Speaker 1: Well, aj's a reminder of a couple of things real quickly.
Speaker 1: One is we take so much for granted, don't we?
Speaker 1: The second thing is we need AJ here.
Speaker 1: He's here every single Sunday at the nine o'clock service on the fourth row right about there, and he's in a life group, as he just said, with his parents and a bunch of others, and he makes that group a lot better.
Speaker 1: We have other AJ's here and we need everyone of them, because I don't have time to go into the reasons why AJ and others like him enrich this fellowship so much, but if AJ was not here, we would be the ones missing out, and so it's really, really important that we keep focused on the fact that every one of us is equally important around here.
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 1: That's a little bit about what today's about all is community.
Speaker 1: So my name's Randy.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being here.
Speaker 1: We've had an awesome day already.
Speaker 1: We've been able to celebrate a decision or two earlier, we've been able to celebrate some baptisms, and I'm just thankful that you're here.
Speaker 1: If you're a first-time guest, we're especially glad to have you.
Speaker 1: You are a highlight of our day.
Speaker 1: We are always anxious to meet you, if we can, at the tent or before, however that works.
Speaker 1: If there's any questions we could help answer, please, please, don't be shy.
Speaker 1: Let us know how we can help engage you because, especially in light of today's conversation, I think we all can agree on some basic tenets of why we need to be together these days.
Speaker 1: So I'm grateful that you were here today.
Speaker 1: You know we've talked about this.
Speaker 1: There's no news to you.
Speaker 1: Trust level in our country is an all-time low.
Speaker 1: It has bottomed out and it doesn't matter the institution or the group that you're thinking about.
Speaker 1: From education to politics, to religion, to across the board, it is low.
Speaker 1: Now we bring into that the Christian conversation, where Jesus makes it really clear God did in the Old Testament.
Speaker 1: We are to love everyone, right?
Speaker 1: Shakespeare even said love everyone, trust a few and do no harm to anyone.
Speaker 1: Now, was Shakespeare all wrong, though?
Speaker 1: If I'm a believer, if I'm a Christ follower, I know I gotta love everybody, but doesn't that mean I'm supposed to trust everybody?
Speaker 1: Also, what do you think that works for a while?
Speaker 1: Those of you that are dads, that are parents, that might work right up to the point that the doorbell rings and you answer and it's a neo-Nazi skinhead who's come to call on your 16-year-old daughter?
Speaker 1: That doesn't call for trust, does it?
Speaker 1: That calls for justice, I guess?
Speaker 1: So no, of course not.
Speaker 1: But here's the deal If we're gonna love but we cannot trust, we have an incomplete relationship.
Speaker 1: At best it's gonna remain superficial, it's gonna remain distant, and that doesn't fit our inner needs really well.
Speaker 1: So we carry that into this conversation, because this is a place of community and this is a place that fights isolation and all of us, I think, every single week.
Speaker 1: But here's where the discussion departs from our culture, our society at large.
Speaker 1: We in this group if you are a Christ follower today, you understand this.
Speaker 1: One of the secrets behind why we don't trust a lot of social settings or different things like that is it's not even about the other person.
Speaker 1: We don't trust ourselves, do we?
Speaker 1: Because who knows us best?
Speaker 1: We know ourselves the best, and there are certain settings we're like man, I don't handle that well, I don't like me in this group, and so we stay away from it.
Speaker 1: And if we're not really sure of the fact that we can trust ourselves, we're gonna dodge those, and it's at our peril.
Speaker 1: We suffer when we do that.
Speaker 1: But then along comes Jesus.
Speaker 1: So what we're gonna try to say today from the Scripture several different ways is.
Speaker 1: A biblical community is different.
Speaker 1: A biblical community is bound by love.
Speaker 1: Now we're talking a different animal, Because love draws out the bad, the negative, the toxic, and if we allow the love of Christ to do that, then he takes us and he regenerates us and he transforms us.
Speaker 1: We're still us, but we have this new nature, and the new nature then actually goes looking for community.
Speaker 1: We start looking for each other and we know that we still are us, but we know ourselves a lot better and we're guided by the power of the Holy Spirit and that's why Acts 2 is so critical.
Speaker 1: So turn in your Bibles.
Speaker 1: I believe Acts 2, verse 42 through 47, may be the best model of how to do Christian groups in the social setting as far as principles that there ever was.
