SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us for a sermon from Sojourn North.
SPEAKER_00: We're starting a three-week series on community.
SPEAKER_00: We just finished uh what book did we just finish?
SPEAKER_00: Philippians, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: I was about to say feature Philippians.
SPEAKER_00: And so typically, if you're new here, we go through books of the Bible, passage by passage, but we're taking a little break, a three-week break, to do a topical series on community.
SPEAKER_00: And so our desire is to say, Lord, what is your heart for us as we embark on this new season together?
SPEAKER_00: And so as we think about community, I was thinking this was an interesting question that came to mind.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever wondered how to ruin a good community?
SPEAKER_00: That would be an interesting question to think about.
SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes you think about the negative, so you can think about the positive.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I thought I found out some good ways that I have seen people ruin community that's good.
SPEAKER_00: I call them community killers.
SPEAKER_00: And what I would do is I'd start on the inside of a group and I would just encourage tendencies that we all have and just kind of fuel those tendencies.
SPEAKER_00: So see if some of these reach you.
SPEAKER_00: Community can be broken down when people become these things.
SPEAKER_00: All right, first one, when people become the fixers.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been a part of a group where everyone's trying to fix each other?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, not much fun.
SPEAKER_00: Every conversation becomes advice.
SPEAKER_00: People are analyzed before they're loved.
SPEAKER_00: You want to give advice, advice.
SPEAKER_00: I want to fix you, fix you, fix you, fix you instantly.
SPEAKER_00: And when people feel evaluated, they don't feel loved and accepted, and they're not going to flourish.
SPEAKER_00: So that can hinder community.
SPEAKER_00: Here's another group of people.
SPEAKER_00: What's funny is I find myself in all of these.
SPEAKER_00: The mind reader.
SPEAKER_00: It's when you assign meaning and motive to someone's action without talking to them or finding out any other information.
SPEAKER_00: It's like they did this and they must have done this because XYZ.
SPEAKER_00: And then you live based on that story that you make up in your mind.
SPEAKER_00: We all do that.
SPEAKER_00: It's like they didn't look at me in the hall.
SPEAKER_00: They must want me to fail at preaching today.
SPEAKER_00: What?
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of crazy.
SPEAKER_00: But if you didn't look at me in the hall, you know who you are.
SPEAKER_00: Just kidding.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody looked at me today.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't look at me, it's fine.
SPEAKER_00: I promise you.
SPEAKER_00: Number three, the scorekeeper keeps a mental spreadsheet.
SPEAKER_00: Who served?
SPEAKER_00: Who didn't?
SPEAKER_00: Who greeted?
SPEAKER_00: Who didn't sit in the right seat this week?
SPEAKER_00: We don't have right seats, but you keep the score anyway.
SPEAKER_00: The critic evaluates everything, the music, the sermon.
SPEAKER_00: Pastor, why did your sermon go over two minutes today?
SPEAKER_00: Not in length, two minutes in length, but two minutes over the.
SPEAKER_00: I'll keep going.
SPEAKER_00: What about the ghost shows up and disappears?
SPEAKER_00: I've done that.
SPEAKER_00: The pretender never admits weakness.
SPEAKER_00: Done that.
SPEAKER_00: The Lone Ranger, I'm good.
SPEAKER_00: I don't need anything.
SPEAKER_00: I'm good.
SPEAKER_00: How are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: I'm good.
SPEAKER_00: Good.
SPEAKER_00: All of these things can hinder community.
SPEAKER_00: We could talk also about the performer, the perfectionist, but when we get down to the base level, every one of us, every one of you is a complex human being.
SPEAKER_00: You don't just show up static, you carry in everything that you've ever experienced.
SPEAKER_00: It may not be cognitive of it, but we've all lived lives.
SPEAKER_00: And if you only look at people through one lens of how you're experiencing them in that moment, it will hinder and kill community.
SPEAKER_00: But if we can expand our view and say, who is sitting before me?
SPEAKER_00: And who am I, then it can fuel healthy community.
SPEAKER_00: We have three passages that we're going to look through today, and each one deserves its own sermon, but I want to just pull out a snippet from each one to talk about three lenses that the gospel says we should view each person who is before us and to view ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: And the three lenses that I want to look at is that we're, and I'm going to say it in different ways throughout.
SPEAKER_00: You have your outline, but the first way I want to say it is we're more broken than we often admit.
SPEAKER_00: We are more loved than we could ever believe, and we are more burdened than others know.
