SPEAKER_00: Hello and thank you for joining us on the Sierra Bible Church Sermon of the Week.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you enjoy this message by Pastor Nate Leverett.
SPEAKER_01: Sierra Bible Church, if you're new, real quick, we'd love for you to kind of sign in, let us know.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, we're here.
SPEAKER_01: Gives us a chance to hear your story, gives us a chance to kind of come alongside and share some of what God's doing here at Sierra Bible Church and kind of connect you in.
SPEAKER_01: Fall season's a massive sort of connect time around here at Sierra Bible Church.
SPEAKER_01: And so as we, I don't say this with my school teaching wife in the room, but as we sort of in some ways close summer up, uh, there's lots of opportunities coming in the fall.
SPEAKER_01: We'd love to connect you to those in the seat back in front of you.
SPEAKER_01: There's a little connection card.
SPEAKER_01: You could grab that, fill out your name and information a little bit, gives us a chance to follow up with you if you haven't done that.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then just drop it in one of these offering connection boxes on the side, and we will follow up with you.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, also, there's a little connect place out in the commons.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and so we'd love for you to connect out there.
SPEAKER_01: We've got a little gift for you.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, the fall or sorry, end of summer is also our chance to kind of do a different layer of connection here at Sierra Bible Church.
SPEAKER_01: And so you're all invited.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's a Sunday afternoon in a couple of weeks.
SPEAKER_01: We do a church picnic, uh, gives us an opportunity to just goof off, have some fun, connect in different ways than we do, kind of in our comings and goings and in our life groups and Bible studies and stuff.
SPEAKER_01: And so we'll be up at uh Old Oak Ranch.
SPEAKER_01: Information's all over the place.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to sign up to be a pie eater or a ping pong player or lots of us, belly flopper.
SPEAKER_01: We just do some goofy stuff and have some fun.
SPEAKER_01: We'd love for you to join us up there.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, the signups are in the comments, also in your bulletin.
SPEAKER_01: There's some simple ways to sign up.
SPEAKER_01: Join us.
SPEAKER_01: I know lots of people are like, that'll be weird.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: How do I know?
SPEAKER_01: But just I just dare you sign up.
SPEAKER_01: It'll be great.
SPEAKER_01: Uh we'd love to have you there.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, just gives us a fun chance to connect.
SPEAKER_01: Lots going on.
SPEAKER_01: We find ourselves right in the middle of a summer where we are talking about God's vision for discipleship.
SPEAKER_01: That He, if we just sort of think back, you He invites us into relationship with Him.
SPEAKER_01: We talk about this with a C cultivate a life with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: This is what it means to walk with Jesus, that you and I as individuals, we as a community are cultivating our lives with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: What does it look like to orient our lives, our decisions, our thinking around the person and the work of Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: He invites us to belong to each other.
SPEAKER_01: There's a community side to this thing.
SPEAKER_01: And we're grafted in not just to Jesus, but into the lives of those around us.
SPEAKER_01: And we're actually in sort of talking about what that belonging looks like right now.
SPEAKER_01: And then we're at towards the end of the summer, what we're going to lean into is this idea that all of us have been given not just this life, big L life, but we've been given gifts and strengths and time and passion.
SPEAKER_01: And what does it look like for us to steward those things as recipients, grateful recipients from God to make his kingdom realized in our world through those things?
SPEAKER_01: Today we're going to ratchet it all the way back.
SPEAKER_01: The earliest days of the church, right?
SPEAKER_01: It started in this little crazy city called Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: The book of Acts tells the story of the early church.
SPEAKER_01: Wild things are happening, right?
SPEAKER_01: This Jesus was hung on a cross.
SPEAKER_01: Hundreds saw him days after walking amongst them.
SPEAKER_01: This group of would-be Christians began to declare with their mouths and then with their lives that Jesus was indeed Israel's promised Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: Beyond that, Jesus was indeed the Messiah, the Savior, the King of the whole world.
SPEAKER_01: This is a wild thing to declare in that culture.
SPEAKER_01: And it was a world that couldn't put it and piece it together, and yet this group said, We've seen him.
SPEAKER_01: He's risen, he's alive.
SPEAKER_01: Persecution breaks out in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: And we find ourselves in chapter 7 and chapter 8 of Acts, with some of these sort of little Jesus-following leaders being killed as a result of their unwillingness to deny the reality, in fact, to proclaim the reality that Jesus is Lord, not Caesar.
SPEAKER_01: Persecution's happening.
SPEAKER_01: Many of the Jewish Christians leave Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: They're hunkered down in cities like Damascus, not far from Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: And in Acts chapter 9, we read the most fascinating story.
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's this like this early story that is like just catalyzes God's ridiculous vision of this thing.
SPEAKER_01: He calls the church.
SPEAKER_01: He calls this Jewish Christian leader, if you will, in a dream, Ananias.
SPEAKER_01: God shows up.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you know the story.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Ananias.
SPEAKER_01: I know it's been tough.
SPEAKER_01: I'm bringing in reinforcements.
SPEAKER_01: I'm adding a guy to the team, and he's actually going to take this story live.
SPEAKER_01: There will be people thousands of years from now in this small town.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't describe all this to Ananias at the time, but in this small town called Sonoran, they're going to like know this person.
SPEAKER_01: He's coming.
SPEAKER_01: You can imagine Ananias, like, yeah, we need reinforcements.
SPEAKER_01: It's been tough.
SPEAKER_01: We're hunkered down.
SPEAKER_01: Ananias to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Who is it?
SPEAKER_01: Remember who Jesus is getting?
SPEAKER_01: His name was Saul.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine Ananias saying, Saul.
SPEAKER_01: That name sounds familiar.
SPEAKER_01: And then Jesus says, Saul of Tarsus.
