Desert, Group, Project | The Church As A Force For Transformation- Part 5 | Senior Pastor Keith Stewart

THE CHURCH AS A FORCE FOR TRANSFORMATION
Desert, Community, Project | Part 5
Senior Pastor Keith Stewart
June 28, 2026

What if the church was known less for what it opposed and more for who it loved? In the final message of our series, Desert, Community, Project, we'll explore God's vision for the church as a force for transformation in the world. Jesus called His followers the salt of the earth and the light of the world—not spectators, but difference-makers. We'll look at how ordinary people can become the soul of their community, why discipleship matters more than religious consumption, and what it means to join God in His work of healing, restoring, and renewing the world around us. If you've ever wondered what the church is supposed to be—or what your part in God's mission might look like—this message is for you. Join us this Sunday as we discover what happens when a church becomes deeply rooted in its community and impossible to explain apart from Jesus.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 

1. The message opened with the story of a woman who turned her canceled wedding banquet into a celebration for the homeless. What stood out to you most about that story? How does it reflect God's heart for people?
 
2. Keith said, "We often become grace consumers rather than grace dispensers." What is the difference? In what ways are Christians tempted to focus on what the church can do for them rather than what God wants to do through them?
 
3. Discuss the phrase: "Christians are to the world what the soul is to the body." What do you think it means for believers to be "the soul of the community"?
 
4. Read John 17:15. Why is it often easier to withdraw from the world than engage it? What are some practical ways Christians can be "in the world but not of the world"?
 
5.  Read Matthew 5:13-16. What does it mean to be salt and light in today's culture? Which image speaks more powerfully to you personally—salt or light? Why?
6. The message emphasized that the gospel is not only a proclamation but also a demonstration. How have you seen acts of compassion open doors for spiritual conversations?
 
7. Keith suggested that people often need several "positive bumps" with Christians before becoming open to faith. Who has provided those positive bumps in your life? How might you become one for someone else?
 
8. Discuss this statement: "The good stuff leads people to the God stuff." Do you agree? Why or why not?
 
9. Keith summarized the series this way:
Be with Jesus
Become like Jesus
Do what Jesus did
Which of those three resonates most strongly with you right now? Why?
 
10. What would it look like for Springcreek to become known as "the soul of the community"? What are some practical ways we can live out that vision together?
 
11. The message challenged us to ask, "What can I do to help?" Who might God be bringing into your life right now that needs encouragement, compassion, practical assistance, or friendship?
 
Closing Challenge
 
This week, look for one opportunity to be salt and light in a practical way. It may be a conversation, an act of service, a gift of generosity, or simply paying attention to someone who feels unseen. Come prepared next week to share what happened.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Amen. Have a seat. Wow. That's a good way to start a message, right? Thanks to Jared and the team. What an awesome job leading us in worship week to week. Quick update. You know, many of you know because in this series, uh, we've made the announcement that we've got to deal with our roof, uh, the back part of our building. We've had a lot of leaks. Fortunately, uh through Russ Stockton, who uh is our uh you know, he deserves a shout out, believe me. Uh Russ has been working to seal up what leaks we have, so we don't feel like now we have to hire in a company to do that, so we've got a lot of leaks stopped, but it still is going to require a new roof. And we learned too that we're gonna have to replace the HVAC units at nearly the same time. So it's not gonna be a cheap job. But my goodness, uh Church, you have been so generous. It just seems that every day of every week for the last three weeks, we keep getting surprises. So somebody sent a $1,000 check, somebody dropped off a $15,000 check at the coffee shop this past week. And I said, that's not yours, that's ours. So it just, you know, but but people people bringing money and and just digging deep, and whether it's four dollars on a Sunday morning or thousands of dollars, uh, and we do have a couple wealthy donors who've said they want to give a more substantial gift, and uh those are supposed to be coming and soon. Um so we're thankful for that. And you know, we've got friends. We have friends. I can't tell you the number of people who have sent me messages on Messenger and Facebook who said, Pastor, you know, I I know you haven't seen me in a long time, but I I want to give to this. Tell me how to give to it. And I explain it. Two minutes later, I'm getting the message done. And and they they've given electronically. I had World Vision contact me. Now, you know, we've been a World Vision church for years, and one of my dear friends contacted the head of their domestic program. So, in case you didn't know, World Vision doesn't just work overseas, it works right here in the U.S. And it has a a number of what they call storehouses strategically around the country, and one of them is based in Dallas. And uh they they get everything from school supplies to building supplies and all kinds of things. And the head of domestic programs called me and said, Pastor, I hear you're having problems with your roof. Is there anything at all we can do to help? If I have materials here, they're free of charge to you. And I'm just blown away that people know us and love us and know who we are and what we've been about and said, hey, how can we help? So God is just opening the storehouses of heaven, and and we're hoping that real soon we're gonna be able to start on getting that roof replaced. But thank God for each and every one of you, and thank God especially for all of you who just regularly, systematically give to Spring Creek. You just make it a priority. It doesn't matter the amount. What matters is that you're consistent in that. You give, you know it's God's money, you give to bless what God is doing in this city and through this church, and I just am grateful for each and every one of you. Well, I'm wrapping up this series, Desert Community Project today, by looking at a message I'm calling the church as a force of transformation. So if you would, let's just bow together and let's pray. Father, what a privilege is ours to gather in your house, to be in your presence, to know that God, you're already at work. You you've been working through this incredible time of worship, preparing our hearts for the things you want to speak to us today. Now I just pray, God, you move me out of the way so that your message can come through loud and clear. