Speaker 1: Good morning.
Speaker 1: You just heard what greeted all of our youth Friday night when they got to that first session of the mountain experience and I trust that they have had a wonderful weekend.
Speaker 1: They'll be back this afternoon.
Speaker 1: So if you're missing a few people around you in this service, especially, that's where they are About a little over 100 folks, including our chaperones and all, went with them to be in what we trust has been every year a tremendously important annual retreat to God, away from all the distractions of this world and everything.
Speaker 1: So, good morning.
Speaker 1: I tell you what.
Speaker 1: Let's get off to the right start today.
Speaker 1: If you don't mind, will you stand right where you are?
Speaker 1: We're about to read God's Word and it's going to be in today.
Speaker 1: 1 Peter, chapter 2, verses 4 through 9.
Speaker 1: If you'll allow me to read that, just out of reverence to God's Word, we'll stand as you come to Him.
Speaker 1: The living stone, rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to Him, and also the living stones are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Christ.
Speaker 1: Or in Scripture it says see, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trust in Him will never be put to shame.
Speaker 1: Now, to you who believe, this stone is precious, but to those who do not believe, the stone the builders rejected has become the capstone, and a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that will make them fail.
Speaker 1: They stumble because they disobey the message, which is also what they were destined for Verse 9,.
Speaker 1: But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God.
Speaker 1: That you may declare the praises of Him, who called you out of the darkness into His wonderful light.
Speaker 1: So turn real quickly to your neighbor and say you needed to hear that While you're standing now, let's do the real most important thing.
Speaker 1: Let's talk to the one we just read about Jesus.
Speaker 1: May today you be pronounced very loudly and clearly you are the King.
Speaker 1: Everything is from you, for you, about you and to you.
Speaker 1: This world literally holds itself together because of you.
Speaker 1: You are not only our need in the present time, you are the future.
Speaker 1: God, would you eliminate the distractions that we all have and give us the ability to focus on you, to trust your spirit just enough today to where we walk out of here a little more transformed, a little bit more like you than when we came in.
Speaker 1: That will be a victory.
Speaker 1: If that happens today.
Speaker 1: We give you this time.
Speaker 1: We ask it in your name.
Speaker 1: Amen, thank you, have a seat.
Speaker 1: My name is Randy.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being here today and out there.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being with us.
Speaker 1: A lot of you, I know, are unable to be in a place of worship.
Speaker 1: Wherever you live and you watch regularly, and we're so thankful that you are.
Speaker 1: There's just something about the community and the things going inside the room.
Speaker 1: I have met a lot of new friends today who are with us for the very first time.
Speaker 1: If that's one of you, then thank you for being here.
Speaker 1: We are always most excited to see you.
Speaker 1: We want to answer your questions.
Speaker 1: We want to help you in any way that we can.
Speaker 1: We've got some great groups to connect you to down the road.
Speaker 1: Especially that's something you would like to do.
Speaker 1: Your job is just to feel at home today and ask the Lord what he wants you to hear and learn.
Speaker 1: How are you doing in the balcony up there?
Speaker 1: All right, good deal, good deal.
Speaker 1: Good group in the balcony also today.
Speaker 1: So we're going to get plunged right into this, the series today, kicking off for three weeks, is called the Journey because we call ourselves Christ followers and by nature, that definition means we're supposed to be headed somewhere.
Speaker 1: We're not a group of people that's conditioned just to sit around and wait on things to transpire.
Speaker 1: We are supposed to be the difference makers.
Speaker 1: We are supposed to be the leaders of a kingdom that is the most important kingdom in the history, a kingdom that will live into eternity, and that's what we'll study.
Speaker 1: Today we're going to talk about some general things of who we are, and next week, the following week especially we'll talk about more specific things.
Speaker 1: Now, some of you who've been around for a while, and a lot of you, a huge number of you, were not here six years ago, but a lot of you are going to sit around saying seems like I've heard that before.
Speaker 1: That sounds really familiar.
Speaker 1: That's exactly the point is the vision needs to be re-emphasized on a very regular basis.
Speaker 1: We exist, as we say, for our vision to build vital relationships with Jesus so that others are drawn to Him.
Speaker 1: The short part of that you might hear a lot is build and bring.
