WEBVTT 00:00:06.849 --> 00:00:07.511 Hello everyone. 00:00:07.511 --> 00:00:08.872 This is Pastor Benjamin. 00:00:08.872 --> 00:00:11.903 You're listening to the sermon audio from New City, orlando. 00:00:11.903 --> 00:00:15.311 At New City, we long to see our Father answer the Lord's prayer. 00:00:15.311 --> 00:00:18.246 For more resources, visit our website at newcityorlando. 00:00:18.246 --> 00:00:19.931 com 00:00:22.140 --> 00:00:22.562 Good morning. 00:00:22.562 --> 00:00:26.893 Please join me in the prayer of illumination as we ask the Holy Spirit to open our hearts. 00:00:26.893 --> 00:00:31.184 Heavenly Father, we wish to see Jesus. 00:00:31.184 --> 00:00:35.851 By your Spirit's power, give us eyes to see his glory. 00:00:35.851 --> 00:00:38.496 Through Christ, we pray, amen. 00:00:38.496 --> 00:00:43.731 Today's scripture reading comes from 1 John 4, verses 7 through 13. 00:00:43.731 --> 00:00:51.503 Reading comes from 1 John 4, verses 7 through 13. 00:00:51.503 --> 00:00:54.171 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 00:00:54.171 --> 00:00:57.283 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 00:00:57.283 --> 00:01:06.242 In this, the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him In this love. 00:01:06.242 --> 00:01:08.644 Not that we have loved God, but this is God in us. 00:01:08.644 --> 00:01:27.686 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his spirit. 00:01:27.686 --> 00:01:28.971 This is God's word. 00:01:31.625 --> 00:01:32.167 Well, good morning. 00:01:32.167 --> 00:01:34.371 There you go. 00:01:34.371 --> 00:01:34.993 That's pretty good. 00:01:34.993 --> 00:01:43.085 My name is Jason, I'm one of the pastors here at New City and, as Ben has already said, we are in a series in August we do our vision series. 00:01:43.085 --> 00:01:44.628 We are in a series in August. 00:01:44.628 --> 00:02:06.242 We do our vision series both in August but also in January, and we did something similar we preached through communion, community and commission in January and we're doing that again this August, and so that's where we're headed today, and I'm going to be talking about community, as Ben already said, and Josh does such a good job talking about how we want to be known and loved in this community. 00:02:07.424 --> 00:02:18.465 Now, before I was a pastor, I was an engineer, so that's why I get to talk about pivot tables and different things up here, and my daughter recently asked she had a math problem and she's like, hey, hold on. 00:02:18.465 --> 00:02:36.788 I got to go talk to mom about this she's the one who can teach me about this math problem and then I had to just inform her that, as an engineer, I took lots and lots and lots of math in high school but also in college, and that I do a thing or two about math, and she tried to give me an opportunity to do that. 00:02:36.788 --> 00:02:45.573 Well, one of the things that I've learned in mathematics is that you have to always define your terms. 00:02:45.573 --> 00:02:50.329 You can't make sense of the formula unless you define the terms in it. 00:02:50.329 --> 00:02:53.385 That's gonna help you understand the work that you need to do. 00:02:53.385 --> 00:03:00.706 And so the formula for New City is our vision and it's our mission, and we just heard it right with the kids up here. 00:03:00.706 --> 00:03:08.743 Our vision is what Is to see the Father answer the Lord's prayer, and how are we going to accomplish that vision? 00:03:08.743 --> 00:03:14.783 We're going to accomplish that vision by calling, forming and sending disciple makers. 00:03:14.783 --> 00:03:36.687 So in this series here in the month of August, we are trying to define the term of what a disciple is, and we're trying I mean, we've defined it this way and I think there's a slide for this Disciples are those who are united to Jesus, in communion with God, community with one another and commission for the world. 00:03:36.687 --> 00:03:38.992 So this is our definition. 