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. So in June of 1990, a young couple went to the Hyatt Hotel in downtown Boston to make reservations for what was going to be their wedding banquet. So you go in, and of course, you first you select the menu, and then you choose the china and silver that you're going to use that night. You pick out all the flower arrangements. They did all this. They had expensive taste. The bill came to $13,000. Now remember, this is 1990, so that we're talking like $32,000 today. So once everything is set, the hotel required that they put down half as a secure deposit on the banquet. And they did that. But on the day the wedding announcements hit the mailbox, the groom got cold feet and said, I'm not sure about all this. It's a big commitment. Let's take a little longer to think about it. And then he broke off the engagement with his fiancee. Well, the Jilted fiancé, she goes to the Hyatt to cancel the banquet. The events manager was super understanding. I mean, she told the young woman, same thing happened to me, believe it or not. But the bad news is, and I'm really sorry about this, we can't give you a refund. And she explained. She said the contract is binding, sure, you're only entitled to $1,300 back, which means you really only have two options. You can forfeit the rest of your down payment, or you can go ahead with the banquet. So the bride's gonna lose like $5,000, which again in today's dollars, we're talking $14,000 if she canceled. So she thought about it for a minute, and then she said, you know what? As crazy as it sounds, I think I'm gonna go ahead and do the party. But now, instead of a wedding banquet, she decided to use her savings to treat the down and out of Boston to a night on the town. So on a night in June of 1990, the Hyde Hotel in downtown Boston hosted a party like they'd never seen before. The would-be bride only changed one thing about the plans. She changed the main course. She changed it to boneless chicken in honor of her former groom, but everything else remained the same. Then she sent out invitations to all the rescue missions and the homeless shelters. So on a warm summer night in June, people who were used to peeling pizza off of discarded cardboard and dumpsters, they dined on chicken cordon blue. Hyatt waiters in tuxedos served hors d'oeuvres to bag ladies, vagrants, and addicts who took one night off from the hard light to enjoy chocolate cake and danced to big band melodies late into the night. It was really an amazing thing this woman did. And the first time I ever read that story, my instant thought was, you know, this sounds a lot like Jesus. Because Jesus told a story about a banquet one time too. A banquet where everyone was invited and nobody shows up. And so the Lord of the banquet, God, his father, says, go out into the highways and hedges and compel those people, especially those people who feel so far away from me, compel them to come into my house. Because I want my house full of all the people that I love. And that's God's dream. I mean, that's really his greatest desire for our world, that the excluded would be included, that those far away would be brought near, that the lost would be found. And if our heart is anything like God's heart, then we will desire the same thing. But therein lies the problem. You see, there's a lot of people in church who reverse this thinking, who start thinking of themselves as grace consumers instead of grace dispensers. We think that the church exists to cater to our wants and needs. And we forget why the church actually exists. It exists for those who are not yet here, who desperately need what God has to offer. Amen? So I want you to, I want to take you on journey. I want to take you back in church history to some of the earliest days of Christianity and remind you that Christians were once the soul of the community. The church used to be at the heart of everything that happened in villages, towns, and cities around the world. In fact, if you've traveled much across Europe, you you'll often notice that one of the features of most towns is the church is dead center in the town. And literally every road leads to the church. The church was the hub, the center of life and activity. It's where you went when you were in trouble. If you were grieving, that's where families gathered. If you were celebrating, you'd go to the church. If you had a need and knew of no place else to turn, you would go to church. In about 150 AD, an early church father was describing what Christians were like in the second century. And he said this: As the soul is to the body, so Christians are to the world. That's what we're supposed to be. We're supposed to be the soul of the community. So tell me, what happens if you take a soul out of a body? It becomes a corpse, right? It's dead. The soul is the very life essence of the body. Your life and mine are that essential to community and life. Did you know that? Which leads me to this. The early Christians were not a society of separatists. Believers were engaged in the life of the city. They socialized with their neighbors. They looked out for one another. Being the lifeblood of the community is something I think as Christians today, we've lost. In fact, what happens oftentimes in Christian circles is we don't like what's