Speaker 1: So if love is binding us and guiding us, we don't have to fear what everybody else basically fears, because we're bound by love.
Speaker 1: Let's stop and pray and then we'll move on.
Speaker 1: Lord, just grateful for today, all the things we see.
Speaker 1: That is evidence of your work, your movement through your Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: Today we're gonna look at what happens in a group dynamic when the power of the Holy Spirit is fully unleashed and allowed to bloom.
Speaker 1: And so, god, over these next several minutes, would you focus us on you so strongly that, whatever that next step decision is spiritually that we need to make in a few minutes, we'll have the boldness, the trust and feel the love to be able to make it very naturally.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, anybody else, because then we'll walk out of here better and we'll be the winner.
Speaker 1: Today we ask it in Jesus name, amen.
Speaker 1: Well, we're gonna look at three or four characteristics from Acts 2, 42 through 47, of why we need each other and why this body of Christ it's called needs you, every one of you, because we are, we're one church, two locations and five services.
Speaker 1: And if there's anything, if you've been around for the this new year, I think you know now, especially based on last two weeks and last Sunday night, where we came together and we Celebrated together and we prayed together and we made two really important decisions Together to continue to expand, to reach people, as God has led us to in this, in this area, and there's no turning back.
Speaker 1: Now we're actually going to be doing what we say we're all about and not just giving lip service to it, and I'm extremely Excited, but all that tends to say, yes, we gonna need you and gonna need others too.
Speaker 1: So you, there you're.
Speaker 1: You're at Acts 2, right, you got it All right.
Speaker 1: Acts 2 first thing we understand is if we're gonna be a group bound by love, the love of Jesus, we're gonna be devoted to the body Over ourselves.
Speaker 1: Body meaning the body of Christ, meaning this organization called his church.
Speaker 1: So let's read 42 and 43.
Speaker 1: They devoted themselves to the Apostles teaching and to the fellowship and the breaking of bread and prayer.
Speaker 1: Everyone was filled with awe and many wonders and miraculous signs.
Speaker 1: We're done by the Apostles.
Speaker 1: We've been saying this almost every week of the new year Is remember, it's not about Me, it's about the body, it's not about you, it's about the body.
Speaker 1: You're important, you're super important, but you're not the most important Because he is, and so he right out of the gate.
Speaker 1: Verse 42 is huge Because he shares four ways that we can check ourselves as a group to see if we're doing a good job of Hitting what is called fellowship, the the word in the Greek was Quinoa, which means we share our lives, we share our stuff as needed, we share our knowledge.
Speaker 1: There's nothing off limits, basically, of those three areas we are sharing ourselves with each other for the good of the group.
Speaker 1: But you see what they are.
Speaker 1: That's one of them.
Speaker 1: Another one is teaching.
Speaker 1: Another one is breaking of bread.
Speaker 1: The fourth one is prayer.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about breaking of bread.
Speaker 1: He says it that way, I think, because remember, this is right after Pentecost, the 12 have been praying with others in a room.
Speaker 1: Holy Spirit comes down, manifest in them Tangibly.
Speaker 1: They spill out onto the streets.
Speaker 1: The world changed based on that day in Jerusalem, with what's coming out of their mouths, and people are so captivated and struck by that they're coming to them and say what do we need to do to get like you are?
Speaker 1: And they say repent, turn and be baptized, which means I'm confessing to be a follower of Jesus.
Speaker 1: Thousands did chapter 4, verse 4.
Speaker 1: It updates and says well, matter of fact, there were 5,000.
Speaker 1: You talking a revival there?
Speaker 1: Right, it's an unbelievable occurrence.
Speaker 1: So then, what do we do with all these thousands of people?
Speaker 1: We can't all meet in one place, of course, not place big enough, and so they start meeting in groups, small groups, in homes, and they're breaking bread with their fellowship.
Speaker 1: What's that mean?
Speaker 1: One of the last things Jesus told them to do was when you have what we call today the Lord's Supper, or communion, do it.
Speaker 1: Remember me, remember.
Speaker 1: And I think that what we, what we believe, happened was for a while.
Speaker 1: They do that every single day.