00:03:38.992 --> 00:03:48.506 We're defining the terms of what a disciple is, and so that's where we're at here in the series, and I'm jumping into that middle part community with one another. 00:03:48.506 --> 00:03:53.262 So that's where we're at, and let me just jump in Now. 00:03:53.502 --> 00:03:57.617 I thought about starting this sermon in two different ways to talk about community. 00:03:57.617 --> 00:04:02.533 I could tell you about all the stats of loneliness that we've experienced. 00:04:02.533 --> 00:04:07.366 30% of you in the room probably experienced significant loneliness even in this last week. 00:04:07.366 --> 00:04:08.669 I could talk about that. 00:04:08.669 --> 00:04:23.303 I could talk about the pandemic of isolation that we find ourselves in, and I could describe the fact that we have lost connection with those around us, that we don't truly know our neighbors or feel loved by those around us. 00:04:23.303 --> 00:04:27.548 So that's one way I thought I could start the sermon and I kind of just did. 00:04:27.990 --> 00:04:36.853 But I thought the better way, the better way to start the sermon would be with something positive, something to draw you in, something like honey. 00:04:36.853 --> 00:04:41.761 I say this sometimes to Ben, I said we need to use honey and not vinegar when we're leading our people. 00:04:41.761 --> 00:04:49.346 We want to draw people into a mission together, into community together, and so what's the honey today? 00:04:49.346 --> 00:05:00.180 It is the beauty of our triune God, and so, kind of on that theme of beauty, I want you guys to think about something. 00:05:00.180 --> 00:05:12.752 Think about what's been truly beautiful, what has captured your heart, what captures your emotions, your desires, what has struck you in this awestruck kind of form of beauty? 00:05:12.752 --> 00:05:20.781 Well, since I was preaching this Sunday and that we had our all-staff retreat this last week, a 24-hour retreat. 00:05:20.781 --> 00:05:21.762 We weren't gone the whole week. 00:05:22.783 --> 00:05:27.930 I asked the question, I pulled the staff, I said, hey, where have you experienced beauty? 00:05:27.930 --> 00:05:31.216 And they answered it in like two different categories. 00:05:31.216 --> 00:05:47.788 One category, the first category, was an area of creation, and we all know this type of beauty right, if you have traveled in the United States or have traveled the world, like places like Yosemite or the Rocky Mountains, there's just awestruck beauty of God's creation. 00:05:47.788 --> 00:05:52.500 We also talked about sunrises and sunsets, because we're on the beach. 00:05:52.500 --> 00:06:00.523 The other category that kind of came up was the one of beauty in relationships, and you guys know this type of beauty too. 00:06:00.523 --> 00:06:05.233 It's when the child is first coming into the world and they breathe their first breath. 00:06:05.233 --> 00:06:10.797 There is something majestic about that, there is something beautiful about that. 00:06:10.797 --> 00:06:14.605 It's your bride dressed in all white on your wedding day. 00:06:14.605 --> 00:06:25.834 And for me, as I reflected on that question of where I've experienced beauty, it's where I've experienced beauty is in the love of a father for their child. 00:06:27.079 --> 00:06:34.269 Simone Bay, a French philosopher at the turn of the century, she says this there are only two things that pierce the human heart. 00:06:34.269 --> 00:06:38.230 One is beauty and the other is affliction. 00:06:38.230 --> 00:06:58.670 And so what I want to reveal from our scripture today, reveal from God's word, is the beauty of our triune God Father, son and Holy Spirit, that our pursuit of community is in light of the beauty of the triune God, who experiences community together as the Father, son and Holy Spirit. 00:06:58.670 --> 00:07:13.064 And those are our two points the beauty of the Trinity and the beauty of our trying the beauty of community, excuse me, so look with me if you have a Bible or device. 