We extend a warm invitation to become part of our Fierce Church family. We hope you'll find inspiration to grow spiritually and become a leader who radiates Jesus's love. Remember, Jesus's love for you is steadfast and unchanging, and we're excited to welcome you into our community, where we can all grow in grace together.
We extend a warm invitation to become part of our Fierce Church family. We hope you'll find inspiration to grow spiritually and become a leader who radiates Jesus's love. Remember, Jesus's love for you is steadfast and unchanging, and we're excited to welcome you into our community, where we can all grow in grace together.
Hey, what up? It's Mark Carter. I'm the pastor of Fierce Church. Welcome to our podcast. I'm so pumped that you're able to join us today. I hope this encourages you, inspires you, strengthens you, gives you hope to keep pressing on, and it's my prayer that this sermon gives you a more expansive view of God's love for you. Enjoy the message. What's happening, everybody? Welcome back to the Connect Class series.
Speaker 1:So last weekend we started talking about the importance of continuing to take spiritual growth steps. We said the enemy of our walk with God is kind of stagnating, and so we talked about spiritual growth steps. Spiritual growth steps are so important that we built them into the mission statement. You remember what it is. It's the mission of Fierce Church is to develop prevailing followers of Jesus Christ to walk with him step by step. That step by step is so important. These steps are things all Christians should keep doing, and we put them right on the wall. If you ever walked down the hall of the lobby at Fierce Church, you've seen this on the wall. This is called the Fierce Pathway, and around this circle are really just different steps. So if you're ever wondering I'm getting kind of bored I wonder what step I should take. Well, there's a good chance. A step you should take is right there in the Fierce pathway or on the wall at Fierce.
Speaker 1:Another thing we talked about was the vision. You remember the vision we said. Fierce Church will become a top of mind church for singles and families looking for a medium-sized church feel a deep emphasis on personal connection with God through the Bible, a casual vibe for friends to feel at home and an expanding focus on discipling the online world. Now, next weekend we're gonna talk about that a little bit differently and a little bit more in depth, but for now, let's talk about jumping into community. When we hear the word church, it's important to understand that that word literally means the called out ones by God or the assembly, and the truth is there's one church with many expressions around the world. We would say at Fierce we're not doing it the best way, we're just doing it our way, the way that we see it demonstrated in the New Testament.
Speaker 1:Now let's talk really quickly about the structure of Fierce. Okay, so one thing you should know about the structure at Fierce is we're really not into celebrityism. There are some cultures where a leader is propped up and kind of thought of as elevated above everybody else and you want to be careful how you even talk to them and stuff like that. We're not into that. Okay, just so you know, everybody's really chill here and we're chill because we want to spotlight Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone. He's the guy. Everybody else, dude. We're all sinners and we all need Jesus, and that's really all we need to say about it.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I'm the lead pastor. My name is Carter or Mark, or some people call me Pastor Carter, other, you might say Dr Carter. You might even call me Coco Dizzle. I had somebody once refer to me as Captain Insano. You can do it however you want to do it, man, as long as you know that, hey, I'm the guy that's here to help you take steps toward Jesus and you don't need to be afraid of me. But, thank God, I'm not the only one who's here to help you.
Speaker 1:Okay, there's other pastors. There's pastor Andy, who is the care pastor. There's pastors like pastor Elena, who's the youth pastor. There's Brandon, who is our worship pastor. He's a big, tall guy.
Speaker 1:You'll by shepherds. The elders are the ones I report to. Okay, so they are the ones who have been given oversight of the church. The elders make sure that I don't go insane, that I stay true to God's word and that the direction of our church has the blessing of God on it, so fierce, is elder-ruled and staff-led. That means the staff reports to me, I report to the elders.
Speaker 1:Okay, so now we're going to go into a breakout session. There's really two things we just talked about. We talked about the ecclesia, the called out ones, and we talked about the fact that there's no celebrityism here. Instead, we have spiritual shepherds. Here's the first question what do you like about what I just shared? Or, if you want to go a little bit deeper, what do you think is helpful about knowing who the spiritual shepherds of the church are? Hey, way to go. I am so proud of this church for the way you guys are diving right in. Even some of you introverts, I see you diving in, so way to go.
