and these are the sacred institutions. Marriage is between one man and one woman. Any other definition of marriage is contrary to the clear teachings of the Holy Bible, and hence against the express will of God. We do know that marriage was instituted in the book of Genesis. It was not instituted by the state of California or whatever state you live in, or the United States of America. Marriage supersedes the United States. Marriage supersedes all civilizations. It goes back to the book of Genesis, and because God instituted marriage, it is something sacred that cannot be changed. The scripture reference for that is Genesis chapter one, 27 through 28, Genesis chapter two, verse 20 through 24, First Corinthians chapter seven, verse two, and Hebrews chapter 13, verse four. And finally, the last belief statement, number nine, gender and biological sex.

Here at House of Rest, we affirm that biological sex is a gift of God to every individual and to the human community to which that individual belongs. We believe that according to scripture, each person was intentionally woven together in their mother's womb, Psalm 139, 13. We believe that God wonderfully created each person as either male or female in conformity with their biological sex. These two distinct yet equal and complimentary genders reflect the image and nature of God. Genesis chapter one, 26 through 27. We uncompromisingly hold, therefore, that to be born biologically male is to be male, and to be born biologically female is to be female. This is Deuteronomy chapter 23, verse one, Matthew chapter 19, verse four, Romans chapter one, verses 24 through 25, and 1 Corinthians chapter six, verses 19 through 20. So these are the nine belief statements that we have here at House of Rest. So I wanna talk a little bit about the history of the church here. When the church first began in May of 2011, the very first, I wanna say four to six services were at La Quinta Hotel, that is in Salida. And as you can see the picture here, this is what it looked like. And I often joke around

that we were not able to afford it here. There was probably three people there, two of them being my parents. But this was the very beginning of House of Rest Church back in May of 2011. But really quickly after that, I realized that there was no way we could afford this. It was $150 every Sunday for two hours. There was, because of that, we were unable to have Bible studies, we were unable to have any prayer groups, we were unable to have any fellowships, and it got way too expensive. And because of that, I began to look for a place to live here in Modesto. I am not originally from Modesto, so I purposely looked for a place. And when I found that place, it had a basement that was fully furnished. It had its own bathroom. It even had a shower. The walls were wood paneled. It was a really nice basement. And I placed 20 chairs there. And with those 20 chairs for an entire year, I was able to. minister right out of there and to preach standing in that corner that you see in the photo with that House of Rest logo poster I had up there, and I had a music stand that I would preach from as my pulpit, and that was the humble beginnings of House of Rest Church. It was enough people that after service we'd go upstairs and have lunch together, and it was a nice time. It was a great

time of fellowship, but God had so much more in store for us. And, you know, just to introduce myself, my name is Pastor David Rocha, the founder of House of Rest Church. The Lord gave me the name when I was in federal prison, and it was on New Year's Day back in 2009. I woke up with that name House of Rest, and I just knew. Also leading the church with me is my wife Sharon Rocha, and together we are the pastors here at House of Rest Church, and she has had a tremendous testimony, and it is something that we enjoy doing, and we're so excited for everything that has happened, everything that is happening, and everything that will happen in the future. I want to introduce you also to our other pastors, Pastor Al and Lydia Bejarano. They were both drug and alcohol counselors, and Sister Lydia still is, but they have come alongside with us for quite a few years now, and they are also Grace International licensed ministers. Also, we have Pastor Angel, who is my biological brother, and Diana Rocha. They have been in ministry for many, many years. They also have ordination with Grace International, and they are leaders here currently right now. At the time of this recording, they are helping lead the young adults, the youth, and part of this school, and we're really excited to have them here with us. Also, we have as our chaplain, who does hospital visits and hospice visits, is our chaplain Raven Partita, and we are really blessed to have her be a part of the team, and she is also recognized by Grace International. For our Spanish leaders and pastors is Armando and Lorena Iniguez. They have been a huge blessing for us, and they are also licensed with Grace International, and we have services. At the same time, we have English service. We also have Spanish service because we have two sanctuaries here at House of Rest Church, and we are so blessed to have them here with us. Finally, I want to introduce you to our children's director, Jessica Angulo. She is the one that puts all the curriculum for the children together, and she is a huge blessing as she continues to grow her team with teachers and teachers' helpers. A little explanation about Grace International. Grace International is a global family of churches that covers and connects pastors, plants churches, and equips leaders. At the time of this recording, we have 5,900 churches in over 130 countries. Grace International has been around for 93 years. In our district of Northern California and parts of Nevada, we have 10 churches in our district, which I am on the board for our district, and our district superintendent is Pastor Scott Movey out of Fairfield. But these are the churches that we currently have in our district now, but it's