SPEAKER_01: Because you see, there had been some that had left Jerusalem with papers to actually arrest when needed to bring to trial and have killed with their unwillingness to deny the reality they were living with and promoting that Jesus was actually the Messiah of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And so this thing happens.
SPEAKER_01: Ananias wakes up.
SPEAKER_01: He probably tells the people in the community, like, hey, I had this weird dream.
SPEAKER_01: God said, I'm supposed to go over here.
SPEAKER_01: He's bringing in reinforcements in the name of Saul, who we now know as Paul, wrote a third of the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: And you can imagine they're like, that's that's crazy.
SPEAKER_01: God wouldn't do that.
SPEAKER_01: God couldn't get that.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine in your mind the person right now, farthest from God.
SPEAKER_01: It's Paul is that guy for them.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, This is what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go get him.
SPEAKER_01: And you can imagine Ananias sort of going, you gotta be crazy.
SPEAKER_01: And God going, Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna keep doing this kind of thing for thousands of years.
SPEAKER_01: You better get used to it.
SPEAKER_01: Get on board, Ananias.
SPEAKER_01: This is my church.
SPEAKER_01: We've been using Jesus' words in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 7, where he talks about this idea that for every single one of us in our lives, we can think about our lives as if we're on one of two paths.
SPEAKER_01: He says this.
SPEAKER_01: He says, there's a wide path that you can live on, or there's a narrow path that you can live on.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus promised in this little phrase is he says this.
SPEAKER_01: He says, you know, there's a wide path.
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of easy to get on.
SPEAKER_01: It's sort of how you're gonna live if you don't really think that much about it.
SPEAKER_01: And that path actually, he says, leads to destruction.
SPEAKER_01: He says, but for every single one of us in the room, there's another kind of path that our lives could be on.
SPEAKER_01: Our choices dictate whether we're on the wide path or it's not just luck, it's not just chance, it's how we choose to live our lives.
SPEAKER_01: And he says there's a narrow path, not many will find it.
SPEAKER_01: The promise Jesus makes here, though, is that that path, hard though it may be, will lead to life.
SPEAKER_01: I asked myself this week, just trying to assess a bit where we're at this summer, and just kind of saying, hey, I've been preaching this for a couple months now.
SPEAKER_01: We've been living it, we've been praying it.
SPEAKER_01: Has it made any difference in my life?
SPEAKER_01: I asked myself, just try to be honest.
SPEAKER_01: Like, okay, I'm here every Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: If not, I listen online.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, you know, doing, I'm I'm in, I'm preaching it.
SPEAKER_01: I'm have I actually changed the way I live?
SPEAKER_01: Have I made any narrow way decisions in my life as a result of this challenge and this focus?
SPEAKER_01: Have I done anything different?
SPEAKER_01: And part of what I realize in my life, and I don't know if you can relate, is that oftentimes I'm confronted with God's word, I love it, it speaks, I hear it from others, I'm inspired.
SPEAKER_01: And then I generally live my life based on my common sense.
SPEAKER_01: Because unlike you, maybe, I think I'm pretty smart.
SPEAKER_01: And the reality is I think God's amazing, and I I oh yeah, this is great.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, it makes sense.
SPEAKER_01: And basically, when I leave the doors, I I don't make that big of it, I just keep living off my common, I'm not really bringing my decisions before the Lord and saying, okay, Lord, I could slip into, with my own common sense, this big wide road that leads to destruction, or I can choose in these hard places to trust you, to make a different kind of decision, to say yes when you nudge, when you push, when you invite.
SPEAKER_01: So here's some things I thought about.
SPEAKER_01: This was my own kind of reflections on my thinking this week, because I'm in it with you.
SPEAKER_01: One is this that the common sense, my common sense, tells me that I deserve to hold a grudge.
SPEAKER_01: I deserve to see other people hurt if they've hurt me.
SPEAKER_01: I kind of that makes sense to me.
SPEAKER_01: But the narrow way says that I have to forgive.
SPEAKER_01: Common sense says that I will be happier if I kind of stay in my me-controlled comfort zone of safety.
SPEAKER_01: The narrow way says that there's life, there's freedom on the other side of relinquishing control to God.
SPEAKER_01: The common sense says to grab all the happiness I can now.
SPEAKER_01: Man, I got 24 hours in this day, I've got seven days in this week, I have only a short amount of summer, I've got a little bit of this, I got a little bit of energy, like chase what I can chase, see what I can see.
SPEAKER_01: This is my common sense.
SPEAKER_01: The narrow way says there are some hard things, some tough choices, some things that don't make sense, that will take me to a place of lasting joy.
SPEAKER_01: Lastly, and this is where we're going today, the narrow way, I mean excuse me, common sense, common sense says that people from the opposite sides of the social, ethnic, economic, political spectrum that grow up in an individualistic culture fed by algorithms coded to inspire their consumeristic leanings, will never really belong with or to each other.
SPEAKER_01: The narrow way is Jesus' answer to our common sense.
SPEAKER_01: In light of where we're going this morning, the narrow way of the early church was crowded with political extremists, with racial enemies, with dropouts, with standouts, freed people, enslaved people, some refugees, mixed in with Roman military leaders, rich people, poor people, those from entrenched gender categories, and those with whom it was quite frankly illegal to dine with, only to turn into a community that deeply loved each other, sacrificially served each other, welcomed newcomers as they were, sacrificed for each other, and deeply belonged to each other.
SPEAKER_01: This is Jesus' radical vision of the church.
SPEAKER_01: This is what you and I are meant to experience as a part of the lives that we gather with and do life with and carry out the mission of Christ with.
SPEAKER_01: Look around.
SPEAKER_01: Consider what it would have been like to step into this early church in a real kind of life on life way.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, people are nuts.
SPEAKER_01: I I'm not a big political extremist.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, I mean, to me, it it sounds when you get excited about all of that to some degree, sounds like somebody's just grabbing fingernails and running them down chalkboard.
