Built Different | Saved From, Saved To — Ryan Straarup

Built Different | Saved From, Saved To — Ryan Straarup | Matthew 16:13-20

Transcript

Forrest 0:06

Hey, I'm Pastor Forrest, and welcome to the Multiply Church Podcast. Each week we open God's word together to help you meet God and multiply good in your everyday life. We're so glad that you've taken time to join us for this week's sermon. And if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and follow us on social media so you never miss a message. Now, let's dive into this week's sermon.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

Firstly, I want to thank uh uh Pastor Forest and uh you guys for supporting us as we are uh out there uh ministering in the great wild west uh in Utah. Um it's it's been a crazy, we've only lived there for a few months. As you can hear, this accent is not very from Utah, it's from Arkansas. Um I'm I'm originally from South Africa and uh lived here for a couple of years and everything, so I don't say uh water anymore, I say water. Um I just I had to tweak it a little bit because people are like, we don't understand what you're saying. So um, and I I communicate for a living. So so there's that. But uh but I'll say this that uh when the Lord calls you uh to do something, whatever that be, yeah it will include uh suffering, it will require faith, and it will be the most rewarding journey you have ever been on. And uh and if I could tell you to do anything when the Lord tells you to do it, do it. Just just say yes. Because here's the beautiful thing about the Lord is if he's telling you to do something, he'll meet you on the other side. And uh, and I'll tell you, there's been there's been moments in our journey getting to Utah. Once we got there, it felt like God was so loud when we were living out in North Carolina. Go to Utah, go to Utah, go to Utah. We got to Utah and everything went quiet. And I was like, are we are we good, Lord? Like, is this is this the right uh place? But um, but it it has been so worth it because uh good because God met us there. That's where He showed up before we did. And um and it's it's been incredible. Here's what I'll say so far about just a quick statistic about where we're at and everything, uh doing ministry out there. Um in the US, if you had to take every single person and force them into a church, uh a Christian church, you would and you had to divide them equally. All right, so everyone had to be divided equally into a church. There is there is uh a church for every 800 to a thousand people in the United States. In Utah, that statistic jumps up to uh one church for every 18,000 people. Uh there is a deep, deep need for for uh for the gospel out there. Um the area is dominated by a completely different religion, and um, and we've got a heart to just share share the gospel with them. And um, and there is a there is a church on every corner that is not a Christian church, and and um when when Forrest came over, by the way, this is how crazy he is. We got connected through a through a um a mutual friend and everything, and we were doing voice memos back and forth and everything. I was telling him the story, all of that kind of stuff. And then one day he calls me and he goes, Hey, uh, I'm gonna come and visit you out in Utah. I had like just been there for like a month or something like that. And I was like, no one's visited me out here yet, and I haven't even met you yet. This feels like a blind date. And um, and he picks up, uh picks me up from the from the airport and met him for the first time and everything, and and we liked each other, so that was great. Um, so it's been it's been a great relationship ever since. And um I he got into the car and I said, All right, we're gonna play a game. And he goes, Okay. He says, What's the game? And I said, Um, it's called Find the Christian Church. And he goes, All right, it took him two days. And uh, we were driving uh down a road and we saw this Presbyterian church, and he looks out and he points and he goes, The Presbyts are holding it down, that's what he yelled out. It was great. Um, but I'm I'm so grateful to uh to um to be here today. Um, can I show a picture of my family on uh on the screen? That is my wife Bethany, um, and then my son Aslan and my daughter Arlie. And that behind us is the beautiful mountains in Utah that we've constantly got to go pinch me. We live here. This is insane. Um, it's it's a crazy place to be in when God's beauty is like so right there, and you're in a state that so desperately needs him. And um, and it's been it's been a wild, wild journey so far. Um, if you're looking for a title for uh my sermon, it is uh called Saved From, Saved To. And we're gonna be reading out of uh Matthew 16 as our key scripture that will then kind of bleed into a few other um uh things that we're gonna say about what the church is. Um says this Matthew 16, verse 13. It says, When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, Who do people say the Son of Man is? And they replied, Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and