SPEAKER_00: This podcast is a ministry of Grant Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Grant Parkway, visit Grantparkway.org.
SPEAKER_01: Father, we've gathered together not just to hear from a man because the Bible is not just written by men.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says very clearly that no prophecy has its origin in the will of man, but men spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Let me speak as far as I'm being carried along this morning.
SPEAKER_01: And then when I'm ceased to be carried along by the Holy Spirit, let me have the good common sense to be quiet.
SPEAKER_01: And so, Lord, speak today.
SPEAKER_01: We yield ourselves to your Spirit and to your word.
SPEAKER_01: You're a speaking God.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says not only you're a speaking God, but you're a singing God.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us can hear it if it's just spoken, but some of us like a good song.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we need it sung over us.
SPEAKER_01: And so put a rhythm in our hearts today that'll never go away.
SPEAKER_01: Say something today that will leave an indelible impression upon us when we're 92 and got about eighteen left in our head.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says that the word of God, it lasts for it says heaven and earth will pass away, but the word of God will stand forever.
SPEAKER_01: It has that kind of stay in power.
SPEAKER_01: And so put that in us today, we pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_01: You can have a seat.
SPEAKER_01: If you have a Bible, I invite you to take it and open it up to Romans chapter 16.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're a guest today, we've been preaching through the book of Romans.
SPEAKER_01: And we're getting to the last chapter of Romans, and we're in a section this morning that is entitled Personal Greetings, and probably that's the title in your Bible.
SPEAKER_01: And it's just a list of names of people that Paul says, greet this person and greet that person and greet this person.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's easy if you're just kind of reading through the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: You get to a section like this and you skip down to where it gets interesting in your mind.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to say to you that you don't need to do that with this because this is interesting.
SPEAKER_01: And let me just kind of lay out what I want to do.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what I want to do this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I want to do five things.
SPEAKER_01: I want to read the passage, and then I want to explain what we're reading, uh, and then I want to get angry.
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you, it's the first time you looked up, you wanna do what?
SPEAKER_01: That's like you're coming home tomorrow and you're or tonight, your wife's going, What do you want for dinner this week?
SPEAKER_01: Well, uh tomorrow let's have roast, and then on Tuesday let's have pork chops, and then Tuesday night after dinner, I'm just gonna get angry.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'll warn the kids.
SPEAKER_01: Uh yes, not not at you, but I want to by the way, getting anger is not a sin.
SPEAKER_01: You realize that, right?
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says, be angry and sin not.
SPEAKER_01: And so when I say I want to get angry, I don't mean I want to get fleshly and whatever.
SPEAKER_01: And then fourthly, I want to give us some takeaways, and then lastly, I want us to do what they do in this passage.
SPEAKER_01: Deal?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, some of you are like, uh, I'm not signing on.
SPEAKER_01: I need I need more clarity.
SPEAKER_01: What do you mean by the anger part?
SPEAKER_01: Just relax, okay?
SPEAKER_01: If you're our visitor, a little bit different sermon today.
SPEAKER_01: Usually I kind of stand here and I kind of talk in a monotone voice for about shut up.
SPEAKER_01: Uh which, by the way, that's not a good word.
SPEAKER_01: Kids don't say that word.
SPEAKER_01: Uh yes, I get emails from you mothers.
SPEAKER_01: I'm trying, okay?
SPEAKER_01: My wife talks to me.
SPEAKER_01: You can't say that word.
SPEAKER_01: But every once in a while, if you can think of another word that means stop talking immediately, I'll use that.
SPEAKER_01: Uh but anyway, uh, in the book of Romans, we've been kind of going through, we broke it up into three sections.
SPEAKER_01: We did Romans 1 through 8, and then we took a break, and then we did Romans 9, 10, and 11, talked about big words like propitiation and sanctification and justification and glorification and the golden chain of redemption, and how what God, those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image, and what God sets in motion, God culminates, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And so, and we remember we said some of you got adult kids that are kind of off the reservation.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, what God sets in motion, he culminates, which means he's going to bring those kids back.
SPEAKER_01: You keep praying, you keep loving and enjoying God more than they enjoy their sin, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Don't make getting them back on the reservation the mission of your life, because it's not.
SPEAKER_01: What God begins, God finishes.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says in Philippians 1, 6, he who began a good work in you will continue it to the day of Christ Jesus, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And so we talked about those kind of things and big words, and today I want to talk about a little word.
SPEAKER_01: The little word I want to talk about today is the word us.
SPEAKER_01: I want to talk to you about the power of us.
SPEAKER_01: The power of us.
SPEAKER_01: You say, Well, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: I want to read from Romans chapter 16, starting verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says, This, I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at Centuria, that you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints, and help her in whatever she may need from you, for she has been a patron of many and of myself as well.
SPEAKER_01: Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risk their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks, but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well.
SPEAKER_01: Greet also the church and their house.
SPEAKER_01: Greet my beloved Epinatus, who was the first convert to Christ in Asia.
SPEAKER_01: Greet Mary, who has worked hard for you.
SPEAKER_01: Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners.
SPEAKER_01: They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me.
SPEAKER_01: Greet Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ, and my fellow and my beloved Stotchus.
SPEAKER_01: Greet Apollus, who is approved in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Greet those who belong to the family of Aristobulus.
SPEAKER_01: Greet my kinsmen, Herodium, greet those in the Lord who belong to the family of Narcissus.
SPEAKER_01: Greet those workers in the Lord, Traphana and Trophosa.
SPEAKER_01: Greet the beloved Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Greet Rufus.
SPEAKER_01: There's a man named right there, finally.
SPEAKER_01: Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, also his mother, who has been a mother to me as well.
