She Wakes Breakout Session | Kayce Eilerman

Join Kayce Eilerman as she pulls wisdom from C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters to expose a subtle strategy that wrecks Christian community: get believers to fixate on annoyances until they stop seeing the spiritual reality of the church. From there, we get practical with four anchor habits that can rebuild trust, heal church hurt, and move you from spectator to family: stay meeting, stay eating, stay low, and stay close. We talk about why most New Testament commands only work in community, why meals and small groups make people human instead of stereotypes, and why serving is a pathway to humility and freedom.

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Transcript

Welcome And A Hard Topic

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Here to watch. I do not normally speak, so I have no concept of how many words in a document equals time. I do not know how people do that on a regular basis. A song I kind of know. I'm like, oh, three, four minutes, I got it. Um, but thank you. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for trusting me with your time. Um, it's really intimidating to invite people to come hear you say things. Um, because you do not need my opinion, and I do not need my opinion. You know what I'm saying? Uh we need we need Jesus. I'd say that funny and for real. Uh, we need the heart of the Father, we need his word, um, we need his guidance, and we need each other. So this year, there was immediately one topic on my heart, um, whenever I I for sure knew I was doing a breakout session. And I prayed, I was like, I get that this is an important topic, but is it what you want for a women's conference? And I thought through some other themes and ideas and topics and things personally I was going through. I was like, I could share that or whatever. And I just I asked God, I said, if this is acting, if this is what you want me to talk about, keep it it like I want to be so interested in it. Like it's all it's all I see in my Bible reading. It comes up in conversation. I keep seeing it, keep thinking about it. And that's what happened. And so my topic stayed the first thing that I feel like the Lord gave me. Um, and I also prayed that He would bring the message together because I don't do this very often. I can't just like whip it out. I normally come up with a skeleton, throw all of my ideas at it, and then as time gets closer to the speaking engagement, I'll start vetting it. Well, the vetting process didn't happen as thoroughly as I would like. So I am just sharing, honestly, this morning, I'm sharing a lot of my raw thoughts that were jotted down. Um, and I hope that Jesus delivers the message. Um, and then I struggled to give it a title because first I was afraid that no one would want to come. I'd be like, um, no. And then I was afraid, probably more afraid that people would assume they knew what I was gonna talk about. Um, but none of that is my responsibility. It's it's Jesus, who's in the room, who's not in the room, like none of that matters. None of that is my responsibility. So if anyone gets anything out of today, it's the Holy Spirit, not Casey. Okay. So the C word church, let's talk about it. Um, several years several years ago, before I was here at LCC, I was a guest leading worship at a tiny, tiny church in Hartford, Illinois. And after worship, a little boy came up to me. He was probably like nine years old, and he was like kind of in tears. And he was like, Will you pray for me? And I was like, Absolutely. This is so wholesome. And um it was a really small sanctuary, so everyone could see and hear the interaction. Like it was very, very small. It was probably like like maybe a quarter of our floor, maybe a third of our floor. Um, and so everyone was like, Oh, watching it. And I said, How can I pray for you? And he says, I want to pray for church, and he sobs. And I was like, Oh my gosh. Um, and I was like, Well, what how can we pray for that? And he said, Church is sick. I'm afraid church might die. And I was like, Is this kid having like a prophetic moment that the whole church gets to watch me navigate? Like, what is going on? Um, and I said, Absolutely, let's pray for the church right now. And he says, My dad is taking him to the vet tomorrow. I'm not kidding, this happened. He said, But they told me he probably won't make it. And I was like, Who won't? Who's going to the vet tomorrow? Now the mom that was there hearing this chimes in. Church is the name of our cat. And I was like, that would have been helpful to know at the beginning of this moment. And so we prayed for church, and I don't know what happened to that cat because I've never been back to that church and I don't know the people. So he's probably dead at this point. I don't know. I don't know. Cats live a long time, maybe not. Maybe he kicked it back. I don't know. I don't know. I'll call and ask if anyone remembers that. Um, but and that story is funny, and that story is true, I promise. But have you felt that way about church? Like, oh, it's a mess. Like we see, we hear horror stories, we see what's going on, we're like, oh my gosh, church is a mess. Like it's just an absolute mess. And maybe we see, I mean, I've been in a place where I see more bad than good, um, especially navigating that, being on staff at churches. Sometimes it's hard. You feel like you just see more bad than good. Um, but if that's our general understanding of church, that it's like something to be uh endured rather than something to be engaged with, then we are exactly where