00:07:13.064 --> 00:07:14.050 Starting in verse 7 of 1 John, chapter 4. 00:07:15.350 --> 00:07:26.670 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 00:07:26.670 --> 00:07:33.663 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 00:07:33.663 --> 00:07:38.598 So we see here there's two truths, really simple truths, in two short verses. 00:07:38.598 --> 00:07:47.040 The first truth is that love is from God, god is the source of all love. 00:07:47.040 --> 00:07:51.353 And the second truth is that God is love. 00:07:51.353 --> 00:07:57.221 God and his substance and his being and his character is love. 00:07:57.221 --> 00:08:07.930 Now let's pause for a moment on that second truth, because that's going to help you connect, or help me connect, truth to the beauty of who God is as the triune God. 00:08:07.930 --> 00:08:09.952 God is love. 00:08:09.952 --> 00:08:13.476 It doesn't say that God has love. 00:08:13.476 --> 00:08:20.764 It doesn't say that God is sometimes loving, but it says that God is love. 00:08:20.764 --> 00:08:27.877 It's in his very being, it's actually in his nature, in his ontology, it's who he is. 00:08:27.877 --> 00:08:29.901 God is love. 00:08:29.901 --> 00:08:36.898 So if he is love, then everything hinges on what type of God we worship. 00:08:37.899 --> 00:08:45.673 In Michael Reed's little book, delighting in the Trinity, he subtitles this and I forgot. 00:08:45.673 --> 00:08:47.298 I was going to bring it as a book giveaway but I have it in the car. 00:08:47.298 --> 00:08:51.052 So if you guys are desperate of a book about Trinity, come find me in the parking lot afterward and I'll give it to you. 00:08:51.052 --> 00:08:54.120 But Michael Reed he says Delighting in the Trinity. 00:08:54.120 --> 00:08:57.658 He subtitles it An Introduction to the Christian Faith. 00:08:59.243 --> 00:09:05.240 He belabors the point that the Christian God we worship is God the Father, god the Son and God the Holy Spirit. 00:09:05.240 --> 00:09:08.259 This is actually integral to our Christian faith. 00:09:08.259 --> 00:09:10.979 It's just not an add-on that someone created. 00:09:10.979 --> 00:09:15.000 But the Christian God is the God who is three in one, one in three. 00:09:15.000 --> 00:09:23.318 For 1,700 years Christians have been given voice to the mystery of the Trinity and we've been doing that every Sunday as we confess our faith together here. 00:09:23.318 --> 00:09:26.394 In a little bit we're going to confess through the Nicene Creed. 00:09:26.394 --> 00:09:37.178 So that's kind of why we've been doing that because we want you all to have a deep, rich theology that is Trinitarian in its nature and it's the anniversary of this year, so it's a big, big deal. 00:09:38.644 --> 00:09:42.654 But let me connect now that truth that God is love to beauty. 00:09:42.654 --> 00:09:51.339 It is only when you grasp that God is Trinity, three in one and one in three, that you really see the beauty of who our God is. 00:09:51.339 --> 00:10:00.164 Karl Barth says that the triunity of God, the Trinity, is actually the secret of his beauty. 00:10:00.164 --> 00:10:06.057 And we can also say from that first truth that the triunity of God is the source of all beauty. 00:10:06.057 --> 00:10:08.383 And we know this just through music. 00:10:08.383 --> 00:10:17.798 I'm not going to talk about music up here because I'm not a musician, but when you play a chord, right, it's three different notes but they're brought in together and it makes a beautiful sound. 00:10:17.798 --> 00:10:30.820 Or when your children or you see beautiful art in the Louvre or in the Orlando Museum of Art, there are multiple different colors that come together in a beautiful painting. 00:10:30.820 --> 00:10:37.601 So there is diversity and in that diversity there is unity and there is this beauty that is formed. 00:10:37.601 --> 00:10:43.596 There is unity and there is this beauty that is formed the three in one. 00:10:43.615 --> 00:10:44.418 So why is this important for us. 00:10:44.418 --> 00:10:52.441 The three in one existed before all creation in relationship, and out of that relationship between the Father, son and the Holy Spirit, they're overflowing love for one another. 