still other others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. But what about you? He asked, Who do you say I am? Simon Peter answered, You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. And Jesus said, Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by G by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. And he ordered his disciples to not tell anyone that he was the Messiah. You see, they all expected the Messiah to be this person who was going to liberate them. Uh, a priest king was what they were looking for. But in their mind, a priest king looks some like someone who has got a ton of authority and he's strong and he's gonna wage war against the Roman Empire, the Roman oppression, he's gonna set them free. That's what they're thinking. So when he says to Peter, who do you say I am? he says, You're the Messiah, and Jesus goes, right. But in Peter's mind, he's got a little bit of a different definition of what the Messiah is. Jesus, right after that in Mark 8, just another another um recording of the same incident um in Mark 8, Jesus then begins to talk about what the Messiah is to do. And his the the words of what the Messiah is supposed to do is that the Messiah will suffer many things. And Peter goes, No, no, no, you're getting this all wrong. We're not gonna let you suffer. And Jesus says, the whole get behind me, Satan scripture. You know that part. And uh, and here's the thing is Jesus gets to define who he is. If you're gonna say I'm the Messiah, that's fine, you're right, but I'm gonna tell you what the Messiah is. You have got a different view of what the Messiah is, which is so funny because the Old Testament tells us that Jesus was going to be the suffering servant, it tells us all of that stuff. But when all the Roman oppression starts happening, they start running with a different idea of what the Messiah is going to do. No, he's gonna set us free. No, no, no, no, no. I was always gonna set you free from your sin. I was never gonna, it wasn't about some Roman Empire or anything like that. You got bigger fish to fry. There's way more issues that you gotta worry about out here. And then he says, You are Peter, and on this rock, this confession, I will build the church. So many different denominations will have a different view of what this passage is, and some people will go, well, it means that Jesus is telling Peter that he's gonna be um the first pope. And and uh, I just think that's a little bit of a stretch. Most of our normal traditions out here would go, no, no, no, it's a confession. What is this confession? You were the Messiah, the Son of God. That is the confession that he's gonna build the church on. Who is this Messiah? I'm going to tell you what this Messiah will do. When I say, can you guys close your eyes for a second? When I say the word church, so many different things come to mind. How many of you just raise your hand if you grew up in church? You grew up in church, you grew up in church. Put your hands down. Um if you close your eyes and you think a little bit about your experience growing up in church, you can almost smell the carpet or the pews, right? If you grew up doing youth in an old church basement, you know exactly what that smells like. You know what I mean? We can all think of like of like what life was growing up. If we grew up in church and everything, you can open your eyes again. Maybe some of you you're like, I just got saved like last week. Like this is this, I thought this was like normal church. It's not normal church, by the way. Um, but but maybe some of you had a different experience. Maybe you grew up Orthodox or Catholic or something like that, and you're like, the smell that I think of is incense. Or or I when when it comes to, I don't require, uh I never required earplugs when I came to uh to church or anything like that. The music wasn't that loud, it was very echoey and reverb-y and all of that kind of stuff. It was different, but we've all got a different view of what church is like when we think of what church is, and of course we go, well, church is not a building, it's a body. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get that. I'm getting there. Don't get ahead of me, guys, please. Some of you may even think, like, well, Baptist churches in the South and everything, this is fairly normal. Some of you are like, Where's the flags? I'm a Pentecostal and and I'm just used to sweat. It's a lot of sweat. Um, like whatever that is, and none of that stuff's bad. I've been in the the whole gamut of different churches and everything, whatever the expression looks like, beautiful, beautiful. But out of all of this, the thing that we can land on is the confession that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that he gets to define who he is. I don't get to tell Jesus who he is. It didn't turn out that great for Peter when he did that. He got called out. Got called the worst name ever. I don't want to get called Satan if I mess it up. But what we learn from this passage is that there is a revelation