Speaker 1: Every day, they would get together, they would eat a regular meal, but they would also do oh yeah, while we're here, let's do communion together, because it's like, well, he told us to do it, so let's do it.
Speaker 1: How many times are we supposed to do it?
Speaker 1: Well, he didn't say.
Speaker 1: Well, maybe we ought to cover our bases, maybe we ought to do it like every day.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's a good idea.
Speaker 1: And they did, and I think it worked Well until guess what people, or people, or people.
Speaker 1: And first, corinthians 11, we have this letter to another church, in Paul's writing, and he says I got a bust, you, because you're abusing the Lord supper, you're getting drunk and you're eating too much.
Speaker 1: So at this point they said maybe bad idea, maybe we need to divide it out.
Speaker 1: We got to eat every day, right, but maybe we save the Lord's Supper for the sacred moments, the sacred places, and that's why we do it Occasionally as we do it.
Speaker 1: It's deeply, deeply meaningful.
Speaker 1: But they're doing all four of these things, prayer being one of those.
Speaker 1: Acts 20, verse 7 says on the first day of the week they came together to break bread.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: Another of our habits, our transformational habits, needs to be observing the Sabbath.
Speaker 1: That means coming to a place of worship, I believe, but it also means that day totally ought to be different.
Speaker 1: There'll be a different Routine, a different attitude and everything one day a week, and there's a lot of reasons for that, including physical, but we'll get into that, into that later.
Speaker 1: But that first day was set aside to do that.
Speaker 1: Now, some of your I know and I love this your thinkers and you're saying, man, if I identify totally with a group, I'm gonna lose kind of my way, am I not?
Speaker 1: I have an identity.
Speaker 1: I hope I have esteem needs, and you would be right.
Speaker 1: It never diminishes your Identity as a Christ follower or as a person.
Speaker 1: It own only enhances it, because the Holy Spirit of God is all over that and as he's all over that, he never robs us of how God created us, because we're created what?
Speaker 1: In the image of God.
Speaker 1: Why would he take away our identity as the image of God for the sake of identifying in a group of Christ followers?
Speaker 1: He wouldn't.
Speaker 1: It only makes it better, and that's why John 15, verse 15 Jesus, the night before the crucifixion, he says you know what?
Speaker 1: I'm not calling you like I used to call you anymore.
Speaker 1: I'm not calling you servants, I'm calling you friends.
Speaker 1: That's a huge statement.
Speaker 1: He's still God, but God himself who's about to go to the cross to give his life for them.
Speaker 1: He's saying let me elevate you now, because I know what's in it for you and you've been through a lot already with me.
Speaker 1: You're my friends, much more than just some formal relationship.
Speaker 1: So what's your anchor group?
Speaker 1: Is there a home group you're in that studies the Word.
Speaker 1: You come together to fellowship, you pray together, you get stronger in your belief system together.
Speaker 1: Is it like here at the first hour?
Speaker 1: Is there one?
Speaker 1: If not, the tent is a golden place to start experimenting with that.
Speaker 1: We got stuff during the week at night.
Speaker 1: We got stuff here tonight, on Wednesday nights.
Speaker 1: We have, of course, at the first hour, so many good opportunities for you.
Speaker 1: There's no reason not to check one of those out, because that's where we start to understand the body better.
Speaker 1: Because what happens if I don't?
Speaker 1: Well, I don't have to tell you what's going on in our society, right?
Speaker 1: We've never had more access to be connected to each other by media, and we've never been so isolated and lonely.
Speaker 1: How does that work?
Speaker 1: It's not personal enough, hey?
Speaker 1: If you didn't know, let me check the latest figures.
Speaker 1: We deal, as Americans, with 85 texts a day and 125 emails per day.
Speaker 1: Y'all, that's the average.
Speaker 1: That means some of you are doing double that, right?
Speaker 1: But yet we've never been so disconnected.
Speaker 1: I think two-thirds of my texts are coming from the political candidates.
Speaker 1: Do y'all get those?
Speaker 1: Hey, some believe I didn't know I was so popular.
Speaker 1: I'm getting Republicans, I'm getting Democrats, I'm getting independents.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited about the election, because this time next year, I'm pretty convinced I'm going to be invited to the White House, because they must really like me, don't they?
Speaker 1: You know better.
Speaker 1: Here's our chance, though.