SPEAKER_00: So broken, beloved, burdened.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you'll like this one better.
SPEAKER_00: We're sinners, we're saints, and we're sufferers.
SPEAKER_00: Every person who you come in contact with, you yourself, if they're in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So let's look at why community matters.
SPEAKER_00: And next week we'll be doing some more practical implications of how does this look like for us at Sojourn North?
SPEAKER_00: What is the Lord inviting us to, and what are the structures, the simple structures that we want to put forth this fall to increase intentional community?
SPEAKER_00: So, number one, because we still battle sin.
SPEAKER_00: Why does community matter?
SPEAKER_00: Because we still battle sin.
SPEAKER_00: So James 4, 1 through 3 says this.
SPEAKER_00: It's in your notes here.
SPEAKER_00: What is the source of wars and fights among you?
SPEAKER_00: Don't they come from your passions that wage war within you?
SPEAKER_00: You desire and do not have, you murder and covet and cannot obtain, you fight and wage war.
SPEAKER_00: You do not have because you do not ask, you ask and don't receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your own pleasures.
SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot in that passage, but I want you just to look at this.
SPEAKER_00: This is the reality.
SPEAKER_00: There is a source of our conflicts, of the things we wrestle with in our flesh and with others.
SPEAKER_00: And what does James say they are?
SPEAKER_00: It's they come from the passions that wage war within us.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking to Christians.
SPEAKER_00: In Romans 7, Paul says a very similar thing in verse 22 and following.
SPEAKER_00: He says, For in my inner self I delight in God's law.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the redeemed self, the new me.
SPEAKER_00: But I see different law in the parts of my body waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin and death in the parts of my body.
SPEAKER_00: The main point is you have a war inside, just like I do.
SPEAKER_00: There's a battle inside.
SPEAKER_00: The great philosopher, mathematician Pascal said it like this that humanity is both the glory and garbage of creation.
SPEAKER_00: That's a heavy statement.
SPEAKER_00: The way I'd state it is humanity has potential to do wonderful, beautiful, loving, sacrificial things.
SPEAKER_00: And humanity has the potential to do cruel, unloving, harmful things.
SPEAKER_00: Is that true for you?
SPEAKER_00: It's true for me.
SPEAKER_00: I want to do a little caveat here.
SPEAKER_00: We see that every one of us are broken and we're sinners, but the truth is we all have agency.
SPEAKER_00: You have choice.
SPEAKER_00: Every one of you is responsible for your own soul.
SPEAKER_00: I'm responsible for my own soul.
SPEAKER_00: We don't excuse sin here and say, do whatever you want to.
SPEAKER_00: That's not not what we desire at all.
SPEAKER_00: Because sin leads to brokenness.
SPEAKER_00: You know, ultimately sin leads to death and destruction, but it leads to broken relationships, it leads us to not keeping our focus on God.
SPEAKER_00: But do we still struggle with sin?
SPEAKER_00: Will we still sin?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we will.
SPEAKER_00: The implications for community, because we're sinners, we are going to misunderstand each other at times.
SPEAKER_00: Because we're sinners, we'll wound one another.
SPEAKER_00: And some people in these seats, and you don't know what people's stories are until you start getting to know them.
SPEAKER_00: Some people have been so wounded by religion, by churches, by church leaders.
SPEAKER_00: It's just part of your story.
SPEAKER_00: And we mourn that with you.
SPEAKER_00: And healing takes time.
SPEAKER_00: Building trust back up for someone takes time.
SPEAKER_00: If you're new here and hanging out, I don't expect you to fully trust me.
SPEAKER_00: Get to know me first, you know.
SPEAKER_00: It's like it takes time.
SPEAKER_00: But the implications we wound each other, we disappoint each other, we become defensive.
SPEAKER_00: I can feel defenses rise, and it's usually in the most important relationships, right?
SPEAKER_00: When someone says something and then you feel that little something kick in, it's like, oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite things to do is when I know I'm right, I'll pull my phone out on the couch with ginger and I'll Google it.
SPEAKER_00: Be like, yeah, I'm right.
SPEAKER_00: And if I'm wrong, I go.
SPEAKER_00: That's fun, right?
SPEAKER_00: But we're wrong sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: Do you have to always be right?
SPEAKER_00: Man, you're gonna live a miserable life.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're not miserable having to always be right, those around you will be miserable.
SPEAKER_00: Will need real repentance.
SPEAKER_00: Community doesn't fail because sin exists.
SPEAKER_00: Community fails when we forget sin exists.
