SPEAKER_01: Hey, I'm Steve Holt, the senior pastor of the Road at Chapel Hills.
SPEAKER_01: This is the Rudd Podcast.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_01: My heart is to empower you to change the world.
SPEAKER_01: I hope this message impacts you.
SPEAKER_01: Here now is our guest speaker.
SPEAKER_00: So I grew up in a religious home.
SPEAKER_00: I even went to Christian school for many years.
SPEAKER_00: My family went to church every single week.
SPEAKER_00: But while I would have called myself a Christian, I can honestly say that I didn't have a personal relationship or friendship with Christ while I was growing up.
SPEAKER_00: After I graduated from high school, I began to ask questions in my own mind: is there more to life than just getting an education, getting a job, getting married, getting a minivan, getting a house in the suburbs, and retiring.
SPEAKER_00: In the summer of 1973, after my freshman year of college, I had a job outside doing manual labor, and I absolutely loved it.
SPEAKER_00: I also worked in the evening as the night manager of a restaurant here in town.
SPEAKER_00: Add in a girlfriend, lots of buddies to do things with on the weekends, and life was good.
SPEAKER_00: In the middle of that summer, I got really sick, ended up losing 20 pounds, a lot of my muscle, and I lost both my jobs.
SPEAKER_00: Then my girlfriend dumped me for no reason.
SPEAKER_00: And my friend stopped coming around.
SPEAKER_00: The only thing that would have made this complete, a complete country western song, is if the dog died and I wrecked a pickup.
SPEAKER_00: It was during that time that two of my sisters, one Patty, was here in the first service, my other Debbie, is looking online right now from Florida.
SPEAKER_00: They became religious.
SPEAKER_00: They began talking to me about my life and about heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, I thought they were nuts.
SPEAKER_00: I thought, oh my gosh, they're in some kind of a cult.
SPEAKER_00: Look, I got God.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I even had a Bible on my dorm room desk, my freshman year of college.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I couldn't have told you Genesis from Revelation, but I knew it was a good book.
SPEAKER_00: So they just came around and they started nursing me back to health when everyone else abandoned me.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Toward the end of that summer, I wanted to go to see a movie at the drive-in theater.
SPEAKER_00: Does anyone remember the Arcadia Drive-In?
SPEAKER_00: Colorado Springs, Platte Avenue.
SPEAKER_00: It's been gone for a number of years.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we went to see Playmisty for me.
SPEAKER_00: And my two sisters, who were religious, decided they didn't want to watch this amazing movie.
SPEAKER_00: They went up on the roof of my car and started doing whatever they do with their God, but it involved rocking like this and doing stuff.
SPEAKER_00: So, right at the point in the movie where Clint is about to get killed with a knife, the car's rocking like this, and in an instant I recognized and everything made sense.
SPEAKER_00: I reached my hand up through the open car window, grabbed theirs, and I became a Christian at that moment.
SPEAKER_00: Now, everything changed for me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure many other people have a testimony that they were saved at a Clint Eastwood movie.
SPEAKER_00: But that's my testimony.
SPEAKER_00: I was still pretty messed up, but the trajectory of my life changed radically.
SPEAKER_00: I literally was going in a completely different direction than I was going to prior to that.
SPEAKER_00: Since that time, through many intentional relationships and daily devotional habit that's been going on for 49 years now, I am becoming the man that God intends me to be.
SPEAKER_00: I've entitled my message today, The Power of Community.
SPEAKER_00: So how many of you right now are involved in a community group?
SPEAKER_00: Let me see your hands.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, good.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you would say that being in community is a vital part of your success in your life?
SPEAKER_00: Anyone?
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: A recent HHS study concluded that healthy relationships are a huge factor in people's physical health, their overall emotional and psychological health and well-being, and that healthy relationships actually positively impact outcomes in life.
SPEAKER_00: But we don't need multiple studies to tell us what we already know.
SPEAKER_00: Life is better when we're in community, when we belong, when we have bloodstained allies, when we feel connected with others, and when we have a purpose bigger than ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Before we explore some of the strengths and the dynamics of community groups, let me set the stage a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: In the past couple of years, we've all seen storm clouds in our nation and really around the world, right?