that is there. Flesh and blood is not revealed this to you. There is a confession there. You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and there is an institution that I will build my church. And we we don't like this phrase institution when we think of the church and everything. We're we're we're kind of all Protestants, right? We're like like we're like that when it comes to the institution. And I'm gonna say a phrase to you. Now, here's what you need to know. Before I say this phrase, I'm asking that no one say amen when I say it. Because I know what you're gonna do. You're gonna want to say it, okay? Because I I did this even in run through and someone almost, almost, it almost came out. I was like, stop, stop, right there, okay? So don't say this amen to this phrase, otherwise it's gonna be so awkward for both of us, okay? How many of you have heard this phrase? It's not a religion, it's uh you almost did it. You almost did it. Here's what I want to do. I want to explain this a little bit to you because um, because this is a phrase that that if I said that without a warning, someone would have been like, amen, amen. And I and I think that in its essence, this is a beautiful, a beautiful thing, because I want to look at the word religion and the idea of relationship, because I understand the sentiment of this. It serves, the sentiment of this phrase, it serves to the to emphasize the uselessness of a dead religion, right? When we don't know the object, the person, the author of our faith. It emphasizes that. And I think if that's what we mean, great, I'm all about it. But if we are repelled by anything that looks religious, something is deeply off. Like if I'm if I'm having a conversation with you, okay, and and this happens in Utah all the time. We're we're very open about religion in Utah, which is beautiful, by the way. Um, so when you meet someone, it's very quick, like, uh, what ward are you in? What what is the what is the church that you go to, the ward, which which essentially they're asking, kind of, it's it's kind of like a district. So if you live on this street and this street, you get assigned to that church. So I know of people who literally cannot stand the ward that they're in, so they move houses to a street over so they can get assigned to a different ward. True story. I've heard that many, many times. Um, and so people will just be like, I like that one better. So I've got to move my house so I get assigned to that one. And um, and they get assigned to services and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, if you like, if you were uh uh if you just got back traveling late last night or something like that, you get to show up at the 11 o'clock or something like that. You just you roll in whenever, you know, it's it's totally fine. For them, they they get assigned these different uh uh things and everything. So, but but it's very quick. Religion is very quick to just begin to talk about and everything. Obviously, I don't look very religious according to them because I got the gauges and I got tattoos, and all of that is like big no-nos. Um, and um, and I like it. I like it because they're like they're like, so so tell me about yourself, and I'm like, I'm a pastor, and they're like, no, you're probably not. Like, I don't I don't think I don't think that you are. Um I'm like, no, it's just it's just we're we're different. We're different, that's for sure. Um but if if someone had to say to me, like, are you religious? and I go, no, I'm in a relationship with Jesus, they're gonna go, you're weird. I don't know what that means. Because the reality is like like when we think of like religion, we've got like a set of practices, and there is some sort of God at the object of all of that, right? That's what a religion is. So if someone's religious and I go and someone had to look at me and I said, I'm in a relationship with Jesus, and they go, Well, tell me about that. And I go, Well, I go to church every Sunday, we read that from this book, preach the gospel, we take communion, we get baptized. What's that? Why don't you just go underwater and come? What is that? Well, it's just it's an ordinance, it's what what the Lord told us to do. Like, okay. Sounds pretty religious to me. You know what I mean? But trust me, I'm in a relationship. And the reality is, it's both. It's both, right? I love that, I love saying that I'm religious because that's what I am. Mark in his video today, by the way, that was an incredible story of Mark. I I loved hearing it. Mark said, Mark said, I didn't grow up around religious people. What does that imply? He's like, that he's with religious people right now, right? He's like, This is this is what I am, but there's something for way deeper. You see, in in uh in the Bible, Christianity is a relationship. In John 17, verse 3, it says, Now this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. Jesus praised that prayer. That is a they know you. There's a relationship, but also it's a religion, a pure religion, because James 1, verse 26 to 27 