SPEAKER_00: Community fails when we forget sin exists and that we are sinners.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this isn't the whole story, this is one lens.
SPEAKER_00: If you only look through the lens of, oh, we're all sinners, then despair kicks in, you're gonna be cynical, it's gonna be heartbreaking.
SPEAKER_00: But let's look at the next thing.
SPEAKER_00: Community matters because we are sinners, but community matters because we belong to God.
SPEAKER_00: So we're sinners, we are saints.
SPEAKER_00: So the reality of point one, there's still this battle within me that will go on until the day I die or the day that the Lord returns, until the new heavens and new earth.
SPEAKER_00: The battle will remain.
SPEAKER_00: But even though this battle still remains, this is who God says I am.
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Peter, 1 Peter 2, 9, he says this.
SPEAKER_00: And if you see the bolded words in your notes, it means that those bolded words are references that tie back to the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Within this passage, there's references just in verse 9, Deuteronomy 4, 7 and 10, Exodus 19 and 23, Isaiah 42 and 43.
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's amazing.
SPEAKER_00: This is the story of God.
SPEAKER_00: It hasn't changed.
SPEAKER_00: His story of redemption, and now it's rooted in this people because of the work of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But he says this, but you, talking to believers, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession.
SPEAKER_00: So that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
SPEAKER_00: So the main point, God has given us a new identity.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not you will be.
SPEAKER_00: He says you are.
SPEAKER_00: You are present tense.
SPEAKER_00: This is what God has made us.
SPEAKER_00: And the reality is I still battle with sin, but my ultimate identity is what God says.
SPEAKER_00: That is what is eternal.
SPEAKER_00: And I talk to y'all a lot sometimes, that what is eternal trumps the temporary.
SPEAKER_00: And this is our eternal identity.
SPEAKER_00: There will be a day where we'd sin no more.
SPEAKER_00: But this is forever.
SPEAKER_00: This is the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: This is the good news.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at each of these real quick.
SPEAKER_00: The four movements that Peter says.
SPEAKER_00: We are chosen.
SPEAKER_00: So this means you are chosen.
SPEAKER_00: It gave God great delight to make you his son or daughter.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't start with you impressing anyone.
SPEAKER_00: It starts with you being first loved and then we love.
SPEAKER_00: The next one goes back, Old Testament view of that we are priests.
SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, the priests were the go-between between regular people and God, and the priest would offer sacrifices and did this over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: But because of the sacrifice of Christ, he has made us righteous, and we are priests.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing between us and God.
SPEAKER_00: We can go to God at any moment, any time.
SPEAKER_00: We can have bold faith to jump into Abba's lap and pour our hearts out before Him.
SPEAKER_00: That is who you are.
SPEAKER_00: Community isn't made of spectators.
SPEAKER_00: You are the royal priesthood of God.
SPEAKER_00: Priesthood of believers.
SPEAKER_00: Next one, this is positionally true.
SPEAKER_00: You are holy.
SPEAKER_00: Not because you're perfect and you won't reach perfection on this life, but you've been set apart by God to be a part of his family, to live into the kingdom, and to be sanctified, to grow more like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, we belong to God.
SPEAKER_00: You belong to God.
SPEAKER_00: We are a people for his own possession.
SPEAKER_00: The passage that talks about where Paul says that his prize is us.
SPEAKER_00: That we are trophies of grace.
SPEAKER_00: That this is God's great desire to redeem us and bring him.
SPEAKER_00: We are gods.
SPEAKER_00: And a culture asking, where do I belong?
SPEAKER_00: And some people asking, do I belong?
SPEAKER_00: Is there anywhere I belong?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you belong.
SPEAKER_00: You belong to God.
SPEAKER_00: And the implication of that, Peter ends with purpose.
SPEAKER_00: You don't just stay with that, it's so that you may proclaim the praises of our God who rescued us from the domain of darkness and brought us into this kingdom of wonderful light.
SPEAKER_00: That this is what makes our mouths open.
SPEAKER_00: This is why we do community, why we gather to worship and why when we scatter, we still do community and we seek to reach out to a lost and hurting world because they need the message of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So the application for this, if we think, going back to the first point, if you see that you're a sinner and that's all you see, you will become cynical.
SPEAKER_00: If all you see is that you're a sinner, you'll eventually become ashamed and you'll feel just live in guilt.
SPEAKER_00: But if we remember that Christ has made us saints, we begin calling out what grace is.
SPEAKER_00: It's growing in each other.