going on in public schools, so we start our own version of Christian schools. And we don't like what's being done in music today, and so we develop a whole Christian entertainment industry. And we don't like how businesses are doing business, so we start a Christian business and put a little fish on it to prove that we're Christians, right? So instead of influencing the cultural stream, which is what we're supposed to be about, we've we've we've constructed a completely separate and parallel stream that never even has to intersect or touch the world. This is the opposite of what Jesus taught us to be. In fact, he once prayed, Father, I don't ask you to take my followers out of the world, but keep them safe from the evil one. Jesus didn't pray that you and I would isolate ourselves from those outside the church. He didn't pray that we'd create a Christian bubble where we could live forever without ever touching the world and its needs around us. We're called to be in the world, but not of the world. You know, I've had this happen many times, and so this is a forewarning not to do this to me, okay? But some people have come to me and said, Pastor, you know, I just love to work in a church like you do. Because I have to work with all these lost people, and all they do is cuss and they tell dirty stories and stuff like that. I just don't even want to be around that. And you know, I don't have sympathy for that. So just telling you up front, if you come to me saying I don't have sympathy, because you know what my thought is? I wish I had your Monday morning pulpit. I do. I wish that I could be in a place where sinners cuss and and bad things happen and people are falling through the cracks because that's where Christians need to be. They need to be on the front lines of what's happening in society. You know, for a while in college, I worked a job for Hildrup United Van Line. So they did a lot of moving stuff like that, and there were a lot of truckers who came in and out. This is a summer job while I was in college, so I'm I would have to uh build these huge wooden crates uh because we're right next to a military base, and sometimes when military families go overseas, they pack everything into a crate, and then the crate is shipped overseas. So I'd be inside those things, caulking them, uh, so they'd be waterproof for that long journey across seas in the hottest of Virginia summers. But these truck drivers, and I'm not saying this is about every truck driver, but they were a rough group, okay, that would come in and out of that facility. And every day I said, God, thank you for this adventure. I'm getting to rub shoulders with people who are never going to darken the door of a church. And they don't know there's a preacher incognito that's gonna meet them today and talk to them about the love of God. I mean, what an opportunity to rub shoulders with people who most need to experience God. Now, throughout this series, I've been emphasizing that we need to spend our time with God first. That's our priority. We need to gather our community around us, but all of that is for the purpose of going out into the world to be difference makers because that's what God's kids do. We're the soul of the community. And maybe the reason society's in such a mess today is because Christians have abdicated their role as transformational agents in society. Throughout the rise of Christianity in the early days of the Roman era, people were drawn to Christians, not because of evangelistic outreaches and mass media, those things didn't exist. Churches weren't drawing people in by mirroring the trends of Roman society. They grew because they were living the gospel. So let me explain. In the second, third century, there were a lot of plagues that swept through Rome. And did you know that when that happened, we have history records that say that many of the doctors fled in advance of the disease, the contagion? Now, can you imagine that? A doctor running away from the sick? That's bad. But but Dionysius is a man, he lives in Athens in the first century. Listen to him describe the cruelty of what was happening in the first century. He said the heathen behaved in the very opposite way. At the first onset of the disease, they pushed the sufferers away and fled from their dearest, throwing them into the roads before they were dead, and treated unburied corpses as dirt, hoping thereby to avert the spread and contagion of the fatal disease. People were taking their loved ones before they died and just dumping them out in the street. But you need to know that's not what the Christians did. The Christians stayed and took care of the sick, while others were running away from the problems thinking only of themselves. Christians were running toward the problem thinking only of others. It's because of the followers of Christ that the face of compassion in this world has changed so dramatically. Now, I'm not saying compassion wouldn't exist without Christians, certainly it would. But the truth is this there is no other movement or religion in society that has done what Christ's followers have done, in this case, in particular, compassion toward the hurting and the vulnerable. And it's just a fact. The very first hospital for prolonged care of the sick was developed by a Christian named Saint Benedict. The nursing profession was founded by Florence Nightingale, who did so out of devotion to Jesus Christ. I mean, look around and think about all the hospitals today that still carry Christian names, like Presbyterian, St. Paul's, Baylor Baptist, St. Jude's, Methodist, Bethesda. Ask yourself what organizations today are doing the most to relieve human suffering? I'll give you the list: World Vision, the Red Cross, the Christian Children's Relief Fund, Compassion International, Salvation Army, do you know what they all have in common? They were all started by Christians and they remain Christian organizations to this day. Mark Nelson, he's a professor of philosophy at Westmont College. He explained it so well. Listen to what he said. If you ask what is Jesus' influence on medicine and compassion, I would suggest that wherever you find an institution of self-giving for the lonely and for the