Speaker 1:As you know, we're in the Connect Class series, and one of the things we're trying to answer with this series is what is the church supposed to be being and doing? And so think about it this way If you were from outer space and you just came to earth, like yesterday, you'd never heard of the Bible before, you never heard about Jesus and you said what is this thing, this church does? And you went to the Bible and you said I'm just kidding, I don't want to hear from anybody, I just want to see what the Bible says. You would find certain themes and ideas that we're talking about today, about what the church is supposed to be and do. So number one biblical Christianity happens together. Now, you're going to fight me on this some of you but it does. Biblical Christianity happens together.
Speaker 1:Think about this when Jesus called his 12 apostles, it was a group. When he called the 70 to go into ministry, it was a group of people. When there were 120 at Pentecost, praying and waiting for the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. Then when Peter gets up and preaches, then there's 3,000. Guys, it goes from group to group to group.
Speaker 1:Now that doesn't mean that we don't have a personal relationship with Jesus. We absolutely do, and that's the most important thing. But right after that, we have to remember God is telling a story about a people, not just about me, not just about you, and the danger here is we want to steer away from do-it-yourself Christianity. We got a lot of do-it-yourself. You can YouTube anything, do-it-yourself. And we are responsible for our own relationship with God, but when we think we are so independent that we don't need anybody else, we're starting a trip boo.
Speaker 1:So let's go to John 13. Listen to this. We're back here. A new command. I give you love one another as I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this, everyone will know that you're my disciples If you have love for one another.
Speaker 1:I think it's trippy man. I never noticed this before. He doesn't say if you love people who maybe don't know Christ, he says if you love one another, everyone's going to know you belong to me. I'll give you two reasons. I think that is One's positive and one's negative. The first positive one is I don't know if you've noticed this, but a culture of people loving each other well is more attractive than even one loving person. Okay, so, in other words, we've all met people that were unusually loving and we're like, wow, that's weird. Maybe they're just you know, I don't know what's, that's just their personality. They're unusually happy and chipper or whatever. But when you see a group of people that are all loving that way on purpose, and you see them laying their lives down for one another, that's just attractive, yo, and it's convincing.
Speaker 1:Now there's also a negative component, and that is do-it-yourself Christianity. It tends to lead to pride, it tends to lead to the thing that I mean, I've done this, I'll be fine on my own, I don't need anybody else and it tends to make us think that other people don't have the ideas that I need and that I am the only one who has the right thinking. And thinking is the wrong way, because we need a people to be committed to, not just ideas to be committed to. If your Christianity is only ideas to be committed to, then you're set all on your own. But if you need a people to practice that on, well, baby, that's love. So here's what we're saying you can't really just be committed to the ideas of Christ. You have to be committed to the body of Christ, where you're going to practice the teachings of Christ. You do out there, away from the church, but you have to do it together.
Speaker 1:Some of you, you've got to know what a flash mob is. You know what a flash mob is, okay. So if you don't know what this is, it's a pre-planned, but no one's announcing that it's going to happen. It's maybe in a mall, or it's somewhere in a very populated place. It's a pre-planned. Everyone knows the choreography, they know the music, they know the song, but it pretends that it's just randomly happening. So you're walking through the mall and someone just at the top of the escalator starts singing. And then there's somebody down here and they start singing and it's you know, it's melody or it's harmony. And then three people come out and they start dancing, you know, and they're doing this thing, and we're like what is happening? Are we in a movie? Now, they didn't tell anybody that they were going to do it, but they're all doing it togetherator.
Speaker 1:She just starts belting out and she's alone, like she's just the only one doing it. You're like, well, she's either really brave or something wrong with old girl. I don't know what am I saying. The lady who's singing has things in common with a flash mob, but she by herself is not a flash mob. And so I can look at someone who's a Christian, you can look at them, and they're doing Christianity on their own. But that's also not Christianity if they're not with the body of Christ, because that's not how Jesus teed it up. He teed it up together. Listen to this Ephesians 2.19. Now you're no longer strangers to God and foreigners to heaven, but you are members of God's very own family, citizens of God's country, and you listen to this. You belong in God's household. With every other Christian I don't know man, it's right there.
Speaker 1:I say this every time we go through a Connect class, when it's not the big group, when we do smaller groups. I hope that. So, let's say, you're walking through the city, you're having a good night, good time. You get separated from your group though, but everything's still bright and it looks great and everyone's happy and a lot of people around, but then slowly, like four turns go by and you find yourself in a dark, dark alley. Let's see that alley, if we can. I want you to imagine you find yourself in this dark alley.