Speaker 1: If I'm getting closer to the Lord and I'm seeking God on a regular, disciplined way, I have a better chance of Him putting me in front of folks that I'm able to bring life to or speak truth to in a loving way.
Speaker 1: And another way of saying it, as you see on the banners, is bless the rest.
Speaker 1: This week would not be life changing for some folks if every room you walked into you see yourself not as the center of the attraction, but you walk into saying this is about everybody else in the room.
Speaker 1: So, lord, who should I bless today in some small way, whether it's a word of encouragement, whether it's just a listening ear, whether it's some tangible way, because Jesus modeled so well, so powerfully.
Speaker 1: Leadership is all about servitude and it's one of our core values.
Speaker 1: Leadership is best expressed in service and once you understand that, you actually have more power, if you will, or more authority to lead up over people who are over you, possibly in hierarchy in the marketplace, to lead those who are peers, but also to lead people, and some of you have a lot of people who directly report to you or indirectly in the marketplace too.
Speaker 1: It just makes us better people and better families.
Speaker 1: When we're able to do that, we live in a crisis of purpose, and the more I've studied this this week, the more I thought back to a long time ago, when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: My best friend and I would get together and we would play, and we got along great.
Speaker 1: The only thing that would ever cause fights is when we pulled out a couple of little plastic masks and capes for Batman and Robin.
Speaker 1: Okay, because nobody wants to be Robin, do they?
Speaker 1: You got to be the man, you got to be THE Batman, and many times, the only way to solve that issue was we'd have to duke it out, we'd have to fight about it, and the winner got to be Batman.
Speaker 1: The deal with Batman, though, as you know, is he really is a secret identity, so my question is he really the Batman or is he really Bruce Wayne?
Speaker 1: Because Bruce Wayne claimed to not know Batman?
Speaker 1: Batman claimed not to know Bruce Wayne.
Speaker 1: It was so important, though, that the bad guys spent a lot of time trying to find out who the Batman was, and a couple of them actually did discover him the Riddler.
Speaker 1: Well, of course, the Riddler.
Speaker 1: He's going to figure out a puzzle like that, isn't he?
Speaker 1: But to say all that, to say his true identity was what was seen to be one of his power sources, if we could ever find out who he really is.
Speaker 1: Everything unwinds.
Speaker 1: We live in what has been written as and called a crisis of purpose.
Speaker 1: We've never been so affluent, we've never been so educated, we've never been so experienced in a lot of matters, we've never been so well informed by social media of things all across.
Speaker 1: Somebody can get hit by a truck in Kenya.
Speaker 1: We will know about it ten minutes later, but yet we've never had such an emptiness and a void of meaning and void of purpose, because the secular world that has all of these other things cannot produce meaning and purpose.
Speaker 1: That only comes from a person.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, and that's what we'll study today from this passage.
Speaker 1: A thousand years BC, a writer of the Psalm, psalm 118, says basically there's this great King coming, but he'll be much greater than the one we presently have.
Speaker 1: He will become the cornerstone for everything that happens after that.
Speaker 1: Six hundred BC, four hundred years after that, another prophet before another King in his throne room says almost identical same thing there's coming, this great King.
Speaker 1: He's going to be much bigger and more powerful than even you, king, but he will cause a lot of people to fail or a lot of people to stumble who will not know what his real identity is.
Speaker 1: They didn't stick around long enough to figure it out.
Speaker 1: Fast forward again, first century AD.
Speaker 1: A former fisherman, peter's his name.
Speaker 1: He writes the letters, what we just read from and you can turn to it now.
Speaker 1: 1 Peter, chapter 2.
Speaker 1: And in this letter to a small group of little Christ followers, new Christ followers, he lends a great bit of legitimacy to those prophets who, word for word, never know.
Speaker 1: In each other called this great King a cornerstone.
Speaker 1: He quotes the same passage and he's basically saying hey, I know he's real because I spent three years with him and he was flesh and blood walking with us and in the end I saw him give himself up to be executed, only to rise again.
Speaker 1: So I know it's true.
Speaker 1: I have no doubt what my life purpose is.
Speaker 1: He had no crisis of purpose after that.
Speaker 1: So I got some good news for you.
Speaker 1: I got a lot of good news for you.
Speaker 1: But the first way of saying it, our main point, is we me and you are imperfect parts of a divine plan.