practical welfare of the lonely, schools, hospitals, hospices, orphanages for those who will never be able to repay, this probably has its roots in the movement of Jesus. Even non-believers are forced to acknowledge this, that the compassion that Christians have displayed around the world has truly changed the face of compassion. For example, Malcolm Muggeridge, I don't know if you recognize his name. He was a prominent English journalist, a politician, but also an atheistic humanist. He once visited Mother Teresa and their work among lepers. And he sees the sisters of charity all working to relieve suffering among the lepers and restore dignity. And then it hit him. He said, humanists don't run leprosariums. And what he's thinking about is his own philosophy as a humanist. And he looks at what these Christian women are doing and he says, My humanism never compelled me to go out there and make a world of difference among needy people. He had to acknowledge the bankruptcy of his own convictions. No matter how right he thought he was, no matter how much he believed what he was saying was true, the fact is that his belief system didn't make a difference in a world of suffering, and you know what? He became a Christian as a result. He sees what compassion is as it's shown to the most vulnerable among us, and he says, that's what I want to be with my life. What I'm saying is simply this history is full of examples of Christians who saw themselves as transformational agents in society. They didn't withdraw from society, they engaged with it. They didn't think of outsiders as the enemy. You know, I don't care what people have said about you or how they've said it, that person, that flesh and blood human being is never your enemy. They're victims of the enemy. That's what they are. But the Bible says we battle not against flesh and blood, right? We battle against the evil behind that. And so when you begin to treat human beings as the enemy, you've already lost the narrative. You've lost the bigger picture. So the early Christians heard the call of Christ to come be with him, gather around them a community of fellow friends, and then go out in the world to make Christ's presence known through all we say and do. The way Jesus said it was like this: we're called to be salt and light. So this is from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' most extensive teaching, the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus said, Let me tell you why you're here. You're here to be salt seasoning that brings out the God flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You've lost your usefulness and you'll end up in the garbage. Here's another way to put it: you're here to be light, bringing out the God colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand. Now that I put you there on the hill stop, on a light stand, shine. Keep open house, be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven. So Jesus compares his followers to two basic elements, salt and light. I want to talk to you about both of them. First, about salt. Let's begin in Matthew 5.13. You're the salt of the earth. If the salt loses its saltiness, how it can be made salty again. It's no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled by men. Salt in the New Testament had two primary purposes. First, it was a seasoning, it adds flavor. I mean, there's just certain things that just don't taste right without salt, right? Popcorn, chips, french fries. I mean, they're they're gross. I mean, if you don't have salt, they're just gross. So salt adds seasoning, but here's the second thing salt, it's a preservative. Salt doesn't prevent decay, but it slows it down and it prevents its spread. Meat left to itself is going to spoil. Now think about this. For most of the history of the world, we haven't had refrigeration. So in old times, you had to have salt if you had a kill, if you killed an animal and you want to feed your family that animal for more than a day, you've got to have salt to preserve that meat over time so that you can feast off that meat over a period of time instead of a single day. So salt, what it does, and it doesn't take a lot of it to do this, and maybe this is why Jesus compared us to salt. A part of our purpose in society is to act as this preserving agent in the midst of a decaying world. Let me explain this. Robert Bella, he's a sociologist for advanced studies at Princeton University. And he made this comment, it's always stuck with me. We should not underestimate the significance of a small group of people who have a vision of a just and gentle world. The governing values of a whole culture may be changed when 2% of its people have a new vision. Now think about that. All you need is 2% of the people to affect positive change. 2% living differently. 2% can be catalytic and changing an entire culture. But that makes me wonder. In a country like America, where there's far more than 2% professed Christians, why aren't we having a more salt-like effect? Why isn't society changing more significantly? Why aren't people flocking to the church because of the presence of Christ followers? Could it be that the salt has lost its saltiness? Could it be that instead of being a surprising people, we've actually become too predictable for being short on temper, quick on judgment, and slow to show mercy? And that's the opposite of what Jesus taught us to be. But Jesus also taught us this you're the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father who's in heaven. So Jesus told us two things would happen as a result of our light shining. One, others would see the beauty of your good deeds. It's interesting, he says, people will see your good works. The word good in Greek is kalos, and kalos is a word that means beautiful or lovely or attractive. So what Jesus is saying is people are going to see the beauty of the things that you're doing, and they're going to be drawn to God. That's why I've always said, you're never going to attract you're never going to attack people and bring them into the kingdom. You'll either attract them by your good life or they're not going to come at all. People are never attacked. We get up on our high horse sometime