SPEAKER_01: Greet Asyncritus, excuse me, Philagon, Hermes, Patrobus, Hermes, and the brothers who are with them.
SPEAKER_01: Greet Philogus.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, there you go.
SPEAKER_01: There's a name for you.
SPEAKER_01: Greet Philologus, Julia, Nerys, and her sister, and his sister, and Olympus, and all the saints who are with them, greet one another with a holy kiss.
SPEAKER_01: All the churches of Christ greet you.
SPEAKER_01: Now, when you were in college, that verse that says, Greet one another with a holy kiss was your favorite verse.
SPEAKER_01: You pulled it out every chance you got.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is what I mean.
SPEAKER_01: You read a passage like that and you kind of go, Ah, just fast forward.
SPEAKER_01: But don't fast forward, just kind of slow down.
SPEAKER_01: And let me just tell you, uh, you it's easy to read something like that and kind of go.
SPEAKER_01: We don't learn anything about Christian theology or Christian living.
SPEAKER_01: We do learn a lot about the Christian church.
SPEAKER_01: And I'll get to that in just a minute.
SPEAKER_01: But I just want to kind of point out some of the individuals that Paul says, greet, greet, greet, greet.
SPEAKER_01: There's a reason he singles these people out.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, he lists 26 individuals, nine of them are women, and three house churches, three churches that met in people's houses.
SPEAKER_01: Now, some people nowadays go, church shouldn't own any property and have a building.
SPEAKER_01: We should just meet in homes.
SPEAKER_01: The church in the New Testament met in people's homes because they couldn't afford a building.
SPEAKER_01: They were just starting out, so they would meet in homes.
SPEAKER_01: And people that had money had bigger homes, and they had house churches in their homes.
SPEAKER_01: First person in the list is Phoebe.
SPEAKER_01: Look at chapter 16, verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at Centuria.
SPEAKER_01: Now the word servant is a Greek word diaconos.
SPEAKER_01: Deakonos.
SPEAKER_01: It's where we get our English word deacon.
SPEAKER_01: And so a lot of people get in the twist and say, Well, that's not what that means.
SPEAKER_01: It really means deaconess.
SPEAKER_01: And let me just say this: there is no such word in the Greek as deaconess.
SPEAKER_01: It is diaconos.
SPEAKER_01: It is, and you say, well, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: Because we're deathly afraid.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you have got your theology of women from other people who you respect and kind of say, Well, that person knows more than I do.
SPEAKER_01: And they say this and this is right.
SPEAKER_01: Let me just tell you something.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says very clearly that Phoebe was a servant, was a diaconos of the church at Centeria.
SPEAKER_01: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_01: It means that she served in the role of function of a deacon.
SPEAKER_01: Now relax, because some of you are kind of like your mind immediately goes to women shouldn't have authority over men in the church.
SPEAKER_01: The office of deacon, when it's biblically understood, is not an office of authority, it's an office of responsibility.
SPEAKER_01: You say, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: In Acts chapter 7, the apostles were having a problem with the distribution of food.
SPEAKER_01: These different groups of widows were saying, hey, we're not getting our fair share.
SPEAKER_01: And so they instituted the office of deacon.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: So the apostles could give themselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.
SPEAKER_01: And they distributed food.
SPEAKER_01: They kind of dealt with these things that were just, hey, practical service matters.
SPEAKER_01: And so some of you grew up in churches where the deacons kind of ran the church.
SPEAKER_01: That's not the biblical model of what a church is.
SPEAKER_01: The office of deacon should have no authority in the church.
SPEAKER_01: They should have responsibility.
SPEAKER_01: You say, so who should run the church?
SPEAKER_01: The pastor?
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely not.
SPEAKER_01: The biblical model is never that the pastor be in charge.
SPEAKER_01: And I say that as the pastor of this church.
SPEAKER_01: So what's the biblical model?
SPEAKER_01: The biblical model is what's called an elder led or an elder rule.
SPEAKER_01: This church has elders.
SPEAKER_01: I sit on that board of elders, and there's five of us, and we are responsible for giving leadership and oversight, governance, shepherding, and accountability to this church.
SPEAKER_01: And so when the Bible talks about Phoebe being a deacon, it's not giving her authority over men.
SPEAKER_01: It's just saying, here is a woman that has served her church very well, and she served in this role.
SPEAKER_01: But it also says this there's a word in here you need to see.
SPEAKER_01: He says, he says, hey, the servant of the church at Centria, that you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints and help her in whatever she may need from you.
SPEAKER_01: She has been a patron of many and of myself as well.
SPEAKER_01: And when he says the word patron, what he's talking about is that there's best we can tell, Phoebe had some money.
SPEAKER_01: She was she was she was successful in business.
SPEAKER_01: We don't know exactly that that's what they believe, but when it says patron, that means somebody that kind of financially helps people out.
SPEAKER_01: And so if you were a Christian and you came to the city that Phoebe lived in, she was known for being a person who would help you get up on your feet and get established.
SPEAKER_01: And also, she has a church that meets in her home.
SPEAKER_01: So best we could tell, she had uh a pretty large home.
SPEAKER_01: And so why do I tell you all that?
SPEAKER_01: Here's the last thing you need to know about Phoebe, the the the the deacon at the church of Centuria.
SPEAKER_01: She was so well thought of and lived with such integrity.
SPEAKER_01: Paul gave her the letter to the church at Rome to take to the church at Rome.
SPEAKER_01: Because we'll get to in in just a minute.
SPEAKER_01: I just want you to know that Christianity and responsible leadership in the church is not just a male thing.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Now don't hear what I'm not saying.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying, oh, I just think a women should come up here and pastor.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible's clear about some roles in the church.