Speaker 1: We have a chance to be a part of a biblical community that is bound together by love.
Speaker 1: And hey, you listening, it's not even a human love, it's supernatural love.
Speaker 1: It's called the Gopé in the Greek.
Speaker 1: That means that can only come from one place, that comes from the Savior Himself, and when he starts to love you with a group around you and he's loving them and then He'd get a bigger group called you know, the body of Christ together and he's loving on all of us.
Speaker 1: That's a force.
Speaker 1: That's why in the next verse 4-83, it says these guys start doing what Jesus did.
Speaker 1: Those demon casts out things like that.
Speaker 1: Now it's kind of like he's saying, in case the teaching didn't grip you, maybe this will Boom and people are like I thought they killed Jesus.
Speaker 1: Well, they did.
Speaker 1: Well, these guys are doing what he was doing.
Speaker 1: I guess maybe he is not dead anymore, maybe what he said was true, maybe what they believe is really authentic and so many more start coming to Christ through the miracles and things like that.
Speaker 1: So the second devotion we need to have is devotion to unity over disconnection.
Speaker 1: Look at verse 44.
Speaker 1: All the believers were together and they had everything in common.
Speaker 1: Hey, it does not say they acted just alike.
Speaker 1: It does not say they were not of like all kinds of different nationalities.
Speaker 1: Later on they were.
Speaker 1: It does not say they were all raised the same way.
Speaker 1: It does not say they all agreed on every issue.
Speaker 1: No, no, no.
Speaker 1: It says they were together in everything.
Speaker 1: That's because only God can take diversity and mold it into unity, because he can do so much more through a hundred people who are all in the same pace, going the same direction, going after the same thing, than a hundred people who are loose, doing their own thing and trying to go in the same direction.
Speaker 1: It's so much more of a powerful dynamic.
Speaker 1: Why is this important?
Speaker 1: The attack is coming.
Speaker 1: If you want to keep reading chapter 3, they run into it right away.
Speaker 1: Right now they're rock stars.
Speaker 1: Right now people are coming by the thousands.
Speaker 1: They have favor of God.
Speaker 1: The Holy Spirit is being poured out, he's being unleashed like never before and in that wash, in that glow, they are reaping a harvest and they are going at it and they're unapologetic.
Speaker 1: And it is the most amazing time, spiritually, in the history of the world.
Speaker 1: It will come to an end.
Speaker 1: The Holy Spirit will still be moving and all but their favor will be turning and they will start to pay a price for what is going on here.
Speaker 1: But for now he's making sure God is Y'all better.
Speaker 1: Be unified, because every part of that is going to be tested, and it is today.
Speaker 1: Also, if you want to read like chapter 4, right after all of this, even within their ranks it gets tested.
Speaker 1: They decide, hey, if you got some property to sell, if you can give us some money, we need to take care of all the people that need help.
Speaker 1: Ananias and Sapphira remember that story.
Speaker 1: Ananias and Sapphira sell some property, but they lied about the real estate deal and when they report in, the leaders have already been told by the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: They said is this everything?
Speaker 1: Was this the selling price?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's the selling price, and they didn't live through the day.
Speaker 1: Now I've read this for years and I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 1: I've thought, man, that fits better in the Old Testament than the New Testament.
Speaker 1: Have anybody ever thought that?
Speaker 1: I'm like it's out of place here?
Speaker 1: God's doing that all the time in the Old Testament.
Speaker 1: But why, god?
Speaker 1: Come on, man, they told a little lie.
Speaker 1: They kept back some money.
Speaker 1: Right, it's like a commission, I can make it, I can dress it up, but at the end of the day, they disobeyed God and they lied about it and he got them.
Speaker 1: Why is he so stern in this case?
Speaker 1: Because it is early, early in this new movement.
Speaker 1: And if they start taking little shortcuts now and take and indiscretions now, where will they be a week from Tuesday?
Speaker 1: The movement will never even get off the ground, it will go away, evaporate as quickly as it gets here, if the leaders themselves are not the ones being the most responsible.
Speaker 1: And God makes a statement right there If you choose to do this, you cannot be part of this movement and sure enough, that goes away.
Speaker 1: You don't see any of that anymore.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, I bet you people are showing up with checks and it said is this the price?
Speaker 1: And he says no, it was actually less than that.