says, those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this to look after the orphans and the widow in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. Religion is a good thing. We just happen to be right. That's it. That's beautiful. We just happen to worship the real God that's that's living, and we we get to be in this place where it's like it's not just a religion, it's so much more than that. It's so much more than just a religion. But yes, I'm a religious, but it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. So here I want to talk about the church, this religious thing that we do that is the church. And we're gonna go to 1 Peter 2, verse 9 to 10. It says this, but you are a chosen priesthood, uh uh chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession. That word holy nation, I uh we we call our church holy church. That's that's the name uh of our church. To be honest, I couldn't think of a cool name. All right, and um I couldn't think of something like multiply church or anything like that. And I was always embarrassed with every name that I that I had. I had this like note on my phone that I was like, write it. I'm not even gonna tell you any of the names I was going to pick because I feel so embarrassed for all of them. Okay, but here's how we landed on holy church. I was on Instagram, as you do, and um and uh I got into the comment section, and that's the problem. First problem of like any anxiety or anything like that is the comment section, especially when you are uh trying to reach people and you're a pastor, and most of your content is just like people like bashing on Christianity and all that kind of stuff, and you just go to the comment section, and you're like, I don't comment, but somehow I just allow it to infuriate me. It's my problem. Help me, pray for me. Um, and I jump into the comment section, and this this guy who had done this post, he had done this post about Jesus and and about sin and all that. It was good stuff. He wasn't like bashing, he was just kind and all of that. I loved the post, and I was like, but I just knew someone was gonna be rage-bated. You know what I mean? And I just went to the comments, and sure enough, there was someone who was like, he says, Um, uh, you Christians just think you're so much better than everyone else. And the guy commented back, and he's like, actually, we just think we're really terrible, like we're all pretty terrible, like we just all need Jesus. That's the whole point. And he spoke a little bit about it. Great post, cool, great. The guy commented again. Next person comments again and goes, You guys literally call yourselves set apart. And I sat there looking at that comment. Um, I just put my son down, I was lying on his bed while he was falling asleep. Um and and I just thought to myself, no, I never called myself that. He did. He did, he called me set apart. He said that he was going to set his people apart, make his people holy. And Peter declares it over here one uh you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. So I just figured I'm just gonna call the church what God calls us. So I was like, I guess we're just we're just set apart. And in Utah, legitimately, that means something. It's very, very different out there, but it's beautiful. God's special position that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God, and once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. My first point about what this church is, what the church is this is what you need to know about it. God doesn't save individuals into isolation, He forms a people. Listen very carefully to that language: a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. That salvation language is corporate. So, yes, you and I have a personal relationship with Jesus, but we are a part of this church, this body. You weren't just saved from sin, you were saved into Christ, you were saved into his body. We have more people now than ever, especially since COVID. And by the way, you're all in church right now, so I'm not coming after you, okay? You can just take a deep breath. Like, this is this is great. This is this is this is a half time talk, all right? Um, ever since COVID, there's so many people that just got so comfortable with online church. I asked Forrest, I was like, is there a live link over here? He said no. I was like, good, good. Whether you guys decide to do it or not, that's fine. Reach the loss, do whatever you want to do to reach the loss. I'm okay with that. But never think that online church is the thing that um that is going to be your your church family. You see, the difference is you can have a really tough week out there, and when you show up and you're pouring coffee, your friend walks up to you and goes, Hey, you okay? And you go, Yeah, I'm good. And they go, mm-mm. Something's up, what's going on? And then you tell them about the week that you had. That doesn't happen online. That can't happen through typing. That can't happen like that. The Holy Spirit guides those kinds of questions, those kinds of moments. That's