SPEAKER_00: I say uh one of my pastor heroes wrote it like this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, when he sits with someone, his one of his main jobs is to call out the name of God.
SPEAKER_00: Now, listen to me all the way.
SPEAKER_00: Not in some weird way of going, God.
SPEAKER_00: But what he's saying is he's listening to the person's story.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, How might God be working in the story?
SPEAKER_00: Tell me about a time in life in your life where God seemed present.
SPEAKER_00: What might be God be up to?
SPEAKER_00: What might he be up to?
SPEAKER_00: And you're you're trying to shift people's focus, not to try to fix them or rip them out of the situation, because sometimes valleys last a long time.
SPEAKER_00: But you're you're seeking to redirect them.
SPEAKER_00: And if we do that as community, we remember we are sinners, but we're saints.
SPEAKER_00: Precious beloved by God.
SPEAKER_00: We can journey together with this.
SPEAKER_00: Don't reduce people to their worst day.
SPEAKER_00: See what Christ is doing in them.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, the last point.
SPEAKER_00: Why does community matter?
SPEAKER_00: Because we carry heavy things.
SPEAKER_00: So one of the paradigms, remember broken, beloved, burdened.
SPEAKER_00: Sinner, saint, sufferer, whichever one connects more with you.
SPEAKER_00: Ultimate identity is that one in the middle, beloved, saint.
SPEAKER_00: But these are realities in this life right now.
SPEAKER_00: A lot we could say from 2 Corinthians 4, but if you look on uh in your scriptures or on the bulletin, I want to just focus in on the reality of what Paul's saying here as far as suffering goes.
SPEAKER_00: He says, now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us.
SPEAKER_00: So he's saying, This glory of God, this Holy Spirit's within us, but we are jars of clay.
SPEAKER_00: It's a good band, by the way, back from the 90s.
SPEAKER_00: We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed.
SPEAKER_00: We are perplexed, but not in despair.
SPEAKER_00: We are persecuted but not abandoned.
SPEAKER_00: We are struck down but not destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, he's he's paralleling here this but not this, this, but not this.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to look at the suffering aspect.
SPEAKER_00: Because these are realities and they're not to be looked over too quickly.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's describing something especially as he starts with jars of clay.
SPEAKER_00: It's an important image because jars of clay were common, but they were purposeful.
SPEAKER_00: If you've ever had a clay jar or a clay pot, do they crack easy?
SPEAKER_00: They do.
SPEAKER_00: They're very fragile.
SPEAKER_00: But they have great purpose.
SPEAKER_00: When we think about our lives, have you thought about how easily you crack sometimes?
SPEAKER_00: I know how easily I can crack.
SPEAKER_00: When the pressure comes in, it's so interesting when pressure mounts and it builds and the stress builds, builds, builds, and then it's like one little text message.
SPEAKER_00: It's like one grain of sand that gets put on top of that, and you just feel like you crumble.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not the grain of sand, it's not the text message where someone asks you if you could help them take out their catalytic converter.
SPEAKER_00: I was trying just to throw something out.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually hard to take off a catalytic converter.
SPEAKER_00: I failed doing that one time, but I didn't have a torch.
SPEAKER_00: So that is so random.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that last grain of sand, but it's at everything built up.
SPEAKER_00: And these burdens that build up, we just we find ourselves cracking and needing help because we all face these in our lives: uncertainty.
SPEAKER_00: We face disappointment.
SPEAKER_00: We have physical limitations, especially as we grow older.
SPEAKER_00: There are physical limitations.
SPEAKER_00: There's anxiety that we deal with, there's grief that we deal with, there's persecution that we deal with, there's unanswered questions, there's illness, there's relational wounds, and all these things, Paul recognizes them all.
SPEAKER_00: If you take a journey through 2 Corinthians and just look at the emotional language that Paul uses, look at how much he suffered.
SPEAKER_00: Not just physically, he suffered greatly physically.
SPEAKER_00: But look how he suffered emotionally as well.
SPEAKER_00: People saying, like, ah, he's not a good speaker.
SPEAKER_00: How can he be an apostle?
SPEAKER_00: He's just a lot, like a lot, a lot going on in his life.
SPEAKER_00: But let's look at what he says.
SPEAKER_00: Acknowledging our human frailty.
SPEAKER_00: He says, He's a jar of clay, we're jars of clay.
SPEAKER_00: He is afflicted in every way.
SPEAKER_00: How do you feel afflicted today?