Speaker 1: I'm just scared to get zapped too, so I've added some to it.
Speaker 1: But it was a new movement.
Speaker 1: It was a marked day.
Speaker 1: John McMurray was a Brit who wrote, in the mid-1900s, studies of religion and its influence on the educational system and the political system of his homeland, which was Great Britain.
Speaker 1: And he says there's two things going on you can be a part of a society or you can be a part of a community.
Speaker 1: The society has a common goal.
Speaker 1: That's good.
Speaker 1: It bands together.
Speaker 1: It's a little impersonal.
Speaker 1: You're after people who basically believe and trust in each other.
Speaker 1: But you believe common things.
Speaker 1: It's all good stuff.
Speaker 1: And you produce things.
Speaker 1: You get work done.
Speaker 1: That's good.
Speaker 1: He said here's what religion, if it's authentic, does.
Speaker 1: It ain't a society.
Speaker 1: It's a community.
Speaker 1: A community is not after a common goal.
Speaker 1: A community is after a common person, because it's going to get work done.
Speaker 1: But what it's really after is salvation, and so it cannot be impersonal.
Speaker 1: It has to be really personal.
Speaker 1: What drives us away is what we need and crave the most many times, and that is a personal relationship with other people that is based on the personal relationship with Jesus.
Speaker 1: See, we want that with Jesus, but we're scared of it with each other.
Speaker 1: And let me tell you who the biggest guilty party is, because I'm one of them.
Speaker 1: It's men.
Speaker 1: We shy away from that stuff, obviously a female kind of amen to that.
Speaker 1: So alright, so, but that's what we're after Again the contrast of our society.
Speaker 1: I don't go looking for it right now on your phone, but if you want to, by sundown tonight, you can purchase a personal robot.
Speaker 1: You can get a pet robot.
Speaker 1: It runs around on all fours.
Speaker 1: You can name it Scruffy or whatever you want to name it.
Speaker 1: You get the benefits.
Speaker 1: It barks, it growls, it lays down it, you know, I think it'll even fetch.
Speaker 1: It won't pee on the carpet, though.
Speaker 1: You won't have to take it out in the middle of the night.
Speaker 1: It's great you can get a robot like you with AI.
Speaker 1: They'll do small talk with you, they'll reason, they'll talk about sports with you, whatever you want.
Speaker 1: It'll even try to fake sympathy by saying understanding, kind things to you.
Speaker 1: Colorado State University smart people did a study on these things and they said well, here's why it is so popular and why it's being perfected.
Speaker 1: And yay, verily, sci-fi fans, watch out.
Speaker 1: Their day will come when they will look so lifelike and so human you'll really not be able to tell them from real humans.
Speaker 1: So we may have some sitting out there right now that are really robots.
Speaker 1: It's just like the movies come to life.
Speaker 1: Why do I bring this up?
Speaker 1: The Colorado State study said so.
Speaker 1: Therefore, and all of our wisdom, we feel like this will greatly address the isolation that we have in this nation.
Speaker 1: Really, a hunk of metal is going to give me the intimacy and the being known and the known that I crave.
Speaker 1: That only can come through the bond of a supernatural love of the Savior.
Speaker 1: Are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: You'll be three or four hundred dollars poorer, but you're still going to be isolated.
Speaker 1: You'll just have a hunk of metal making noise to you in the process.
Speaker 1: Don't fall for the stuff that the world is promoting today.
Speaker 1: There's a use for those things.
Speaker 1: There's some fantastic things that can come, and art is coming out of AI, but it will not replace the master and it never will, and he will prove that as we continue to live, we need to be together and we need to be unified.
Speaker 1: The third thing we are devoted to giving over consumption Verse 45 and 46,.
Speaker 1: Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone who had need and every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts and they broke bread in their homes and they ate together and they had glad and sincere hearts.
Speaker 1: In Ivesa, sincere hearts your translation may say singleness of hearts.
Speaker 1: That's actually probably a better translation.
Speaker 1: Singleness of heart means we are so together.
Speaker 1: We're not robots.
Speaker 1: We all are still distinct people, but we know where we're headed and we know why we're headed there and we are going to do it together because we're willing to sacrifice in order to get there.
Speaker 1: Now we're back to the giving to people as they had need, not willy-nilly, indiscriminately throwing money at people, but as they have need, we are going to be generous.