Speaker 1:I hope what happens is that there's a little bit of common sense that goes off in your brain and says warning, you are not necessarily safe, because there's all kinds of hiding places for nefarious people and creatures, and so as soon as you can get around more people, hopefully that alarm is going off. That's what needs to happen in the lives of people who know and love Jesus Christ. Hey, man, every one of us. You know we need solitude sometimes, and sometimes we even all isolate.
Speaker 1:But if you find yourself in seasons where you are isolatory, I just want, spiritually speaking, those alarms to start going off to say you are not safe, this is not a good place to be, because, I hate to say it, man, you and I have enemies, spiritual foes, that are lurking in those shadows and they want to pull our attention toward them and what they really want to do. They want to get you depressed. We all get depressed a little bit, but they want to, man. They want to maximize that and everything that you thought maybe I'll obey God in this. You're like well, maybe that wasn't God, I don't know. They talk you out of the things you already decided to do. So alarm bells when you're in the alley stay out.
Speaker 1:We've got a fierce code. The best you is in community, the best version of you and I, the best version of ourselves, happens when there's other people around us so we can roll on their understanding, we can roll on their ideas and, honestly, sometimes it's just being with them. It sparks something, even just being at these tables. Maybe somebody says one thing and that changes the decision, or you say something and it goes the other way. I'm saying this my friends and I know it's even controversial. Probably I'm not saying that you don't have a beautiful, wonderful relationship with God just as you are, but what I am saying is we can't really love Jesus completely if we won't also love his body and bride.
Speaker 1:One of the ways Jesus understands the church is his bride. Now listen, if you come, stay with me at my house, you're like Carter, I'm just so glad. You know, I spent a couple of weeks here. I'm so you know we're great friends. And now, just you know I don't like your wife. So can we just kind of like stay away from her? I'll be like you got a problem. Now. There's no such thing as me without my wife, and so you can't be with just me and not have her along. And Jesus is the same way. He says I know she's done things wrong, I know that she's not perfect yet, but she's still mine. And for you to just say you love me but reject her, there's parts of me that you're not knowing. And, baby, when the stuff hits the fan, your friends aren't Jesus, but they're often. They're the pipeline of Jesus's love to you. That's why you want to sow and be around them.
Speaker 1:So let's break out into our little breakouts. Here's your questions. What do you like about that? Or a little bit deeper how do you think remaining distant from people could oppose God's will in your life? If you just stay in the alleyway, how might that work against you?
Speaker 1:Hey, I want to give you a little bit of a small group fierce hack. So every time you go in a small group, you have this little rule in the back of your mind. One of these I try to do anytime I'm part of a group is when I start to talk. When somebody asks me a question and I give them an answer, I start to talk. When somebody asks me a question and I give them an answer, I start to count in my head. If I'm talking longer than 45 seconds, I'm like, bro, you're taking up all the time. Land this plane soon, okay. So sometimes you know we all process out loud and sometimes that's what's happening. But if you find yourself on minute two and a half, let's make sure other people at the table get some time. Okay, that's a little shortcut, hey.
Speaker 1:So what do we say? We said biblical Christianity happens together and biblical disciples spend their time on others. They spend, but not their money, not just their money, their time on others. I really believe our time, many of you might agree, is even more valuable than money. A lot of the time, you want me to give up my time. Wow, can I just give you $20 instead? That's how some of us think.
Speaker 1:Well, the first church dealt with this too. In the very first church, when the Holy Spirit had been poured out, the original followers of Jesus, once the Spirit had been poured out, that means they received power to connect with God relationally and power to obey him in a way they never had before, but also power to connect with one another in the way they had before. Listen to what it says and they daily devoted themselves with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, and they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart. How many know? They didn't all just like stop going to work. They didn't stop raising their kids. It was in the midst of all that happening. They're like we need to prioritize time with one another because we need to get a hold of this Jesus that just rose from the dead. And we do that best together. And they did it in multiple contexts.
