SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Point Community Church. My name is Nick, and I'm one of the pastors here at Point Community Church. It's a privilege to serve this awesome group of believers and seekers and those who are trying to find life in something, and we believe that life is found in Jesus Christ. And so whether you believe that yet or not, you are welcome here. And whether you have it all figured out, which no one does, but if you think you have it all figured out, or if you have lots of questions, this is a safe place to come with those questions. Because the truth is that life is confusing, it is challenging, it is difficult, and there are moments when we in our humanity just find ourselves at a loss. What do we do, God? Where do we go? Where do we turn? And uh and I hope you know that if you come here uh and you don't have it all together, uh it's okay. It's okay. Uh, because we have a Savior, Jesus Christ, who is in the uh taking all of us through a process of changing us and making us more and more like Him. Um I am excited about several things this morning as we get started. Uh, but one of them is as we have only been meeting now for about seven weeks is Point Community Church. Uh, it's hard to believe we're seven weeks in, uh, but Point Community Church is now seven weeks old, uh, and and and uh we're really grateful for what God is doing. He has changed many people's lives. We've seen people come to put their trust in Christ over the last seven weeks, and uh we see people serving uh others, and it's just awesome. Like the people that are serving the children right now, those with the preschool, if you've if you've not walked over to the preschool building, I encourage you just to go peek your head in there. Uh we have a lot of life around here. And uh and now that we have this portable over here, K through second grade is in there, and and hopefully next week, if everything goes according to plan, uh we'll have our third through fifth graders outside in a in a really cool, not not just outside uh in the in the elements, but outside under a really cool tent uh that we'll put there because we've got space challenges. Uh we're growing and God is bringing people and we have lots of kids, and uh we just want to say thanks be to God for that, right? And that uh we see this growth. But if you would like to know more about how you can be a part of Point Community Church, you're always welcome to attend here, like I said a while ago. But if you want to get involved at a deeper level, if you want to get invested, you want to start serving, you want to become a family member, uh then on March the 30th, here at the building at 5 o'clock, we have our next membership lab. And people are like, what's a membership lab? Uh, membership lab is just simply a time where we come together, it's a discussion, it's not a one-sided conversation, it's a it's a true discussion about who we are, what we believe, uh, how we're structured as a church, and kind of what are our what's the vision, mission, identity, rhythms of Point Community Church. And so we'd love to share that information with you to give you the opportunity to become a family member and to partner with us to reach every man, woman, and child with the life-changing reality of Jesus Christ. And as Hosway said, that is our mission to point people to life in Jesus, because he is the author of life. So, uh March 30th, mark your calendars for that if you're interested. You can sign up on the city, uh, you can sign up at the back there. Uh you can also um come and find me or one of the other pastors and let them know you'd like to come, and uh and we would love to host you that night. Well, I don't know if uh this is true of you or not, but there are a lot of Facebook addicts in the world around us. And uh anybody willing to raise your hand, actually say you're a Facebook addict? Okay, okay, good. There's a few honest people in here this morning. That's good, that's okay. Um the the statistics show us that 900 million users are on Facebook at least once a month. Yes, I said 900 million people get on Facebook at least once a month. Now, uh Facebook, by the way, and just in case you didn't know this, for those of us that are 30, 40, and 50, you know, it started out at colleges and it was intended to help college students connect. Well, it didn't stay there, but quickly expanded out, and now uh most people that are on Facebook are in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, and the young generation is actually abandoning Facebook for things like Twitter and Snapchat and all these other social media uh devices and programs and platforms on mobile things, mobile devices, and uh who knows what it'll look like as my kids get older and they get into uh their teenage years and what will be available. But here's what it does tell us it does tell us that the culture, people, humanity, they want to connect and they they want to get into other people's lives. I don't know if you're like me, but when I get on Facebook, uh there's a there's some sense of like this is kind of fun, and then there's some sense of this that like it brings guilt. Like there are people in my life that I feel like I should care about, that I don't have time to care about anymore. It's not that I don't really care about them, but I mean like to really invest in them and to really spend time with them. And so, you know, I see people that I went to college with, that I went to high school with, and some of that's weird, um, and some of that's that's kind of cool, but uh but it's it's this weird dynamic that we're supposed to have this connection with these people that we knew during a season of life that we no longer feel connected to. And here's the reality that connectivity doesn't equal community, right? Connectivity does not equal community. And some of you are like totally anti-Facebook because you know it just sucks your life away. And I get that. But you know, the thing is that just because you're connected to someone and you're a Facebook friend, I mean, I joke a lot, when somebody friends me on Facebook, I'll see them here on Sunday, I'll say, now we're real friends. You know? Now we're really friends. I mean, we were kind of friends before, but now we're really