Speaker 1: Why are we called to be generous even today?
Speaker 1: Because there's so many more needy people today, obviously, but also here's the secret when you are generous in the cause of Christ, he makes you stronger and he makes you better and he makes you more fulfilled in your life.
Speaker 1: There's almost a little selfishness about even our giving of tides and offerings.
Speaker 1: Thank you, by the way, for giving so well in 2023.
Speaker 1: We had an excess of budget that was given and that's like.
Speaker 1: Most churches don't have that benefit.
Speaker 1: Our stewardship committee did an awesome job of saying let's take the vast majority of that and let's pull it right out and let's put it right into our Kingdom Come campaign money, which is for future missions and expansion here and so now the Kingdom Come as of.
Speaker 1: I don't know the exact dollar amount, but we're somewhere around 2.3, 2.4 million dollars in cash.
Speaker 1: That's jumped that up, praise the Lord, but nothing like what we need, and thank you for pledging and continuing to give and hopefully give sacrificially above your tides and offerings of that, because the day is coming and you heard a little bit more about that last Sunday night and Sunday morning when we're going to be spending a lot of it, because we are two locations and we've got to find a permanent home for the second location and because, lord willing, there's going to be a third location too, and we will not stop with that.
Speaker 1: So we all are required to give.
Speaker 1: You'll give me one more figure.
Speaker 1: I know figures can kind of be confusing and they don't matter without context, but this is what I get really excited about, because y'all gave so well in 2023 and because we, tied as a church too.
Speaker 1: We give 12% of everything you give right out the door.
Speaker 1: So you gave right at $450,000 to missions right out the door.
Speaker 1: That never stopped here.
Speaker 1: That goes all over the world.
Speaker 1: Now Jesus came along and Luke 10, I believe it is said hey, let me just tell you how my math works Whatever you give, I multiply and I give it back to you.
Speaker 1: Now, that's not a statement that's going to help necessarily, my checking account and your checking account.
Speaker 1: What he's saying is I'm going to take your dollar and I'm going to make it stretch much further than a dollar to change other lives.
Speaker 1: You listening.
Speaker 1: So if he takes 450,000 and he's stretching that and multiplying that, there is no telling.
Speaker 1: There's no telling how many people you have influenced just by being a part of this church and giving.
Speaker 1: That's the economy of God and that is why we need to be devoted to it.
Speaker 1: It works the same way we're serving.
Speaker 1: If you've been here a while and you're like, do they really need any help around here?
Speaker 1: Yes, we need a lot of help around here, and the best place to start inquiring is bang.
Speaker 1: Let's go right out there to the tent, say I'm willing to help as needed, because that need, by the way, is only going to increase because April 7th guess what?
Speaker 1: We're going to.
Speaker 1: Three services in the morning and three different hours of Bible study, three different hours of preschool, three different hours of everything.
Speaker 1: So we definitely need each other, we need everybody, and then more.
Speaker 1: But we're bound by love and that's why I'm so excited about what's going on.
Speaker 1: We don't worry anymore, we don't stress out anymore, we just we've seen him working long enough to where we know he's enough.
Speaker 1: He's enough.
Speaker 1: Do we have everything we need?
Speaker 1: Oh, of course not.
Speaker 1: Do we have everybody we need?
Speaker 1: Of course not, but we got Him and he's enough.
Speaker 1: So the fourth thing, real quick.
Speaker 1: We're going to be devoted to outsiders and insiders.
Speaker 1: Y'all 47, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.
Speaker 1: The Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved, maybe not that day, but they were in process.
Speaker 1: Good news for some of you, some of you out there watching Some of you.
Speaker 1: That's good news because you are being saved.
Speaker 1: You're in process.
Speaker 1: You haven't gotten it figured out yet, but you're better than you were yesterday and you're further along than you were eight months ago and your day is coming and it may end up standing with us in the water there, which is like the greatest place in the world to be.
Speaker 1: You're being saved, and it takes a group typically to get us there, with the group already here.
Speaker 1: So I got a question for you.
Speaker 1: What do you think?
Speaker 1: Should we be a ministry church where it's like we got to take care of each other?
Speaker 1: There's several hundredthere's twelve hundred of us here on a given Sunday, in two locations and all, and then others too?