and we make all these edicts about what the world is supposed to be like. That's not bringing anybody because it's the good stuff that leads people to the God stuff. Which means the gospel is not just a proclamation, it's a demonstration. There's this old poem, I'm just going to quote a couple of verses of it. It's called The Living Sermon by Edgar Guest. He said, I'd rather see a sermon than hear one any day. I'd rather one walk with me than merely tell the way. The eye's a better pupil and more willing than the ear, find counsels confusing, but examples always clear. The lectures you deliver may be very wise and true, but I'd rather get my lessons by observing what you do. For I might misunderstand you and the high advice you give, but there's no misunderstanding how you act and how you live. Isn't that the truth? How we live is a better barometer of what we really believe than anything that comes out of our mouth. The second thing that happens when light shines before others, they give God the credit. Jesus said in verse 16, they praise your Father who's in heaven. It's really that simple. We do the shining, God gets the glory. Because you see, it's the nature of light not to draw attention to itself. You know that? Light always illuminates something else. So because of the light God has placed in me, I illuminate the character of God. People see God more clearly because of the way I live. So Rob Bell summarized it so well when he said, It is when the church gives itself away and radical acts of service and compassion, expecting nothing in return, that the way of Jesus is most vividly put on display. Couldn't have said it better myself. Which leads us to this question: what does all this say to us today? Well, first to the church. I love this definition of a church. It came from a pastor in Little Rock, Arkansas. What is the church? A community of people who present living proof of a loving God to a watching world. That's what we are. That's what we're called to be. Living proof of a loving God to a watching world. If we're living out the gospel, that's what our neighbors should be seeing in us. And a lot more than just pointing out what's wrong in our culture, it means rolling up our sleeves to be a part of the solution. It means giving sacrificially, it means serving other people and reflecting the love of Christ to the least lovely among us. David Workman is the pastor of the Vineyard Church in Cincinnati. I read their mission statement at the beginning of this series. He said this. He said, it takes between 12 and 20 positive bumps. And let me explain what he means by that. And what he means by that is fresh encounters with the church before people come to Christ. Now that makes sense, doesn't it? I mean, when you're out there in the world and you're making connections with people, it's these little bumps, these positive connections you make with other people, and it usually takes a bunch of them before people are drawn to Christ. So as we're out there serving, as we're out there trying to make a difference, those little bumps, those acts of service, those acts of love that demonstrate, not, hey, I'm doing this because God loves you, just I do this because God loves them, right? I do that for people. Brenda and I were Friday at Goodwill, and we were at Goodwill, and there's a mom, a single mom, uh, who's there with her shopping cart, and she's got her infant up in the carrier in the cart and her toddler here. And I can see what she's trying to do. She's trying to manage how do I get this toddler to stay in one place while I take this baby and put it in the backseat of the car, right? And you can tell she said, Stay. And I'm thinking, that toddler, all he hears is run around this parking lot, right? Because that's what he wants to do. And I realized that she's also trying to figure out what am I gonna do with this cart while I'm doing that. I said, hey, let me take this part out of the equation. And I just take her cart so that she can focus on that. And then it's like, okay, come over here with me now, you know? But she was just trying to figure it out. Sometimes, you know, that means when your neighbor's grass is a foot tall, you mow it instead of calling the city about it. Sometimes that means after a spring storm, you're busy collecting branches in your neighborhood. Sometimes that means you show up on a Friday like a lot of our folks did at Hope Clinic for their monthly food distribution, and you just show up to pack food, to distribute food, to help to empty the truck, help to clean up afterwards. Sometimes it means going to the convalescent care center and visiting an elderly person who never gets a visit. Sometimes it means not being involved in church activities, but you just do this naturally on your own in everybody that you happen to bump into in your neighborhood. You know, and sometimes I think that probably counts for more. You know why? Because when it's your neighbor and it's people in your community and they see you all the time, there's a possibility of relationship there. You know, I've led a lot of people to Christ in my lifetime, but the people that I've led in the context of relationship, of knowing them, of being in their home, I can still point to where they are in church today. The other people who came through a sermon or some big event, they maybe, maybe not. I don't always know about them. But people that come in relationship tend to stick better. So those bumps that we have with the world, they can make all the difference in the world. Ron Sider, he's probably one of the former statespeople about what it means to serve the poor. He wrote a book called The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience. And in it he said this think of the impact if evangelical giving to empower the poor here and abroad became so substantial that the first thought that came to people's mind when they heard the word evangelical was, oh yes, they are the people who are dramatically reducing poverty around the world. I'll tell you from the heart, that's not the association people make with the term evangelical today. It's not. But we can change that. We need a church that exists for the sake of others. We need a church