Speaker 1: None of us in here have it figured out.
Speaker 1: None of us are really good people.
Speaker 1: Let's be honest.
Speaker 1: Everybody in this room is simple.
Speaker 1: If you're a first time guest today.
Speaker 1: You're surrounded by some of my best friends, but you know what?
Speaker 1: They are messed up, and they are led by a messed up leader and other messed up leaders.
Speaker 1: That's not the point.
Speaker 1: Who we follow is our purpose, and he is what replaces all that, some reason somehow, with the invitation to say, oh, I know who you are, but I've redeemed you from you, I've purchased you back from it, I've atoned for all that stuff from you.
Speaker 1: Hey, come and follow me.
Speaker 1: What he told Peter same thing he's telling us today Just come and follow me, you're on a journey.
Speaker 1: Once you get on a journey, I'll start telling you what the next step of that is.
Speaker 1: So that's why we're going to.
Speaker 1: So we're going to talk about who we are as a church, as a corporate people, but it's also really who you are and I am, as a Christ follower.
Speaker 1: And for some of you in the room or some of you out there, you're not quite there, but I'm super glad that you're listening and reading God's Word because you're going to be, because that's why he loves you so much is to get you to that point also to discover that.
Speaker 1: So let's go back to verses 4 and 6.
Speaker 1: The first thing we are generally is builders of a spiritual house Spiritual house, not an actual house.
Speaker 1: So let's go back to verse 5.
Speaker 1: You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack that for a second.
Speaker 1: God has a divine plan for everybody that hits this earth.
Speaker 1: Every conception, every birth of a human being on this planet is here.
Speaker 1: By God's knowledge, and because he never waste anything, he has a purpose for everyone.
Speaker 1: That includes you and that includes me.
Speaker 1: Ephesians 1, verse 22, though, says God placed all things under His feet and appointed Him to be the head over everything for the church.
Speaker 1: Who is he and who is verse 4 talking about the stone?
Speaker 1: It's Jesus.
Speaker 1: It is the person of Jesus, fully divine and, at that time, fully human.
Speaker 1: Also, god gave, and still has given Jesus all this authority and all of this ability to run everything.
Speaker 1: So here's how it works, and if you're new, I'm really glad you're here.
Speaker 1: Let's go to the very basics.
Speaker 1: The basics of how we operate as a church in the Christian religion is simply this You've got some people designated to do different leadership.
Speaker 1: You've met some of them on your way in.
Speaker 1: We've got I think you have hired a great staff that helped me out and they do a wonderful job, but at the end of the day, the leader, the boss, is Jesus.
Speaker 1: Jesus is over the church.
Speaker 1: He's in this place today through His Spirit, but he is over the church and we never need to lose sight of that.
Speaker 1: Okay, but it doesn't stop there.
Speaker 1: He's over all the churches in this area that are Christian churches.
Speaker 1: He's also over the United States of America.
Speaker 1: Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, he has all authority over all the governments.
Speaker 1: Well, we don't stop there, do we?
Speaker 1: He's over this planet called earth, because he made it Well speaking of.
Speaker 1: He's over this whole solar system that we're part of.
Speaker 1: He's over the whole galaxy that covers our solar system, which we're just a little pea-sized part of a whole galaxy.
Speaker 1: He's over all the galaxies that we know of and don't know of, of which we are a small, pea-sized part of a solar system that is the same of a galaxy.
Speaker 1: The galaxy's a pea-sized part of all the galaxies.
Speaker 1: So I think he's able to pretty much figure my life out in your life, don't you think no big deal to Him?
Speaker 1: We are called stewards, that means managers.
Speaker 1: So let me break that out just for a second.
Speaker 1: He says we give spiritual sacrifices as opposed to back in their day, you know, you'd kill a sheep or a goat or a dove, something like that.
Speaker 1: Spill the blood around that atones.
Speaker 1: We don't need that anymore because the perfect lamb came and died for us to atone for us once and for all.
Speaker 1: That's another bit of good news.
Speaker 1: But we are called stewards.
Speaker 1: That means I take something that I've been given that doesn't belong to me and I'm supposed to be a good manager of that Now in church.
Speaker 1: That's why, when somebody comes to our church and all, and especially when they get connected, we talk a little bit about this time of year, especially tithing.