the enemy wants us. He thinks he wants us thinking small about it. He wants us thinking that church is a means of self-improvement or family tradition. Um, he wants us offended, confused, exhausted, discouraged. He wants us comfortable, apathetic, a consumer, a spectator. Uh the enemy wants to do everything in his power to keep us from seeing the real thing. The thing that hell sees, hell can see it. He sees the church, the body of Christ, not this building, not our goings-on. He that hell sees the church and fears it and has no power against it. That's the church that we want to see. Because if we could catch even the tiniest glimpse of the church, the eternal kingdom, the broad body of Christ, it would change everything. So I'm gonna pray for us really quick and we'll move on. Jesus, I give you this space this morning. Lord, we give you these words and this time. Would you be here with us? Would you guide us? Lord, open hearts and minds in this room. I pray for peace and restoration where there's been hurt or discouragement or exhaustion. Lord, you see each one of our stories. You know where we've been, you know what we've seen. Jesus, would you have mercy on us today? Meet with us here. We give everyone and everything to you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. How many of you have ever seen this book before? Any C.S. Lewis fans? So this book is kind of interesting. It's called The Screwtape. Madeline likes this book. Uh it's called The Screw Tape Letters. And let me explain, or you're gonna think I'm reading something like demonic. So this book is letters, they're pretend, letters from an uncle demon training his nephew demon, who has just taken on a patient, which is us, who is a new convert to Christianity. And the letters are advice on how to not let them know the enemy, which is God, and how to make sure they end up with our father below, who is the devil. So that's what we're reading. Does that make sense? So this is opposite of what we want, but it's pretty insightful. So we're gonna just kind of peek into their little schemes, their tricks. I'm gonna read a chunk of this book. This is from the Uncle Demon. He says, My dear wormwood, that's the nephew's name, which is weird. Demons have terrible names. Anyway, um, I note with grave displeasure that your patient has become a Christian. Do not indulge the hope that you will escape the usual penalties. Indeed, in your better moments, I trust that you would hardly even wish to do so. In the meantime, we must make the best of the situation. There is no need to despair. Hundreds of these adult converts have been reclaimed after a brief sojourn in the enemy's camp and are now with us. All the habits of the patient, both mental and bodily, are still in our favor. One of our great allies at present is the church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the church as we see her, spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes even our boldest tempters uneasy. Isn't that crazy? I love that. But unfortunately, it is quite invisible to the humans. All your patient sees is the half-finished sham gothic erection on the new building estate. When he goes inside, he sees the local grocer with a rather oily expression on his face, bustling up to offer him one shiny little book containing a liturgy which neither of them understands, and one shabby little book containing corrupt texts of a number of religious lyrics, mostly bad and in very small print. When he gets to his pew and looks around, he sees just that selection of his neighbor whom he's wither hitherto avoided. You want to lean pretty heavily on those neighbors. Make his mind flip to and fro between an expression like the body of Christ and the actual faces in the pew next to him. It matters very little, of course, what kind of people that pew actually contains. You may know one of them to be a great warrior on the enemy's side. No matter, your patient, thanks to our father below, is a fool. Provided that any of those neighbors sing out of tune or have boots that squeak or double chins or odd clothes, the patient will quite easily believe that their religion must therefore be somehow ridiculous. At this present stage, you see, he has an idea of Christians in his mind, which he supposes to be spiritual, but in fact is largely pictorial. You need to read this whole book. I actually looked up how long it would take to just read this book for this breakout session, breakout session. We did we're not doing that. That would be silly. Um, but we're gonna go over four points, four things about church this morning. Stay meeting, stay eating, stay low, stay close. And we're gonna break those apart. And that is all the slides I have for the whole day because I didn't have time to make them. So you got it, just the four. Stay meeting is the first thing we're gonna talk about. Community is not a modern Christian concept, and it's not solely a New Testament model. It was God's design from the very beginning. Let us make them in our image. It's not good that he's alone. Let's make a team, let's make a family. He dwelt among them, he walked with them, he talked with them. The body of Christ isn't a metaphor, it's a divine mandate. 