00:10:52.441 --> 00:10:54.352 They're overflowing kindness toward each other. 00:10:54.352 --> 00:11:00.143 It has given to this self-communing expression of creation in the world. 00:11:00.143 --> 00:11:08.937 They didn't create because they needed something from us, but they created as an overflow, as a fountain of their love towards the world. 00:11:10.041 --> 00:11:19.403 And Dr Reeves he does an excellent job describing the pitfalls of a singular and not triune God by asking this simple question, and Josh alluded to this earlier. 00:11:19.403 --> 00:11:29.003 He says how can a solitary God be eternal and essentially loving when love involves loving another? 00:11:29.003 --> 00:11:36.379 So the beauty that we have is that our God is three in one and they have always existed and they love one another. 00:11:36.379 --> 00:11:42.655 The Trinity is the bright lane, it's the path that leads us into the beauty of God. 00:11:42.655 --> 00:11:51.725 It's not this abstract idea, this abstract force, but the loving communion of the three persons Father, son and Holy Spirit is perfect in fellowship. 00:11:51.725 --> 00:11:58.318 That loving communion has never been self-serving but has always existed to be self-giving. 00:11:58.318 --> 00:12:10.745 So let me ask you this question Does the beauty of our triune God, does that, move you, not just in theory but personally? 00:12:10.745 --> 00:12:16.979 Is your heart pierced by the beauty of the triune God. 00:12:16.979 --> 00:12:20.504 The reality is that we cannot love. 00:12:20.504 --> 00:12:26.197 We only choose to love the things that we find beautiful, the things that are desirable to us. 00:12:26.690 --> 00:12:38.581 In CS Lewis, in his little essay called the Way to Glory, he reminds us that we are all too far easily pleased with mud pies when infinite joy and beauty is offered to us as a holiday at the sea. 00:12:38.581 --> 00:12:39.980 And that's what I'm saying here, is the infinite joy and beauty of our to us as a holiday at the sea. 00:12:39.980 --> 00:12:43.759 And that's what I'm saying here Is the infinite joy and beauty of our God is the triune God. 00:12:43.759 --> 00:12:47.817 This is why King David asked for that beauty in Psalm 27.4. 00:12:47.817 --> 00:12:59.918 And I quote King David says One thing have I asked of the Lord that I will seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. 00:12:59.918 --> 00:13:01.302 To do what? 00:13:01.302 --> 00:13:06.000 To gaze upon the beauty of the Lord. 00:13:06.000 --> 00:13:10.059 So where do we gaze upon the beauty of the Trinity? 00:13:10.059 --> 00:13:12.798 Well, look down with me at verse 9. 00:13:12.798 --> 00:13:28.600 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 00:13:28.600 --> 00:13:31.758 How do we gaze upon the beauty of the Trinity. 00:13:31.758 --> 00:13:41.299 We gaze upon the beauty of the Trinity by gazing upon Jesus Christ, who was sent into the world by the Father so that we may live through him. 00:13:42.610 --> 00:13:47.522 Now, at the beginning, in terms of the different categories of beauty, I mentioned two. 00:13:47.522 --> 00:13:51.760 I mentioned the beauty of creation and I mentioned the beauty of relationship. 00:13:51.760 --> 00:13:55.059 But there's a third category of beauty that I want to talk about. 00:13:55.059 --> 00:14:04.639 It's called moral beauty, and a UC Berkeley report says that the greatest kind of beauty is in fact, this thing called moral beauty. 00:14:04.639 --> 00:14:14.335 It defines moral beauty as this exceptional virtue, character and ability marked by a purity and goodness of intention and action. 00:14:14.335 --> 00:14:20.912 The report goes on to say that, in fact, moral beauty is what actually transforms people's lives. 