SPEAKER_01: But but but we can speak with authority about what the Bible says, and it says right here, so when we were when I became the pastor here, we were transitioned to an elderly church, and then we got deacons.
SPEAKER_01: We looked in the Bible and saw, hey, who are the people who served as a deacon in the Bible, and what did they do?
SPEAKER_01: And so the first thing the Bible kind of first name he mentions is the name Phoebe.
SPEAKER_01: Second name is Prisca and Aquila.
SPEAKER_01: There's a name no man wants.
SPEAKER_01: What's your name?
SPEAKER_01: Prisca.
SPEAKER_01: Well, your parents hippies or something, dude?
SPEAKER_01: Come on.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible says this that they were workers, they served in multiple churches, probably had money because they had a house big enough to host a church.
SPEAKER_01: And you say, well, why do you keep saying that?
SPEAKER_01: Because there's this kind of not true notion that all the early Christians were just poor people who just barely struggled along.
SPEAKER_01: It's not true at all.
SPEAKER_01: There was poor and there was wealth and everything in between.
SPEAKER_01: But Prisca and Aquila were mentioned in other parts of the Bible because they were kind of people that they they took on their mission as kind of helping Paul do what God put in his heart to do.
SPEAKER_01: They traveled extensively.
SPEAKER_01: And at one point, they're the folks that rescued Paul from a mob in Ephesus.
SPEAKER_01: That's why he says, they saved my neck.
SPEAKER_01: I love that the Bible just kind of speaks with that kind of raw, honest humanity.
SPEAKER_01: The third person in the list is Epinatus.
SPEAKER_01: Epinatus.
SPEAKER_01: He was the first convert to Christianity in Asia.
SPEAKER_01: Think about that.
SPEAKER_01: On the entire continent of Asia, he was the first convert to Christianity.
SPEAKER_01: He was the guy that struck the original match and set the thing ablaze.
SPEAKER_01: The fourth is Andronicus and Junior.
SPEAKER_01: These people who suffered.
SPEAKER_01: They were imprisoned in their faith.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says that they were in the faith before he was.
SPEAKER_01: It's easy to read the Bible and think Paul was one of the first people to come to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: No, he wasn't.
SPEAKER_01: There were people that are not only Christians, but they kind of helped Paul move from being a Pharisee of Pharisees to being a very graceful, merciful man.
SPEAKER_01: And it was these kind of people that taught, how'd you like to be the people that taught Paul the fundamentals of Christianity?
SPEAKER_01: Or the lady that he mentions in here and says, Oh, the mother of so-and-so, who was also a mother to me.
SPEAKER_01: And when I traveled, before I became the pastor, I traveled and preached all over the country.
SPEAKER_01: And I had about 10 grandmas all over the United States.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't stay in hotels.
SPEAKER_01: I always stayed in people's homes.
SPEAKER_01: And there were some older ladies that were kind of like, I hear you're going to be in Raleigh, North Carolina.
SPEAKER_01: I don't live but 45 minutes from there.
SPEAKER_01: Well, they have hotels in Raleigh.
SPEAKER_01: And you live out in the country on a farm and you scare me because you say crazy things to me, like, you don't need a wife.
SPEAKER_01: You should ask the Lord if He's called you to be single.
SPEAKER_01: I asked him.
SPEAKER_01: He said no.
SPEAKER_01: But just women are just, I mean, and and you say, Well, you stayed at a woman's house?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: She had a husband, and he would just kind of look at me and smile like, good luck.
SPEAKER_01: And then they would have me in their home.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what Paul had.
SPEAKER_01: He had people that he would just kind of stay with.
SPEAKER_01: And these are people, Andronicus and Junius.
SPEAKER_01: They, the, the, the literal rendering from the Greek is that they were esteemed among the apostles.
SPEAKER_01: The ESV says they were known among the apostles.
SPEAKER_01: They were esteemed among the apostles because they did traveling missionary work and they were so well thought of.
SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of debate about, well, are this man and this woman apostle?
SPEAKER_01: Now we're getting really crazy.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible, when Paul uses the phrase apostle, he talks a lot about the function of an apostle, not necessarily the office of an apostle.
SPEAKER_01: Do you hear the difference?
SPEAKER_01: Hello?
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, hey, this is not about women having authority over the men.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, I'm not contradicting myself.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just saying there were men and women who worked hard to advance the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And here's two of them right here.
SPEAKER_01: The fifth person on the list I want to point out is Narcissus.
SPEAKER_01: Narcissus.
SPEAKER_01: He was a well-known man who served the Emperor Claudius.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible, Paul, when Paul points to him, he doesn't point to him exactly, but but he kind of says this phrase here.
SPEAKER_01: When he says, greet, he says, greet those who belong to his household.
SPEAKER_01: Why is that?
SPEAKER_01: Here's why.
SPEAKER_01: Because Narcissus committed suicide before the book of Romans was written.
SPEAKER_01: Why do I tell you that?
SPEAKER_01: Because the Bible is not full of perfect people and nuclear families.
SPEAKER_01: A lot of people believe that it was his suicide that led his family to kind of return to the faith, and from them for some of them to come to the faith.
SPEAKER_01: Because they saw a man who was very politically connected.
SPEAKER_01: He served the Emperor Claudius, had all the right connections, and yet he was so distraught that he ended his own life.
SPEAKER_01: So that's who Narcissus is.
SPEAKER_01: Last person, uh well, actually, there's two more Trafana and Trefosa.
SPEAKER_01: These were two freed slaves, two women.
SPEAKER_01: They were freed slaves.