Speaker 1:You and I have got rhythms and patterns in your day. You're probably going to make similar circles day to day, week to week. You're going to go to the same places. You're going to see the same people. We've got to break it up if we're going to meet any new people, if we're going to find some of the people God wants to use in our lives and us in their lives. We got to sometimes break a little bit of our pattern. I know some of you that scares the heck out of you, but we got to break our patterns. What is this right now? This is a breaking of a pattern. We're breaking normal Sunday. We're putting this together so that we all find more of our friends who we're walking home together with. So how are things, how are ways that we do this that are maybe not our normal routine?
Speaker 1:Well, one of them is fierce men and fierce women. Let's see on the website here. If you go to fiercechurch slash groups, you'll see something like this Fierce men and fierce women. These are on Saturdays. Fierce men is first and third. Weekends, fierce women is second and fourth. And here's what's awesome about these these are easy, super easy. You don't have to sign up, you can just go. It's only an hour. You just sit there and you meet a few people and then you're done, discuss the content and then you're done. Guys, it is super easy. It is barely an inconvenience when you go to Fierce Men or Fierce Women. So that's the benefit. It's easy.
Speaker 1:There's also the Grove. The Grove is a little bit more because there is a commitment. It's about 10 weeks long and there's a relational component. You're getting to know other people. But it's also kind of a workshop. So, unlike Fierce Men, fierce Women, when you come out of that you actually have a new spiritual skill. You know how to study the Bible better than you did before. You are more excited about and do more prayer better than you did before. That's what the grove is, just so we understand what that is.
Speaker 1:Now, this summer, you're going to be able to sign up for this soon. You're going to be signed up for Summer Suppers. We've done this a lot of summers. This is really just fellowship events at people's houses. Everybody's bringing food and we're just going to get to know each other. It's like back porch, back deck kind of stuff, where we're just together and we're breaking down the walls. We're getting to know each other's stories. That's summer suppers and that's leading into this fall where we will restart in-home groups, which we haven't done since before COVID. That's where we're going to take six months at a time. We're going to group up, we're going to study some material, but we're going to be together in ways deeper. We have more lasting, intentional friendships. Those are some of the ways that we build in new spots to meet new people. Every one of us has to do it.
Speaker 1:Now you say, carter, oh, my gosh, that just takes so much time. Why do we have to do all that? Let me just assure you I that doesn't come easy to me. Honestly, like I know that it's easy for me to come up to you and say hi, but like my life is very filled, filled, filled, filled, filled, full, thank you. I need friends, thank you. So I get it. I totally get you. Even so, we've all got to have the discipline to do it, because here's why here's a fierce code God's things take time.
Speaker 1:God's things take time. You've heard that good things take time. I would make the case to you also God's things, most of the time, take time. When God's trying to do something in our lives, it's going to take longer than we wish. Take time when God's trying to do something in our lives. It's going to take longer than we wish.
Speaker 1:Example when God grows a petunia, the whole process takes one year. It grows, it blossoms and there it is it dies. When he builds an oak tree which some can last I've heard even thousands but most about two to 400 years it's not even mature until it's 60. When God wants to build something incredible, he takes a long time to do it. When you've got oak tree friends, now you can have petunia friends. That's just a flash in the pan, it's just exciting. And then boom, it's done. I don't know where they went, but you can also build a network of oak friends whose roots are intertangled now because it's been so long together. They weathered a lot of storms together. They didn't always like each other, but they hung on like a big oak and now they've got a lot of strength for all the journeys ahead.
Speaker 1:So, god, things take time. Let's break up in our groups again. Here's the first question. You can always answer what you liked about that. But also, what are some of those ways that I mentioned? It says Carter mentioned several ways. Fiercers, that's, people that come to fierce, can spend time together. What sounds exciting to you, or maybe you could talk about what are some less effective ways people try to love one another. Instead of spending time. Hey, let's do one more, eh? So we said biblical Christianity happens together. Biblical disciples spend their time on others and biblical disciples wait together. They wait together. So we're going to look at a. Really, we should spend three hours on the passage we're about to look at, but we're going to spend, you know, 85 seconds.
Speaker 1:Paul is writing to the Thessalonians and they're worried. They're concerned Because they're watching some of their friends die. And those friends knew Jesus and they're like why didn't Jesus come back yet? What's going on? Did I miss? You know? Did he go to the other Walmart and I wasn't there? Or, like, how to? What happened? Or, you know, did I get separated from my friend? Am I never going to see them again now because they died? And how's it going to work? And Paul wants to reassure them.