00:14:20.912 --> 00:14:40.322 And we see that if you keep reading in verse 10 here in our passage in this is love, not that we have loved god, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation, the satisfaction of god's judgment for our sins. 00:14:40.322 --> 00:14:55.504 And if you skip down with me actually to verse 13, because I'm trying to pull out the idea that Trinitarian theology is right here in this text, verse 13 says by this we know that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us his spirit. 00:14:55.504 --> 00:15:03.432 So the question is I think we all resonate with the idea of moral beauty as the greatest type of beauty. 00:15:04.936 --> 00:15:05.576 Let me tell you a story. 00:15:05.576 --> 00:15:07.721 A pastor has told this story before. 00:15:07.721 --> 00:15:12.018 There's two brothers kind of younger brothers who go out after lunch. 00:15:12.018 --> 00:15:30.440 They go out to the river and this is a big river that ebbs and flows and it creates these big sandbanks and so, as any young boy would do, you got to climb to the top of the hill and unfortunately, as they climbed to the top of the hill, their weight actually caused that sand dune to cave in and they were stuck. 00:15:30.440 --> 00:15:35.917 So they never made it back home and somebody good parents were like hey, where are the kids? 00:15:35.917 --> 00:15:45.181 They sent people to go search for the boys and what they found was the younger boy who was up to his head in sand. 00:15:45.181 --> 00:15:57.730 He was unconscious, so they started moving the sand away and then he awoke at some point when they got enough sand away where he could start breathing better, and they said, hey, they couldn't find the older brother. 00:15:57.730 --> 00:15:59.356 They said where is your older brother? 00:15:59.356 --> 00:16:06.897 And the child responded and said I am standing on his shoulders With the sacrifice of his own life. 00:16:06.897 --> 00:16:09.138 The older brother lifted up the younger one to safety. 00:16:09.138 --> 00:16:13.039 This is the tangible and sacrificial love of the older brother. 00:16:13.039 --> 00:16:16.299 He literally served as a foundation for the younger brother. 00:16:18.130 --> 00:16:19.162 Now, don't you understand that? 00:16:19.162 --> 00:16:22.936 That is the moral beauty we all seek for, the moral beauty that we want? 00:16:22.936 --> 00:16:28.716 And our text tells us that Jesus is the propitiation for our sins. 00:16:28.716 --> 00:16:35.333 That means that Jesus is the one who satisfies God's loving judgment for our sins. 00:16:35.333 --> 00:16:40.864 We stand on the shoulders of Jesus so that we don't longer have to be in the pit. 00:16:40.864 --> 00:16:48.701 We don't create love, but we actually receive and rest upon the one who is sent in love. 00:16:48.701 --> 00:16:51.371 This is the moral beauty that is for you. 00:16:51.371 --> 00:16:53.716 This is the moral beauty that is for me. 00:16:53.716 --> 00:16:59.544 Let that triunity of the Father, son and Holy Spirit be your source of love. 00:16:59.544 --> 00:17:04.201 Let them be the one who secures you in love. 00:17:05.309 --> 00:17:09.942 So how do we gaze upon the beauty of the triune God and let that pierce our hearts? 00:17:09.942 --> 00:17:16.498 Well, here at New City, we do that in numerous different ways, but one of the ways is we have eight different practices. 00:17:16.498 --> 00:17:24.117 We practice together as a community, four daily and four weekly practices, and it's up on the website. 00:17:24.117 --> 00:17:33.194 It's probably not behind me, but there's a great, a lot of good information that we have about how we do common practices together to build our love up for God and for our neighbor. 00:17:34.017 --> 00:17:44.862 And one of the practices that has been so impactful to me and Ben did not pay me to say this has been prayer, and particularly praying the Psalms every Wednesday from noon to two. 00:17:44.862 --> 00:17:53.459 And it's just opened my world up to who God is, the triune God, the beauty of the Trinity. 