SPEAKER_01: And best we can tell, they were of small stature.
SPEAKER_01: If you're under five feet tall, I'm talking to you right now.
SPEAKER_01: Because their names mean delicate and dainty.
SPEAKER_01: And yet the Bible says they worked hard.
SPEAKER_01: They worked hard.
SPEAKER_01: Last person I would point to is Rufus.
SPEAKER_01: Rufus was the son of Simon of Cyrene.
SPEAKER_01: That name ring a bell?
SPEAKER_01: Simon of Cyrene was the man when Jesus was walking to Golgotha and he was carrying what we believe to be the cross beam of the cross, and he stumbled and fell, and the soldiers took it off the back of him.
SPEAKER_01: They picked a guy out of the crowd.
SPEAKER_01: That was Simon of Cyrene.
SPEAKER_01: And that was Rufus' dad.
SPEAKER_01: Now, why do I tell you this random list of stuff?
SPEAKER_01: Because it's easy to kind of look at, and the power of us means that us is not just white Anglo-Saxon Protestants who walk the Fox News channel and vote Republican.
SPEAKER_01: Us is this eclectic mix of socioeconomic nationalities, different backgrounds, freed people, middle class people, rich people, poor people, people that were slaves and then have been liberated, men and women.
SPEAKER_01: 26 individuals, nine women, three house churches.
SPEAKER_01: Greet, greet, greet, greet.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what did we learn from this?
SPEAKER_01: Five things I want to give you, or actually four things I want to give you, and then one thing I want us to do.
SPEAKER_01: Are you still with me?
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: First thing I want to tell you, what do we take away from a list like this?
SPEAKER_01: When you get to, if someone said to me, a buddy of mine's like, hey, you're preaching through Romans.
SPEAKER_01: You get into Rome and say, What are you gonna do with that?
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna preach that passage.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, won't your people be bored?
SPEAKER_01: If I could come to this phone right now and slap you open-handed, I would.
SPEAKER_01: And this guy pastors a church.
SPEAKER_01: And he hops from verse to verse to verse.
SPEAKER_01: I said, here's the thing with you, my man, you're addicted to creativity.
SPEAKER_01: And you're gonna you're gonna have a church full of people who are ignorant of the content of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you four things you take away from a list like this.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, nobody does it alone.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody does it alone.
SPEAKER_01: Paul, this and I mean, one of the one of the most consequential people who ever lived.
SPEAKER_01: He had the support team around him at all times.
SPEAKER_01: And some of these people saw that he had money, food, shelter, support, safety.
SPEAKER_01: They would go get him out of a mob and kind of sneak him out so they wouldn't lynch him.
SPEAKER_01: And you say, Well, what do you mean nobody does it alone?
SPEAKER_01: It's one of the reasons that in the next couple weeks you'll start seeing something like this show up at all our connection centers around here.
SPEAKER_01: And there'll be a portion of our website that says has this on it.
SPEAKER_01: And it says, you can't see it out there, it says, find your place.
SPEAKER_01: And you'll open it up, and on the inside, there'll be over 25 different ways you can get involved here at this church, all the way from volunteering to answer the phone on Fridays.
SPEAKER_01: We uh we let our uh ministry coordinator, Amy, have Friday off, and we use volunteers.
SPEAKER_01: All you gotta be able to do is pick up the phone and say, Good morning, Grand Parkway.
SPEAKER_01: How can I help you?
SPEAKER_01: Let's all try that together.
SPEAKER_01: Good morning, Grand Parkway.
SPEAKER_01: How may I help you?
SPEAKER_01: You you you're you're qualified.
SPEAKER_01: Finding your place, because you see, the power of us is not, you know, everybody watching some.
SPEAKER_01: The power of us means that we all have a gift and the capacity and the opportunity.
SPEAKER_01: And when gift and capacity meet opportunity, then the church becomes the church.
SPEAKER_01: Like this past week, I've I've been talking to some friends of ours that live back here in Shawlake Estates, and they put up a big there.
SPEAKER_01: Their house is one of those that's right across from our warehouse, our student ministry building back there.
SPEAKER_01: And like we had a bridge, which is the fourth and fifth, excuse me, fifth and sixth graders, they had a bridge lock-in on Friday night.
SPEAKER_01: And so my daughter's back there, and my oldest daughter was one of the kids that worked the thing.
SPEAKER_01: And I looked at my wife, I was like, Oh, we got no kids tonight.
SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
SPEAKER_01: She said, Well, they don't have to go till nine o'clock.
SPEAKER_01: Why can't this thing start at 5:30?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, let's get the party going here.
SPEAKER_01: No, nine o'clock.
SPEAKER_01: By the time my wife brought them, dropped them off, and got back, I was like, I'm really sleepy, I'm gonna go to bed.
SPEAKER_01: Uh but they were up all night.
SPEAKER_01: And so we got some friends that live back here.
SPEAKER_01: They put up a fence in their yard just to kind of keep the light and sound down, and their homeowners association come along and said, You can't do that.
SPEAKER_01: Don't you love your homeowners association?
SPEAKER_01: I'm not making fun of the homeowner's association.
SPEAKER_01: Relate some of you like, uh-uh.
SPEAKER_01: I got a letter because I left my trash can out for four hours past the deadline.
SPEAKER_01: So I wrote them back on the back of the letter, is this all you really have to do in life?
SPEAKER_01: And they wrote me a letter back and said, Mr.
SPEAKER_01: McClendon, next time you'll be fined.
SPEAKER_01: And I wrote them back and said, take it out of my homeowners association dues, which by the way, we've not built anything new, and these things keep going up.
SPEAKER_01: Got some fuzzy math here, fellas.