friends. Now that's not true though, right? Because friendship is much deeper than just simply a button on a uh a website. But this morning I want to talk about community because from the very beginning of time, humankind was made for community. We were designed for it, we were wired for it, it was fabricated into our being. In fact, scripture even tells us that before the fall, before Adam and Eve ate from the fruit of the tree they shouldn't have eaten from, it says that God made a declaration to Adam. He made a statement to Adam. It said, It is not good for man to be alone. That's an interesting thought, isn't it? He had God, he had the animals, but the animals weren't enough. He had creation, he had a job to do, he had a task, and yet he didn't have another human being to interact with. He was alone. And we all need community. In fact, I want to give you three reasons this morning why we need community, and not just community, but gospel community. We've been doing a series now over the past seven weeks on the gospel, what the gospel is, and how it shapes all of our life, because the tendency is to think that the gospel is something that people who don't know Jesus, that they need the gospel. But people who know Jesus, people who've been in church, now once you've you've prayed a prayer, or once you've crossed the line of faith, or once you've said, I believe in Jesus, you don't need the gospel anymore. But that's actually a lie. The truth is that the gospel that saved us is also the gospel that will continue to save us, and ultimately, one day we will be with Christ forever, like we talked about last week. So the gospel has saved us, it is saving us, and it will save us. It's not the ABCs, it's the ATZ of our faith, right? And so it's very important for us to remember that. And this morning we think about gospel community. How does this message that we were a broken humanity? God created things perfect, we that we rebelled against God, Jesus restores and redeems through his work on the cross, and one day he will come back and make all things new. How does that message shape the relationships that we have with others, particularly the relationships that we have with one another as followers in Christ? And I want to talk about this morning that that very thing, but I do want us to understand why we need that. First, the primary reason that we need community this morning, if you have a worship guide, you can follow along with me. There's some blanks to fill in. They'll be on the screen behind me. The first reason that we need community is we need community because it is impossible to fully know God outside of community. It is impossible to fully know God outside of community. Have you ever thought about that? Some of you are thinking, I don't, is that true? Is that how is that? Let me just tell you this. God, this is mind-blowing, he exists as Trinity. Now it's a word that's not in the Bible, but it's a word that we understand that God exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Right? And Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, guess what? God lives in community with himself. Is that an odd thought? That just blew our minds a little bit. I'm glad I can't fully explain away this morning because he's God and I'm not. But in essence, God is in community with himself. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They live in relationship with one another. And it's a it's a mutually glorifying relationship. It's a perfect relationship in which there's submission and there's roles and there's responsibilities, but there's always this building up of one another, which is what we would want for our relationships, right? This mutual love and concern and care. But that's not how human relationships work because we're selfish. But in the Bible, we see that we can't even really fully know God outside of relationship. When Jesus came to this earth, his official ministry was only three years long. And what did he do? He asked twelve men, unlikely men at that, to come and follow him. And he took those men on a journey, and for three years he gave his life to them. He poured his life out to them. He told them everything he could tell them and what the Father told him to teach them. And he showed them what it looked like to live on this earth and how to be a servant and how to care. And he taught them truth. Taught them how the Old Testament was pointing to him. He taught them about what was going to happen whenever he left. And he poured himself into them, but it was through the context of relationship that they began to understand God. That they began to understand who he was, what he was about. The word community, even and of itself, is the idea of communitas from the word in Latin. And it's this idea of fellowship. I mean, we get this community, common unity. Together, unified. In fact, even one of the word pictures that we get is this idea that the first one is that there's a joining, there's a together a community, a commune, and then that there is the unity piece of it. It's to fortify or to strengthen. As in, there are strength in numbers. And we're going to talk more about this in a second, but the idea here is that in community, there is strength in following Jesus and knowing God. And we need a community to know God fully. The second reason that we need community this morning in every day of our life is because it is impossible to experience real change outside of community. It's impossible to experience real change outside of community. Let me ask you a question and see what you think about this. So, if you say that you are a patient person, if you say that you are a generous person, if you say that you are a kind person, a loving person, how would you know that you are those things? How do you know that you are a patient, kind, loving, generous person? Only in the context of community with people. Because you see, what God is doing in us has to be lived out among us. And if it's not, it's not real change. There's not, you can say all day long, I'm patient. I can say all day long, I'm patient until I get home and I'm tired and my kids are driving me crazy. And then I find out how patient I am when I've told them for the fourth time to stop doing something. Right? Whatever it is in