that gives up luxury so that others can have necessity. We need a church that rejects the lone ranger mentality and lives instead in compassionate community. We need a church that views money as a resource not to be hoarded but as to be leveraged for the kingdom of God. We need a church that comes together to care for the poor in our backyard and around the world. I had an interesting conversation after the second service last week. A young man from India came up to me, approached me, said he was a tech worker and he'd lost his job. He'd he'd come here under a contract, and that contract played out, so he was no longer employed. He either needed to find a new contract or a new employer. Now you're talking to the most non-tech guy that exists on the planet, right? So he's come to me, he's asking me for help. But then he explained why he came to me. He tells me the name of the church, and I'm not going to mention it today, but it's a big mega church in our community. A lot of money, a lot of people, far more than we have. And they sent him to us. When they found out he was looking for a job, we can't help you with that. But let me tell you, Spring Creek Church can. Now, one, I'm glad that that's our reputation in the community that people say, if you need help with a real need, go to Spring Creek Church. I'm sad for that church. I'm sad that they didn't see this as an opportunity to be salt and light in the world. I'm sad that they didn't want to leverage their substantial connections to try to help this young man find a job. So I just said, hey, listen, I don't know much about tech, but I have some friends, and I can connect you with some friends. And then I also told him about some people I know. So I gave him a list of things. I'm praying for him. I posted on Facebook this past week, and several people say, hey, this tech company's hiring, this tech company's hiring. I wrote all those down, had it texted to him. So want to empower him with all that can because you know what? Here's the deal. What I've what I've learned, what I've learned over time, is that it's a mistake to think that a person's that the gospel's only concern is a person's soul. Jesus was always about his father's business, right? Even if that meant feeding the hungry or washing people's feet. Mahatma Gandhi said it like this. He said, There are people in the world so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread. Now let me tell you something I've learned over 36 years as being your pastor. A lot of people walk through the doors of this building, and when they come in here, their hunger, their need is not for Jesus Christ as their Savior. Now, yeah, we know ultimately that's their need, but you see, they come in here addicted, or they come in here fresh out of prison, or they come in here and their marriage is tanking, or they come in here and their kids are out of control, or they come in here and they need a job. And you know what? That problem is so big, it's right here. And that's all they can see. And they don't have the bandwidth to consider their ultimate needs, like Jesus Christ to save their soul and to redeem their life. They're not there, they're thinking only in terms of their need. And if we don't meet people where they are with what they need, we're not doing the Jesus-style ministry. We come alongside people who are hurting and we say, okay, how can I help? What difference can I make? Even if it's just to offer to pray for people, that's better than saying, hey, go to the church down the road, they can help you with this. So I'm gonna pray, I'm gonna seek, I'm gonna do whatever God would have me to do, whatever that need happens to be, I'll try as best I'm able to help you with that. So let's talk about the state of the church today and how we want to be different. Alex Roxburg wrote a great article about megachurches. And then he said this: this is not the same as current attempts to grow bigger and bigger churches that act like vacuum cleaners, sucking people out of their neighborhoods into a sort of Christian supermarket. Our culture doesn't need any more churches run like corporations, it needs local communities empowered by the gospel vision of a transforming Christ who addresses the needs of the city and becomes a place of hope and wholeness. Now let me tell you from the heart, we used to be the hottest, fastest growing church in our town. We were the church of what's happening now. We had rock and roll music every single Sunday. I've ridden a motorcycle on the stage. We brought a NASCAR, an actual NASCAR, into our lobby. We built a boxing ring on the stage for use in a sermon series about marriage, which when you think about it is kind of appropriate. But anyway, we used to show movie clips in all of our sermons. We did dramas. I preached almost exclusively life-relevant messages catering to what people wanted to hear. And it attracted people in droves. But over time, what we learned is attractional growth and disciple making are two entirely different things. We became very good at producing consumers. And when I stopped doing all that, the consumers decided to go someplace else that would cater to those needs. Our band members, who I thought truly loved our church, I discovered fairly quickly we had the best kind of loyalty that money could buy. Ultimately, what I learned is what you attract people with is what you keep them with. I don't want to be that church anymore. I'm not going to be that church anymore. Those things don't move us closer to what God wants us to be. Besides, we don't follow Christ because it's convenient or popular. Following Christ will sometimes be the hardest thing you'll ever do. Jesus himself said, take up your cross and follow me. If you saw somebody in the ancient world carrying a cross, that means they're going to die. And that's what Jesus is calling to us a death to self. So Jesus didn't give us the great commission to go out and make converts. He says, go and make disciples. Disciples do life in the Jesus way. So for five weeks I've been talking to you about desert community project. Why? Because that's the way Jesus lived. And if we're his followers, we pattern our life after him. We spend our time in