98% of the imperatives in the New Testament, imperatives are instruction, command, are in the context of community. So it's not only just more difficult to follow Jesus alone, it's like impossible to do it isolated. God has designed for this to be a community thing, a together thing. Because you can't do, you can't do this without doing this together. You'd miss 98% of the imperatives in the New Testament. I don't want to downplay hurt or things that people have walked through. Those are very real, hurtful things have happened in the church. But at some point, you gotta plug in and you gotta stay. 1 Corinthians 12 says it talks about us being the body of Christ, many parts that make up one body. 1 Peter 2, 5 says that we are stones, living stones that make up a spiritual building. This is important. Okay, I have another crazy story. The other day I was on my way to meet a friend at Caldi. And you know how Caldi and Kirkwood, you have to like cross the railroad and then park and then like walk, whatever. Well, as I was pulling up, there were like three cars in front of me that had stopped and they were like getting out of their cars, and I couldn't get around to the parking lot. So I was like, what is going on? So I got out of my car and walked up to them because they look kind of frantic, and I'm like, what is going on? There was a toe in the road, like just a toe. And I was like, What? And they're like, Oh, we need to call an ambulance, like someone calling. And I was like, No, guys, we need to call a tow truck. That was a joke. Caleb is gonna be so proud of me because he taught me that joke and he can keep a straight face for a long time, and I can't. I nailed it. Did you guys think I saw a toe in the road? But guys, a body divided is a crime scene. It's not the church, it's not the body of Christ, right? If you find an arm in your yard, you gotta call somebody. It's not right. The body stays together. And the rest of the body, so if you break a bone, if you hurt something, you break a bone, but say I break my leg, I'm not just like, well, I guess we should just be done with the whole body. I guess we just need to go be dead now. The rest of my body has to compensate, has to work extra hard while we heal the broken part, the sick part. Why? Because it's important. We don't just throw out the whole body when one part isn't doing something. And we're not mad at the lungs for not digesting our food. We're thankful they're doing what they're doing. And we're not mad at the ears for not walking us around, you know. We're thankful for what they're doing. When you, how many of you have ever had an anatomy scan when you're pregnant of the baby? They take so long. I'm like, it's in there. Did you see it? Was there a heartbeat? I think we're good. But that person is like measuring the brain, measuring the belly. They're looking at blood flow, they're counting limbs and fingers. Why? Why does it matter? Because if there's concern for one part, there's concern for the whole baby. If they're if the lungs are not developing, if they're not to the size they're supposed to be, they're not just like, oh, well, it's in there. There, there's concern for the whole body if there's concern for one area of that. Not all body parts play the same role. And this is probably, I feel like this is the most obvious illustration in the entire Bible. The body. Um, don't be mad or offended when someone is different than you. Don't be mad or offended when someone sees a certain Bible topic a little different than you, or grew up in a different denomination, or practices or feels a different way in worship. We can't be offended or mad when the different body parts are being the different body parts. Um, I have a favorite Bible teacher, and for a while I've wanted to know his specific stance on something. I'm like, what does he think about this? And I kept trying to find a video about it, and finally I came across a video where he was addressing why he doesn't share this specific stance. And he said, Where I pastor, where I dwell with my church family, we practice a certain way, we talk a certain way. But if you're hearing me on this video right now, I'm a podcaster. I'm a Bible teacher. I like to study, I like to bring up context. But certain little things, the style of worship, the way you choose to do communion, can women preach or not? Like there's certain little differences that like the body, the house, this house, your house, wherever you go, we might see things a little bit differently. We might approach them a little differently. And if you find yourself feeling a little bit different about maybe in your house, I think it's important to plug in, stay close, keep with those people, keep learning, keep growing, unify on the things that are important. And this, whenever he said that, it made me think of Pastor Jamie and think about your pastor wherever you go. Um, the pastor is called the shepherd. And I'm gonna use an analogy of a coach. Jamie is literally a coach, so this works perfectly. When athletes try out and they make it on the soccer team, it is not Coach Jamie's job to teach them everything about soccer. Chances are they have played soccer before, they have been to a soccer game, and if they're from Columbia, they've probably been conditioning since they were five years old. It's just what people are doing around here. And so it's not Jamie's job to teach them a brand new thing they've never heard about about soccer. And it's not your pastor's job to enlighten you every single week. It's not his job to dig up these surprises you've never learned before and say, Oh, you never knew this. I'm so much smarter, like I am feeding you. It's not his job to feed you. A coach's job is to gather, encourage, correct, condition, watch over, look at the playing field and like call things out, remind you of things, organize us. That's his job. Also, imagine this. We all have Bibles. We all have Bible app, we have YouTube, we have podcasts. There's you