SPEAKER_01: But my friend said, Hey, I gotta abide by the rules.
SPEAKER_01: I built this fence, I didn't check them HOA, but listen, I want to take it down.
SPEAKER_01: Would you be open to putting it up on the church property?
SPEAKER_01: I said, Hey, I want to be a double winner.
SPEAKER_01: I want to win, and I want you to win.
SPEAKER_01: So I am the proud owner of about 120 feet of fence, not like fence in your backyard, my backyard.
SPEAKER_01: That bad boy's about 12 to 15 feet high.
SPEAKER_01: It's like the Great Wall of China back there.
SPEAKER_01: And it's cut up in sections.
SPEAKER_01: And so what we got to do is take those sections, move it over here on our property, beyond the fence line, because I want to respect Child Lake Estates.
SPEAKER_01: Those people, hey, they they spent money on those houses.
SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't like it if somebody came in and put lights and stuff right next to you.
SPEAKER_01: And so I said, hey, we want to do this, we want to be a good neighbor.
SPEAKER_01: He said, I think this would be a good neighbor.
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm the now proud owner of a fence that I don't know how to put up, but it's got to be put up.
SPEAKER_01: So I'll be sending an email out tomorrow or today or tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01: And if I all of you, men and women, you can mix concrete, you got strong backs, you want equal rights.
SPEAKER_01: Well, here they are.
SPEAKER_01: Bam! Get you some of that.
SPEAKER_01: And so we're gonna put fence posts in the ground.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how it's gonna happen, but it we now own the fence, and and I want to bless the people over there, and I want to do it right.
SPEAKER_01: And so I'll be sending an email, some guy come up to me after the first service and said, Hey man, I got a lot of power tools.
SPEAKER_01: All men have power tools, you just don't use them.
SPEAKER_01: I'm giving you an opportunity to use your tools.
SPEAKER_01: Thank me later.
SPEAKER_01: What I mean, why am I saying that?
SPEAKER_01: Because nobody does it alone.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody does it.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Not Paul, not me, not any of us.
SPEAKER_01: Second thing we take away is this is that women have always played a role, and I would say a key role in the church.
SPEAKER_01: Women have always played a role and a key role in the church.
SPEAKER_01: Here's my fear that we never really say what the Bible says about the role of women in the church because we're afraid what somebody may take away, what somebody might think we're saying.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna waste any time telling you, well, I'm not saying this, I'm not saying this.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna spend my time saying this.
SPEAKER_01: Women have always played a key role in the church.
SPEAKER_01: They just have.
SPEAKER_01: And again, I'm not gonna, oh well, but look, be careful.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying, I'm saying women have always been a part of what God has been doing.
SPEAKER_01: I have friends of mine that are kind of like, well, you know, what are you gonna do?
SPEAKER_01: Listen, I I've heard horror stories, okay?
SPEAKER_01: I know women that that, because we preach the Bible and we say, hey, well, God calls you into ministry or God this, and I know a woman came forward in her church and said to her, Pastor, I think God's called me into ministry, and I come to surrender to full time Christian ministry.
SPEAKER_01: And when they presented her to the congregation, they said, She comes today to rededicate her life.
SPEAKER_01: That would never happen to a man.
SPEAKER_01: If that was a man, we'd put him on our shoulders and parade him around the building.
SPEAKER_01: He surrendered to missions.
SPEAKER_01: She came to rededicate her life.
SPEAKER_01: And so, here Here's what I want to say to you.
SPEAKER_01: I'll make it very clear.
SPEAKER_01: If you're a woman, if you're a female of any age, I want you to stand up right now.
SPEAKER_01: I love y'all like, what are you doing?
SPEAKER_01: Y'all look around like who's who's gonna go first?
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
SPEAKER_01: Stand up.
SPEAKER_01: What is your name right here?
SPEAKER_01: How old are you right here in the front row, sweetie?
SPEAKER_01: How old is she?
SPEAKER_01: Seven.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna ask you how old you are.
SPEAKER_01: I'll ask you.
SPEAKER_01: Seventeen.
SPEAKER_01: There we go.
SPEAKER_01: Seven, seventeen, seventy.
SPEAKER_01: Let me say this to you, okay?
SPEAKER_01: First of all, you're made in God's image.
SPEAKER_01: You're not, if you're a woman, if you're a single woman, you're not waiting for a man to come along and validate your existence.
SPEAKER_01: If you're a teenager, you don't need a boyfriend to make you whole, okay?
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing lacking about you.
SPEAKER_01: You're made in God's image, you're gifted, you're created, you're capable, and you're able.
SPEAKER_01: God has always used you in his work, and he is always going to use you in his work.
SPEAKER_01: And so this is a church that recognizes that you have gifts, and because you have gifts, you will always have opportunities to exercise those gifts in this church, okay?
SPEAKER_01: I just want you to know that.
SPEAKER_01: All right?
SPEAKER_01: You may have a seat.
SPEAKER_01: The third thing the passage like this tells us, we good?
SPEAKER_01: We got any questions about what just happened?
SPEAKER_01: Don't go out of here and go, well, he just ordained all the women in the room.
SPEAKER_01: I know how you think, monkeys.
SPEAKER_01: We gotta find a different church now.
SPEAKER_01: This boy's gone liberal.
SPEAKER_01: No, I believe the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: I believe the Bible from Genesis to Maps, okay?
SPEAKER_01: I do.
SPEAKER_01: Genesis is in the front, maps is in the back.
SPEAKER_01: There you go.
SPEAKER_01: Third thing we take away from this right here is that the Bible was written for ordinary people.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible was written for ordinary people.