Speaker 1: Tithing is starting the Bible as 10% of our income.
Speaker 1: We give that out of gratefulness because he's allowing us.
Speaker 1: He gave all of it to us, but he's allowing us to keep 90%.
Speaker 1: All he wants is 10%.
Speaker 1: But then we realize, boy, he manages the 90% for me better than I managed 100% of it.
Speaker 1: So let me give you a quick update.
Speaker 1: We'll close the year out.
Speaker 1: First of all, thank you for your generosity Another core value, generosity, we believe, changes the world.
Speaker 1: Thank you for your generosity.
Speaker 1: You gave last year right at $3.5, almost $3.6 million.
Speaker 1: Now that's not.
Speaker 1: Unless you have a relative number to compare that to, you don't know if that's good or bad.
Speaker 1: It's very good.
Speaker 1: It's like, according to Burt, it's the best ever.
Speaker 1: We had a record year last year, giving it's well over our budget and we didn't spend quite all of our budget, so it's extra extra good.
Speaker 1: But that's very important because we have another cause called a kingdom come, cause that we, almost a year ago, shared with you, another vision thing where we realize, with what God's leading us to do in the future and even right now, it is way beyond what our budget is able to handle and that means it's a God vision.
Speaker 1: So the kingdom come.
Speaker 1: We ask you then to make a pledge over three years and however you want to pay, that is fine, but it's above your tithes and offerings.
Speaker 1: But it's a pledge for a permanent site for our Pinewood campus that we started over a year ago, but also to do much needed renovations here along the way to keep us to where we're able to be ascending hub to other places, and we'll talk more specifically about that later.
Speaker 1: Right now, I think the pledge total pledge was three right about the same $3.5 million as of the closeout of this last year.
Speaker 1: You're right at a million $2 million, I'm sorry, giving to that.
Speaker 1: Praise the Lord for that.
Speaker 1: That's going to be used and, matter of fact, it already is being used, because if you were warm back in your life groups earlier, you can thank a new HVAC system that replaces the one that went out not too long ago.
Speaker 1: That cost a lot of money and if you're coming in here and you're here on a rainy Sunday, you'll be dry.
Speaker 1: Thank the Lord, because next project up from our facilities, people, is we've got to put a new roof on this place and the roofs on this place don't come cheap.
Speaker 1: So thank you.
Speaker 1: Stuff like that we've got to continue to do, but Pinewood will be in a permanent building of their own one day because of your sacrificial giving there.
Speaker 1: So I just want to say thank you.
Speaker 1: Twelve percent of every dollar that you and I give goes straight out to missions.
Speaker 1: There's a third mission we always encourage.
Speaker 1: It's called Unified.
Speaker 1: All of that, 100 percent of that, goes straight out the door toward missions this year.
Speaker 1: Last year you gave just over $100,000 for that.
Speaker 1: Praise the Lord for that.
Speaker 1: So if you put what we tied out of our budget giving and you tied that and you tied and you talk about a chunk that we committed and you agreed to do is a good thing, of everything that comes in through Kingdom Come, we're going to give a portion of that straight out the door as a tithe too.
Speaker 1: We're talking about last year amounts to $400,000.
Speaker 1: Just goes straight out to missions and I'm glad for that.
Speaker 1: I'm thankful there's a quick up.
Speaker 1: There's a few different ways here.
Speaker 1: You can give like a jack or money in the plates going out.
Speaker 1: You can do the bank pay.
Speaker 1: You can do text to give.
Speaker 1: There's another ways.
Speaker 1: There's about four or five different ways that you can give, and if you're not real clear on that, just see one of us this year.
Speaker 1: But I do feel compelled to give you an update on that occasionally to do that.
Speaker 1: We're priests.
Speaker 1: According to this.
Speaker 1: You might not sit well with you.
Speaker 1: It's always made me uncomfortable A priest Well, you know what a priest does.
Speaker 1: A priest is supposed to be close enough to God to be able to find out ways to help other people get closer to God.
Speaker 1: But that is exactly what, not just me.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what you all are called to be when you sign on to be a Christ follower.
Speaker 1: So back to us.
Speaker 1: I am so grateful to be in a church that has new folks coming in and new life we areevery time we meet in this room.
Speaker 1: We are four generations under one roof.