SPEAKER_00: With life pressures, with responsibilities, with children, with marriage bills, health stress.
SPEAKER_00: I know with us, like with the beginning of school year, with the college semester and high school, with with kids, like this week I carried a lot of anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of it's tied to my anxiety as a as a kid and how much I hated school.
SPEAKER_00: I did not feel safe.
SPEAKER_00: Inner city, Memphis going from coming from small town, Oklahoma.
SPEAKER_00: Anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: And now not knowing this, like I trusted the Lord with my kids, but I'm anxious, and I have to continue to trust the Lord with my kids.
SPEAKER_00: But it's it's it's hard.
SPEAKER_00: What about perplexed?
SPEAKER_00: Do you feel perplexed?
SPEAKER_00: He writes it, perplexed.
SPEAKER_00: Do you have deep questions?
SPEAKER_00: I have a lot of deep questions sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of deep questions can only be answered with mystery, like maybe it's mysterious.
SPEAKER_00: But it helps to say, like, I'm perplexed.
SPEAKER_00: I'm struggling with understanding.
SPEAKER_00: Because it gets down into our bones and marrow.
SPEAKER_00: And if it just sits there, when I was growing up in church, I'd say, well, why that?
SPEAKER_00: I was very introspective, very thought-provoked little kid.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember asking several teachers in our church, why this, this, and this?
SPEAKER_00: And their answers all the time were just because the Bible says so.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a true answer, but they didn't engage my heart.
SPEAKER_00: And even their interpretation of what the Bible says, it's like, why can't we listen to secular music?
SPEAKER_00: Well, because the Bible says don't look like the world.
SPEAKER_00: And if you even if you're listening to Christian music and it sounds like secular music and you drive up to someone in their car, they might go to hell because they may think you're listening to secular music.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I'm in the seventh grade, and that logic is terrible.
SPEAKER_00: That makes no sense to me.
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm listening to a beat in my car.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm in charge of their self.
SPEAKER_00: What's going on with this logical diffusion you got going on?
SPEAKER_00: But we are perplexed sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we look to the cross where Jesus is quoting Psalm 22.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_00: And we know that the Lord knows those questions.
SPEAKER_00: And the pain of questions.
SPEAKER_00: What about persecution?
SPEAKER_00: Not everyone will experience the same levels of persecution.
SPEAKER_00: Brothers and sisters overseas who are literally putting their life on the line, but we experience some sort of persecution as believers.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone knows what it's like to be misunderstood.
SPEAKER_00: I remember when I was going to seminary as a 30-year-old, I've been a school teacher and a coach for some years, and it was like, this is the next step for me.
SPEAKER_00: A loved one sat me down and said, Chad, it's okay to take the Bible seriously, but just don't take it too seriously.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, my whole life I've taken it seriously.
SPEAKER_00: What do you even mean?
SPEAKER_00: But it hurt because it was a loved one.
SPEAKER_00: It's like I've given my all to this.
SPEAKER_00: It's like Peter saying, like, who has words of eternal life?
SPEAKER_00: I have Jesus, and this is my life.
SPEAKER_00: Struck down.
SPEAKER_00: Feels like a physical phrase.
SPEAKER_00: Life knocks us over, and we could go on and on and on.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the reality is that God's grace, the second part of all of these, does happen.
SPEAKER_00: That God's grace allows us not to be crushed, to not be despairing, to not be abandoned, to not be destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: But I know in life, at times I do feel crushed.
SPEAKER_00: I have been in a place of despair.
SPEAKER_00: I feel like I've been abandoned, even though that's not true from a physician standpoint.
SPEAKER_00: But that's why we do suffering.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why I want us to remember suffering is real.
SPEAKER_00: The burdens are real.
SPEAKER_00: You never know what someone's carrying until you step into their life.
SPEAKER_00: And the quickest way to shut someone down who's who's pouring their heart out to you is try to be a quick fix person.
SPEAKER_00: And it it's it's uncomfortable sometimes to hear people suffering.
SPEAKER_00: But just sit and receive.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to do anything.
SPEAKER_00: Sit and receive.
SPEAKER_00: My go-to phrase is I'm so sorry you're having to walk through that.
SPEAKER_00: And I mean it.
SPEAKER_00: That is so much better than have you thought about this, this, this, what about this?
SPEAKER_00: Have you just sit in comfort, receive them, and ask them this question what do you think you might need?
SPEAKER_00: I think one of the things that uh I regret in marriage is I didn't know what ginger needed many years, and I would just assume what I thought she needed, and it's not what she needed at all.