can hear every theological side and stance on everything under the sun. We know so much. And that's actually recent in history, like the past 200 years that homes have a Bible, let alone individuals. Like this is recent in history. So for thousands of years, what were people doing? Meeting. They were meeting to hear the word, memorizing it together, and then they have to go home where they don't have the text, memorize it together, like remember it, live it out together, and then we gather back again to learn more, to go deeper. So we got to stay meeting next, stay eating, and I do literally mean eating meals because that is great, but also smaller groups, small groups, life groups, D groups, a play date with a new family, a coffee date with a friend. Connect with people, and I have three reasons why. Number one, because it's God's design for us. Um, in Leviticus 7, I love Leviticus, by the way. Um, in Leviticus 7 talks about the Thanksgiving offering. Has anyone ever heard of this before? Uh God is giving structure for how to do this. So the Thanksgiving offering, you would bring it if you had a good harvest, if someone had a new baby, if there was a healing. And this is God's instruction for the Thanksgiving offering. You are to bring 10 loaves of leavened bread, 30 loaves of unleavened bread, and an animal. If you're rich, you bring a cow, and if you're less rich, you bring a goat or a sheep. Then the priest would do the ritual. We're not talking about that today. It's this whole thing. And then the priests and their families would get a portion of the offering. This was God's design to provide for his vocational ministers. And after giving to the priests and their families, let's say you have 20 loaves of bread left over, and depending on which animal you brought, you might have 100 to 500 pounds of meat left. That's a lot. So Leviticus 7:15 says, After this ritual is done, after the offering is done, it must be eaten on the day it is offered, and it must not be left until morning. So have you ever had 500 pounds of pulled pork that you had they wouldn't have done pork? Wait, Jews don't do pork. Brisket. It was quite literally brisket. Okay. So we've got 500 pounds of meat and 20 loaves of bread that has to be gone, eaten, not just tossed out. It has to be eaten by sunrise. So what do you got to do? Can you and your family do this? We got to call everybody and not just your friends, not just your group of like maybe 10 people that gather. We're gonna have to call more people to get this. God wants you to have a party to fulfill this Thanksgiving offering. And I think that it's because of testimony. It's because we're doing Thanksgiving. He wants us to do Thanksgiving together. He wants us to share our testimony with our neighbors, with our church family, with our extended relatives. He wants us to be testifying what has been done for the family that required this thankful offering. The next is to know God's word. And like I said before, um, people just recently have Bibles in history. This is new. So they gathered to know his word. And how many of you have ever sat in a circle where you were reading over something together and one of you saw it this way and another saw it the other way? That's good. It's there, you know, sometimes that can make you cause to be like, I. I'm right, and you're super wrong. But I myself have read through a verse, come back to it in a different season or years later, and it's I'm like, I never saw this. I totally thought it was about this. And I think that's the beauty of the Holy Spirit. It's the power of the living scripture that we have, that it can be new and fresh, and what you need every day. And you get more out of it when you're hearing other people go through. You might be going through opposite experiences, opposite trials, celebrations, whatever it is, and come to the same scripture and be ministered in different ways, in the same way by the Holy Spirit. It's how it's not wrong, it's not cause for friction. It's the way the Holy Spirit designed for it to be. And I considered leaving this out. I'm gonna do what Jamie does. Should I say it? Okay. It's not as heavy as some of the things he flips out, don't worry. But if most of your theological pillars, foundations have come from Instagram reels, you're doing it wrong. This is not how it was meant to be. Plug into a group of people and go over the living word with living people that you know and walk with and see and do life with. Third, in stay eating, is to know each other. How many of you got married to someone you've never gone on a date with ever? Oh, maybe an arranged marriage. I don't think we have any of those. So that would have ruined my analogy. We don't have that here. How many of you have ever been to have never been out to eat or to coffee with your very best friend in the whole wide world? None of us, right? Because when we sit with, when we eat with, when we make time, we have relationship. That's how we do it. You make time for it, it's important. When you share a meal with someone, they're no longer a cliche, they're no longer a stereotype. The assumption you had about them has to give way to your personal encounter with that person. When we sit and get to know and talk with people, we get to see who they really are because Jesus is showing us who they really are. And then we can more fully know the heart of God. In Luke 24, when Jesus meets the disciples on the road to Emmaus, I love this verse. He walks with them and talks with them. First of all, he appears and they don't even talk about that. They're walking and all of a