Speaker 1: That's a healthy thing and that's a good thing, and God is in the process of raising some new, younger leaders up.
Speaker 1: This afternoon Hope you can come back If you've never been a part of one.
Speaker 1: Five o'clock we're doing an ordination service for six New Deacons, six young men that have not had the opportunity that you chose to be servant leaders around here.
Speaker 1: That's a good sign too.
Speaker 1: The fact that we have another location, I think, is a healthy thing.
Speaker 1: We said goodbye and for me it was kind of a tearful thing because it's like, ooh, not sure I wanted him to go, we need him here.
Speaker 1: There's a little bit of that, but at the same time that's what God has clearly told us to do.
Speaker 1: So we're one church, two locations, five services now, and it's just beginning, and I'll share more of that as the reason why in just a second.
Speaker 1: But I know this it's not how many people we have you listening.
Speaker 1: It's not how many people we have, it's how well are we doing what pleases Him.
Speaker 1: Ephesians 5-10 says find out what pleases Him and do it.
Speaker 1: So if we're on track there, the people will come.
Speaker 1: Because of what we just said, we seem to have an absence of purpose these days.
Speaker 1: We seem to have a void of a sense of meaning these days, and that's why we do that.
Speaker 1: So what's the next spiritual step you need to take?
Speaker 1: What's a next step decision?
Speaker 1: We all have one that you need to take.
Speaker 1: Do I need to get more disciplined about daily time with God?
Speaker 1: Do I need to read the Bible more diligently?
Speaker 1: Do I need to join a church?
Speaker 1: Do I need to rededicate my life?
Speaker 1: I'm still kind of wandering around and a little bit aimless.
Speaker 1: That's for you to know.
Speaker 1: But I do know this you are imperfect parts of a divine plan.
Speaker 1: Let's look at verse 7 and 8.
Speaker 1: The second part is we're builders, but we're also believers in the Lordship of Christ 7.
Speaker 1: Now do you who believe the stone is precious that means high value you put your diamond ring in a safe sometimes, or that juror those pearls in that necklace that you're like?
Speaker 1: I would wear it, but I'm afraid that I'll lose it or something.
Speaker 1: So you keep it in a safe because it's precious, it's high value.
Speaker 1: But to those who do not believe, the stone the builders rejected has become the capstone.
Speaker 1: Capstone is topstone in the cornerstone area.
Speaker 1: So everything else about that building going each way is going to either be square and plumb or not, depending on that, on that cornerstone and the capstone Verse 8, and a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.
Speaker 1: They stumble because they disobey the message, which is also what they were destined for.
Speaker 1: We are believers in the Lordship of Christ.
Speaker 1: So another piece of good news to you Did you stop to remind yourself today if you're a Christ follower?
Speaker 1: You got hand-picked, you got chosen.
Speaker 1: The most powerful authority figure ever to come, whoever has been and ever will be, and who created and started all of this and who brought your life into conception, has done this to you not out of condemnation and judgment, but out of love.
Speaker 1: He actually is inviting you and me to join Him in a supernatural plan that he has brought to the earth that only he can fully execute, but he wants human beings along for the ride.
Speaker 1: I still don't fully understand that, but I am grateful for it.
Speaker 1: Ephesians 1, 4,.
Speaker 1: He chose us before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight.
Speaker 1: Here's some more good news for you To join Him in this, you don't need more education, you don't need more experience, you don't need more money, you don't need more, all of that other stuff.
Speaker 1: You just need to surrender to it.
Speaker 1: You just need to put your yes on the table.
Speaker 1: Now that's going to be a corporate thing with big decisions, and it has been and it will continue.
Speaker 1: The big deal decisions we make together and we'll make one probably pretty soon.
Speaker 1: But there's an individual yes that makes the other possible, because without the individual yeses to Jesus, the big corporate decisions and following visions and all like that, it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 1: It's all about the individual.
Speaker 1: Can I give you a quick little side note here?
Speaker 1: If you're not in the spirit, capital S, if you're not in the spirit, you're going to stumble.
Speaker 1: I don't care how educated, how smart, how sophisticated, how experienced, I don't care about all that stuff.
Speaker 1: You're going to stumble and you're going to spend a certain amount of time groping around in some darkness.
Speaker 1: And it's not that you don't know Him, it's that you're just not connected to Him and all the other stuff just doesn't work.