00:17:53.459 --> 00:17:57.480 It's opened up my world to know God as a father, because that's who he is. 00:17:57.480 --> 00:18:01.594 He's this self-giving, loving Father who gives to the Son. 00:18:01.594 --> 00:18:05.082 It's opened my world up to see who God the Son is. 00:18:05.082 --> 00:18:06.951 Jesus Christ is the beautiful one. 00:18:06.951 --> 00:18:09.901 He's the propitiation for our sins. 00:18:09.901 --> 00:18:40.682 Prayer has opened up my eyes to see God, the Holy Spirit, as the one who has been given to me to comfort me, to strengthen me, to support me so that I might abide in the triune God Beloved, let their beauty, father, son and Holy Spirit, captivate your soul, captivate your heart, and let their community, father, son and Holy Spirit, be the pattern for our community, a community that is self-giving, overflowing towards others in love. 00:18:40.682 --> 00:18:42.696 And that brings me to our second point. 00:18:43.650 --> 00:18:45.898 Turn with me to verse 11 and 12. 00:18:45.898 --> 00:18:55.876 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 00:18:55.876 --> 00:18:56.739 That's a command there. 00:18:56.739 --> 00:19:03.718 As we receive God's love, we then in return and respond to loving one another. 00:19:03.718 --> 00:19:07.013 Verse 12, no one has ever seen God. 00:19:07.013 --> 00:19:14.057 If we love one another, god abides in us and his love is perfected in us. 00:19:14.057 --> 00:19:16.642 God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. 00:19:16.642 --> 00:19:24.964 So the beauty of the community that we all have established here as Christ's body is meant to reflect the beauty of the Trinity. 00:19:24.964 --> 00:19:30.897 It's meant to reflect a love that goes out, a love that does not separate but goes to war. 00:19:32.384 --> 00:19:38.396 Teresa of Avalos states this Christ has no body on earth. 00:19:38.396 --> 00:19:41.247 But yours, no hands. 00:19:41.247 --> 00:19:43.874 But yours, no feet. 00:19:43.874 --> 00:19:51.151 But yours, yours, are the eyes through which the compassion of Christ must look out on the world. 00:19:51.151 --> 00:19:53.557 So yes, jesus still does have a body. 00:19:53.557 --> 00:19:58.253 We believe that it's ascended into heaven and he's seated at the right hand of God, the Father. 00:19:58.253 --> 00:20:01.755 But on earth his body is the church. 00:20:01.755 --> 00:20:03.387 Now look with me. 00:20:03.387 --> 00:20:06.772 At the beginning of verse 12 again, it says no eye has seen God. 00:20:07.885 --> 00:20:09.152 What is John doing here? 00:20:09.152 --> 00:20:11.085 It's kind of an odd sequitur. 00:20:11.085 --> 00:20:18.170 You could read those verses 11 through 12, like this Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 00:20:18.170 --> 00:20:19.674 Skip that part. 00:20:19.674 --> 00:20:22.093 If we love one another, see, it flows perfectly. 00:20:22.093 --> 00:20:25.134 God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. 00:20:25.134 --> 00:20:27.452 But John puts it here for a reason. 00:20:27.452 --> 00:20:34.473 He puts that phrase no one has ever seen God because he actually intends the beauty of our community. 00:20:34.473 --> 00:20:43.138 The love that we extend outward towards other people is where the invisible God actually becomes visible. 00:20:43.138 --> 00:20:47.132 God's love it says in verse 12, is perfected in us. 00:20:47.132 --> 00:20:52.553 Or better understood, god's love in us is matured as we are able to love others. 00:20:52.553 --> 00:20:57.869 The goal of God's love in us is to move outward toward our neighbors. 00:20:59.454 --> 00:21:01.582 Now let me tell you a story, a true one. 00:21:01.582 --> 00:21:06.720 This is another true story that I read recently and it was printed in a newspaper a while back. 00:21:06.720 --> 00:21:15.286 There was an older woman who lived in a neighborhood and she was surrounded by neighbors who you could say were not cruel neighborhood. 