our life, it takes community to expose who we really are, what's really going on, and it's in that we can start to experience real change. Not only is it just that it shows us that we are who we really are, true friendship, as Paul Tripp says, it calls us out of the darkness of personal privacy into loving candor of mutual concern. It moves you from being a sealed envelope to an open letter. I love the way he gives that word picture. That it moves you from being a sealed envelope to an open letter. You see, here's the thing. If you've been around church at all, and again, if you haven't, you may not have heard this phrase, but if you've been around church at all, probably at some point someone said, Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? Heard that phrase before? Not a bad phrase. In fact, we would say that what we what we ascribe to as Christ followers is not a religion, it's a genuine relationship with Christ. Okay? But when we say that language, do you have a personal relationship with Jesus? Sometimes we can take that to mean that we have a private relationship with Jesus. Now, if you don't ever have time with God in private, there's a problem. Because God wants to speak to you. And if you're around noise all the time and you're around busyness all the time and chaos, it's hard to hear him. You need times of privacy with God. But your relationship, my relationship with God, it's personal but not private. And there's a difference, isn't there? There's a difference between a personal, individual relationship with God and a private relationship with God. In fact, your relationship with God impacts other people around you. It does, it impacts you because it impacts them. Because that's the nature of the gospel and what it is doing in our lives. Now, notice this is something I want to say here, and I'm gonna come back to it again at the end, but coming to a worship gathering like this, coming to a Sunday morning experience, I hope you feel encouraged. I hope you feel informed and I hope you feel inspired. That's what we hope. We hope you come and you you're informed and you're inspired. But to come to a service and to say that you are in community is actually not true. You're in a crowd, but you're not in a community. There's a difference between being in a crowd of people and being in community with people, right? And so we have to be very careful not to sell ourselves the idea that the church is a Sunday morning gathering I attend. That's not how the Bible talks about the church. The Bible says that the church is the people of God. It's the people of God empowered by the Holy Spirit of God in us, God in us, like we talked about last week. And so in our lives, we need to be in community to experience real change. We don't want you to just be informed and inspired. We want you to experience change. And that doesn't happen unless you're in community with others. You have to share life together, you have to eat meals together. You gotta spend time together, you gotta celebrate birthday parties together, you gotta you gotta celebrate ups and downs together, you gotta experience the job loss and and and loss of life and all the difficulties that come with it to experience true community. And that brings change in your life. The third thing is this it's impossible to live out the mission of God outside of community. It's impossible to live out the mission of God outside of community. Just, we're gonna talk about this next week, so I don't want to give a whole lot of time to it right now, but just know that the mission of God summarized is that He said, Jesus said in His own words, go into all the world and make disciples. Right? Make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe everything I've commanded you, baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We summarize that by saying that it's our job to point people to life in Christ.

unknown 15:27

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SPEAKER_00 15:28

We just say that if we, that's our mission is to go to do that. But you can't do that alone. In fact, what I've discovered is when you try to do it in isolation, you can go for a little while and then you just hit a wall. Because you get discouraged, don't you? It gets discouraging when people don't want to hear that message. It gets discouraging when your coworkers, when your neighbors, when your friends, when your schoolmates, teens, and students, when that when they don't want to hear that message, it gets discouraging. But we need encouragement to live on mission. The mission of God was never intended to be accomplished outside of community. Even Jesus gave it to a group of disciples, a group of his followers. He says, You guys, y'all go together. Even when he sent them out, the 72, he sent them out two by two. Right? Not alone in isolation, he sent them out together to work together. We need community. And in fact, I would actually argue that it's in community we have one of the greatest reasons why people should believe this message. Because when we live together with the love of God and the grace of God, the truth of God we're about to talk about, we get to demonstrate to people what happens when the gospel comes into our life. It changes us and it changes the way we interact together. And that's one of the greatest reasons why people should believe. It's an apologetic for the gospel, if you will. So, I want us to look this morning in the text in Romans chapter 12. And I want us, if you've got a Bible, go ahead and get it out. If you don't have a Bible, there's some under the seats that are there. It'll be on the screen, but I always encourage you to look at the word for yourself. And if you don't own a Bible, one of those Bibles under the chairs, feel free to take it with you, okay? We want to make sure you have a copy of God's Word in your hands. If you own 14 Bibles at home, don't take it with you. Because some of us Americans do, right? Romans chapter 12. This is not a passage that I've ever spoken from about community, but I think it's very potent. And this week and last week, as I was reading through this text and considering what God wanted to say to us, I felt like he was drawing me to this. Paul has spent the first 11 chapters of Romans painting an amazing