Speaker 1: Should we be focused on taking care of each other and our needs, or should we be a missional church?
Speaker 1: Our focus is really for people that don't even know Jesus yet or need to come back to Jesus.
Speaker 1: What do you think?
Speaker 1: Both, thank you.
Speaker 1: I don't know who came up with the idea.
Speaker 1: You had to choose.
Speaker 1: They didn't choose.
Speaker 1: Here.
Speaker 1: That's pretty obvious, isn't it?
Speaker 1: They're taking care of each other, but they're also like hey, you need to be saved, you need to know Jesus like we do.
Speaker 1: So we got to focus on both.
Speaker 1: And again, that's where you come in.
Speaker 1: There's something called worship evangelism.
Speaker 1: Let me see, I'm not going to define it, I'm just going to tell you how it operates.
Speaker 1: Worship evangelism, and this happens.
Speaker 1: Someone comes here for the very first time.
Speaker 1: They're here for one reason to support a friend or a co-worker who is being baptized.
Speaker 1: They don't really want to be here.
Speaker 1: They're not excited about being here.
Speaker 1: They are checking an obligation.
Speaker 1: But in the time they're like well, you know how you look around.
Speaker 1: You critique the room.
Speaker 1: We all do that, don't we?
Speaker 1: Why do they do that?
Speaker 1: Why is he acting like that?
Speaker 1: Why is shewhile we're worshiping?
Speaker 1: They're watching you worship, and what starts to come in is boy.
Speaker 1: You know, he looks like he believes God is all that that he's singing about the words on the screen.
Speaker 1: He looks like he believes that that's who God is.
Speaker 1: When she prays, it looks like she believes he's actually going to do that.
Speaker 1: When they read the Bible, they act like this is the best way to live.
Speaker 1: They're not buying it, but they leave a little bit puzzled and guess what happens?
Speaker 1: The next Sunday they come back and they're just like you know.
Speaker 1: That was probably a fluke.
Speaker 1: They knew I was coming and they're all acting pretty good.
Speaker 1: But the next Sunday, without a baptism guess what?
Speaker 1: It's the same behavior, the same convictions, the same enthusiasm for Jesus.
Speaker 1: Now they're a little bit bothered by that because they don't have that and so they're not going to go looking for people to talk about it with.
Speaker 1: But there's some turmoil going on.
Speaker 1: So, guess what?
Speaker 1: They come five weeks in a row and then another baptism rolls around.
Speaker 1: This time they don't know anybody up there, but they leave in tears.
Speaker 1: Why is that?
Speaker 1: He's called the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: The Holy Spirit of God is coming down among His people, and even some who are not His people, and His message is crystal clear.
Speaker 1: I'm after you now because I love you and I am about to change your life in a radical, positive way.
Speaker 1: You need to do one thing, and that's just trust me with it.
Speaker 1: And they do.
Speaker 1: And guess who is next time around in the baptistry?
Speaker 1: Boom, it happens.
Speaker 1: That's called worship, evangelism.
Speaker 1: I know what some of you are thinking.
Speaker 1: I've not really been a member of a church ever.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the use of membership.
Speaker 1: Why can't I just come to about five churches and do a rotation and you know why can't I do it that way?
Speaker 1: You can Well.
Speaker 1: Why can't I just come to your church every week that I'm around and not commit to join?
Speaker 1: You can, we'll still love you.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 1: Here's why you need to.
Speaker 1: We just talked about the practical issues.
Speaker 1: You want a safeguard against isolation.
Speaker 1: You want to make it a lot harder to be lonely.
Speaker 1: Get into an active involvement in a church, make a commitment and commit to a group.
Speaker 1: It's one of the best tonics for all of that.
Speaker 1: You want to be a part of an organization that is accompanying, that is getting a lot more done together than you would ever do loosely.
Speaker 1: Where else are you going to be a part of a place that you've got hundreds of thousands of dollars that you feel a sense of joy over because you have chipped in and it's changing lives all over the world?
Speaker 1: You're not going to do that by yourself.
Speaker 1: Where else can you plug in and help and see the Holy Spirit use you to change other people's lives?
Speaker 1: We had a lady here in the first service who is wheelchair-bound.
Speaker 1: She's only 40 years old.
Speaker 1: She lives in an assisted living place.