what he wants to do. You are saved into this. A church, the body. And some people will go, oh, my church is this, but it's like 3,000 miles away from their house. How do you go to that church? Oh, I don't go, I just attend online. No one knows you, no one has any clue that I even tuned in or anything like that. The chat doesn't count. And I know that some people actually live in places where that is legitimately the only option. I am so fine with you getting a message like that. I'm so fine with listening to a podcast. I'm so fine with all that stuff. But you need people around you. You need people around you. Some people will say phrases like, I love Jesus, I just don't like the church. Oh man, I don't know. I don't know if you can love Jesus and despise the body. I don't know if that is even possible. I'd argue if that is the case, that maybe on some level you've created a fictional Jesus who is comfortable with your amputation from the body. And I don't think you'd be very comfortable with that. You have no gifts to offer the bride. Your gifts cannot edify the church when you are separate from it. In the early church history, when someone was um was being punished, maybe they they they were doing something that was so in uh 1 Corinthians 5, verse 5, there's like wild sexual immorality that's going on in the church. Then Paul is absolutely like overwhelmed with how wild this is. He goes, he goes, Whatever's happening in the church, even the pagans don't allow it to happen. So he says, take that person, if that person is unrepentant and doesn't want to change, send them out, give them back to the world. Like that's what the Bible says. Now, of course, you may be here and you're like, hey, Ryan, it's my first time at church today. What do I do? You're fine, you're welcome. We're so glad to have you. Love you. But but so often, when it comes to that kind of stuff in the early church, if you lived a life where you were a wolf in sheep's clothing and you were going to continue to allow the sin to fester and infect everyone else in the church, they were like, I'm sorry, but get out. Like, go back to the world if you love it that much. And when it chews you up and spits you out, you're more than welcome to come back. You just come back repentant, and you come back actually trying Jesus, right? That was the punishment, and yet today we're we're so comfortable amputating ourselves from the church. So often people are just like, oh, I just I don't I don't go to church, I don't do that. I'm not a church person. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. You you don't understand. Like, Jesus instituted the church. This is what he wanted. We don't get to decide, I'm not a church person. You can't you can't have it those both ways. The way that you and I connect with Jesus is through this church. He didn't save us into isolation. Belonging to Jesus means belonging to his people. Now, I also want to say this: I am fully aware of church hurt. How many of you have ever experienced church hurt in your life? Yes, yeah. My hand is up, by the way. And I've experienced church hurt from the very place that I'm a pastor of or have been a pastor of. You know how tough that job is? I don't get to not show up on Sunday. If someone hurt me, I just I gotta show up. Everyone's expecting me to still be there and everything, and I gotta be like, bless you, brother, bless you, sister. I've got to push through. And for many, many months and years, I would walk into church like this, ready for someone to pick a fight because of the pain that I had gone through. And very soon after that, I mean, I have you ever gotten a text message where someone's like, Hey, can we get on the phone? And you're like, I swear to you, you better tell me what we need right now because I'm gonna have anxiety for the next five days. Like, like, hey, can we meet on Friday? No. Text me, tell me what's going on, give me a heads up. Do you just want to hang out, or do you have something important to tell me? Like, that's what it goes like. This is this is what trauma does to you guys. Um, this is what it's like, and and you you start freaking out. And very, very soon after that, it was like when I was walking in like this, it was I had people that were just grabbing my hand and saying, Put put your hands down. I just wanted to know if I could pray for you today. And before I knew it, the church that had hurt me began to be the place of my healing as well. People are people-ly. You knew exactly what I meant when I said that. You're like, I you said some words, but I get it. People are people-ly. We're all peoply-ly. No church is perfect. We all know this, we all know this, and yet so often we live our lives trying to be like, well, how dare they not be perfect? I'm sorry. That if you came to a perfect church, the second you walked through that door, it wasn't a perfect church anymore because you walked in. Right? It wasn't a perfect church the second you and I walked through these doors. The way you get a perfect church is you don't get a church, and apparently we