sudden Jesus is there and they're just like, oh yeah, this stuff has been going on. And he walks with them the whole way into the city and they don't know who he is. Does anyone remember when do they finally realize who Jesus was? When they eat, when Jesus breaks the bread, their eyes are opened, they realize it's him, he disappears. And they say, Did not our hearts burn within us as he talked and walked with us on the road? No. Because they're looking ahead, they're preoccupied, they're rambling about all the crazy stuff that just happened. They're not looking him in the eye, sitting across from him, having an intimate conversation. Did not our heart our hearts burn as he was talking and walking with us? We miss out on so many opportunities. We don't even know what we walk past on a daily basis. I stand here at the beginning of Sundays, and I can see where certain people are sitting. And there have been so many Sundays where I see someone, and like either I heard from them or I've I've heard something that just happened to them or something they just walked through, and I can see them sitting, and then people sitting next to them. And sometimes I get this like emotional response, like, oh my word, this whole room has no idea what that person just went through. And I just and so then I'm like, keep it together on the stage. I'm like, I mean, we've heard we've had people that come here after death in the family. We have people that have come here days after a terminal diagnosis. We've had people sitting alone days after attempting suicide. And I I've heard, I've talked with them, I walked, and I'm just like, oh my goodness, if God could give us eyes, like if you walked in and the Lord said, that person wants to end their life this afternoon, would you be like, oh, I'm gonna hurry and get the coffee? You would, I hope we would rescue that person. And that when we gather, we have to stay here though, to see it. We have to stay close. You can't just be sitting in this room of hundreds. We have to be finding smaller pockets where we're hearing the life that people are walking through so we can minister to them, so we can walk with them. Next is stay low. Stay low. I have another story. This one's real. This one's not a joke. Um, so in May of I think 2015, my life just wasn't where I thought it was gonna be. It was not horrible, it's just not where I thought it was gonna be. Um, I grew up, our teens here go to breakaway camp, which is in Carlinville, Illinois. There's thousands of teenagers go. There's like worship, it's crazy. We play games all day. And I was a young worship leader, and I'm like eyes on the stage. I'm like, I'm gonna be there someday. Like, I want to run this room. I want to run camp. Like, I was the camp kid. I loved it. I was up front, like captain stuff. I loved it. And so I knew certain people, you know, there's networking, and I'm like, in my mind, I'm climbing this ladder. I'm like, oh, I'm headed up there. And I ended up going to Bible college, and I started my major wasn't worship leading. And I don't know if you ever heard this or not, but I failed. I failed out of worship leading. Um, to be fair, a worship leader is a music major, and I know nothing about music, actually. I play by ear. Don't tell anyone. Um, but I don't know theory. So it's fair. It's fair that I didn't get a music degree, right? They're like, you don't know theory, you can't have this degree that says you know theory. I'm like, that's fair. But one of the deans said, you know, sometimes just because you're passionate about something doesn't necessarily mean you should be doing it. And I'm like, that's true. I don't disagree. So I had kind of given up on that for a time. That's a whole long story. So Hayden and I were newlyweds. We were back in a tiny town being the sort of youth pastors there. It was a very small situation, a unique situation. And um, I was doing the worship there, and there was probably about 40 to 50 people in this church. And it was great. Like we we look back on that time fondly, we learned a lot. Um, but I just wasn't where I thought I was gonna be. And I was serving this May of 2015. I was serving at a special needs camp at the same campground in Carlinville. And I just was having a moment and I ended up in the auditorium at midnight. I was sitting on the floor in the back of the auditorium at midnight. All the lights were on bright, the fluorescent lights. It was not set up for camp. It wasn't set up for worship, it was just this bright fluorescent room. And I was sitting on the floor looking around, and I was like, I don't think God lies. So it's not that. I must have seriously misunderstood where we were headed. Because I thought I wouldn't be sitting on the floor in the back. And I will not to be gross, in this moment, I had adult excretions on me because we had just bathed them and put them to bed, and I was now sitting on the floor. We were serving um at that camp. So I'm like, this is extremely humbling and not where I thought I was gonna be. I thought I was gonna be there on that stage, like singing and leading and ministering. And I, it's I think it's the first time I can say, I heard God say to me, not audibly, but like, you know, deep, like you can hear him. He said, Is it enough that I see you? And I was like, I have two options. I feel like I felt immediately like I could say, I want to climb the ladder. No, I want to be there. And I think I could have gotten there. But I knew it was way more important to say, yes, it's it's enough that you see me. I don't care where we go, I don't care what we do, it's enough