SPEAKER_01: Some people should care a lot about that.
SPEAKER_01: And I think we should pray a lot.
SPEAKER_01: And those aren't two different things.
SPEAKER_01: But I I don't have a lot of passion in it.
SPEAKER_01: People are different.
SPEAKER_01: We're all wildly, you know, and again yet God says, I'm going to draw this circle around people.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to call them my church, I'm going to give them my spirit and my mission, and we are going to do incredible life-changing things on what I'm going to call the narrow way when it all comes together.
SPEAKER_01: So, in one little example of this, again, just another incredible, I think, picture.
SPEAKER_01: You know, Paul, he's so he sets off, he spends some time, he ends up in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: They're all trying to figure out this guy, Solitars, who his uh Gentile name is Paul, and so we eventually know him as Paul because most of the ministry he does is to Gentiles.
SPEAKER_01: Uh so he ends up, the first kind of group of people that he gets some traction with is this group called the Galatians.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you know much about like world history in that time, but the Galatians were kind of up in northeastern Turkey on your map currently.
SPEAKER_01: Now, Paul is a highly educated Jew of Jews, a Pharisee, now turned Jesus follower.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: He makes his way with this little band of Jesus followers up to these people called Galatians.
SPEAKER_01: Galatians, you know who these people were?
SPEAKER_01: Most people think they're redheaded Celtic missionaries.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, not missionaries, mercenaries.
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, wrong word.
SPEAKER_01: Mercenaries.
SPEAKER_01: Like these are the farthest thing from Paul.
SPEAKER_01: Paul steps in, he's like, You're not gonna believe what God has done in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He's made us family.
SPEAKER_01: And you know, these guys that'd be like, Well, you're nuts.
SPEAKER_01: And yet God begins to move and God begins to break down all these walls and all these barriers and these red-headed, crazy, Celtic, knuckle-headed, think of the movies you've seen.
SPEAKER_01: Fighting mercenaries begins coming to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Paul would eventually write this book, a Galatians, right to them, and he even calls them fools a couple times in there.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, You guys are fools, and they're probably like, oh, we are fools, you know.
SPEAKER_01: That's just this was the people group.
SPEAKER_01: And then Paul says this: he says, brothers and sisters, he says, We're we're a family, the fool and the educated.
SPEAKER_01: In Christ, he did something new, something more beautiful than you can ever imagine.
SPEAKER_01: This, Paul says, is the church.
SPEAKER_01: Then he goes on so far as to say, and I don't think any guy should say this, but if you say this and you're a guy, fine, but here's a piece of wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says this in Galatians, Jesus, I feel for you, I hurt for you, I long for you, like a woman giving birth, which of course Paul knew a lot about, right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, come on, women.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, huh?
SPEAKER_01: But but Paul, I mean, this is the passion he has for this people group that he's wildly different from, because Jesus, he knew, loved those people that were wildly different than him.
SPEAKER_01: And for God to do what he planned to do, Paul knew he would be doing it through people way different than he was.
SPEAKER_01: And so he embraced them as family.
SPEAKER_01: So we want to ask two questions this morning.
SPEAKER_01: How do we sort of, if we can, reclaim this radical vision of Christian community that Jesus seems to have that we see early in the book of Acts?
SPEAKER_01: And then here's the challenge, I think, really, is how can each of us take a step toward living this kind of community together?
SPEAKER_01: I believe that for all of us in here, God has in our days steps we can take to lean in a little bit more to this vision of community that Jesus had and the early church seemed to begin to lead.
SPEAKER_01: What is the Christian community?
SPEAKER_01: Let's just start there.
SPEAKER_01: Three C's.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and I think these you can fill them in your bulletin if you want.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, the first one is the Christian community is confessional.
SPEAKER_01: And what I mean by that is we confess something is true.
SPEAKER_01: We confess that Jesus is Lord.
SPEAKER_01: We confess that God is a triune God in three persons.
SPEAKER_01: So these three persons, one God.
SPEAKER_01: We confess these realities about who God is, what he's done in Jesus, and what the Spirit is actively doing now.
SPEAKER_01: We confess it, we just say it.
SPEAKER_01: It's part of what we do.
SPEAKER_01: It's why we worship at the beginning of services, isn't like, well, okay, Brian, you seem to like to sing.
SPEAKER_01: Why don't you sing some songs?
SPEAKER_01: Some of us will hum along.
SPEAKER_01: No, it's why when it goes quiet, our hearts and our voices open up because we are created to be confessional in community.
SPEAKER_01: This is what community looks like.
SPEAKER_01: We don't just get together to like, you know, have some nice programs for kids, do some fun camping like we did last week.
SPEAKER_01: Like, this isn't what we do.
SPEAKER_01: We're not here to like build buildings, technically.
SPEAKER_01: We're here.
SPEAKER_01: What makes us a church is the fact that we confess particular things about who Jesus is and what Jesus has done.
SPEAKER_01: Who he is.
SPEAKER_01: It's why we share in communion.
SPEAKER_01: It's why once a month, first of the month, we pass around these wonderful tasting little grape juice packets with an amazing piece of bread on top, right?
SPEAKER_01: And and what we're doing, of course, when we take communion together is we're saying, we're confessing.
SPEAKER_01: It's only by the blood of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: It's only because our Savior broke his body for us that we can experience forgiveness, that we can walk in life together.
SPEAKER_01: We confess these things together.
SPEAKER_01: The second thing that's true of every Christian community is that it's communal, it's relationships, it's people on people, right?
SPEAKER_01: All the vision things we talked about even last week, as we talked about belonging, all of the visions of the church are a group of people together.
SPEAKER_01: And really, where what is this community meant to look like?
SPEAKER_01: In so many ways, it's meant to be a reflection of who God is.