picture of the gospel. He talks in Romans chapter 1, saying that humanity suppresses the truth and they exchange worship for the Creator and they begin to worship the created. Okay? And then from that point forward, he talks about how that humanity is broken and how we are idolaters, and how our tendency is to run away from God and rebel from God, but how that sometimes we try to fix that by being religious, but that's not going to fix the problem. It even tells us about Adam, the first Adam that comes and how he rejects God. But then it says that there's a second Adam, and it doesn't mean another man named Adam, it actually means Jesus. And it says Jesus comes onto the scene, and instead of being like the first Adam, he obeys the Father. He obeys God's will and he ultimately gives his life up so that we could be made right. While we were his enemies, while we were under his wrath, God gives us life. Isn't that awesome? Like that should get us excited this morning because if you don't know Jesus Christ, you're his enemy, which means you're an object of his wrath. But because of Jesus' kindness and compassion, but ultimately because of Jesus' obedience to the plan that the Father had, then we can have life in redemption and restoration, right? So he goes to these first 11 chapters of Romans and he paints this amazing picture of the gospel and he gets to chapter 12 and he starts to talk about the implications. Because you've got to remember, the gospel precedes behavior. Don't try to just change your behavior. You need a heart change. I need a heart change. I don't just need to get my behavior modified, I need a rescuer, right? And in chapter 12, he gives these these first two verses of chapter 12 where most of us in here who've been in church, you've probably heard this a lot. This is a pretty famous passage. And he talks about that in view of God's mercy, therefore, in view of God's mercy, present your bodies as living sacrifices. Again, we could spend all of our time on that today. But I want us to jump down to verse 3. Okay? It says this. For by the grace given to me, I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he should think. Alright, we could just stop right there and that's the sermon for today. I mean, seriously, what would happen if the church actually lived that out? What would happen if we just stopped thinking of ourselves better than we should and actually had a right view of ourselves? What would happen if we actually humbled ourselves, right? And so in this passage we see, he says, um, this is the apostle Paul talking, and he's saying, the grace given to me, if anyone had a right to boast here, it would be Paul, right? This guy's a superhero Christian. He had a bad past, he gets radically changed and saved, and from that point forward, he is he's on a mad mission. I mean, he is planting churches, he is proclaiming the gospel, people are getting saved, people are following Jesus, people are being rescued from their sin. I mean, this guy's awesome. He wrote half of the New Testament. Stud. And yet, what we know to be true is that he never lost sight of the grace of God in his life. He was humble, wasn't he? And so it says this instead, think sensibly as God has distributed a measure of faith to each one. Now, as we have many parts in one body, and all the parts do not have the same function, thankfully, right, we don't need like 5,000 mouths in here, right? We need we need different parts of the body. In the same way, we who are many are one body in Christ. And individually, members of one together. That right there is so counterculture to our individualism in the United States. It says we are members of one another. We really don't like that, if we're honest. Makes us feel a little bit uncomfortable. I don't want people up in my space. It's my stuff, it's my space, it's my world. But the scripture says that we are members of one another. According to the grace given to us, we had different gifts. If prophecy, use it according to the standard of one's faith. If service in service, if teaching and teaching, if exhorting and exhortation, giving with generosity, leading with diligence, showing mercy with cheerfulness. Love must be without hypocrisy. Detest evil, cling to what is good, show family affection to one another with brotherly love, outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lack diligence, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord, rejoice in hope, be patient in affliction, be persistent in prayer. I mean, Paul is just going off here. He's just he's just going at it. There's no like rhyme or reason. He's just throwing out Things. This is what should happen. And he lands with this share with the saints in their needs, pursue hospitality. So, I want to give you four overarching themes that we see in this text that I think show us what gospel community looks like. Okay, gospel community looks like these four things. And we'll kind of break them apart just a little bit this morning. First one is this. When we look at this text, we see gospel community looks like a people of grace. A people of grace. And just in case you're wondering what the word grace means, I know it means unmerited favor. That's the theological way we describe it, but let me just give you this definition. Grace is this, that God worked his way down to us so that we don't have to work our way up to him. Land on that. Let that marinate in your mind for a little bit this morning. God worked his way to us so that we don't have to work our way up to him. That's why we don't function in a religion as Christians. Because religion says I gotta work to God to get his approval. I gotta make it up to God. I gotta fix my behavior so that God will accept me. No, the gospel says, no, you are loved and accepted because of Christ's perfect performance on your behalf. That changes everything. It's not religion, it's the gospel, it's the good news. That's why it's good news. But it's also offensive because we don't want God to do everything for us sometimes. Because if he does, then we feel like we're on the hook. Because that means he could ask anything of us because he's given us everything. But the people of grace are those who understand that what Christ has given us changes the game. It's the great