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps we're experiencing a shaking right now, unlike anything we've experienced in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We've seen a pandemic, we've seen lockdowns, we've seen masks, we've seen no masks, we've seen double masks, we've seen the silencing of dissent, therapeutics being suppressed, vaccines, vaccine mandates, vaccine injuries, and so much more.
SPEAKER_00: But perhaps the biggest tragedy that we're experiencing right now is a pandemic of fear that has gripped so many people's hearts and minds.
SPEAKER_00: The isolation, the separation, the loneliness, the lack of connection.
SPEAKER_00: We've seen an increase in suicides, especially among young people.
SPEAKER_00: Drug overdoses.
SPEAKER_00: We've seen people dying alone.
SPEAKER_00: That should never be.
SPEAKER_00: We've seen the erosion of some of our most cherished individual freedoms.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not just here in the US, it's all around the world.
SPEAKER_00: Recently, we've seen troops massing on the borders of some countries, and perhaps the drumbeats of war.
SPEAKER_00: Increasing inflation, economic challenges, supply chain disruptions, empty store shelves.
SPEAKER_00: We've seen the loss of trust in many of the institutions we thought we could count on.
SPEAKER_00: Government, media, corporations, big tech, pharma, education, the courts, and even in some areas, law enforcement.
SPEAKER_00: We've seen the splitting up of families, friends, even churches, over masks and vaccines and so many crazy things.
SPEAKER_00: You can't come over for Thanksgiving because you're not vaccinated.
SPEAKER_00: We can't show you our new baby because you were vaccinated and we're afraid you're going to shed on us.
SPEAKER_00: And we've seen just a general tension, haven't we?
SPEAKER_00: In the atmosphere almost.
SPEAKER_00: You go into a store, you feel the palpable tension.
SPEAKER_00: It's different.
SPEAKER_00: We're not treating each other the way we treated each other for many, many, many years with dignity and respect.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people are on edge.
SPEAKER_00: It all sounds pretty dire.
SPEAKER_00: I get back to that country western song.
SPEAKER_00: But what do you suppose the shakings and the headlines were during the time of Noah when violence covered the face of the earth?
SPEAKER_00: Or how about the Egyptian slavery when slaughter of infants during Moses' birth?
SPEAKER_00: How about Nero's horrific torture and crucifixion of Christians?
SPEAKER_00: What about the black plague in the 1300s that killed over 75 million people across the globe?
SPEAKER_00: What about during the most bloody battles of the American Civil War?
SPEAKER_00: During World War II, concentration camps, the Holocaust, Hitler racing across Europe.
SPEAKER_00: What about King Herod, Pol Pot, Mao Cong, Stalin, and the murder of 10% of all living people under Genghis Khan?
SPEAKER_00: What's my point?
SPEAKER_00: Almost every generation has seen challenges and shakings.
SPEAKER_00: But the only refuge, the only stability, the only fortress has always been Almighty God.
SPEAKER_00: Whether we realize it or not, his kingdom is always advancing.
SPEAKER_00: His purposes will not be derailed.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, when nations conspire, when people plot evil things, when leaders gather together to throw off righteousness, Psalm 2 tells us the one enthroned in heaven laughs.
SPEAKER_00: That's how seriously he takes this stuff.
SPEAKER_00: He's got everything under control.
SPEAKER_00: And it isn't just shaking geopolitically or in society.
SPEAKER_00: What about personal shaking?
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are going right now through some very, very difficult things.
SPEAKER_00: I know in my own life I thought I have had times when I felt like my whole world was crumbling.
SPEAKER_00: When I lost a job, when I felt betrayed, misunderstood, taken advantage of, when I made huge mistakes, did stupid things, when I felt like I couldn't measure up.
SPEAKER_00: And I recently went through a period where the three most important men in my life died in about a three and a half year span.
SPEAKER_00: First, my dad, my first mentor, my hero.
SPEAKER_00: Then my father-in-law, who mentored me in business.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, about a year and a little over a year ago now, my year mentor for 20 years, Paul Stanley.
SPEAKER_00: You know, they say you need three legs on a stool to be stable.
SPEAKER_00: I got all three legs taken out in a short season of time.
SPEAKER_00: But you can fill in the your own, you can fill in the blank, right?
SPEAKER_00: For your own experience.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes for me, my only refuge was reading the Psalms until I could find my voice in the heart of the psalmist.
SPEAKER_00: Other times, I remember just lying on my bed, holding my Bible close to my heart, hoping that somehow it would touch the areas of pain that I was experiencing.