SPEAKER_01: If God is one God and three persons, a community that loves and shares and does out of who they are, we are many parts one body.
SPEAKER_01: We are the body of Christ, right?
SPEAKER_01: Like, so we all have our gifts, we all have the things that God's inspired us to do.
SPEAKER_01: And so, how do we work those out in an environment of grace and encouragement and love and accountability?
SPEAKER_01: This is what we're meant to look like as his community.
SPEAKER_01: And then lastly, though oftentimes we can stop there, we are not just sort of, you know, confession types of people that proclaim Jesus' Lord.
SPEAKER_01: We aren't simply just a community of people doing this confession together.
SPEAKER_01: We are commissioned by him.
SPEAKER_01: We are given a mission as individuals and as a church to fulfill as salt and light in our world.
SPEAKER_01: This is always a part of who we are.
SPEAKER_01: Oftentimes I think the wide roads kind of stops at this idea that we all confess Jesus, go team.
SPEAKER_01: We are kind of learning to love one another.
SPEAKER_01: We're learning how to love each other, support each other, chip in when.
SPEAKER_01: But when it really comes to taking serious the mission Jesus gives us, sometimes we're like, road looks a little narrow.
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe we're just, I don't really know where I find traction there.
SPEAKER_01: What's my place?
SPEAKER_01: How do I step in?
SPEAKER_01: And so this morning we're asking ourselves, how do we reclaim Jesus' radical vision of community?
SPEAKER_01: And how do I take a step as one of his kids toward living that community?
SPEAKER_01: What is he inviting me into?
SPEAKER_01: What I want you to see for just a minute, or about 30 seconds actually, this morning, is what for me in this last season has been the most profound experience of uh this idea of um confessing in a community and being on mission.
SPEAKER_01: As many of you guys know, we had the unbelievable privilege of taking 20 of our folks down to Brazil and working with one of our partner ministries, restoration ministries.
SPEAKER_01: We had been there about a week and we walked ourselves in because we're gonna do some afternoon ministry with kids and with some of the women there, uh, into a church that our ministry is partnering in what they call a favela.
SPEAKER_01: Now, a favela is basically starts as like an Uber slum and then it builds itself up to these bizarre communities of incredible darkness.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think I'd ever I've done ministry uh, you know, when I was a kid down in the literally the dumps of Tijuana, and you see some gnarly stuff.
SPEAKER_01: I hadn't I had not experienced that I can remember though, the kind of aggressive darkness and evil you feel in these favelas.
SPEAKER_01: They breed these young.
SPEAKER_01: Children to step into these just awful roles of human beings.
SPEAKER_01: So we step in there with a team that serves their weekly.
SPEAKER_01: We step in there with a team made up of kids that were raised and saved out of these places.
SPEAKER_01: So we walk in, we're literally walking across bridges under which sewer just flows.
SPEAKER_01: Into the this is the way it works, not by accident, nothing's leaking.
SPEAKER_01: This is the now plan.
SPEAKER_01: So we walk into this community, we make our way into this church that they're launching.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and it's about 10 feet wide, maybe eight feet wide.
SPEAKER_01: It's about 30 feet long.
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna see it in just a second.
SPEAKER_01: And what happens is uh a couple of these young gals from the community come in with their dad.
SPEAKER_01: We've been serving with the gals, and they break out their guitar and we begin to confess together.
SPEAKER_01: And I wish I could draw all of you into that room for a second to say, here we are in what I would consider is the pit of hell.
SPEAKER_01: Like it's dark.
SPEAKER_01: There's all you name it, it's just happened.
SPEAKER_01: We've walked by it.
SPEAKER_01: And here we are as a community of God's people, and we begin to worship together.
SPEAKER_01: And can I just tell you, when Brazilians worship, Anna's over there, because she knows she can amen this if you think.
SPEAKER_01: When Brazilians worship, they don't sing, they shout.
SPEAKER_01: Because they stand in these places on mission together.
SPEAKER_01: Try not to fall, trying not to try and to confess that victory is in Jesus as dark as it sounds.
SPEAKER_01: And it was one of those experiences for me where I felt like I was just praying, singing, confessing out the doors the victory of Jesus, even when I didn't see it, even when I had no idea how in the world anyone could help this community.
SPEAKER_01: But trusting that God is God and the same God that raised his son Jesus from the dead is still alive and moving today.
SPEAKER_01: And when I get to be a part, I'm gonna join my howling voice and I'm gonna shout because Jesus is king.
SPEAKER_01: So check this out.
SPEAKER_01: It was just a beautiful little moment.
SPEAKER_01: I wanted to enter you into it.
SPEAKER_01: What a beautiful name.
SPEAKER_01: You know how that song starts?
SPEAKER_01: You didn't want heaven without us.
SPEAKER_01: So then what did God do?
SPEAKER_01: He brought heaven down.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, singing that song, declaring that song in the midst of what did not look like heaven is what God's invited us at the church to do.
SPEAKER_01: To stand, to confess, to put our arms around each other.
SPEAKER_01: And then at times to say, God, I don't know what you can do, so I'm gonna sing.
SPEAKER_01: But there are other times, aren't there, when we know what to do?
SPEAKER_01: God's been nudging, you got stuff simmering, He's been speaking to you, He's been saying, Get off the wide road, friend.
SPEAKER_01: I've given you some experience, I've given you some people to love, I've given you some stuff to do.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we just have to sit back and pray and go, Jesus, I'm gonna declare your victory.
SPEAKER_01: Because I don't know what to do.
SPEAKER_01: This isn't my world, this isn't my land, this is so broken and aggressive.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you can save any of these kids.
SPEAKER_01: Or you save someone as crazy as me.
SPEAKER_01: Other times, we need to step in, step on this narrow road.
SPEAKER_01: We need to speak to those around us in our community.