SPEAKER_01: I told you earlier we broke it into three big sections.
SPEAKER_01: We did Romans 1 to 8.
SPEAKER_01: Man, we love that.
SPEAKER_01: There's therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Amen, preacher.
SPEAKER_01: We got into Romans 9, 10, and 11, and some of you are stripping gears.
SPEAKER_01: Because we talked about things like the doctrine of election.
SPEAKER_01: Remember that?
SPEAKER_01: Those whom he foreknew who also predestined to be conformed to his image.
SPEAKER_01: Or what are you saying?
SPEAKER_01: Are you a Calvinist?
SPEAKER_01: Nope.
SPEAKER_01: I'm a biblicist.
SPEAKER_01: I believe the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: I believe Romans 9.
SPEAKER_01: I believe Romans 10 and verse 13, where it says, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
SPEAKER_01: I nominate everybody I come into contact with, and I ask God to elect them all.
SPEAKER_01: But see, the doctrine of religion gives me great confidence in evangelism because it doesn't rest on me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not trying to close the deal to try to meet some quota back at headquarters.
SPEAKER_01: I can just tell people, hey man, God's crazy about you.
SPEAKER_01: And when the Bible says in Romans 5, where sin did abound, grace did abound all the more.
SPEAKER_01: Talked to a fellow here in our city not long ago, and he said, Well, you know, I probably not the best person you've ever talked to.
SPEAKER_01: I said, Let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_01: One of the most wickedly sinful and selfish people who deserves to go to hell on a roller coaster, I see in the mirror every morning when I shave.
SPEAKER_01: I said, put your eyebrows down.
SPEAKER_01: He goes, but you're the pastor of the church.
SPEAKER_01: Do you want to know what kind of church I have?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, maybe I wouldn't feel so bad if I came.
SPEAKER_01: It's full of sinners.
SPEAKER_01: And most of them have been redeemed and they're no longer sinners.
SPEAKER_01: They're now saints.
SPEAKER_01: They're the sons and daughters of God.
SPEAKER_01: And I tell him all the time, you should be burning in hell right now, but instead, you get mercy.
SPEAKER_01: He looked at me and he said, Man, that sounds so good.
SPEAKER_01: We didn't have a conversation about the intricacies of the doctrine of soterology of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: I said, What does mercy feel like to you?
SPEAKER_01: He said, like a hot bath.
SPEAKER_01: I said, Shake on it.
SPEAKER_01: He goes, It's over?
SPEAKER_01: I said, Yep.
SPEAKER_01: That's all the spiritual conversation you get.
SPEAKER_01: Well, you come in here very often.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, there's not a Starbucks in this city I don't come into.
SPEAKER_01: You lost your mind?
SPEAKER_01: He said, Well, maybe we could talk some more.
SPEAKER_01: When's the last time you had a spiritual conversation with somebody and ended with them saying, Maybe we could talk some more?
SPEAKER_01: I said, Every time we talk, you know this.
SPEAKER_01: There's a man that loves me and believes God died on the cross as payment for all my sins.
SPEAKER_01: Golly.
SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
SPEAKER_01: It's true.
SPEAKER_01: So what I mean the Bible's written for ordinary people.
SPEAKER_01: Those things that you got to think about and grapple with, that's written for you.
SPEAKER_01: People like Rufus and Aristobulus and Phoebe and Mary who worked hard.
SPEAKER_01: It's written for you.
SPEAKER_01: It's not written for smart people.
SPEAKER_01: It's not written for a bunch of preachers.
SPEAKER_01: It's written for people like you who live nitty, gritty lives, who have hard conversations with your in-laws.
SPEAKER_01: My in-laws call and say, we're thinking about coming this summer for about a week.
SPEAKER_01: How about three days?
SPEAKER_01: Let's negotiate.
SPEAKER_01: It's just, hey, suck it up and don't be selfish, Neil.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: Fourth thing we take away from a passage like this is that the church succeeds as its members sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: The church succeeds as its members sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: You say, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: Look at the language that Paul uses to describe these people, what they did.
SPEAKER_01: He says things like this, my fellow workers who risk their necks for my life.
SPEAKER_01: Greet Mary, who's worked hard for you.
SPEAKER_01: Urbanis, our fellow worker in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And over and over and over, this person worked hard.
SPEAKER_01: This person did this.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what I'm saying: hard work, risk, danger, and sacrifice have always been a part of biblical Christianity.
SPEAKER_01: And those who lead should be the first ones to model it.
SPEAKER_01: And so here's the part where I get angry, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Where are the hardworking risk takers in ministry?
SPEAKER_01: Where are those people?
SPEAKER_01: Because here's the deal.
SPEAKER_01: All through the Bible, you see, especially Paul talking about what he did so he wouldn't be a burden to people.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I worked hard to provide for my own means.
SPEAKER_01: And you say, Well, what's got you off on this?
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a big social media person.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying it's good or bad or anything.
SPEAKER_01: It's just not something I have a whole lot of time for.
SPEAKER_01: My wife is on Facebook.
SPEAKER_01: She thinks I hate Facebook, and so she never misses an opportunity to kind of jab me about Facebook.
SPEAKER_01: And so, as you know, this past week, our friend Russell Russell, the man that's so nice, they named him twice.
SPEAKER_01: Uh that is his real name, by the way.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, Russell died unexpectedly of a heart attack on a business trip.
SPEAKER_01: And so uh my wife said, You would not believe some of the things on Facebook people written about Russell.
SPEAKER_01: Some greenhorn ranch hand down in South Texas said that guy would come and set up deer feeders.
SPEAKER_01: He had a couple businesses.
SPEAKER_01: One of them he sold uh uh deer feeders and deer stands.