that you see me and that I'm doing what you want me to do. Because I would rather be low in God's will than high where I put myself, because that's a really harder fall. That's not good. John 13, 12, 17. After Jesus washed his disciples' feet, why didn't I talk about Jesus? Jesus knelt low and washed his disciples' feet in his final moments. This is after that. This is a message translation. It says, Do you understand what I have done to you? You address me as teacher and master, and rightly so. That is what I am. So if I, the master, the teacher, washed your feet, you must now wash others' feet. I've laid down a pattern for you. What I've done, you do. I'm only pointing out the obvious. A servant is not ranked above his master, an employee doesn't give orders to the employer. If you understand what I'm telling you, act like it and live a blessed life. Romans 12 10 says, be devoted to one another in love, honor one another above yourselves. 1 Peter 4 10 says, each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms. Healthy serving indicates freedom. When we see people who have a healthy relationship with serving in the church, it's a sign of security and freedom and identity. But even if you're not free or you don't feel like you see your identity, serve anyway. Serve together. Because that's how we get to know when we're low, when we're serving, you're acting like Jesus and you get to know him more and you get to know the people around you more. And how many of you have ever made friends with someone on a serve team? I have. So God blesses us anyway. Like we're supposed to be low and he's giving us gifts along the way. And what we read in screw tape letters, I love this part. This book is so quirky. You got to read it. When he gets to his pew, let him look around and focus only on the neighbors he has hitherto avoided. I love, he says, you want to lean pretty heavily on those neighbors. It matters very little what kind of people that pew really contains. You may know one of them to be a great warrior on the enemy's side, no matter. You're patient, thanks to our father below, is a fool. I don't want to be a fool. I don't want to walk around and have an opinion of someone that I think is me being discerning and you know sensitive to the Holy Spirit, but actually it's me falling for a lie from the devil. It's me being holier than thou. It's me being rigid, stuck in my ways. Have you ever been distracted by someone in church? Like maybe someone who sings like way super too loud, or someone that wears too much perfume, or okay, I'm sorry if this is you. Close talkers. You know what I mean? You're kind of like, and they're closer, and then you're like hi, close talkers. It's the way it's supposed to be. All of us are supposed to be here doing this together. It's how it's supposed to be. When you serve along that, alongside that person, you get to know them. You might be like, oh, this person like talks so loud, like, oh my goodness, I've and then all of a sudden they're sharing a story, and you're like, You did that? Like you walked through that, like, holy smokes. Or you're learning from them, and you're surprised that you're learning from them. We gotta stay meeting low together, serving together. Because you know what? This actually kind of fits in the stay meeting and the stay close. Anyway, it's still in low. We're not a machine, we're an organism. The church is not a perfect, predictable program. It's a living, moving, growing, learning organism, the whole body of Christ. And then in the screw tape letters where he says, one of our greatest allies itself or allies is the church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I don't mean the church as we see her. The demons see the body of Christ. They see the eternal kingdom of God that they have no power against. I mean the church that the humans can see this, the goings-on, the obligation, the whatever it is. He doesn't want us to see the living, eternal body of Christ. When we serve together side by side, we catch a glimpse of the church. And I also wanted to add not to just stay low in service and um serving, volunteering, hospitality, things like that, but also stay low in spirit, stay low in mindset, pray against arrogance, pray against apathy, submit your opinions, your preferences, your ideas to Jesus and ask him for wisdom. Discernment of the Holy Spirit and criticizing are not the same thing. Discernment from the Holy Spirit should lead to interceding for the person, for the body, for that place. Criticizing leads to bitterness, judgmental, negative. So pray for fresh eyes, pray for God's eyes and God's heart for your church, for the people you do life with. Stay present, stay expectant, stay low. And the last one is stay close. First Peter 2, 4 through 5 says, As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God's chosen and precious, oh, in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves are like living stones being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. I heard an analogy about skipping stones. Have you ever skipped a stone on the water? It's kind of hard. But anyway, they have to be a certain smoothness and a certain shape. I watch my kids try to skip stones. I'm like, that's not a skipping stone. And it is not good. Um, and but how do rocks become the shape they need to be to skip across the water? They become that way by rubbing up against each other. But what happens when we just rub rocks against each other? There's fire, destruction, it can cut you. It's not good. So they only become the smooth skipping stones when they're rubbing