SPEAKER_00: Healing always came for me through refocusing on eternity and through being in an authentic community where others just love me back to health.
SPEAKER_00: I remember one time, over 30 years ago now, I've just gotten married and I got a call on a Friday.
SPEAKER_00: I was sick and I didn't go into work.
SPEAKER_00: I got a call on a Friday.
SPEAKER_00: One of the guys that worked for me, I was supervising 12 people.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Jerry, I don't want you to be blindsided, but you no longer have a department.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for letting me know that.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we had a new leader come in and he was getting rid of everybody that was there, you know, and you know the story.
SPEAKER_00: But my reaction was just incredibly a feeling of loss, a feeling of discouragement, disappointment, anger, rage, all of the above.
SPEAKER_00: And something told me that I needed to forgive, no matter what.
SPEAKER_00: I had a sense from Almighty God that this was absolutely critical somehow to my destiny.
SPEAKER_00: So I tried to forgive, couldn't do it.
SPEAKER_00: I got with my new bride, Denise, and I said, Honey, lay hands on my heart.
SPEAKER_00: The pain is so great right now, I can't even see straight.
SPEAKER_00: She prayed, God remove the pain.
SPEAKER_00: I purpose to forgive.
SPEAKER_00: Five minutes later, the pain was back.
SPEAKER_00: The anger was back.
SPEAKER_00: I say, honey, I need you to pray again.
SPEAKER_00: I can't forgive.
SPEAKER_00: I can't seem to get through this.
SPEAKER_00: She prayed again.
SPEAKER_00: I was able to forgive.
SPEAKER_00: Well, five minutes became an hour, became six hours, became 24 hours.
SPEAKER_00: By Monday morning, real forgiveness dropped into my heart.
SPEAKER_00: I'd never experienced it like that before.
SPEAKER_00: And I was able to pass what I call the King Supers test.
SPEAKER_00: And that's when you go into King Supers and you don't have to avoid any of the aisles.
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00: See, shaking is a tremendous gift.
SPEAKER_00: It really is a tremendous gift.
SPEAKER_00: It dims the glamour of this world and it deepens our ability to appreciate Him.
SPEAKER_00: The first gift of shaking is Christ.
SPEAKER_00: As St.
SPEAKER_00: Patrick said, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in my hands, Christ in my eyes.
SPEAKER_00: Christ.
SPEAKER_00: See, you can say in the midst of shaking, when everything has been shaking, on Christ, the solid rock, I stand.
SPEAKER_00: All other ground.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, what about my 401?
SPEAKER_00: All other ground.
SPEAKER_00: About my bank account?
SPEAKER_00: All other ground.
SPEAKER_00: How about the freedoms we cherish in this nation?
SPEAKER_00: All other ground.
SPEAKER_00: How about being rejected and despised for my faith?
SPEAKER_00: All other ground is sinking sand.
SPEAKER_00: The second gift I see in the midst of shaking that's available for each one of us is the gift of the possibility of real intimacy in relationships, real authenticity, real connection, real belonging.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that what we all want?
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that what we're crying out for?
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that what the real pandemic is all about?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we have friends on Facebook, but we don't have friends.
SPEAKER_00: We text back and forth, but people don't know our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, how many times do we come in here on Sunday morning, smile, shake people's hands, and go home alone and cry?
SPEAKER_00: Go home alone and deal with our sufferings, or turn to destructive habits that are going to do nothing but derail us.
SPEAKER_00: We're all crying out for community.
SPEAKER_00: We're all crying out to belong.
SPEAKER_00: We're all crying out for intimacy.
SPEAKER_00: God is building unshakable courage and strength into each one of us.
SPEAKER_00: He is fashioning us for partnership, divine partnership.
SPEAKER_00: We're being invited to join God for the adventure of a lifetime.
SPEAKER_00: His purposes will not be thwarted.
SPEAKER_00: God knows exactly what he's doing right now in your personal situations, in our nation and across the globe.
SPEAKER_00: He knows exactly what he's doing.
SPEAKER_00: He, the shaking and the shining of light into darkness, if you think about it, is really an answer to our prayers, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: I remember two years ago crying out to God, God, shine your light.
SPEAKER_00: We got to understand there's all this going on, apparently.
SPEAKER_00: And guess what happened?