Speaker 1: We talked about this last week.
Speaker 1: At some point the belief hits.
Speaker 1: I've been here, but now I believe, oh, he is.
Speaker 1: All this is real.
Speaker 1: I can trust Him with my life, I can surrender to Him because He'll do a better job remaking me than I am me currently.
Speaker 1: And, oh yes, this changes how I start to operate day to day.
Speaker 1: That leads to conviction.
Speaker 1: The conviction is solid enough to make people who are not leaders become leaders, and people who are already leaders to be different leaders, and for people who used to not like people to not just like people to start loving people.
Speaker 1: And that leads to action.
Speaker 1: Why does conviction always lead to action?
Speaker 1: Because now it's not a have to, it's a want to, now it's.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to really be fulfilled if I don't do this, whatever your purpose and plan is.
Speaker 1: And so the Lord is behind all of that stuff.
Speaker 1: How you doing decision-wise with things.
Speaker 1: These days, we all have a lot of decisions to make.
Speaker 1: Those of you that have been around long enough, like me, you've made a lot of decisions and you've had disappointment chasing that decision because it was either the wrong decision that you didn't consult God well enough for, or you thought this was on the road for you and it was not.
Speaker 1: And that led to disappointment.
Speaker 1: Some of you spotted, and pretty sure, like recently, the oh, there's my forever partner, my knight in shining armor, only to discover that he got engaged somebody else.
Speaker 1: Others of you went to an interview and you're like, oh, it's my dream job and I'm perfect for you, and I killed it today in that interview and you walk out.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be the next trillionaire, just waiting on the next phone call to come.
Speaker 1: Phone call never came.
Speaker 1: Others of you would sit here and say what am I doing in Summerville?
Speaker 1: I used to live over here.
Speaker 1: I used to have this, I used to have that.
Speaker 1: Don't have any of that.
Speaker 1: Now I'm in Summerville.
Speaker 1: Why am I in Summerville?
Speaker 1: There's this holy God.
Speaker 1: That's over all of that.
Speaker 1: The deeper you go with Christ, the more clear those decisions become.
Speaker 1: Do you listen?
Speaker 1: The deeper you are with Jesus, the more clear those life decisions get, because he created you.
Speaker 1: He knows what's coming.
Speaker 1: He is trying to prepare us for his perfect plan, not for our plan that we're trying to wedge into, somehow fit into his plan.
Speaker 1: That we didn't really want to consult his plan.
Speaker 1: We thought we had a better idea, or that seemed to be a little bit more inconvenient than we wanted.
Speaker 1: So we make up a, we make up a counter mission and we just hope he's along for that and he's just not, because we are imperfect parts of a divine plan.
Speaker 1: Talks about stumbling in here.
Speaker 1: If you're not with him you're stumbling.
Speaker 1: Long time ago, when I was in another career field, before God really finally got my thick skull to realize my purpose, I was in the marketplace and my company was aligning itself with a chemical company up in the upstate somewhere and they needed.
Speaker 1: They had these big old tanks with chemicals in them and they needed to recote them.
Speaker 1: No big deal.
Speaker 1: I was going to be involved with the.
Speaker 1: Once it gets, all the old stuff gets gets taken off of those metal tanks.
Speaker 1: We would recote them.
Speaker 1: But anyhow, they said we've got to take this old slag and the old rust and corrosion off of these tanks.
Speaker 1: The problem is you do that with sand blasting.
Speaker 1: You've seen those things.
Speaker 1: Just shoot sand, it goes everywhere, but it cleans the surface.
Speaker 1: Can't do that.
Speaker 1: Why can't we do that?
Speaker 1: Because a spark off of that sand hitting the metal could explode the whole county.
Speaker 1: Oh well, that's a good reason not to.
Speaker 1: So what are we going to do?
Speaker 1: The engineer says there's a thing called a hydro blaster that will do the same thing, only it's high, high pressure water.
Speaker 1: And you turn that thing on it it'll, but only it's just water and not sand.
Speaker 1: It's good, no sparks, okay, great.
Speaker 1: So, as they started into the project, one day I'm dropping by there to check on it and do some other things, and I watched them for a while.
Speaker 1: That thing was neat.
Speaker 1: It's like they're going back and forth and it's just cleaning that corroded metal right down to the base metal.