00:21:15.286 --> 00:21:19.439 And she was surrounded by neighbors who you could say were not cruel, but neighbors who were very responsible, like many of you all in here. 00:21:19.439 --> 00:21:36.211 Now, when the old woman's, this older elderly woman, when her grass got too high, they sent a boy over to mow her lawn, and when her water pipes broke, they sent somebody to turn off her water and fix those things, and when her mail on her front porch got a little bit too high, they finally called the police. 00:21:36.211 --> 00:21:43.430 They did everything except check on whether or not she was alive, and she wasn't. 00:21:43.430 --> 00:21:50.067 When the police finally entered her home, they found her remains just bones, buried under five feet of trash. 00:21:50.067 --> 00:21:51.387 She had been likely dead for four years. 00:21:51.387 --> 00:21:54.152 Buried under five feet of trash, she had been likely dead for four years. 00:21:54.152 --> 00:22:02.020 One of her neighbors, a woman who used to be close to her, said this she was alone and she needed someone to talk to. 00:22:02.020 --> 00:22:06.292 But I was working two jobs and I was sick of her coming over at odd hours. 00:22:06.292 --> 00:22:09.513 Eventually I just stopped answering the door. 00:22:11.907 --> 00:22:16.721 Friends, this is a tragic picture of what a community is, not a community. 00:22:16.721 --> 00:22:25.199 This community is not a beautiful community when neighbors do everything except truly know and love one another. 00:22:25.199 --> 00:22:42.557 Our text says when we are loved by God, we have to move out towards loving one another, not from a distance, not just responsibly, not just, but instead personally, sacrificially, attentively. 00:22:42.557 --> 00:22:47.132 Love is not a task, it's not a box to check. 00:22:47.132 --> 00:22:52.367 Love is an overflow of the love that we have received from God. 00:22:52.367 --> 00:22:56.798 So this is not just a sad story but it's a mirror. 00:22:56.798 --> 00:23:06.395 It shows us what happens when we believe community is responsibility without relationship, when we settle for proximity without presence. 00:23:06.395 --> 00:23:11.115 This actually tarnishes the beauty of community. 00:23:11.765 --> 00:23:13.746 Here are some diagnostic questions to ask yourselves if you have or are you giving this type of of community? 00:23:13.746 --> 00:23:17.828 Here are some diagnostic questions to ask yourselves if you have or are you giving this type of beautiful community? 00:23:17.828 --> 00:23:20.135 Here they are. 00:23:20.135 --> 00:23:27.253 Do you deliberately enter into another's joy or pain each week through personal connection? 00:23:27.253 --> 00:23:34.012 Do you seek ways to give love to others, your family, your neighbors? 00:23:34.012 --> 00:23:38.936 Jesus calls us in the Sermon on the Mount to your enemies on a daily and weekly rhythm. 00:23:38.936 --> 00:23:46.951 Do you have at least two friends who know the current season of your soul and you know theirs? 00:23:46.951 --> 00:24:06.060 So there's the diagnostic questions, and I don't know where you guys find yourselves in that, but we really, if you're in deficit which I don't know where you guys find yourselves in that but we really, if you're in deficit which I'm sometimes in deficit, if you long to be more known and more loved and also to extend that outwards in a beautiful community, we encourage you all. 00:24:06.060 --> 00:24:08.410 Find a community here at New City. 00:24:08.410 --> 00:24:09.993 You can open up the app. 00:24:09.993 --> 00:24:11.076 It's really easy to do that. 00:24:11.076 --> 00:24:14.955 You can go out these doors and, on the left, you can speak to someone at the connect table. 00:24:14.955 --> 00:24:25.211 But we long for all of you all to be in fellowship, to be in relationship with people who truly know and love you, and that you do that for them. 00:24:26.224 --> 00:24:27.411 Drew Holcomb has this song. 00:24:27.411 --> 00:24:31.013 He says you've got to find your people. 00:24:31.013 --> 00:24:35.846 That will call your bluff, who will ride along when the road is rough. 