can't do that. That's not the way forward. Didn't Jesus know this better than anyone, though? That he knew that there was someone who was going to betray him, and yet he still let them in, yet he still broke bread with them, yet he still spent three years of his life with this person. But he knew. He knew something was up, he knew something was going on. If Jesus did that, you and I need to have a place where I know it's hard sometimes, but to show up and just go, God, help me, help me release the pain, help me release the trauma. If Jesus' words are true, that means that we are in this family adopted through the sacrifice that Jesus made on that cross, that through his blood, we have now become sons and daughters of the most high God. And we need to treat one another like the side note. You know, when Jesus says, Love your neighbor, in Luke 10, he's intentionally he intentionally defines neighbor as someone who is outside of a covenant community, talking about the Old Testament, meaning outside of the church in our New Testament context. That is a neighbor. Because you and I are not neighbors, brothers and sisters, that's what we are. Legitimately, we're we're a family that we've been saved into, and God is our Father. Acts 2, 42, it says this they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Number two, my point number two is this relationship with Jesus produces visible and structured devotion. They, the apostles' teaching, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, that's doctrine, to fellowship, that's community, uh, to the breaking of bread, that's uh ordinances, to prayer, that is a liturgical rhythm that they are in. That's a religion. That is not a dead ritual, but it's an embodied relationship. And when an embodied relationship with Jesus is manifested out to the world, it is a religion. If your relationship with Jesus never becomes structured, it usually doesn't become sustainable. I had this guy who knocked on my door and he was a salesman. I let him in um because that's how I am. And um, and and I was like, because I'm just trying to meet people. So like someone shows up on my doorstep. I'm like, come on in, man, let's let's let's hang out, let's talk. And he sells me this thing at the end of the thing. It was gonna be like super, super expensive. So I was like, I'm sorry, man, I'm church planning. Um, I can't afford any of this and everything. And he said, Well, I've got I've got like 30 minutes that I still have to be here. My boss says that I need to be here for a full hour and everything. And I was like, that's fine, we can hang out. I said, You need some water? Like, and he says, Yeah, sure. So we started to talk, and he he um he grew up um LDS and he is having this conversation with me, and he and he says, What are you? And I said, I'm um, I'm a Protestant. It's just it helps know like to go into non-denominational, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever different you want to give me, um, is is not gonna be helpful. So I just say, Oh, I'm a Protestant Christian and I'm a pastor. And he goes, huh. He goes, Can I talk to you a little bit about some of the things? And I said, Yeah, sure, go for it. He starts to walk me through some of these struggles that he's having with his with his faith right now. He's like, Some of this just doesn't make sense, it just doesn't feel like it lines up with what I read in scripture. And I'm like, right? I thought the same thing, but I was like, I was like calm about it and everything. And um, and at one point I asked him and I say, Hey man, what's your goal of your faith? And he says, Well, it's to be exalted. I said, What does that mean? And he says, Well, we believe that we are um on a path that we are being perfected, that we will one day become a God. And I said, Fascinating. You see, for us, we believe based on uh 2 Peter that that you and I are going to participate, be a participant in the divine nature. We don't know what that exactly means. We can try and explain it, we can debate about it, all that kind of stuff, fine. But what we are not going to be is a God that is separate or anything like that. And they believe, no, that that you they would become after being living this life perfected, and they're trying to do everything well so that one day they eventually become a God. And I said, So your goal is to become a God, your goal is to be exalted. That's the end goal of your faith. And he goes, Yes. And I said, Can I tell you what my goal is? And he said, sure. And I said, My goal is Christ. And he's like, What do you mean? I said, I don't care what life looks like at the end. As long as I get him, I'm okay. Whatever that looks like. My goal is Jesus. And he looked at me and he said, I've never heard anyone say that. You and I believe different things. No connection there. That's I've never heard that before. And he said to me, He said, I like the way you said that. And I was like, Yeah, me too. You see, their structured devotion that their faith produces is so that they can become gods one day. My structured devotion