neutralizer. In fact, there's three things we see. First, that grace creates humility, grace creates diversity, and grace creates servanthood. Let me cover each one of those really quickly for you. First one, grace creates humility. You would think that when we get saved from something, it would puff us up. We would get prideful. Hey, look, we've been saved. We talked about this a little bit last week. But the truth of the matter is, is when we understand what we have been saved from, it brings incredible humility. Because we understand that we didn't rescue ourselves. Christ rescued us. In fact, we deserved his wrath. We deserved eternal separation from God. We can blame people all day long for what they did and how they wounded us and how it affects our life today, but we are at the bottom line. We are culprits, we are sinners. And we deserve to be charged for that. And we deserve to pay the price for that. But Christ has paid the price, and that brings incredible humility. Incredible humility. Paul gets that. Paul understands that he is a servant by the grace of God. May we never lose sight of the fact that God worked his way to us so that we don't have to work our way up to him. That we will be humble. No one in this room likes to be around people that are prideful and arrogant. And yet we all struggle with it, don't we? Second thing I said is not just humble, but diverse. You know what? The gospel creates communities that are just mind-boggling. Let me give you an example in the Bible. Philippians. There was a group at Philippi. In fact, Acts 16 gives us a little bit of the story behind the scenes, and it shows us what happened when Paul went to Philippi for the first time to share the gospel there. And he shows up in Acts 16, and the first person he encounters out in the marketplace is a lady named Lydia. My grandmother was named Lydia after this lady. She was the first convert there in Philippi. Now, she was as it says according to scripture, sold linen. She sold purple. Anybody got purple on this morning? In that culture, that means your mic right here, yeah? That would mean you were wealthy, that you had a lot of money. And so Lydia had a lot of money. She was a wealthy lady, and she came and put her trust in Jesus Christ. She was one of the first converts in the church at Philippi. The second convert, as they continued their journey, was this lady, this young servant girl, actually. She was following them around and she kept like calling them out. She kept messing with them and yelling things because she was a fortune teller. She was, she uh had an evil spirit. We'll have to talk about that on another day. She had this evil spirit in her, and she's calling out these different things to the apostles as they're walking. And finally, Paul gets enough and he just turns around and he says, Shut up, woman. Spirit come out. I mean, literally, I know that does that's not what we're supposed to say. We don't we tell our kids not to say that S-word, but that's what he says to her, okay? Paul said it, so I guess it's okay. But anyway. And so he says, Come out of her. And so this lady, this this servant girl who's fortune teller, she comes to faith. She's a second convert. Then they get thrown in jail. And as they're in jail, the jail shakes, the doors come open, and the jailer's there. You know the story? The jailer's there, and instead of getting out and running away, Paul, they stay where they are, they stay put, and the jailer's about to commit suicide. He's like, I am gonna die anyway, I'm just gonna go ahead and kill myself on the spot. And they say, No, hey, wait, wait, wait, wait. We didn't go anywhere, we're still right here. And he says, Hey, I don't know who you are and what you're about, but I want to know. And they tell him about Jesus Christ and he comes to convert. So catch this with me. The first three believers at the church of Philippi are a wealthy lady who sells purple linens. The second one is a servant girl who tells the future. And the third one is a jailer and all his family. Now, why in the world would they ever hang out together? Any ideas? Because the truth of the matter is I don't care what your skin color is, I don't care what language you speak, I don't care how much money you make, I don't care what neighborhood you live in, I don't care any of that stuff, because we all need the same thing at the baseline, and that's we need Jesus. And it's the neutralizer. It brings us all together because we all need Jesus Christ. We all need a savior, we all need a rescuer, we all need a redeemer. And so we come to church, I think that church should be the most diverse crowd we if we sit in every week. You know what's sad is there's there's there's places in this country still where Sunday morning at 11 a.m. is one of the most segregated hours of the week. What is wrong with that picture? That's not the gospel. They're gonna hate heaven. Seriously. You're gonna get to heaven and be like, what are you doing here? What are you doing here? Because, see, we all need Jesus. I don't care, it doesn't matter who you are: rich, old, young, poor, it doesn't matter. We all need Jesus. That's the beauty of the gospel. It creates diversity. It even says in the passage there, diversity of gifts. The third piece of the grace of God is that I have never met someone who had experienced the grace of God who was unwilling to serve. Can I just tell you that as a church, if we are struggling to have people serve in any capacity, it's not because people are just selfish. It's because people have not experienced the grace of God in a fresh new way. Because when you experience the grace of God in your life, you will do whatever it takes to help others experience the grace of God in their lives. Maybe the reason that you struggle to serve today is because you've forgotten the grace that God has offered you and given you and lavished on you, as the scripture says. Listen, I don't feel like my job as a pastor is to like, go serve, go serve, go serve. Like, I know we need people to serve. In fact, I talked to the guys this morning. We need some more ushers, we need we need some more folks that are helping with that, we need some more folks to help with the kids. But listen, I don't think that's the issue. I can tell you all