SPEAKER_00: He did that.
SPEAKER_00: He answered those prayers.
SPEAKER_00: And those prayers continue.
SPEAKER_00: And the revelations and the unfolding and the unpacking continues.
SPEAKER_00: I also remember praying the prayer in Psalm 139, the last verse.
SPEAKER_00: Search me, O God, know my heart, try me, know my thoughts.
SPEAKER_00: See if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in your way everlasting.
SPEAKER_00: So should we be surprised that we're in the midst of shaking?
SPEAKER_00: If you read the book of Haggai, chapter 2, it's promised.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it says, everything that can be shaken will be shaken.
SPEAKER_00: The author of Hebrews picks up on that and continues that theme.
SPEAKER_00: That shaking is something that God gives us as a gift.
SPEAKER_00: So he can shake out everything that we rely on that's going to fail us anyway, guys.
SPEAKER_00: Why is he doing that?
SPEAKER_00: Because he then wants to shake us out as salt to a broken and to a dying world.
SPEAKER_00: So let shaking have its work.
SPEAKER_00: Let it have its work in each one of our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe that we're only in the middle hour of our shaking.
SPEAKER_00: I believe there's more, guys.
SPEAKER_00: I believe there's more.
SPEAKER_00: I believe the word that says everything that can be shaken will be shaken.
SPEAKER_00: So that which remains is unshakable.
SPEAKER_00: But God isn't just calling us to hold on and to survive.
SPEAKER_00: He is calling us in this hour to actually thrive.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he's calling us to.
SPEAKER_00: Turn with me, if you would, to Ecclesiastes chapter 4, and I'm going to be reading verses 9 through 12.
SPEAKER_00: It's also up on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: This is out of the NIV.
SPEAKER_00: Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor.
SPEAKER_00: If either one of them falls down, one can help the other up.
SPEAKER_00: But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.
SPEAKER_00: Also, if two lie down together, they'll keep warm.
SPEAKER_00: But how can one keep warm alone?
SPEAKER_00: Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves.
SPEAKER_00: A cord of three strands is not easily broken.
SPEAKER_00: See, we battle together.
SPEAKER_00: We thrive together.
SPEAKER_00: We can't do it alone.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where community groups come in.
SPEAKER_00: Turn with me now, if you would, to Acts chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: We're only going to look at one verse.
SPEAKER_00: That's Acts 2, verse 42.
SPEAKER_00: Early New Testament believers used all kinds of venues to preach, to teach, to evangelize.
SPEAKER_00: They used the temple courts, they used synagogues, marketplaces, government buildings, the countryside.
SPEAKER_00: Paul even rented a lecture hall for two years in Ephesus so he could teach every single day.
SPEAKER_00: But the predominant way that early church believers had fellowship was in small groups that met from house to house.
SPEAKER_00: It was rare that a house church was more than 15 or 20 people.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Homes were small.
SPEAKER_00: So when they got to that number, they would multiply.
SPEAKER_00: And there'd be churches in many, many, many, many homes across a city or a region.
SPEAKER_00: After Constantine legalized Christianity in 313 AD at the Council of Milan, we started.
SPEAKER_00: We start to see the proliferation of church buildings, but in every generation, the predominant way that Christians met for fellowship was house to house, especially during times of persecution.
SPEAKER_00: Could house churches be a critical necessity for all of us in the days ahead?
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at this verse.
SPEAKER_00: They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Community groups are built on four pillars.
SPEAKER_00: The first, the apostles' teaching.
SPEAKER_00: That's our plumb line for life.
SPEAKER_00: This is the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: This is the filter through which everything I see and experience must be run.
SPEAKER_00: The Greek word for teaching is the word ditache, and literally means sound doctrine or moral instruction on how to live.
SPEAKER_00: This might be going deeper with a Sunday sermon.
SPEAKER_00: It might be a book study or a Bible study, but it's digging into the apostles' teaching in order to know how to live and know how to live in a way that pleases God.
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew 24 and 25, Jesus warns us three times that as we approach the end of the age, deception will increase.
SPEAKER_00: Paul goes on to warn us of the same things and other New Testament writers as well.
SPEAKER_00: We see it everywhere today, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: People don't know what to believe.
SPEAKER_00: They don't know who to trust.
SPEAKER_00: They don't know which information, we don't know which information is accurate, which is not.