SPEAKER_01: And some of you just you that's the first thing you heard me say all morning right there.
SPEAKER_01: Your little ears perked up, like, huh?
SPEAKER_01: And so he would deliver these nice deer stands, and he the guy said, I was just a greenhorn ranch hand, and that man treated me so nice and kind of took me in and taught me how to be a ranch hand.
SPEAKER_01: That's Russell Russell.
SPEAKER_01: And there's just a litany of things.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the thing you could read every one of them, and there's none of them on there you'd look at and go, What?
SPEAKER_01: You know when some people die and people get up and lie about them at a funeral, you're like, uh, who's in that gasket?
SPEAKER_01: Because that ain't the cat I knew.
SPEAKER_01: He was a great man, loved his wife, his kids, and was a good churchman.
SPEAKER_01: You can read every one of the things on Facebook about Russell Russell, and every one of them is true.
SPEAKER_01: And then there's things on Facebook that make your pastor lose my peripheral vision, and my heart just starts pounding in my chest like some pastor posted a blog and it started going around Facebook.
SPEAKER_01: Ten things you can do to bless your pastor's wife.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
SPEAKER_01: Huh?
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: And one of them was uh take her to lunch and listen to her pour out her heart.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, goofball, shouldn't your pastor's wife, shouldn't the wife of the pastor be doing that for the people in the church?
SPEAKER_01: One of them, here's where I just pulled my hair out.
SPEAKER_01: I had hair last week.
SPEAKER_01: I don't have it anymore.
SPEAKER_01: I was just like, Holly! He said, one of them on the list, there's ten things on the list, and one of them was offer to babysit her children for free.
SPEAKER_01: You selfish pig.
SPEAKER_01: Are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_01: Did anybody offer to babysit your kids for free this week?
SPEAKER_01: Hey, I don't get any special privileges just because I'm the pastor of the church.
SPEAKER_01: Matter of fact, the Bible says I should work harder than all of you at this.
SPEAKER_01: That's what makes me angry.
SPEAKER_01: I got angry that I didn't sin.
SPEAKER_01: My wife said, You're getting close to sinning.
SPEAKER_01: Because I was trying to find out where this man's church was so I could pay him a pastoral visit.
SPEAKER_01: I got a broken off axe handle under the seat of my truck.
SPEAKER_01: I just wanted to walk in there.
SPEAKER_01: If you believe in the hereafter, you know what I'm hereafter.
SPEAKER_01: Skippy.
SPEAKER_01: Stop writing goofy things about how everybody gotta serve you and your wife and how you got it so hard.
SPEAKER_01: Ministry is hard.
SPEAKER_01: Suck it up.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a life of entitlement, it's a life of service.
SPEAKER_01: You should go home tired most days.
SPEAKER_01: Don't you go home tired from your job most days?
SPEAKER_01: I'm just, gosh, could we just give here's what my wife got into my says, I bet he wears skinny jeans.
SPEAKER_01: My wife was cooking supper and she said, uh, you're getting.
SPEAKER_01: And I bet he's got a faux hawk and some toms on.
SPEAKER_01: And I bet when he preaches, he sits at a table and converses with his people.
SPEAKER_01: Now you're crossing the line.
SPEAKER_01: There's a line.
SPEAKER_01: Where's the line?
SPEAKER_01: I don't see any line.
SPEAKER_01: Just let me just say this.
SPEAKER_01: You got that, and then you got this.
SPEAKER_01: I just want to read from the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Can I just read from the Bible?
SPEAKER_01: Acts chapter 20.
SPEAKER_01: Because I know when I talk like this, some of you people are like, ooh, I like you, but sometimes you get angry.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I don't sin.
SPEAKER_01: You should get angry.
SPEAKER_01: I was at a red light yesterday, right on Highway 6, and some people out with the big banner said, traditional marriage, one man and one equals one man and one woman.
SPEAKER_01: Honk if you support this.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm at a red light full of cars on highway six.
SPEAKER_01: No one's honking.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, hello! We're afraid.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, hey, we've created a country where the only people that have rights are the gay community.
SPEAKER_01: Be careful.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, we we we we don't hate on that.
SPEAKER_01: Anyone that struggles with same-sex attractions, welcome to this church.
SPEAKER_01: You're not a second-class citizen?
SPEAKER_01: The fall condemned us all to some form of sin.
SPEAKER_01: So I just honked.
SPEAKER_01: Then other people started honking.
SPEAKER_01: I was just kind of like, hey, let's not be so neutral that we don't stand for something.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says this in Acts chapter 20, verse 7, on the first day.
SPEAKER_01: This is just about work.
SPEAKER_01: Just indulge me.
SPEAKER_01: On the first day of the week when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked to them.
SPEAKER_01: Excuse me, verse 17.
SPEAKER_01: I've started way too early.
SPEAKER_01: See, I'm I'm still angry.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm not sinning.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Now from my latest, he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him.
SPEAKER_01: And when they came to him, he said to them, You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time, from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears, and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews, how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, and not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me that in every city that people should watch your kids and take your wife to lunch.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: He says, except the Holy Spirit testifies to me that in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me.
SPEAKER_01: But I do not account my life of any value, nor is precious to myself.
SPEAKER_01: If only I may finish my course in the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.
SPEAKER_01: And now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.
SPEAKER_01: What he said there, if you go to hell, your blood ain't on my hands.
SPEAKER_01: I told you people the truth.
SPEAKER_01: That's what he's saying there.
SPEAKER_01: For I did not shrink, verse 27, from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.
SPEAKER_01: Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.
SPEAKER_01: I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease, night or day, to admonish everyone with tears.