day long the needs. I think the question is, is have you experienced the grace of God? I've had people come up to me in the last few weeks. In fact, one one particular man, and he said, Listen, God has done such an amazing work in my life. You tell me whatever you need me to do, and I'll do it. When the grace of God impacts us, we serve, we give, we love, we invest. We're no longer selfish because we realize, man, we we we've been given everything in Christ. We've lost a vision of the grace of God. But when we get a vision of that, we will serve others. And he says there, he says, you know, if you're if your gift's prophecy, if your gift's um service, if your gifts teaching, I like, I like how he put the word service in there, the gift of service in there. I mean, it's like kind of like a catch all, you're like the junk drawer, right? Whatever you need, I'll do it. But see, a local church, a local expression, a local community, that's where you need to serve. You need to get involved, you need to get invested. That's why we need it. And guess what? When you start to serve, you will grow more and more in the grace of God. And people around you will grow more and more in the grace of God. So I don't know what your story is, and my job is not to make you feel guilty this morning. My mind my job is to point you back to Christ and say that if you're not serving, it's because you've lost sight of God. You've lost sight of what He's done for you. When I'm struggling to serve, when I'm struggling to be motivated to serve others like my neighbors, it's because I've lost sight of the grace of God in my life. And I've done that often. Okay. I want to give you this quote and then we'll move on to the next thing. Jonathan Edwards says it this way. He's kind of brainy, but he's just really powerful. Before we have an experience with the grace of God, everything we do is done in self-interest. Before we have an experience with the grace of God, everything we've done, everything we do is done in self-interest. You see, most people want to serve so they get recognition, but when you've experienced the grace of God, you don't want to point people to yourself. You want to point people to Christ. But before we've met Christ, we do service so people will go, you're a good person. Way to go. Good job. It's about self-interest. But when Christ comes in, that changes everything. He saves us. I mean, think about this. What about the woman who came in while Jesus was having a dinner at a rule follower, a Pharisee's house, and this woman comes in and she breaks her most treasured possession, a bottle of perfume on his feet, and starts to wipe it with her hair. And they're all sitting there saying, What in the world is she doing? This is so ridiculous. You know what she was doing? She was doing the most logical thing she could do in response to the grace of God. Give everything. Second thing is this a gospel community looks like a people of truth, honest about who we are. In verse 9, he said, love must be without hypocrisy. You know where the word hypocrisy comes from? From the word hypocrite. That's helpful. The word hypocrite is actually comes from the Greek theater of the day. And they actually wore these masks. Have you ever seen the theater masks? They would wear these theater masks that were the hypocrite mask that basically conveyed an emotion. So no matter what they felt behind the mask, it had either a smile or a frown, right? Different masks were used. The idea is still the same. He's saying that our community should be without masks. When we come to church, we shouldn't put on a mask. We shouldn't put on a front. We shouldn't put on a show. We shouldn't act like we have it all together when we don't. We shouldn't act like our marriage is going well when it's not. We shouldn't act like our kids are behaving when they're not. We shouldn't act like we got more money in the bank than we do. Whatever it is, your mask that you wear, it reveals that we have this idea that we've got to put up a front. We don't want to let people in. We don't want to let people know the real life, so we wear a mask. He says our love should be without hypocrisy. Let's drop the front. We can be real. Why? Because whoever you are in this room, no matter what your story is, God is bigger than anything you're dealing with right now. He's greater. And he loves you right where you are. And we've got to learn to love each other right where we are. Paul says in Ephesians 4.25, we should put off falsehood. We should not only be honest with who we are with each other, but we should also be honest about who they are. Now, this one's a little tricky because the moment we actually tell other people the truth, now we've opened ourselves up to be criticized by them. This is why we're very scared of this, aren't we? We're very scared to tell somebody else the truth. When we see something in someone else's life, now, listen, I'm not saying that you should walk up to someone after church today and say, you know, you got this issue. You are messed up. That's dangerous. You're gonna get smacked. But I am saying that if you build relationships with people based on grace, that you have bridges now between you and them that are that are strong enough to carry the weight of truth that you need to speak into their life. Listen, our culture celebrates tolerance, but tolerance is as defined by the way the culture defines it, is a cheap substitute for grace. Because grace says, I care enough about you that I want you to know the truth. Tolerance says, I don't really care. Whatever you want to believe, you believe. That's fine. That's not caring, that's not loving, it's not Christ-like, is it? And that's what happens sometimes in our world is that we we buy that, we swallow the pill of tolerance rather than being people of grace. But we need to be people of truth. We need to, as it says in Scripture, uh, Proverbs 27, 6, wounds from a friend are better than kisses from an enemy. I love that passage. Wounds from a friend are better than kisses from an enemy. I'm not saying they feel good. Wounds, that doesn't sound very fun. But do you know what? Sometimes we need to be wounded so we can grow. Sometimes we need somebody to just speak truth to us, to tell us like it is, to not act like