the desert with God. We spend our time in community, but we go out and we serve the uh we serve the world. That's our project. But what these three areas represent are this: be with Jesus, become like Jesus, and do what Jesus did. Now, I don't know about you, but I want to be the kind of church that's so deeply rooted in this city, and that is such a transformational agent in this city that it's impossible to explain this apart from Jesus Christ. I want to get back to being the soul of the community. I want to get back to Jesus' vision for the church. And somehow today I just can no longer hear Jesus saying, let's build a boxing ring this week in the main auditorium so that people will think we're really cool. Or let's fill the lobby with life-size Star Wars characters and backdrops full of Imperial walkers and speeders and X-Wing fighters. And I certainly don't hear God saying to me, Keith, write a Harley up on stage because you know we got to be the coolest church in the city. I don't hear that anymore. I think God is not all that interested in churches that can pack them in without making clear that discipleship is not an add-on. It's not a take it or leave it proposition in the spiritual life. Being a disciple is the Christian life. Listen to James Bell. The older I get, the less interested I become in asking whether a church is growing. Lots of things grow. Cancer grows, cults grow, political movements grow. The question is what kind of growth we're talking about. Because growth by itself is a poor measure of spiritual health. Listen to this. Jesus attracted crowds. Then he started talking about costly discipleship, and many of them left. The crowd and the disciple have never been the same thing. We forget that. The New Testament does not nearly seem to be nearly as impressed with crowds as we are. That gets to me, doesn't it you? That really what he's calling us to is discipleship. The discipleship and a consumer and a crowd, they're far different things. And you know, if we have to preach this down to a tiny crowd in order to rebuild what is the body of Christ, then so be it. Because I want people who are committed to following Jesus Christ in all of their life and doing things the Jesus way. You know, one day and hopefully very soon, we're going to close this land deal that we made over three years ago now. It's presently slated to close in January 2027. It could close earlier and it might all fall apart. That's been our experience over the last three years. What we've learned is don't presume upon the future. But eventually that day will happen. And when it does, Spring Creek will, for the first time in 25 years, be completely debt-free. Now that day cannot come here soon enough, in my opinion, but here's the deal. A lot of churches, when they get to that place in their finances, they begin to rest on their accomplishment as if they finally crossed the finish line. And I want you to hear me saying this. Being debt-free is not the finish line, it's the start line. Now, I have no intention of adding on to this present location, nor do I have any desire to start building new buildings and make satellite locations all over the Metroplex for this church. We know that being debt-free will free us up to do a world of good in our community. For me to begin to invest in our nonprofits, be able to give more substantially to world vision, those things really matter. But let me tell you my priority right now, it's for Hope Clinic. Hope Clinic is a ministry that actually First Baptist started 25 years ago. It operates out of a church downtown. They're about to lose their lease. It is the only clinic of its type in our city. So it will see people. If you absolutely have no money, Hope Clinic will see you. It tries to do things at a reduced cost because there are some overhead costs to operating Hope Clinic, but they are losing their lease, and as a result, they've got to find a new home. And I believe with all my heart that this has got to be our first priority. Because these people who go there, some of them have chronic conditions where if they don't get regular treatment, they're going to fall into a position of absolute dependency from the taxpayer. We're going to have to underwrite their care. It's far easier and far cheaper to care for them in their ongoing daily needs than to see them crash out and then be dependent upon all of us as taxpayers. So the problem is Hope Clinic's going to lose their lease where they're presently located. So the question I want to ask today is simply this What if Spring Creek could provide a permanent home for Hope Clinic? Whether that's in our present facility or we purchase a place somewhere else. What if instead of spending more and more money on ourselves, we became known as a church that significantly invests in community? I mean, think about it. We've got a wonderful facility here. It meets our needs really well. It's worth like $14 million. We didn't spend that much on it. It's worth $14 million. Man, I can tell you, I don't know when God's going to take me out of the ministry. But I'd love to spend that kind of money on our community. I'd love to be building stuff and making a difference. I'd love for people to know this is a church that cares deeply about where God has placed them for their vulnerable neighbors because you know what? It's letting our light shine and it's being our salt. It's being what God wants us to be in this city. I can't, I can't think of anything that's a greater dream for me. So I want to be salt and light in the midst of a great darkness. I want to be the church that's known for helping people. I want young people who are jaded on religion, who see what's happening in churches today and say, that cannot possibly be what Jesus had in mind. Surely God did not intend for the church to become this great entertainment venue, pulling in more and more money and doing relatively little to help the cities in which they're found, while their pastors are getting rich and driving exotic cars and living in multi-million dollar mansions. I don't want to be that church. And I know I'm never going to be that pastor because you don't pay me enough to do that, okay? So