that my faith produces is so that I can know him. I just want to know him. Yes, it is a religion and it produces a relationship. It's not a dead religion. If it's a dead religion, it's gonna produce nothing. It's gonna produce nothing. But these practices and all of that, it forms me spiritually. It forms me spiritually. All right, uh, 1 Corinthians 12, verse 12 to 14. It says this just as a body, though one has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one spirit so as to form one body, whether Jews or Gentile, slave or free, and we were all given one spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part, but many. Now jump to verse 26. If one part suffers, every part suffers with us. If one part is on it, every part rejoices with it. Now, if you are the body of Christ, each of you has a part of it. Point number three is the church is where Christ meets his people. You are the body of Christ. Not just like a metaphor or anything like that, but there's a real participation that goes on. And now you go, Ryan, how does that work? And I go, guys, I don't know. I have no clue. Okay, I don't know how this works or anything, because I don't know how it is that when I believe in Jesus and I put my faith in him, that I am saved. I don't know how that works, but I know it does. I know it does. In fact, I don't know if I'm doing any work in the first place. He's done everything, he's done everything. I'm just putting my trust in him. Yes, there's a response, but I'm I'm just putting my my trust in him. There is a real participation. We are the body of Christ. What does that look like? What does that mean? I don't know. I can't explain it. I don't think any of us can really explain it perfectly. We could try to, but this is the place where gifts function, where correction happens, where communion happens, and where God's presence is experienced. You don't just to belong to Jesus individually, you belong to him together. I said I'm from South Africa, we've got this word, right? And uh the word is uh Ubuntu, it's a Zulu word. And this is what it means. It's my favorite, favorite word. And if you just walk out with this phrase, great. Ubuntu. It means this I am because of you. I am because of you. It's a collective way of living, it's this understanding that you are, you make me who I am. For many of us, it could be like looking at your family and everything, how you grew up. Right? The way that I am right now, I've got an accent. Why? Because of South Africa, because of the people. It defines a lot of who I have been in my life. My mom and dad have taught me things. I am because of them. I am because of them. But the church, it's the same concept. I am because of the church. I am because of you. You are because of me, and we are because of him. Ubuntu. Ubuntu. Christianity is not less than a relationship, it is more than a relationship. It's a relationship that takes place and takes shape in a people, expressed through practices, and it is sustained in the church. You and I are not saved from sin, but we are saved to Christ and His church. And the church is not an optional add-on to your relationship with Jesus. It is the God-ordained way that relationship is formed, sustained, and expressed. God doesn't save you into isolation, he forms a people. That relationship produces a visible, structured devotion and practice. And that church is where Christ meets his people. Do not willingly amputate yourself from the church. There is so much more that the Lord wants to do. You are needed in the church. Why? Ubuntu. I am because of you. You are because of me. And you and I are going to spend eternity with the people sitting right next to us. You're like, yikes. Really? I was hoping they'd be on the other side of heaven, honestly. Don't worry. I was talking to someone uh before uh before the service, and he said, I never really thought about that before. I kind of said, Yeah, you kind of want them to be on the other side. And he goes, Well, he's like, the reality is everything you didn't like about that person is gonna stay here on earth. And I was like, good point, good point. The best of you and I is gonna be up in heaven. It's great. You and I need to put our faith in Jesus, and that faith that is put in Jesus is now expressed in the church. Heads bowed, eyes closed. I want to give someone an opportunity to come into relationship with this Jesus. If you've been far from God, you've been running from Him, now's the time to come back, to form, be formed in this community. So I'm gonna ask that you pray this prayer out loud. We're all gonna pray this prayer out loud for the benefit of those who are praying this for the very first time. Repeat after me, Lord Jesus, I come to you, a sinner, in need of a savior. Thank you for dying on the cross, for washing away my sins, for being raised to life so that I could have life. I choose you now. Help me as I learn to love you, help me as I learn to follow you. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Sallie 39:53

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