it's okay, that we're struggling. In fact, um we must speak the truth in love. He says that same thing in Colossians, he says that same thing in Ephesians that we should speak the truth in love. And here's the thing: when we speak to others truthfully, love without truth is like trying to do heart surgery with a wet fish. Some of you are like, what is he talking about? Love without truth is like doing heart surgery with a wet fish. Can you imagine trying to cut something with a wet fish? Not gonna happen. But maybe this will clear it up for you. Love without truth is like doing heart surgery with a hammer. You see, some of us in this room lean towards being so soft we won't ever call anybody out. But other people in this room, you're lean, you're like hard. Like nobody wants to be around you. Like, what are they gonna say? Very critical. And he says, no, we gotta speak the truth, but in love. Our goal should not be to get people in trouble. I tell my kids that all the time. They come to me and say, Dad, they're doing this. Dad, they're doing this. And I'm like, not just are you a tattletale, but hey, do you want them to get in trouble? I think you actually want them to get in trouble. Should you want them to get in trouble? Yes, no. You know, the truth is we shouldn't want our brothers and sisters in Christ to wallow in sin and to deal with the consequences of sin, we should love them enough to speak truth to them, shouldn't we? We've got to encourage them. Those are hard conversations. It's not. Sometimes you've got to swallow your pride, sometimes you gotta gulp hard, and then you gotta step in there. I'm gonna say it, I'm gonna do it even though it's hard. But notice this. Not only are God's people people of grace and a people of truth, there are people of repentance. A people of repentance. Notice what he says in the passage in verse 9 at the end. He says, Detest evil and cling to what is good. Detest evil and cling to what is good. One translation says, abhor, I love that word, abhor evil and cling to what is good, what is right. What is he saying? He's saying we've got to stop believing lies and we've got to start believing truth. We've got to stop loving the things of this world that are killing us and start embracing the truth of God that gives us life and hope and joy and satisfaction and peace and all the things that God promised if we will trust him, if we'll obey him. Because obedience brings blessing and disobedience brings conflict. Right? And so in our lives, we need to be a community of repentance, of turning away from the things that are enslaving us and turning to the only thing that can free us, which is Christ. We said a few weeks ago that there are four big G's about God, that God is gracious, that He is good, that He is glorious, that He is great. And when we don't believe those things, our behavior is definitely impacted because we start to go down this path to believing other things are great, other things are glorious, other things are great, other things are what we need to find our acceptance and love in. And when you do that, you're setting yourself up for failure because all sin leads to death. But repentance says, no, I'm gonna pursue life. And I'm not just gonna turn my behavior around, I'm gonna ask God to turn my heart around and to begin worshiping Him again instead of worshiping this temporary thing that's killing me. Right? So community helps us do that because we can look at each other with grace and with truth and help each other turn away from the lies to the truth. We should desire to help one another find freedom. We should desire to help people avoid deception. Sometimes our groups, our life groups, sometimes our community groups, they can become a place where we just wallow in sin. Let me give you one illustration. This might step on some toes, but I'm just gonna be honest with you. Sometimes people will come in and they'll say something like this My boss, he is such a jerk. And I just need prayer because he made me so mad today. And I just got angry and I got frustrated, and I just, man, I just I just told him like it was. And I just went on, and and we're like, man, I'm so sorry you have such a bad boss. I'm really sorry he's such a jerk. Man, I can't believe God put you in a job where you have a boss like that. Yeah, we'll pray for you to get a new job. We'll pray for him to leave. I say that because it's actually a true story that happens a lot. And here's the problem. What if that boss is not a believer in Jesus Christ? Should we expect any different? I mean, hopefully he's got some ethics, hopefully he's got some integrity in him, but he can't stop doing what he's doing if he's not a follower in Jesus. He hasn't been rescued, he's still enslaved. What if your job is to take your response and respond in a way that Christ would respond to him? What if your job is to love him, to speak truth to him, encourage him? Who knows what's going on in his home life? What if he's a believer that's struggling? And you know he's a believer. Wouldn't that be a good opportunity to say, man, listen, I really want to get angry right now, but what's going on with you? Can we step into your office and talk? You see, it changes everything, doesn't it? But I say this, and in community, we shouldn't just wallow in sin and just go, oh yeah, I'm so sorry. We should call people to step up and to live out the gospel. Let's call people to live out the gospel. It would change the way that our workplaces looked. We'd stop complaining so much and actually start living out what we believe. Guys, I'm guilty of that. I'm not sitting up here as like I've got this figured out. I'm guilty of that. And it's so easy to do. We want to be confirming, we want to be affirming, we want to help people, but sometimes we're actually hurting them by letting them live and wallow in sin. God wants to rescue us in that. The fourth thing is that the gospel community is a people of transformation. A people of transformation. Listen, the church is a better place for change than a therapy session, than a counselor's office, than a retreat center. Now, if you work at any of those places, not stand up here to offend you this morning. I'm just going to tell you right now, Christ is sufficient for the changes that we