continuously growing. We have Celebration Church in Livermore, California, City Church in Fairfield, California, Mission City Church in Tracy, California, Resurrection Power Ministries in Stockton, California, Living Waters Reno, Nevada, Living Waters in Yarrington, Nevada, Tahoe Remnant Ministries in South Lake Tahoe, California, and House of Rest in Modesto, California. The 10th church is a house church that's in the transition of getting a building in Salinas, California, and that would be our 10th church. Something that we'd like to mention for those of you joining House of Rest Church, I want you to know about these two big events that we have every single year as far as Grace International. National. One of them is our Grace International Regional Conference. It's been in the past in Oceanside, California, but recently it has been in Orange, California. And usually that's every September or October. And for this, because it's driving distance, we always invite the church. We all go together in the same hotel. We have a great fellowship. It's a two-day conference. And if you are a partner here, a member here at House of Rest Church, we invite you to go along with us and to go and just enjoy. You get to meet many of the other leaders and pastors, and we also get to bond together. The other one that happens is every single April, the Grace International Leadership Conference in Houston, Texas. And it is here where they do the licensing and ordination. Many leaders from around the world come, and these are two big events that we always look forward to. There are three things that I want to talk about with House of Rest being able to function the way it needs to function. And I realize that there, imagine a rim, and in that rim are three spokes. And if a rim is held by three spokes, if one of those spokes is broken, the other two will fall apart. And those three spokes are number one, giving, number two, serving, and number three, participating. If we can do our part and have all three of these spokes strong and intact, the kingdom of God will advance. And I wanted to explain about that. Spoke number one with giving. Giving is spoke number one, because it is important to support the place that we call our spiritual home. We believe in the vision of House of Rest for the kingdom of God. And by partnering with us, this is what you are saying. I will do my part and give so we can reach souls and bring them to a place where they can spiritually grow. We give because we believe in tithing and offering. We believe that a well-funded spiritual home will not be held back financially in reaching, supporting, edifying, discipling

our men, women, youth, and children. It is important. When I started the church in the basement, for instance, you know, regardless, my rent had to be paid. So having the church there was going to happen regardless. But since then, every time that we have grown, we've moved to bigger and bigger buildings to accommodate the families, the children, the youth, and everything that we're doing. But this last move that we have here, it's a 14,300 square foot building. And we knew by coming here was a huge commitment because there's classrooms here. There's a food pantry. There's a place for Spanish ministry. There's offices that are needed. We have the prison ministry. We have the podcast. There's so many things that are happening here. I'll be honest with you. When the buildings were smaller, for three and a half years, I worked Uber and Lyft. And I would go to San Francisco every day, usually from about noon till about two in the morning, just to make ends meet because usually the giving wasn't enough to pay the rent, electricity, and whatever other things that we needed to pay the church. And I would use my money to pay the difference. When we moved here, there was no way I could ever do that. So when we came together as a church, we said, we have an opportunity to be in this beautiful building. Yes, it's old, but it is perfect because the multiple classrooms and everything that I mentioned earlier, but it was going to take the effort of all of us. So giving is important because I think and believe that the first thing the enemy will hit is the finances of a church. Why does he have to attack it? If he just simply takes out the finances away from it, then the church will crumble. So I believe that for us to be a strong spoke, number one of giving, that we should be a well-funded spiritual home so nothing holds us back financially from reaching, supporting, edifying, discipling the men here, the women here, the youth, and the children. So giving is spoke number one. Spoke number two is serving. Serving because we believe that everyone is called to serve by using our gifts, our talents, and passion. By serving in our home church, we are in a place place where God can operate through us and helping those in our church and outside of our church. See this is a spoke that we struggled with, I'll be honest with you, is serving. Because when we were a smaller building, we had no ministries. We were, the last building we had, we were literally a warehouse where we built the sanctuary