I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna be that. Now listen to this. When God's people were in captivity and living in Babylon, God had a very specific word to them. And I want you to hear what God had to say. He said, But seek the welfare of the city where I sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. Now please understand, this word from God is as real and as relevant today as it was when it was written, because we're still living in Babylon. Now, this may be the best Babylon that's ever existed, but it is Babylon, and don't kid yourself about that. The values of the empire are diametrically opposed to the values of the kingdom of God. So we're supposed to, in this hostile environment called Babylon, we're supposed to seek the welfare of the city, not build giant enclaves unto ourselves where we can remain detached from the needs of around us. I want the people who live in our city to look at our church and say, hey, that church is far from perfect. But at least they're trying to be what Jesus would want them to be in this world. And you know, they're always going to say this church is far from perfect as long as I'm your pastor. Because they're going to see me and they're going to say, man, that place cannot have it all together. And we don't. We don't have it all together, but we serve a God who does. And we serve a God who can supply everything we need to do the kind of ministry and service in this community that needs to be done. So I can't think of being a better way of being God's church than to return to what the church was in history. To be the center of community life, the church as the soul of the community. So let me close with this. It's a story from Tony Campalo. When Tony was living, he would often make trips from Philly, where he lived, to Haiti, where he did a lot of work with the hungry and the less fortunate. But what he would do, and this is if you've ever traveled overseas and been on a mission trip, you know you're often in very primitive circumstances, and what you yearn for more than anything is a hot shower. You just want a hot shower so bad. So on the day before he would leave, he'd check into the local holiday inn before he'd board a flight for the long haul back home. And on this particular evening, he was making his way to the holiday inn and he was intercepted by three young girls. He said the oldest couldn't have been more than 15 years old. And one of the girls said, Mister, for $10, I'll do anything you want me to do. I'll do it all night long. Do you know what I mean? And Tony said, I did know what she meant. I turned to the next one, I said, What about you? Can I have you for $10? And she said yes. He said, I asked the same of the third. And Tony said she tried to mask her contempt for me with a smile, but it's hard to look sexy when you're 15 and hungry. I told them, I'm in room 210. All three of you be up there in 10 minutes. I have $30, I'm gonna pay you to be with me all night. So Tony rushes to the room, he calls down to the front desk and he told them, I want every Walt Disney movie that you have in stock. He then called the restaurant and he said, I want banana splits with extra ice cream, extra everything. I want them delicious, I want them huge, and I want four of them. Well, the little girls arrive at the room about the same time the ice cream and videos show up. Tony said they sat at the edge of the bed and they watched videos and they laughed till about one o'clock in the morning, and that's when the last of them fell asleep across the bed. And then Tony said this. As I saw those little girls stretched out asleep on the bed, I thought to myself, nothing's changed. Nothing's changed. Tomorrow they'll be back all in the streets selling their bodies to dirty, filthy Johns, because there's always going to be dirty, filthy Johns who, for a few dollars, will destroy little girls. Nothing's changed. I hated that I didn't know enough Creole to tell them about Jesus. But the Spirit of God said to me, But for one night, for one night, you let them be little girls again. Friends, Jesus is still touching broken lives all around us. He's still including the excluded. He wants the lonely to be a part of families. He's rescuing children. He's not forgotten the elderly, the disabled, or the poorest of the poor. And he does that through us whenever we let him. He's calling us to go back to being the soul of our city. I, for one, I'm saying yes. I hope you join me on that journey. I really do. But I'll go it with my community if that's all we have. But I believe with all my heart that we can make a difference in this city unlike we've ever seen before. And I believe that God's going to get all the glory for that. Because when people see our good works, the beautiful things we're doing, they fall in love with a beautiful God who inspired it all. Let's pray. Father, I just want to thank you for this time we've had together. I want to thank you for your word. I want to thank you for the challenge that we feel in Jesus calling us to be salt and light. There was a time in church history when the church was at the very center of society. They were the soul of the community. They were the preservative. They were the ones shedding light on who God is through the good things they were doing. God, we need to get back to that. We need to be in our city what this city needs us to be. We need to be the kind of church that is so different, and those who are jaded, and those who just absolutely look on the church today and say, that can't possibly be what Jesus had in mind. That they would look at us and see our imperfection, but at the same time see that we're a church that's leaning into Jesus' message and trying to make a difference with those who are often forgotten by society. God, may our light shine so that you shine greater. May we shine light on you through the good things that we're doing, and may God you use this church to make a difference in this city that is absolutely unmistakable. I just thank you, God, for the people you've called to this place, and I thank you, God, for their willingness to join in this charge, to being your people and to being the soul of this city. In Christ's name. Amen. God bless you all.