SPEAKER_01: God's stirring this in me.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what to do.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what he's asking me to do.
SPEAKER_01: Like, like Jorge when he called me.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he was he's not here, he's living at our house right now, and we were sharing this last night.
SPEAKER_01: He said he was so nervous to call me.
SPEAKER_01: And we were friends, and I'm the old man, right?
SPEAKER_01: Even back then when I was 30.
SPEAKER_01: And and he said, Nate, I got this thing.
SPEAKER_01: I think God wants me.
SPEAKER_01: I have no idea how to do it.
SPEAKER_01: But can you help?
SPEAKER_01: Some of us need to take that step because we aren't simply confessing, we aren't simply learning to love each other in some kind of community.
SPEAKER_01: We are commissioned to make Jesus known and his kingdom realized in our world, in our places.
SPEAKER_01: And so, what does it look like for us to take a step into that kind of community?
SPEAKER_01: What I want to do is uh is give you a new word that I think is super helpful, and then we'll talk about some next steps around here.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and I'm gonna invite you to make one or dream up your own to make.
SPEAKER_01: The the word, though, is this, and it's the word communitas.
SPEAKER_01: Has anyone heard the word communitas before?
SPEAKER_01: Have you read anything by this guy?
SPEAKER_01: It's this amazing author, his name's Alan Hirsch.
SPEAKER_01: He wrote a bunch of stuff about the church.
SPEAKER_01: He's one of these guys that for the last 15 or 20 years is kind of this is the way I say it, he's sort of like lifted up the hood under the Western church, kind of the the most of what we describe as church in the West.
SPEAKER_01: You know, he sort of like looked at the agree ingredients, he's like tasted the final product, you know, like what is the church actually doing in the West?
SPEAKER_01: And and is it aligned with what seems to be the heart of God?
SPEAKER_01: And so part of what he's done, and if you've ever asked this question, which I hope you have, is does our church, the church I'm currently at least residing in for an hour and a half this morning, is it doing maybe two hours, three hours?
SPEAKER_01: We'll see how long this goes.
SPEAKER_01: But you know, is my church look at all like what seemed to be be Jesus' vision of the church?
SPEAKER_01: Like it should matter, right?
SPEAKER_01: In some ways.
SPEAKER_01: I and Alan basically was doing this.
SPEAKER_01: And so he wrote um a number of things about this.
SPEAKER_01: He kind of helped us with this word communitas to wrestle with a couple of realities, which I'll share in just a moment.
SPEAKER_01: One of the places though you look to say what did the church look like at its kind of inception is Acts chapter two.
SPEAKER_01: And for many of us, this is a famous little section of what it looked like for the church to begin, for the spirit to fill that church, as they stepped onto this narrow, narrow, narrow road of being Jesus' followers day one.
SPEAKER_01: Here's who they were.
SPEAKER_01: This is verse 42 of chapter two in the book of Acts, the story of the early church.
SPEAKER_01: They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship.
SPEAKER_01: They broke bread together.
SPEAKER_01: This is communion.
SPEAKER_01: They were devoted, or they um to the breaking of bread, excuse me, and to prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs before performed by the apostles.
SPEAKER_01: All the believers were together and had everything in common.
SPEAKER_01: They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.
SPEAKER_01: Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.
SPEAKER_01: They broke bread in their homes, they ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is not, this is exactly what the church is supposed to look like in X, Y, and Z, but this is Jesus' radical vision of the church.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this can also be like, oh, look at the church was perfect back then.
SPEAKER_01: It was a complete mess.
SPEAKER_01: Keep reading in Acts.
SPEAKER_01: It isn't long after these days before some of their leaders are literally being stoned to death.
SPEAKER_01: So they clearly were not in favor with all the people.
SPEAKER_01: But there's this unbelievable vision.
SPEAKER_01: And what Alan Hirsch does in kind of a satirical way, which is helpful for the way I think, maybe not you, rewrites for the kind of modern Western church this version of Acts chapter 2, verse 42.
SPEAKER_01: He says this.
SPEAKER_01: They prayed when they needed something, and they got coffee together every once and a every now and then.
SPEAKER_01: They were content with God in their box.
SPEAKER_01: They had low expectations for signs and wonders in their midst.
SPEAKER_01: He's just getting started.
SPEAKER_01: They sometimes talked about generosity, but in reality, they kept most of their possessions for themselves.
SPEAKER_01: Two out of five Sundays, they attended church gatherings.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't invite people into their homes.
SPEAKER_01: They rarely shared their hearts.
SPEAKER_01: They were largely irrelevant to the people, and occasionally someone got saved.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what he said when he sort of builds this wild satire, and here's this Acts 2 vision is that what we're calling Christian community is not always what the scriptures and Jesus call Christian community.
SPEAKER_01: So maybe he said we need a new word.
SPEAKER_01: So he goes on the hunt for this new word.
SPEAKER_01: Communitas is the word he comes up with.
SPEAKER_01: So he reaches into the sort of sociology and finds this word that actually came out of kind of English imperialism.
SPEAKER_01: And what the English would do is they would sort of take these different places during this season of England is they would study the native people when they arrived.
SPEAKER_01: And one of the things they realized is that in so many ways, we'd go into these communities and they would learn about them.
SPEAKER_01: There were like two distinctly different communities.
SPEAKER_01: In the way we're talking about, there's like there were communities that we'll just say we're on the wide road.
SPEAKER_01: And then very distinctly there were other communities.
SPEAKER_01: What the sociologist said communitas.
SPEAKER_01: Communities that actually sacrificed for each other.
SPEAKER_01: That actually cared in a kind of I've got your back.
SPEAKER_01: If you need me, I'm there for you.
SPEAKER_01: People were known, people were caring, people were selling their stuff, they were aligning their lives in their calendars to support this group of people.
SPEAKER_01: And they said it's actually like there's two different groups.