and the storefront was the foyer. We had nothing else. We had nowhere else to do anything and we were unable to do those things. So because of that, serving was key here because so many people were serving in other ministries and that was fine and that was great because we didn't want people just coming to church. We wanted them to be more than pew warmers. So different people were, because we had nowhere to serve, they were serving in other ministries in other places outside of House of Rest, which was great. We supported it. But once we moved here, we had to get together and say, hey, brothers, sisters, we love that you're serving other places. We think that is awesome. But now that we have classrooms, now that we have a need for teachers, now that we have a need for youth leaders, now that we have a need for ushers and greeters and pantry and grocery giveaways, now that we have a need, we need to serve here at home first. If this is our home church, we should be serving here because everyone has gifts and talents and passions and we need all of those in house. There is nothing wrong with serving other places, but since this is going to be our headquarters, our ground zero, then let this be the priority of where you serve. So we can then be a powerful spoke, not only in giving, but in serving. So we can help those in the church and outside of the church. And finally, spoke number three, participating. And this goes along with what was happening with the serving. Here participating, we believe that our home church here, House of Rest, takes priority over all other ministries. And I'm going to explain why I say that. God has assigned you, if you're going to be a part of this fellowship, that God has assigned us to this family to participate with those growing with us. We want to create an atmosphere of trust, bonding, and fellowship that can only be reached when we know we are there to support each other all while respecting other outside ministries.

Once again, once we moved into this building, we needed all participants, all hands on deck. We respect the fact that many were participating in other ministries. And that was fine when we were just a warehouse with a foyer. But now there are so many places that we need participation in that we are asking everyone, if you're going to partner with us, if you're going to be a part of this family that God has called you to, then your participation should take priority here first. I'm not saying that you have to stop anywhere else. I think that's important. But this should be priority if this is your house. In the same way, you clean your own house before helping someone clean theirs. So if God has assigned you to this family to participate with us, then grow with us. Let's create an atmosphere together because it's until we start to participate together, we start to build trust and bonding and fellowship. So we start to know each other and support each other. And at the same time, we're able to participate in other places outside the house of rest because we want to respect those things also. One way of participating by beginning here is by taking these classes, being this class number one. These are discipleship classes one through six. So this is the introduction class. The next class is going to be the assurance of salvation. The third one will be how to, meaning how can you, we're going to teach you how to share your testimony in 90 seconds flat to anyone you talk to. The next one is understanding prayer. How do you pray? Then there's daily living to build a daily devotional life in Christ. And finally, church gathering of how to even be a family member of a church. And by completing all six classes, it allows the opportunity to be a part of a growing church family, volunteer first,

but this allows you to try different ministries, then become a part of a team. And these are some of the things that you can do. For instance, there's ushers, there's greeters, there's teachers, there's Spanish services we need a lot of help in, media, worship, pantry and food ministry, evangelism, cleaning crew, hospitality, maintenance, and prison ministry, Christ Unbarred. These are really, really important. And some of the other things that you can participate in or join in on, for instance, there's women's ministry that are always ongoing. You can participate in our food pantry ministry, in our growing prison ministry. You can participate by joining us in coming into our Wednesday, we have worship and Bible study and prayer. And that's really important for you to be a part of. You can serve by joining the sweep and mop crew, vacuuming, garbage, deep cleaning. These things need to be done constantly so we can have a clean place for people to come and fellowship and worship together. Serving could also be a part of our media ministry, running sound, cameras, helping with the podcast, production, serve by being a part of the unsheltered program providing hygiene and clothing on a weekly basis. We need to grow our hospitality team for things like events and welcoming table

and hosting and caring and follow-up team and meetings and things like that. We need help in serving and being a teacher or a teacher's assistant on Sundays and Wednesdays as the children are coming to learn also. And of course, also serving as part of the youth ministry, for instance, in worship, media, teaching, mentoring or anything that the media is doing and growing. Finally, I wanna share this is that we believe in doing things together. We believe in doing life together and having events and things that... And we grow as a family. We don't want anyone to fall through the cracks. Sometimes we'll go over each other's house, watch a movie, barbecue. Every June, we go on a bike ride and spend the whole day there at the beach. We've done things in the past like paintballing or going to the snow. And this is just an introduction of who we are here at House of Rest. We hope that you like what you heard and you wanna be a part of this family and we welcome you to House of Rest Church, a Grace International Church. God bless you and thank you so much. This is a conclusion of class number one of discipleship classes. ♪♪

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