00:24:35.846 --> 00:24:37.228 You've so the song. 00:24:37.228 --> 00:24:38.249 I really love it. 00:24:38.249 --> 00:24:52.973 We sing it together as a family my family and I. 00:24:52.973 --> 00:24:57.770 But the point is that, yes, you have to find your people, but you can't just find your people. 00:24:57.770 --> 00:24:59.772 It actually takes work to build community. 00:25:01.306 --> 00:25:02.592 Now I'm going to close with this. 00:25:02.592 --> 00:25:05.474 I'm going to summarize where we're heading back to. 00:25:05.474 --> 00:25:11.407 So Ben talked about communion and I'm talking about community, and next week we're going to do commission. 00:25:11.407 --> 00:25:18.938 If we could put up that slide of the very last bullet, or not the bullet, but the picture of our defined disciple. 00:25:18.938 --> 00:25:20.000 There it is. 00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:30.915 So for those of you who weren't here last week, I'm sorry, but for those of you here this week, I'm going to summarize this real quickly. 00:25:30.915 --> 00:25:32.900 But, ben, already we talked about this. 00:25:38.865 --> 00:25:40.369 Our union with Christ is the centerpiece for our faith as a Christian. 00:25:40.369 --> 00:25:43.038 That union with Christ actually gets us into communion with the triune God Father, son and Holy Spirit. 00:25:43.038 --> 00:26:06.678 And as we commune with God, I'm trying to make the case that beautiful community is actually the community that leads us to loving, knowing and loving one another here in this community, and then we are sent out, called, formed, sent as disciple makers, as those who, in our work and our witness, are bringing the name of Jesus and God's kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven. 00:26:06.678 --> 00:26:11.034 And so one way that Ben talked about this was in relation to fruitfulness. 00:26:11.034 --> 00:26:21.686 We desire that all of you here at New City grow in your communion with God, the triune God, where you would receive and respond to that type of love that he's given you. 00:26:21.686 --> 00:26:32.487 We also want you to grow in your depth of community, where you are known and loved, and we want you to be sent out and commissioned to the world through your work and through your witness. 00:26:32.487 --> 00:26:42.695 The other way that we talked about that's a qualitative depth that we want all of us to experience here at New City is on the top, is kind of more qualitative, it's the numeric. 00:26:42.695 --> 00:26:51.798 We want to see people who are not yet disciples become disciples and then take on responsibility of sharing this type of community with one another. 00:26:51.798 --> 00:26:57.692 Ben is going to talk about this again next week and probably clarify a lot of what I just said. 00:26:59.346 --> 00:27:01.113 So, beloved, I want to kind of close with this. 00:27:01.113 --> 00:27:08.336 I want you, if anything, to remember from this sermon, I want you to behold the beauty of the triune God. 00:27:08.336 --> 00:27:25.198 God who is the loving Father, who sent his only Son to be a Savior for us, to be the propitiation for our sins, so we can have verse 13, the empowering, life-giving Spirit. 00:27:25.198 --> 00:27:35.837 The beauty of the Trinity is not only that God is love, but that we are loved and we are welcomed in to that communion with God. 00:27:35.837 --> 00:27:39.633 So let us pray to the beautiful triune God. 00:27:39.633 --> 00:27:53.211 Pray with me, father, we are grateful for your love for us in this that you sent your son, jesus, to ransom a people, to be a propitiation for our sins. 00:27:53.211 --> 00:27:56.578 Jesus, you are the faithful, promised one. 00:27:56.578 --> 00:28:01.174 You are the one who brought us to the triune God. 00:28:01.174 --> 00:28:03.106 Father, son and Spirit and Spirit. 00:28:03.106 --> 00:28:08.796 We ask that you would fill us up, that you would help us to love and encourage those around us. 00:28:08.796 --> 00:28:11.496 We give you the glory, Amen.