SPEAKER_00: Without the apostles' teaching, there's a good chance we can fall into deception.
SPEAKER_00: Community groups are a place to discuss, to process what's going on in the world in view of his eternal truth.
SPEAKER_00: That's how we become sons of Issachar.
SPEAKER_00: That's how we know the times and know what we need to do about them.
SPEAKER_00: It's in the context of community that we learn that.
SPEAKER_00: You could also look at this as a greenhouse, a place for receiving water, nutrients, sunlight, fertilizer, and tending for the purposes of growth to maturity and bearing fruit.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you want to look at it as an army, a place to allow the Word of God to equip us for war, to prepare us to slay giants and to subdue kingdoms.
SPEAKER_00: The second pillar we see in Acts 2.42 in the context of community is fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the word koinania, which means partnership, shared vision, community, and belonging.
SPEAKER_00: That's enjoying each other.
SPEAKER_00: Just enjoying each other's company, sharing life together, bearing each other's burdens.
SPEAKER_00: You know, life has a way of chewing every one of us up at times, right?
SPEAKER_00: So you could also think of this as a hospital, a place for acute care to mend, to be restored.
SPEAKER_00: I also like to think of it as a furnace, a place for refining, for forging, and for fanning into flame.
SPEAKER_00: The third pillar of community groups is breaking of bread.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this word in the Greek is the word artos, which is used interestingly in context in the New Testament for both bread, it means bread, but it's used in the context of sharing a meal, and it's also used in the context of the Lord's Supper.
SPEAKER_00: So it has both meanings for us.
SPEAKER_00: And that's part of what goes on in small group.
SPEAKER_00: I know as I was working, one of the things I tried to do almost every day is have either breakfast and or lunch, sometimes both, with an individual.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because you could get past the surface stuff if you were dealing, even in complex negotiations, it didn't matter.
SPEAKER_00: There was something about breaking bread that changed the dynamic and the atmosphere.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says iron sharpens iron.
SPEAKER_00: That we're to spur one another on to love and good works.
SPEAKER_00: The fourth pillar we see in community is prayer.
SPEAKER_00: It may be the most important part of our gathering together.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, all of us are going through stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe a lot of the time.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe behind that smile there's a lot of pain.
SPEAKER_00: This is where we bring those things together to the Father.
SPEAKER_00: And in the context of his presence, sitting at his feet, we find healing.
SPEAKER_00: We find rest.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: So we can be happy?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: So we can be equipped to do what God's calling each one of us to do.
SPEAKER_00: Community groups in this context, I think, can also be a launching pad.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where we launch each other in a sense of commissioning into destiny.
SPEAKER_00: So the outcome of being a hospital, a greenhouse, a furnace, an armory, and a launching pad is to build worshipers and warriors that have a wholehearted love for Almighty God and for people.
SPEAKER_00: And if I can use Isaiah, I'm sorry, Daniel chapter 11, verse 32, to know their God, to be strong, and to do exploits.
SPEAKER_00: That's taking it to the streets.
SPEAKER_00: That's discipling families, discipling neighborhoods, discipling cities, discipling nations, fulfilling the Great Commission.
SPEAKER_00: I want to read an excerpt from a book that I really highly recommend, written by Rod Greer, called Live Not by Lies.
SPEAKER_00: The title of this book is taken from Alexander Solsenichin's last essay to the Russian people.
SPEAKER_00: And what he postulated in that writing was it is possible to resist the lies and in fact resist tyranny.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to just be quiet.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to shut up.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to cower in fear.
SPEAKER_00: But it's not only possible, I would suggest to you that it's necessary that we stand up in this hour.
SPEAKER_00: What is this rallying call with everything that we're doing right now?
SPEAKER_00: When the political arena, with Haim and many of you that are supporting that effort, and in every other arena, we're taking it to the streets.
SPEAKER_00: Rod Dreer interviewed many individuals who suffered in Soviet totalitarianism for many, many decades.
SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting the themes that he saw that developed as he went through that.
SPEAKER_00: One of the themes, he talks a lot about totalitarianism, even soft totalitarianism.
SPEAKER_00: And he talks about how the goals are to set up oppressor and oppressed.
SPEAKER_00: The goals are to atomize us, separate us, get us alone, get us isolated.