SPEAKER_01: There's another group of people that's this group on this side of the room, clearly, because I'm walking over here.
SPEAKER_01: Wide road.
SPEAKER_01: They cared about each other, they carried on commerce, community happened, people liked each other, but there was another kind of community.
SPEAKER_01: They sacrificed, they gave, they loved.
SPEAKER_01: They weren't all caught up in border skirmishes and oh, they got this, and oh, they they were a community, what he called a communitas.
SPEAKER_01: And when Alan began to study this, he said, this is the dividing line.
SPEAKER_01: There, there are churches that are happy, just kind of trying to figure out how to be churches, get their bills paid, like let's keep the lights on, let's do some nice dancing together.
SPEAKER_01: But he said, This there's some other churches that look a lot like this sort of axe church that they care and they serve and they're known and they love and they're trying to just work hard and give and turn it all outside.
SPEAKER_01: And what's the defining line?
SPEAKER_01: Do you know what it was?
SPEAKER_01: There was something distinct about both of these communities.
SPEAKER_01: What they studied, what they found, was this the communitas happened when that community was aligned around a common mission.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't see existence for existence's sake, they didn't see friendship for friendship's sake.
SPEAKER_01: They saw each other as intricately woven together to accomplish some kind of mission.
SPEAKER_01: And when that was a part of a community, the belonging went way up.
SPEAKER_01: The love they had for each other went way up.
SPEAKER_01: The skirmishes, the fights that people on this side and there worried about everybody, so-and-so's got that.
SPEAKER_01: Why did they get that?
SPEAKER_01: That quieted down.
SPEAKER_01: Because this was a communitas, this was a group of people aligned around a mission, saying we've got something to do beyond just sort of make sure we're happy and our kids get a great education.
SPEAKER_01: Those are fair things, but they are not the final thing.
SPEAKER_01: And what Alan Hirsch helps give clarity to is this reality that what Jesus invites us into is a mission-formed community.
SPEAKER_01: And the reality is, as great as it is to, you know, go get coffee and catch up, that's really not where Jesus is.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is seeking to align the people in his church around his mission.
SPEAKER_01: It's mission-formed community that you and I are invited into.
SPEAKER_01: And so some helpful language, I think, that he brings out of that.
SPEAKER_01: Here are some of the things that he's he sort of summarized in his work.
SPEAKER_01: He says this communitas is a group of disciples formed around the person and mission of Jesus, radically committed to Jesus, each other, and advancing God's kingdom in the world.
SPEAKER_01: He goes on to say this community is not a place for comfort, it is a place where we are forged together for mission, purpose, and sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus' call is to a mission-formed community.
SPEAKER_01: One of the things he wrestled with is why he came up with this weird word, communitas.
SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden, I've never even heard that word.
SPEAKER_01: That's a strange thing.
SPEAKER_01: But he said, What we need is a new word because all of us are involved in lots of different communities, right?
SPEAKER_01: You all have them.
SPEAKER_01: It'd be a fun exercise, I think, and maybe in a life group.
SPEAKER_01: You could just say, what are the random communities that you have aligned yourself with over the years?
SPEAKER_01: And I would be willing to guess, bet, that you would find out some wildly unique things about people.
SPEAKER_01: Like, you did what?
SPEAKER_01: You were a part of that community.
SPEAKER_01: What did you even do as a part?
SPEAKER_01: You know, just imagine these different communities.
SPEAKER_01: And I was thinking about this in my own life, and I was thinking, man, I could remember back being aligned with the community so much that, like, my the happiest time of my day was to put on a set of spandex and go ride bicycles around with other men in spandex.
SPEAKER_01: When I first joined this community, I realized they all shaved their legs.
SPEAKER_01: And I thought, these are weird people.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you join communities and you had the same thing happen.
SPEAKER_01: Like, why would you shave the I have like hammer on these guys?
SPEAKER_01: You look like a girl.
SPEAKER_01: Not that that's bad to necessarily look like a girl, but that sort of was but guess what I was doing like two weeks in?
SPEAKER_01: Oh god, this sucks.
SPEAKER_01: It's painful, I hate this, I don't even know why we do this, but we have to do it because I'm a part of the community, and all of us are part of all these wild communities.
SPEAKER_01: We got strange things we do, weird things we align ourselves to.
SPEAKER_01: And then we think that maybe being a part of a church is like being a part of a group of young guys that shave their legs, put on spandex and ride bicycles in circles.
SPEAKER_01: And Alan wants to wake us up and say, if that's our vision of community, it's not Jesus' vision of community.
SPEAKER_01: Because he's invited you as a group of people confessing the truth that Jesus is indeed the King, learning to love each other.
SPEAKER_01: You, we have been commissioned to do the work of God.
SPEAKER_01: So, what might it look like for us to take a step towards this community?
SPEAKER_01: My guess is for many of us, it's an intentional step.
SPEAKER_01: It's maybe raising our level of intensity when it comes to stepping into the mission that God has given us.
SPEAKER_01: I want to say a couple things that what I'm not saying.
SPEAKER_01: We'll go quickly through these.
SPEAKER_01: What I'm not saying is this that mission-formed community is the only kind of community you need.
SPEAKER_01: That it's bad if you're hanging out with your friends, it's bad if you're shaving your legs and putting spandex on.
SPEAKER_01: It's weird for me because it just doesn't look the same anymore.
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, this is not the only kind of community you need.
SPEAKER_01: I also want to say this it's it's uh what I'm not saying is that it's wrong to be in need or to go through a season of need, struggle, or receiving.
SPEAKER_01: You know, we think about mission, we think about chasing down this vision that God's given us.
SPEAKER_01: There are times in our lives where we need to push pause, we need to be okay with that.
SPEAKER_01: Not just okay with that, know that this is the right season.
SPEAKER_01: I can't go chase those things.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you know our story.