need. Okay? Now, there, I don't even want to go down this bunny trail very far, but I want you to hear me say this. I understand that there are some people in the world who need medications. I understand that there are things that go on mentally, physically, emotionally that we need to deal with. I'm not talking about that stuff. I am telling you, though, that a lot of the issues that we're struggling with, we are going to the wrong place for solutions. Christ is the source of life. He's the source of truth. And if we were place the truth, the lies with truth, like we talked about a while ago, we will see transformation. I think it's time for the church to step up and to say, listen, we have the answer. We have the solution. And it's not us. And it's not even just coming and hanging out with us. It's Christ. But in community, we experience that transformation. We experience that change. We experience regular growth. And if you're not, the question is, is what is your community doing? What are the people around you doing? What are you doing to help them grow? God doesn't want a better version of you, He wants a new you. That's rescued by His grace, rescued by His mercy. God isn't interested in just behavior modification. And in this passage, He says something that's very powerful. Listen, he says something very powerful in this passage. He says that you should show family affection to one another. And this is not the first time we see this in the New Testament, but this is completely in the face of our American way of life. What I think he is even holding on to here is that we should actually see each other as brothers and sisters in Christ as much of a family, if not more, than our blood relative. Now I know that that is not a popular idea, but I want you to understand that the scripture says even Jesus, he was confronted with this when he was doing myself. Ministry and his family came to the door and they said, Hey Jesus, what you doing? We'd like to talk to you. And he says, They go and they say, Hey, your mothers and brothers are here. And he goes, Who are my mother and brother? You are my mothers and brothers. He's saying, You are my family. Jesus said that. So we either can buy it or not believe it, choose to disobey it. But he's saying we should be family. But here's the thing I think most of us make decisions in life based on where we're going to get the most money, what's the most comfortable, where's the place that we want to live that makes the most sense? We make all these decisions in life based on all the things that are just about what the world makes decisions in life about. And I'm calling us as a community of people, a new community shaped by the gospel to say, listen, should we not commit ourselves to one another for a long time so that we can see lasting change? Should we not be consistent in each other's life? Because the truth is that the culture, as it's norm, people don't keep jobs very long, they don't stay in locations very long, and they don't do this because why? Because it's not natural. It's not what we normally do. But Christ says if you want to be in community with one another, you got to persevere. You got to pray with one another. You got to go through the hard times and the good times. And over a season of life, you get to experience lasting change. You know one of my prayers right now, my wife and I haven't talked about it a lot lately, but we were praying that God would let us stay here for a long, long time. Because we want to do community, we want to do life with people for a long, long time here. Because I know I need that. I know that I need that. I love my family, my biological family. They live a long way from here. And so we have family that are here. Spiritual family. And I encourage you today to remember that you have family if you're a child of God. Let me close out with this. Are you regularly involved in community? Are you regularly involved with a group of people who are speaking truth to you, who are showing God's grace to you, who are helping you repent, who are helping you experience change? In Hebrews 10, verse 24, it says this, and let us be concerned about one another in order to promote love and good works. Not staying away from our worship meetings as some habitually do, but encourage each other all the more as you see the day approaching. What is he saying? That as we get closer and closer to the return of Christ, we're gonna have to encourage each other more and more. Because it's gonna get worse before it gets better. Right? We've got to encourage each other and challenge each other. And the tendency is going to be to get out of community with people, to abandon community, to jump ship. But if you do that, you will miss out the blessings of God. But if you will stick with it and you will stay connected, you'll be reminded of the truths of God and you'll experience true change and transformation. I encourage you with that today. Encourage all of us to that today. Let me go back to the first verse in Romans chapter 12. He says, Therefore, in view of God's mercy, our motivation this morning is not go do this yourself, work harder, try harder. That would be terrible for me to stand up here and tell you to do that this morning. The motivation this morning is that God has given us everything in Christ. We've been saved, and so we can live new lives. And we can live in community, new and different creatures, new creation, like he says in 2 Corinthians 5. Let me pray for us. God, we love you. We thank you. We need you. We ask you, God, to stir in us something that we cannot do for ourselves, a passion for you, a passion for one another. Help us to devote ourselves to one another, to be consistent in each other's lives over a long period of time. Help us to love our neighbors, to love uh one another, like the scripture says, as you have loved us. God, I pray that you would speak to us now during this time of response, that you would help us to continue to be encouraged by the truth of your word. And uh we just pray that if anyone in this place has never received the gift of salvation, that they would do it today. They would stop trying harder, they stopped running from you, but they would receive the gift of salvation. And pray that in your strong name, Jesus. Amen.