SPEAKER_00: The goals are to eradicate faith, and to the extent we resist those lies, they can't win.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Let me read to you just a paragraph from this book.
SPEAKER_00: I'm reading from page 169, where he's talking about an encounter he had with somebody who was under totalitarianism.
SPEAKER_00: The guy's name was Frantic Mitsko.
SPEAKER_00: He was now in his 70s, was the central leader of the second wave of the Slavic Underground Church.
SPEAKER_00: When we met for lunch in Bratzvelya Restaurant, he is quick to offer advice for the current generation of Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Right now, he says, it's harder to tell who the enemy is.
SPEAKER_00: I tell them that what is crucial is to stay true to yourself, true to your conscience, and also be in community with other like-minded people who share the faith.
SPEAKER_00: We were saved by small communities.
SPEAKER_00: He told us that they, the communists, could take everything from us.
SPEAKER_00: They could take our samizdat, and that was where they didn't have printing presses, they didn't have the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: They would handwrite little pieces on scraps and keep it and cherish it.
SPEAKER_00: He said, you can take all of that if you want.
SPEAKER_00: You can even take our opportunity to publicly speak, but we can't let them take our small communities.
SPEAKER_00: That was the lifeline.
SPEAKER_00: That's how they survived.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not suggesting that the only reason to be in a community group is to survive the storm clouds we see in the world today.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we need each other to counter the lies and the deception that's all around us.
SPEAKER_00: We need each other to resist tyranny.
SPEAKER_00: We need each other to grow and become everything God intends us to be.
SPEAKER_00: William Wilberforce's Clapham Society, Bonhoeffer's small group community are all examples of the power of standing against tyranny and evil through the strength of community.
SPEAKER_00: But regardless of what happens in this pivot year of 2022, the real reason for being in community is that community is God's way.
SPEAKER_00: Relationship is God's way.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible is replete with examples of the power of community in both good times and tough times.
SPEAKER_00: God does everything in the context of relationships.
SPEAKER_00: He never intended us to be Lone Rangers.
SPEAKER_00: We need each other to be all that God is calling us to be.
SPEAKER_00: When my son Jonathan went off to college, he had been homeschooled all the way through high school, I shared with him just a couple of things.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Jonathan, number one, my heart for you is that you learn how to think, not what to think.
SPEAKER_00: My heart for you is that everything you're going to be exposed to, this was a Christian liberal arts college, everything that you're going to be exposed to runs through this filter.
SPEAKER_00: And you learn how to think in the midst of everything that is going to be bombarding you.
SPEAKER_00: The second thing I asked him to consider doing was to get his PhD in relationships.
SPEAKER_00: Learn how to be in healthy relationships.
SPEAKER_00: People are going to let you down.
SPEAKER_00: People are going to disappoint you.
SPEAKER_00: People are going to backstab you.
SPEAKER_00: Things are going to not be as you always thought they were.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe when you're going through a difficult time, you're going to be alone.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the country western song again.
SPEAKER_00: Learn how to be in healthy relationships.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know that most missionaries leave the mission field because they can't get along with other missionaries?
SPEAKER_00: It's why families break up.
SPEAKER_00: It's why churches break up.
SPEAKER_00: It's why wars in many cases start.
SPEAKER_00: Because we've never learned the art of being in relationship with each other.
SPEAKER_00: See, community groups are a safe place to get offended and to work through it.
SPEAKER_00: Community groups are a safe place to become disappointed and rise above it.
SPEAKER_00: This is great stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Community groups are a great place, listen to this, to experience betrayal and forgive your way into destiny.
SPEAKER_00: Just like the story I shared with you a few minutes ago.
SPEAKER_00: From that moment on, by the way, after I chose to forgive and it dropped into my heart with that boss, the trajectory of my entire career changed.
SPEAKER_00: Something broke.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't even know what it was.
SPEAKER_00: But God in his mercy and my beautiful wife with her prayer made all the difference because everything changed.
SPEAKER_00: Things were broken because of the power of forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: And guys, we're all messed up.
SPEAKER_00: We are.
SPEAKER_00: Look, I've been a Christian for 49 years.
SPEAKER_00: Seems like I still repent every single day of something, right?
SPEAKER_00: That I did, thought, or whatever, right?
SPEAKER_00: And you start to put us all together, and guess what?
SPEAKER_00: We have to learn how to forgive.