Speaker 1: So they take a break and I'm talking to the supervisor and everything and I said, anyway, I could try that machine out.
Speaker 1: He said sure, be my guest.
Speaker 1: He said let me warn you though.
Speaker 1: He said you got to have a hood.
Speaker 1: Here's the safety precautions.
Speaker 1: He said as you're waving that thing, make sure you're aiming it at that metal wall, because if you get down too close to your toes you might be missing a toe or so.
Speaker 1: It's more powerful than you think it is.
Speaker 1: Okay, I got it.
Speaker 1: So he's standing there.
Speaker 1: He's over at the machine.
Speaker 1: I'm standing there with that thing.
Speaker 1: He says tell me when you're ready, I'm ready, and when it hit I ended up back there somewhere.
Speaker 1: He turns it off and of course everybody got a big.
Speaker 1: That was entertaining to them.
Speaker 1: So I get up, you know, and I said what's the secret to this thing?
Speaker 1: And he said you got to anchor, you got to put your back leg like this Keep it straight, no matter what, put it kind of on your hip when it turns on.
Speaker 1: That takes the blow, but you're not going with it, you're not off balance.
Speaker 1: You have a wide foundation.
Speaker 1: If you're in Christ and your mission on this earth generally is to please Him and you're with a bunch of other people and you're connected to them and they're trying to generally, imperfectly, generally do the same thing, you have an anchor, you have a wide base and the pressure is still hitting you but it's not knocking you three yards back.
Speaker 1: We all need to have that anchor or else we're going to stumble around.
Speaker 1: Third thing is in verses 9 and 10, let me just read 9 again, because this belongs.
Speaker 1: We belong to God and His purposes.
Speaker 1: We're belonging to God.
Speaker 1: We're not even our own people anymore.
Speaker 1: Look at verse 9.
Speaker 1: You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him, who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.
Speaker 1: He goes back to the priesthood, but he adds royal priesthood You're a representative of God to royalty.
Speaker 1: Within the royalty of God, you represent the most royal king ever to other people on this earth and that could be a little bit intimidating.
Speaker 1: Except he said if you're a Christ follower, I'll be in you, helping you.
Speaker 1: A holy nation does not mean we're perfect here.
Speaker 1: It means we're set aside for a higher purpose.
Speaker 1: One reason you met some disappointment you had setbacks or things like that could be not every time, but sometimes.
Speaker 1: It's because he allows us to feel a little bit of pain and disappointment to get us on the right track, because he's saying you're trying to do all this and blend in and be like everybody else.
Speaker 1: That never works.
Speaker 1: You got to be different.
Speaker 1: You have to be a cut above, not arrogantly, but you have to be set aside.
Speaker 1: You have to be different.
Speaker 1: Jesus was really different and that's what pulled people to Him.
Speaker 1: That's why people are tearing roofs off of homes to get to Him.
Speaker 1: That's why people are bursting into rooms uninvited and yelling at Him.
Speaker 1: That's why people are waiting two days just to hear Him make a speech.
Speaker 1: That's why people are still reading what he was quoted as saying 2,000 years later he is the king.
Speaker 1: If you're a Christ follower, or you're about to be a Christ follower, can I remind you you just got a serious status upgrade.
Speaker 1: You are completely different people, and Romans 6 says it all starts with throwing it into a reverse.
Speaker 1: That means you got to go away.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry you got to die.
Speaker 1: You got to die to yourself on the inside, and only then can he come in and live with you.
Speaker 1: That's called being set aside for his glory.
Speaker 1: Now here we operate on 1 Corinthians 12 basis, which basically says everybody is co-equal.
Speaker 1: Nobody is at a higher status than anyone else.
Speaker 1: We are a congregation, we are a group.
Speaker 1: Oflast time I checked, there's 13 different countries represented in our membership.
Speaker 1: There's four to five generations.
Speaker 1: There's no telling how many of the 50 states are represented here.
Speaker 1: It's not the point.
Speaker 1: The point is, what holds us together is so much more powerful than what makes us different, and that is a person called Jesus.
Speaker 1: And so in the coming days, we're going to be sharing more about what God'snot only who we are, but what we're supposed to be about?