Speaker 1:He says 1 Thessalonians 4, 16,. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, with the trumpet call of God, first the believers who have died will rise from their graves. Then, together with them, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever. So encourage each other with these words.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we've got a whole series on the end times. You're welcome to go to YouTube and find it and subscribe to our channel, please do. It's called Is this the End? But just real brief thoughts here. First, when it says and that believers who have died will rise from the graves, don't get in your mind zombies coming out of the ground. That's not what that is okay. He's talking about the end of the world.
Speaker 1:And when Jesus comes back, he says it's going to be a moment that everybody on earth can see. When he talks about the clouds, that's the presence of God. All through the Bible, the cloud is God's presence. They keep following the cloud in the desert and there's the cloud in Solomon's temple and then there's a cloud at the transfiguration. This cloud is Jesus' presence. Returns to earth for victory. That's what it is.
Speaker 1:But he's saying hey, guys, when he comes, jesus is going to bring all your friends. He's going to bring all the God followers who have ever lived and they're coming back, but they're coming back in a confrontive way. They're going to confront death, they're going to confront our spiritual enemy and they're really going to confront the spirit of this world that rebels against God. And what Jesus is going to say? He's going to say these are mine, and he's going to take everyone who's still living and they're all going to come up. Everyone's going to get a brand sounds trippy a brand new, spiritual, improved, 2.0 body, and then they're going to go with Jesus. Heaven's going to come to earth. It's going to be absolutely insane. But what I want to point out to you is Jesus grabs them and they're together. This word, harpazo.
Speaker 1:We talked about this in a different message, when we talked about Matthew 11, 12. This is the passage where we got the name for this church, by the way. For in the days of John the Baptist, until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. That take it. What we're saying is there. Not only does Jesus love us fiercely, but if we're going to progress in the things of God, we have to have an attitude of like I'm taking it, I'm not going to lollygag over there, I'm going to get it. And it's the same word when Jesus comes and he takes his people, he's saying he's not like oh, everybody all aboard. He's like back off, devil, these are mine and I'm taking them, but he takes them together. We'll be with the Lord forever and we'll be together forever. What does that mean? That means when you lose somebody in the Lord, dude, I know it's hard, but it is not forever. It is not forever when your body's breaking down. I know that's hard, but it is not forever.
Speaker 1:One of the things that we're supposed to do as the body of believers. Together, we are just walking one another home. We're walking one another to our true home and from time to time, just like the apostle said remember he said so encourage each other with these words as we're walking home, we need to remind each other. Hey, by the way, I know you know this, but just to remind you, we ain't staying here. We ain't staying here. This is not where we're going. Where are we? We're on a layover. Right now. We're not at the destination. We're in a layover, we're waiting. You and I we're sitting in the airport restaurant being like doggone. When are we going to get there? We're going to get there and we're going to get there together.
Speaker 1:And Paul says you guys need to remind each other. This is not your home. You're going somewhere else. So don't get too at home in the world. Don't love everything about this man. Enjoy it. Enjoy the stuff God gives you, but don't think, don't plant everything here and count on what's here. You're going home and you're going home together and you need one another to just remind each other. Hey, man, I know it's hard, but we ain't staying here. What do you like about that Easy question?
Speaker 1:Can you share a story of a time when the faith of somebody else, you were down in the dumps, but their faith inspired you and lifted you up? You didn't have faith, you were kind of doubting, but their faith gave you a jolt of power. Share the story with the table of a time that that happened. Hey, thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 1:If you don't have a home church and you're looking for a Bible preaching community that has its heart set on passionately knowing Jesus and being his witness in our generation, check out fiercechurch. We'd love for you to join us, either digitally or in person. Also, if you're looking for leadership development-related content, don't forget to check out the Fierce Leadership Podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts from. Special thanks to those of you who give generously to support this ministry. It's because of you that this is possible. You can click on the link in the description to give now, or visit fiercechurch for more information. If you enjoyed this podcast, why not subscribe? Share it with your friends, click on the share button, take a screenshot and share it on social media or wherever you would share such things. Whatever challenges you're facing, I know you can make it. Don't give up. Hang on to Jesus. He won't let go of you. Jesus loves you so much and we love you. I hope someday we get to meet in person. Thanks again for listening.