SPEAKER_00: And it's like she needed me maybe just to sit with her, and I'm like, okay, she's stressed, so I need to go clean the dishes, and there's like, I need to go do this, and it's like I need to come up with a plan so that it's like she just wanted me to hear her and understand.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we want to be, and really we have to slow down to be that.
SPEAKER_00: You don't gotta fix nobody.
SPEAKER_00: What does that even mean, anyway?
SPEAKER_00: Point people to Jesus, be present with them, look through the lens.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone I come in contact with is a sinner, every believer I come in contact with is a saint.
SPEAKER_00: And everyone I come in contact with is in some level of suffering.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean that we're all suffering all the time.
SPEAKER_00: Some people are.
SPEAKER_00: Healthy community grows as we learn to see one another with humility, with hope, and compassion.
SPEAKER_00: So let's keep this up here for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: When I see someone is broken, I know that I'm broken.
SPEAKER_00: I can be humble when someone messes up.
SPEAKER_00: I can be forgiving.
SPEAKER_00: I can have hope because God doesn't give up on people.
SPEAKER_00: He's still at work in people's lives.
SPEAKER_00: He's still at work in your life.
SPEAKER_00: He who began a good work in you, he's gonna bring it about till completion.
SPEAKER_00: This is the hope that we have.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about me fixing somebody, it's about the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: I do want to point them to Jesus and I want to be present with them.
SPEAKER_00: And that does mean we challenge each other too, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: And finally, we have compassion.
SPEAKER_00: As we remember people are suffering, that they're burdened.
SPEAKER_00: We have compassion on them.
SPEAKER_00: And this is community.
SPEAKER_00: We look through these lenses.
SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to sense what what's brewing in us with this, and we're gonna switch to communion here, but I just I wonder, so next couple weeks, we're gonna do some implications like how what's your next step in community?
SPEAKER_00: There's not a one size fits all.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have some communion groups open up.
SPEAKER_00: We got men's and women's ministry kicking back in.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we'll have some events, it may be some spiritual friendships where you just grab coffee with a friend uh once a week and talk about life.
SPEAKER_00: I got a whole list of great questions that help people explore each other's lives if you want that as a tool.
SPEAKER_00: But what's the intentional next step?
SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of what I talked about today, it seems pretty heavy.
SPEAKER_00: But this is the good news.
SPEAKER_00: As we do it together, there's joy.
SPEAKER_00: As we live life together, we laugh together.
SPEAKER_00: As we celebrate each other's birthdays and kids together, we are happy.
SPEAKER_00: When something bad happens, we mourn with people.
SPEAKER_00: When someone gets a raise or a promotion, we celebrate and we have all these movements through this community, just like we do everyday life.
SPEAKER_00: And I love at the men's night, we're gonna smoke, meet, and we'll laugh and do things guys do.
SPEAKER_00: But we'll do it together.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a Christian here in just a moment, even if you're visiting, this is our tradition.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you've committed your life to Christ, there's some bread and some juice here.
SPEAKER_00: We've got some uh gluten-free crackers here as well.
SPEAKER_00: You can come forward as there's some music playing, you can reflect on the song, but listen for Jesus' invitation, the Holy Spirit's work.
SPEAKER_00: And you can take bread and juice back to your seat and just hold it.
SPEAKER_00: And then once everyone receives the elements, uh I will lead us all to partake in communion together as a sacred symbol of all that Jesus has done, all that he's doing, and all he promises to do.
SPEAKER_00: These are the promises of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And let us come with humility.
SPEAKER_00: Let us come knowing that we have dignity.
SPEAKER_00: And let's come hoping and having compassion.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you so much for this word.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for the hope that it brings in the midst of all that we've gone through in life, that we can acknowledge that you've never left us, you've never forsaken us.
SPEAKER_00: You have always been present, and Lord, even when we haven't felt it, and we haven't felt it many times, many of us, you've been at work, and I pray that you give us eyes to see that.
SPEAKER_00: And I pray for my brothers and sisters here.
SPEAKER_00: I pray for those visiting that they would sense your presence and sense that they do belong in you.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that as we move forward to the next couple weeks and talk about community and even as we've hit reset in the last year with this church, that you would just do an amazing thing that only you can do.
SPEAKER_00: So we we ask by just humble faith, acknowledging that you're the one that must do this amazing work in us.
SPEAKER_00: So speak to us now.
SPEAKER_00: We ask this in Christ's name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.