up against each other, but they're in the river. When they're in the water, close together. We have to stay. Is that me? Oh, tape, sorry. We have to stay in the river. It's okay that we rub up against each other. Confrontation, conflict is not bad. And it's not not in the word. It's in the word. And we're instructed on how to deal with it. Like it's all here. This is very helpful. Um, but we can't have a disagreement, we can't have conflict, we can't have friction and then separate because God uses the people around us to round those edges, to shape us, to mold us, to skip. And so we pray for the Holy Spirit as we stay close that the Lord would shape us. And you can do it the harder way. You can choose to do it the harder way. The thief on the cross, he cries out to Jesus. He didn't hop off and go join a small group. He didn't hop off and go attend church. But he was saying the truth about Jesus. I this just occurred to me a couple days ago. He was saying true things about Jesus on the cross. He wasn't clueless. At one point, he talked with someone or he heard somewhere who Jesus was and what he was doing. He wasn't just tuning in from the cross at the first for the first time that day. And none of them, nobody on the ground was saying anything about paradise or anything like that. So at one point, he was given the opportunity to step into community, to step close. And for whatever reasons that led him to his crucifixion that day, he chose the harder way. And Jesus says, Today you will be with me in paradise. And I believe that he was because Jesus said it. But he didn't, he did it the harder way, being crucified on a cross next to Jesus. I just wonder what conversation happened to him months, years, days prior that caused him to know who Jesus was and cry out to him and surrender his life to him. And I just imagine him thinking back on that time, like, man, I wish I would have stuck with them. Maybe that one thing rubbed in the wrong way or the one thing was hard to lay down and he chose not to do it. But I wonder if he wished that he stayed there. Probably not because he was in paradise that day. But guys, we can do it the harder way. You can, and still receive salvation, but you're you're doing it the lonely way, the hard way. It's not God's design. We can, you know, there's the verse that says everything is permissible, but not all of it is beneficial. There are things we put out of order in our lives. There's everything we put out of order in our lives: finances, kids, money, hobbies, jobs. Like we can put everything out of order, but God invites us to a better way, to an ordered way. It breaks my heart when I see people choose the harder way. We find forgiveness with Jesus. Actually, Pastor Jamie just said this in our um staff devotion the other day. He said, We find forgiveness from Jesus, but we find freedom with each other. When you're saying what you're going through, confessing things that you're struggling with, when you're celebrating what's been done, freedom grows when we do this together, when you believe in your heart and then confess. I've I've walked with, I've talked with people that say, Well, I believe like what's what I believe is between me and the Lord. I'm like, that's fine. That's the harder way. It's a lonely way. There's a fuller way. But I'm gonna choose to stay angry rather than having an awkward conversation, or I'm gonna choose offense rather than plugging into a church family, or I'm gonna stand on this one theological difference or opinion rather than plugging into a life group and staying praying with those women. We can seek God's way, God's design for his bride, or we can choose the lonely way. And the last thing I want to share, which this I've wanted to weave this in everywhere, but here it is at the end. Um, for those of you who have kids, your kids are watching. They're watching the way you perceive the body of Christ. They're watching the way you serve or don't serve, they're hearing the conversations, they see the body language. Let's raise up a generation that plugs in and stays close. Let's raise up a generation that doesn't walk away during college and then just comes back because they had kids. Let's raise up a generation that loves church, that loves the church. And there's one more part, we didn't read it, but in the screw tape letters where he's telling the nephew, surely you know that if a man can't be cured of church going, the next best thing is to send him all over the neighborhood looking for the church that suits him until he becomes a taster, a connoisseur of churches. We're not a consumer. You're a body part, you're a part of the body. There's not something to receive or be entertained here. We don't have extra things to offer you. We're reading the same word that you're reading when you go home. What's powerful about gathering is then we're when then we're the body. And yes, it's important to have your private time with the Lord, but this is important because of the body. The last thing I want to read together and chime in with me if you know it, Ephesians 3, 20 through 21. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we could ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. Amen. Jesus, we thank you for walking us through the hard things. Lord, would you soften those edges? Would you reveal in us where maybe we need to see or think differently? Lord, would you give us the courage to plug in, to keep meeting, to keep eating, to stay close with one another, to stay low. We give it all to you and we trust you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.