SPEAKER_01: You know, last year, this time, I started this battle with cancer, which thank God didn't last too long.
SPEAKER_01: The numbers seem great and we're moving the right direction.
SPEAKER_01: But over the winter, the fight was like, what treatment am I gonna get?
SPEAKER_01: How am I gonna pay for it?
SPEAKER_01: What does this look like?
SPEAKER_01: And like the calendar, we just kept it clean because we were in a season of need.
SPEAKER_01: But as soon as a doctor called and said, hey, we got your numbers back there sliding down.
SPEAKER_01: We think this is good news.
SPEAKER_01: I said, okay, what are we doing?
SPEAKER_01: What are we chasing?
SPEAKER_01: What's been simmering that God's saying, step into that?
SPEAKER_01: It's time to go.
SPEAKER_01: We said, Hey, let's call some friends and see if they want to go to Brazil with us.
SPEAKER_01: It's time.
SPEAKER_01: Let's start launching, let's start moving, let's start seeing where God is active in our community and let's push in, press into what God has.
SPEAKER_01: Because we're moving out of a season where we needed to just kind of take care of and even be taken care of to a time where he said, turn the mission outside.
SPEAKER_01: You're now in that season.
SPEAKER_01: And then lastly, this idea that mission is more important than love.
SPEAKER_01: Some people will say it's not all about mission.
SPEAKER_01: We got to figure out how to love it.
SPEAKER_01: And it's true, the Bible says that.
SPEAKER_01: I want to invite you to consider this phrase that comes from Francis Chan's book on marriage.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what he said: he said, a lot of marriages struggle because they stop short of mission.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you know Francis Chan, he's kind of crazy when it comes to mission and we should go change the world.
SPEAKER_01: He sounds like Jesus sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but Francis Chan said this a lot of marriages struggle because they think that they're in this marriage to make each other happy.
SPEAKER_01: They're not.
SPEAKER_01: They're in this marriage to be on kingdom mission together.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what he said: he said, if you find your mission, you'll find your love.
SPEAKER_01: I think that's a powerful phrase as he's walked that out.
SPEAKER_01: And it seemed to be true in my own life as well.
SPEAKER_01: Trying to condense this uh message down.
SPEAKER_01: I want to give you a little bit of homework.
SPEAKER_01: Here's your homework.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and it's gonna be super fun.
SPEAKER_01: You'll thank me later, those of you that do this, okay?
SPEAKER_01: So if you need to write this down, write it down.
SPEAKER_01: But you might just remember it if you're still with me.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, Romans chapter 16.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you spent time studying Romans chapter 16 last week?
SPEAKER_01: Besides me, there's a reason for that.
SPEAKER_01: Read Romans chapter 16.
SPEAKER_01: And then if you're Chat GPT or you're, you know, whatever, you know, Gronk or whatever you use to help, just type into that.
SPEAKER_01: Tell me what we know about all the characters listed in Romans chapter 16.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what it's gonna say this is the most wildly diverse group of people possibly ever assembled.
SPEAKER_01: This is a group of people in their culture that would have been strikingly uncommon.
SPEAKER_01: So much so that people would have said, What in the what?
SPEAKER_01: How are those Romans 16 starts with Paul's encouragement for the church in Rome to welcome in the woman, again, in their culture, think about this, who's carried the book of Romans to the church in Rome to read the book and probably answer questions about what in the world Paul's thinking.
SPEAKER_01: It goes on.
SPEAKER_01: The next people, Priscilla and Aquila, probably again, kind of led by a female in their relationship, but a couple working together.
SPEAKER_01: It says this about them.
SPEAKER_01: They laid out their necks, it's a cool visual for me.
SPEAKER_01: On and on, name after name.
SPEAKER_01: These people were exhausted because of the way they worked towards the mission.
SPEAKER_01: These people gave everything, these people stood with me in jail.
SPEAKER_01: These people gave to you, give thanks for them.
SPEAKER_01: And what Paul is trying to do with this is to say, this is what it looks like to be a part of the church.
SPEAKER_01: I want, Paul says, for all of you in Rome to have a list like this someday.
SPEAKER_01: Not a list of the people you hung out with and kind of shared with, shaved your legs with, a list of the people that went to bat with you, a list of the people that found you in the place of need and said, I got you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm putting my arms around you.
SPEAKER_01: A list of the people who you said, I don't really have, I don't know what your vision is, Jorge, but I believe in your heart and your faith, and I want to support it, encourage it, pray for it, give to it, whatever I can, just see what God might.
SPEAKER_01: That kind of list.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul is saying, I want that kind of list for everyone because that's what the church is meant to look like.
SPEAKER_01: But it's gonna require taking a step for some of us onto this narrow way.
SPEAKER_01: What might those look like?
SPEAKER_01: I want to encourage you uh around here, and it's exciting to be able to do this.
SPEAKER_01: And again, a sermon like this is celebrating so much of what happens around here.
SPEAKER_01: But one thing you could do is just join a team that's already going.
SPEAKER_01: You know, Johnny was referencing a little bit, uh, spending this last week with 16 high school boys in a cabin up at Hume Lake, and right, and his voice is cracking and he's getting emotional, and he's seeing God work in the life of these kids.
SPEAKER_01: This happens all over the place here at Sear Bible Church.
SPEAKER_01: There are teams of people who are just giving everything they have, they're going to crazy places.
SPEAKER_01: Just get on board.
SPEAKER_01: Join a team.
SPEAKER_01: And there's all kinds of different ones.
SPEAKER_01: But I just encourage you.
SPEAKER_01: And one of the ways to do that is through the little connection card.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to jump on.
SPEAKER_01: As I said, first service, we are having a little bit of a pause with some of our celebrate recovery ministry because we just need to get this thing back and going because we believe it's a community-focused ministry we want to be a part of, but we've need to reset the leadership.