Speaker 1: The reason she's here, when she's able to be here, is one of you goes to her place every Sunday at two o'clock and they put this service on the big screen and invite anybody who wants to come.
Speaker 1: And her life has been altered by the power of the Holy Spirit flowing through my brother who loves her every single week.
Speaker 1: So why wouldn't she be here?
Speaker 1: This is her home and we need her.
Speaker 1: Also, our deacons have reorganized just to accommodate.
Speaker 1: It's taking care of us, but also being on mission for God to put them more on the front lines of dealing with y'all and loving you and serving you, but also the folks coming into our community and everything.
Speaker 1: Nt Wright is a theologian who wrote a lot of things.
Speaker 1: He wrote this big old, fat biography on Paul and back of that book talking about this event in time Acts, chapter 2.
Speaker 1: He says A alternative community is rising.
Speaker 1: It's different than any other and it was as much about, and is as much about the social and community needs as it is the theological needs.
Speaker 1: He says we need all three.
Speaker 1: We need the intimacy of knowing and being known, the brotherhood.
Speaker 1: We need the social aspect of that, but we also need the theology of it, and that is why this is, in my way of thinking, a hugely important place.
Speaker 1: Not going to make you go there, but if you want to read this afternoon or this week for devotion, read Acts 3, 4, and 5, the favor turns Doesn't take very long.
Speaker 1: In Acts 3, peter does what Peter does because Jesus taught him he goes to church.
Speaker 1: If it's the Lord's Day, he goes to church.
Speaker 1: They're going to get kicked out pretty soon and alienated, but for now he's going to church On his way.
Speaker 1: In one day there's a cripple sitting at the gate.
Speaker 1: Cripples never walk day in his life.
Speaker 1: He knows.
Speaker 1: Maybe I can play on the sympathies of some churchgoers.
Speaker 1: They're supposed to be generous people and he's doing this.
Speaker 1: Peter walks in and says man, I'm broke, I don't have any money, but I got something better.
Speaker 1: He gives him Jesus, and in the process of giving him Jesus, the man gets the ability to walk.
Speaker 1: Imagine that.
Speaker 1: And so now Peter walks into church.
Speaker 1: This guy dances in the church with him for the very first time in his life.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't take the Sadducees and the Pharisees very long to figure out.
Speaker 1: You know, we killed that guy, jesus, and now his followers are doing everything he did, and there's more of them, and every day there's more of them and they freak out.
Speaker 1: So it's not long that being a Christ follower costs Peter and the others their homes, because they have to flee all over the place.
Speaker 1: They get jailed the next chapter, they get beat up.
Speaker 1: The next chapter, they get run off.
Speaker 1: The following chapter, and it won't be long before it cost them their life.
Speaker 1: But here's the interesting thing the love of Christ within that group was so powerful that not even death could make them back up on their group.
Speaker 1: Something's going on, and that is what our world and our nation is starving for.
Speaker 1: So if we do this, and we do it well, we are a model to everybody else.
Speaker 1: That don't?
Speaker 1: You feel like you need this also, and some of us in the room need it.
Speaker 1: I'm going to ask Brad and our guys to come on up.
Speaker 1: We get the awesome opportunity to worship one more time, so please take advantage of it and come forward and let us pray for you.
Speaker 1: What is your next step decision?
Speaker 1: Does it need to be to go ahead and say I'm going to join this church?
Speaker 1: I'm going tothis is where God has led me?
Speaker 1: So I might as well be obedient in that factor, or maybe you've been estranged from the Lord and today is the day he's doing this.
Speaker 1: Not to condemn you, but to love you Say we've been holding your spot in the group ever since you left.
Speaker 1: Come on back.
Speaker 1: Or maybe it's the hey, we don't have a place for you.
Speaker 1: But we can change that.
Speaker 1: Right now you come, believe in trusting Christ.
Speaker 1: You have a spot at the table.
Speaker 1: Whatever we can help you with, why don't you stand and let me pray for you?
Speaker 1: Lord, do what only you can do.
Speaker 1: Continue to love my friends as only you can love them.
Speaker 1: Make sure that we understand very clearly that the best path is yours, the best conviction is from you, the best groups are anchored and bound by your love, and we'll just continue to know that you are enough.
Speaker 1: Amen.