Speaker 1: Because let me give you a little snapshot According to the Census Bureau, by 2030, which is only now six years away by 2030 there'll be 100,000 people living in Dorchester County that are not here right now, who have no connection whatsoever to any church 100,000.
Speaker 1: By the estimate and the studies of other people not me, but people who are over denominations and things like that their estimate is at least in our circles of Protestant faith there's about 12 to 15 churches in Dorchester County that are what are called healthy.
Speaker 1: That means that they have a shot at reaching anybody.
Speaker 1: So when you look at those two, that's a daunting thing.
Speaker 1: Time is wasting.
Speaker 1: God's, for whatever reason.
Speaker 1: He's blessed us.
Speaker 1: He's given us so many great things and so many great people.
Speaker 1: It is time we continue to formulate how we're going to continue to build vital relationships with Him so that we can bring others.
Speaker 1: Because, remember, leadership is about who else is in the room.
Speaker 1: Leadership is about who doesn't know this.
Speaker 1: That is stumbling today.
Speaker 1: Who doesn't know this, that has no real sense of destiny or purpose.
Speaker 1: But my last warning the old you will not make it.
Speaker 1: The old Randy, which I could revert back to, will be of no use.
Speaker 1: We have to become new creatures every single day.
Speaker 1: We have to walk in the spirit and we have to make sure we understand.
Speaker 1: It's not about me.
Speaker 1: I have my preferences and my opinions and my ideas, just like everybody else.
Speaker 1: But it is not about me and it's not about you.
Speaker 1: It's about the cause that he's given us.
Speaker 1: So we will decide together because it's way bigger than me, it's way bigger than your staff is way bigger than fine group of deacons that we have.
Speaker 1: It's going to have to require everybody and I'll give you a little bit of a snapshot.
Speaker 1: It's going to require some sacrament I hate to use the word because it's really not a sacrifice.
Speaker 1: It's going to inconvenience more than likely, everybody in this church to some degree, but we will do it because we believe the mission, the purpose of where we will be in 2030 will be in position to continue to reach people for Jesus Christ, because that's why we're here, y'all.
Speaker 1: If you ever wonder how did I get in Somerville, this is part of the reason.
Speaker 1: It really is.
Speaker 1: So I'll close by saying reminder.
Speaker 1: You know we start out talking about.
Speaker 1: There's this crisis of purpose.
Speaker 1: There have been books written on it.
Speaker 1: You can get podcasts and look at them.
Speaker 1: I read an article that a psychologist published the other day and it's pretty interesting because he just hit it right on.
Speaker 1: Do you have a sense of purpose If not?
Speaker 1: Read this, and I read through it.
Speaker 1: It's about four or five pages and as a psychologist he had a little pie there and there were eight pieces to the pie physical, emotional, social, romantic, all around the thing and he's like get helpful hints or helpful little skills in all eight of those areas.
Speaker 1: But the last paragraph he says basically, hey, this is all helpful and everything, but it's not foolproof, because if you're not quite there yet, just keep looking.
Speaker 1: I'm like I just wasted 15 minutes reading this.
Speaker 1: This guy who's an expert, phd, just keep looking for your purpose.
Speaker 1: Really, he's right, because you know what.
Speaker 1: You can't get it by looking for purpose.
Speaker 1: You only get it by looking for a person.
Speaker 1: His name's Jesus and he's here waiting on you and we're going to see Kim, we're going to follow him together and so I'm super excited about the next two weeks because I'm just excited about what he's doing and so as our guys come forward, we get the awesome privilege of worshiping him one more time here.
Speaker 1: So if you'll stand for about the next three minutes.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk to him again here and then we're going to sing and praise him and worship him.
Speaker 1: This is the time that you, if you have that next step decision, that you're ready to make it publicly not you've done it privately ready to make it publicly.
Speaker 1: Now, man, we'll celebrate that.
Speaker 1: If you need church membership and you feel like this is where God's letting me to be part of the part of this solution or to repent, come back to the Lord, or to start to claim him for the very first time, man this is, this is, you're in the right place for this.
Speaker 1: Father, I'm glad that you picked broken people.
Speaker 1: There's nobody in this room that really has a reason to feel proud, but we're related to the King and we just need to hang in there with you and follow you and Lord, your promise is if we do that, we will never be disappointed and we will never be without purpose.
Speaker 1: Do what you need to do In Jesus' name, amen.