SPEAKER_01: And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.
SPEAKER_01: I coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel.
SPEAKER_01: You yourselves know that these hands minister to my necessities and to those who are with me.
SPEAKER_01: And all these things I've shown you that by working hard, if you're considering ministry, let me just say it involves working hard.
SPEAKER_01: It always has and it always will.
SPEAKER_01: And all these things I've shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, it is more blessed to give than to receive.
SPEAKER_01: That's why I got angry.
SPEAKER_01: Because Jesus says it's more blessed to give than receive.
SPEAKER_01: You can't stand up and say, love me, help me, bless me.
SPEAKER_01: Here's a list of ways you can bless my wife.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, goofball, you should be blessing your people.
SPEAKER_01: And so when my wife said, I think you've met your quota of words for the next 24 hours, I observed a day of fasting from speaking.
SPEAKER_01: And when the silence was over, I looked at my wife and said, He's still a goofball.
SPEAKER_01: And she said, I think you're done.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Yes, ma'am.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you're not married, I know you're like, I'll tell you what, boy.
SPEAKER_01: The most formative thing you can do is get married and stay with that woman for a long time.
SPEAKER_01: Because after a while, she got you figured out.
SPEAKER_01: By six months in, she's gonna have you drinking skim milk.
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna be, I ain't drinking no skim, I'm a man.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're gonna drink that skim milk and like it.
SPEAKER_01: Then bacon's gonna disappear from your house.
SPEAKER_01: They're gonna have fruit and yogurt.
SPEAKER_01: And you're gonna mumble about it, but you're gonna eat it.
SPEAKER_01: And she's gonna say, it's just because I care for you.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, well, whatever.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the last thing I want to say to you today.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the fifth point.
SPEAKER_01: There's a pattern of following here.
SPEAKER_01: What is that?
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 16.
SPEAKER_01: He says, and some of the let me let me get back here in Romans.
SPEAKER_01: I'm over here in Acts.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 16 of Acts, Romans 16, greet one another with a holy kiss, and all the churches of Christ greet you.
SPEAKER_01: Like, where are you going with this?
SPEAKER_01: Now the Bible says that's the way they that they greeted each other.
SPEAKER_01: They kind of did the and my wife lived in England for a while and did mission work over there.
SPEAKER_01: And we went back and visited, and that's they still do that on both sides.
SPEAKER_01: And some of those women, they kiss my wife on the mouth.
SPEAKER_01: I was like, that's jacked up.
SPEAKER_01: Mmm.
SPEAKER_01: And she's like, don't make a face.
SPEAKER_01: No, that ain't normal.
SPEAKER_01: Like some of those women were old, and I was like, that woman's so wrinkled, could you find her mouth?
SPEAKER_01: Really?
SPEAKER_01: So I walk in those churches with my hand out.
SPEAKER_01: Good to see you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm from America, the United States.
SPEAKER_01: We don't do this.
SPEAKER_01: And they would just walk right past my arm and the Bible says, greet, greet, greet, greet.
SPEAKER_01: What it's saying is acknowledge and enjoy.
SPEAKER_01: Acknowledge and get to know this person to the point you have the capacity to enjoy them.
SPEAKER_01: See, the power of us means that us, you you kind of know the us around us.
SPEAKER_01: So here's what we're gonna do.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna have a little application to the sermon.
SPEAKER_01: And this is gonna be good because this service is usually pretty full.
SPEAKER_01: But here's what I want you to do: put your Bibles down, put your pens down.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the Bible says greet one another.
SPEAKER_01: So here's what we're gonna do for the next five minutes.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, the sermon's not over.
SPEAKER_01: You can't sneak out because I see you sneaking out, I'm gonna call you down.
SPEAKER_01: Ronnie Joseph, get back here.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the deal.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to greet each other.
SPEAKER_01: So stand up, everybody.
SPEAKER_01: Stand up.
SPEAKER_01: Now, by the way, when I say greet, what I do not mean is just turn around and go, hi, nice to meet you.
SPEAKER_01: Nice to meet you.
SPEAKER_01: We're done, honey.
SPEAKER_01: Sit back down.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna play you some greeting music.
SPEAKER_01: You can walk all over the room, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Because, hey, service is not over.
SPEAKER_01: It's rude to leave for the service is over.
SPEAKER_01: All right?
SPEAKER_01: Let's do what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: Let's greet one another.
SPEAKER_01: Go.
SPEAKER_01: That's enough greeting for now.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_01: Hell is now over.
SPEAKER_01: I go home to get a holy kiss.
SPEAKER_01: I don't come here.
SPEAKER_01: Now, let me acknowledge something.
SPEAKER_01: If you're our guest today, we don't do this every Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: Matter of fact, we've never done that.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are kind of like, pinch the baby, we're out of here.
SPEAKER_01: Here's why I do that.
SPEAKER_01: Because when I read the Bible, I just think, let's do what the Bible does.
SPEAKER_01: Let's say what the Bible says and do it when the Bible says, greet one another.
SPEAKER_01: If I want to talk about the power of us, it helps us to know who us is.
SPEAKER_01: Think about that.
SPEAKER_01: It helps us to know who us is.
SPEAKER_01: Not just people you there are beautifully textured people in this room.
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to know them, okay?
SPEAKER_01: You're made in God's image.
SPEAKER_01: You're not an accident.
SPEAKER_01: You're purposed, intended people.
SPEAKER_01: He so trusts you that he's entrusted his mission of redemption in this world to you.
SPEAKER_01: Depart now and fulfill your role in God's mission in this world.
SPEAKER_01: In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Bless you.
SPEAKER_01: You're dismissed.