SPEAKER_01: So maybe some of you are like, I have a recovery past.
SPEAKER_01: I have a heart for that.
SPEAKER_01: I could jump in and give and serve and be a part of that.
SPEAKER_01: And so join us.
SPEAKER_01: Step in.
SPEAKER_01: There's lots of teams, lots of beautiful ways that God is doing this with people that you'll be missionally aligned with.
SPEAKER_01: The um next one I want to hit on for just a second is this thing we're calling table groups.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and it's we tried to make it as simple and flimsy and basic and awesome as we could.
SPEAKER_01: And so we just put together a little uh guide.
SPEAKER_01: And we I want to see us between now and the beginning of the school year launch 20 of these groups.
SPEAKER_01: Because I really believe that if we can get our people around a table that Jesus sets, men's groups, women's groups, maybe some couples, have some simple curriculum that opens our hearts and our minds around the Word of God.
SPEAKER_01: Come together, learn to share what God's saying, learn to confess what we're struggling with, learn to actually put our arms around each other and pray for each other, that we will experience this kind of communitas, this kind of stepping into God's mission together.
SPEAKER_01: And so we've got, we're resourcing some leaders.
SPEAKER_01: We'll, if you're like, hey, I would, man, if I could be a part of that group, I don't know if it'll work, I don't know if it'll last forever, but at least for a short period of time, I'd be willing to kind of step in.
SPEAKER_01: You can sign up in the commons, you can sign up with your bulletin.
SPEAKER_01: But we want to form some of these groups just to say, what would it look like for us to begin to move people into this kind of discipleship, to being known and knowing others in a way that it feels like we don't see and experience too much of?
SPEAKER_01: And then lastly, I want to encourage you to shape one.
SPEAKER_01: Take a community you're already a part of.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you're part of the, you know, leg shaving spandex community or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: What would it look like?
SPEAKER_01: And maybe you ask this question: what would it look like to sort of infuse into a community I'm already a part of a little spirit-filled intensity, a little fire, a little, what could God do if this just got turned and tweaked, and we talked a little bit different?
SPEAKER_01: We challenge each other a little bit different.
SPEAKER_01: What if I was the person that stepped in and just simply said, Hey, I know this might feel a little bit awkward, but like, how can I pray for you?
SPEAKER_01: I tested this this week because I walk by that guy that sits at Walmart, and I'm the guy that pays on my phone, so I don't get a regular credit card or receipt, you know, and so I kind of walk by.
SPEAKER_01: He thinks I'm stealing, I think, because I don't have a receipt to show him, like, hey, I paid, look.
SPEAKER_01: And I stopped.
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, hey, I got a weird question.
SPEAKER_01: Is there anything I can pray for you for?
SPEAKER_01: And he was like, and I was freaking out, I'm honest.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like a paid professional prayer, but like it's still, I'm with you.
SPEAKER_01: But what would it look like to add a little spirit felt?
SPEAKER_01: Norm does it all the time.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, Come on, Nate, suck it up.
SPEAKER_01: You got this.
SPEAKER_01: What would it look like for you to take one of the communities you're a part of and add a little spirit-infused intensity?
SPEAKER_01: Let that fire, I was describing this first service.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I feel like, and that video is one of those moments because of who God is, because of what he's done, because of the relationship I have with so many of you, that I have this like nuclear reactor of faith that just stirs in me.
SPEAKER_01: I know my face doesn't always show it.
SPEAKER_01: Kathy's like, sometimes, are you alive?
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I'm more alive.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, sometimes that's I think why I cry, because I don't know what to do with that passion.
SPEAKER_01: But what would it look like for us to just turn up the intensity in a relationship that we, a community, we're already a part of?
SPEAKER_01: And then, second, this idea of intentionality.
SPEAKER_01: What would it look like to just step in with a new kind of intentionality?
SPEAKER_01: My guess is God's been already speaking to you about this, maybe with maybe it could be your kids, could be your spouse, could be God's mission in the world.
SPEAKER_01: But a place where he's saying, I want you to just fire that up a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to be a little more intentional in that one thing.
SPEAKER_01: Take a step.
SPEAKER_01: God, thank you for taking a wild step for us.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you that you are a God, that ours is a story in which we can proclaim that you didn't want heaven without us.
SPEAKER_01: So you brought heaven down.
SPEAKER_01: And because of what heaven did, going to the cross for every one of us, we can proclaim your victory, we can step into your freedom, we can trust that your spirit is leading us.
SPEAKER_01: And God, in those places, I pray that we would step onto this narrow way.
SPEAKER_01: We'd be on the hard path.
SPEAKER_01: We'd be encouraging each other, we'd be cheering one another on.
SPEAKER_01: God, I pray right now for those in this room that have never taken that step of confession.
SPEAKER_01: We've never confessed you as Lord and Savior.
SPEAKER_01: We've never received by faith your grace, your salvation.
SPEAKER_01: God, I pray that maybe even in this moment, if there's anyone in this room that hasn't taken that step, hasn't confessed you as Lord, not stepped into a church that confesses you as Lord, but made that decision, that declaration in their own heart, that they would do that even now.
SPEAKER_01: That they would say yes, God, to the invitation that you've given every one of us to belong to you, to be loved by you, to experience your salvation.
SPEAKER_01: And so we just ask that if you in this room have been to that place but you've never stepped in, that you would consider saying yes to Jesus this morning and receiving his gift of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: God, thank you for the work you've done in our life.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for loving us.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, God, for sending us into this world to be your salt and your light together.
SPEAKER_01: We love you.
SPEAKER_01: We pray these things in your amazing name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for joining us, church.
SPEAKER_00: We hope that you enjoyed this message.
SPEAKER_00: To find more messages like this, or to see where you can get connected or to give financially, please visit Sierra Bible.com.