SPEAKER_00: My wife and children and I, every Saturday for many, many, many years, took time to have holy communion together.
SPEAKER_00: And when we were doing that, it wasn't just some perfunctory exercise we went through because it seemed like a good thing to do, and it was another notch on our Bible.
SPEAKER_00: We did that because we recognized that during the week we were probably going to be picking up offenses with each other.
SPEAKER_00: And instead of using offense to allow the enemy to derail our lives, we chose to use offense as an opportunity to grow.
SPEAKER_00: So what was communion?
SPEAKER_00: It was, I did this this week.
SPEAKER_00: I ask you to forgive me.
SPEAKER_00: I want to restore your heart.
SPEAKER_00: And then we partook of the body and the blood, where there's great power for each one of us.
SPEAKER_00: See, it's never what happens to us that's important.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care how difficult it is, and we've all been through a lot.
SPEAKER_00: It's always how we navigate what happens to us that determines whether or not we reach the destiny that God intends us to reach.
SPEAKER_00: That's where we're forged.
SPEAKER_00: And it's almost always in the context of community that God does it.
SPEAKER_00: So let me ask you one question.
SPEAKER_00: What's holding you back?
SPEAKER_00: What's holding you back from being in community?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about just meeting Sunday morning at church.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about just go into a group.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about authentic, real, heartfelt, bear each other burdens, spur each other on to loving good works, forgive each other when it gets messy, helping people get through jams.
SPEAKER_00: What's holding you back from that?
SPEAKER_00: Here's my challenge.
SPEAKER_00: I would love for you to prayerfully consider going to the Rhodes website.
SPEAKER_00: We still have several groups that are open.
SPEAKER_00: They're filling fast though.
SPEAKER_00: Just email the leaders and coordinate with them.
SPEAKER_00: See, guys, we are on the cusp of perhaps the greatest revival and awakening in world history.
SPEAKER_00: We're on the cusp of that.
SPEAKER_00: God wants to enlist each one of us in his army.
SPEAKER_00: He wants us to be generals.
SPEAKER_00: I was telling Steve a few weeks ago when we were doing the Arise and Shine event, that baptism on Tuesday night.
SPEAKER_00: I said, I have a vision in my mind that one day we're going to need to do that every week.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe more often.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe in bathtubs from house to house as believers are ushered into the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: I want to be a part of that.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be on the sidelines.
SPEAKER_00: God's purposes will not be thwarted in this hour.
SPEAKER_00: He's calling each of us to step up and join him in what he's doing.
SPEAKER_00: I believe with all my heart that community groups will equip you to be the person God created you to be and to accomplish his purposes in this hour.
SPEAKER_00: By this time next year, our goal is to have 90% of our church in authentic, life-giving community, community groups with each other.
SPEAKER_00: Now, to do that, it means we need 75 more leaders to be raised up this year.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to be conducting our next community group leader training on Saturday, March 5th from 9 to 1 here at the church.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be in the old Outlier University rooms for those of you that have been here a while, just directly across the lobby.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to help take the intimidation and the mystery out of leading and help you influence others in ways maybe you never thought possible.
SPEAKER_00: Please prayerfully consider joining a group and consider coming to the training to maybe possibly become a leader in a group.
SPEAKER_00: Just come to check it out, even and see if God's calling you to step up and lead.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are very gifted leaders, but you may not even be aware of it.
SPEAKER_00: How gifted you are.
SPEAKER_00: We won't leave you stranded.
SPEAKER_00: We have ongoing group leader meetings and empower you classes designed to help you live and lead like Jesus did.
SPEAKER_00: Please sign up on our website for the leader training.
SPEAKER_00: Now is our time.
SPEAKER_00: We have got to do our part together to join God in His kingdom revolution.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, thanks for listening to the Road Podcast.
SPEAKER_01: It's been my joy to be a part of your life today.
SPEAKER_01: And you know, that's part of what we do here at The Road, and this is what I do in having this Road Podcast is to empower people to change their world.
SPEAKER_01: My passion and desire is that you would take God's word through the power of the Holy Spirit and make that relevant for your life.
SPEAKER_01: You know, the reality is that God has placed your life here on this earth to make a difference.
SPEAKER_01: And if you'd like more information about how to grow in Christ, if you need prayer, if you want more equipping in different areas of your life, go to the road.org.
SPEAKER_01: God bless you.