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If you've been here over the last three weeks, then you've gotten to hear three different men teach God's word to us from the book of 1 Peter. And so we had Harley, we had Matt Altman, and we had Josue Villa. And I just wanted to personally say how grateful I am to be a part of a church with such a gifted team of teachers. That yeah, and I just really am so thankful that God has given us these men who can teach the word of God and that God's Spirit is using them to convict me and how good it is for me to sit with you on those Sundays and just listen to the Word, be taught, and be challenged, and be encouraged and be pushed to grow in my personal spiritual maturity. And so, Matt and Harley and Hosway, thank you so much for your teaching. I know it's not the last time they'll teach. If you stick around here, you'll notice we have a team teaching model, and we believe that God has gifted different people to serve in that way, and we want to do that well. But I am thankful for them and that they've invested in that. So let me ask you a serious question as we get rolling this morning. Is there anyone in your life that you mimic? Is there anyone in your life that you uh talk like, act like, find yourself thinking like at times? Is there anyone in your life that you've been around that you're like, man, I'm a lot like them? Um, you know, recently, uh, I don't know if you are aware of there's any HGTV junkies? Anybody HGTV junkies in here? Okay. Um I'm not really an HGTV junkie. I guess part of it's because we don't have uh cable, and so we we've got free-to-air uh digital uh satellite, and it's great because it's free. And um and so I like that. But uh I know there's a lot of folks who like to watch uh HGTV, and and my mother-in-law is one of those, and so she's always working on these projects from HGTV stuff. And then, you know, you got Pinterest out there. I know some of you women are Pinterest folks, and so you know, you're always uh maybe not pinning things, but you're looking what everybody else has pinned and trying to replicate that stuff. And so recently here in Butah, Texas, the big city of Butta, uh there was a reality uh HGTV show called My Big Family Renovation. Anybody watch that? Okay. Uh but it was just filmed in Butah uh over the past uh semester, the last spring semester, and then it showed it's shown over the last few weeks. And so some of our friends Jen and Brandon Hatmaker, uh, they had their this uh process they kind of went through. They took this old house, they bought an old farmhouse and they renovated it. And I thought that would be really cool if I didn't have six kids under the age of 11. Um, but basically, like they got this, and they have a $400,000 budget, so that would be a little bit nice too. But but anyway, needless to say, they did this awesome renovation on this house, and I was thinking how cool that was until I started noticing that we were doing stuff to our house. And I was like, what are we doing? And like and I woke up one day and Jay's like, we need to paint our table, and so now we're in there painting our table, and and then uh I did more painting in the last two weeks than I've done in the first two years we lived in our house, okay? And I'm just pretty positive it's because these seeds were planted uh from this HD TV show that this is stuff that we need to be doing in our house. Anybody ever been there? Some of you are laughing because you know what I'm talking about. Some of your men are laughing because your wives have got you doing stuff and you're like, where why are we doing this? Because I saw it on Pinterest, right? But listen, it's not just cra- Yes, you have a hand back there. Amen, brother. Amen. All right? Listen, it's not just just crass and fixing up your house, but all of us shape our lives after different people in our world. And and you know, it starts when you're very young, because from the time you're a very young child, you start looking at people that you admire and people you think a lot about, and you try to model your life after it. Uh some of you men will know why, but when I was a kid growing up, like I love sports. I still love sports, I just can't play them anymore. But I love sports and I love play, especially football. It's like that was my number one sport. Passion about it. I love the fact that you know you could actually go and play some football and it was legal to hit somebody. That was awesome. And uh, and so uh one but but one of the positions I played when I played sports was quarterback, and so I wore the number eight. Why? Troy Aikman, okay, come on. There's some folks that's back when the Cowboys actually could play football, and they were actually decent. And so I was I was Troy Aikman. In my mind, when I put that jersey on, I'm Troy Aikman. I'm following, you know, in his ways. I'm trying to be like Troy Aikman, right? And so that's the way it works, even from the time we're kids. My kids right now, like, they like to watch the different cartoons on TV, and one of the ones that my son likes to watch is Ninjago, and some of your parents are like Ninjago, ah, you know, like you hate that Ninjago, but we used to watch Ninjago, and and so my son is turned into a ninja, and so he's around chopping everything and yah yah, and like cartwheels and flips and stuff. And I'm like, he just does it. That's because he loves that stuff. Now, that's all great and everything, but let's be honest. There, there is a reality that all of us are taking our cues from someone. Like we're all shaping our lives around somebody. Uh, we we all spend our money based on maybe things we've seen other people do. We all dress in certain ways based on what other people do. If you're a musician, there's people that you sing like or you try to sing like when you're in the shower, right? And uh and you there's different people that you mimic your your life after, and it shapes you. But let me let me just ask you a legitimate serious question this morning. As a Christian, as a follower of Jesus, who should we mimic our life after? Who should shape our values? Who should shape what we do with our time and our money? Who should do, who should shape how we live our lives? Now, maybe you think this is a hyper-spiritual answer, but the Bible clearly says that we are to follow the example of our Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ. That's who we should mimic our lives after, that's who we should build our lives around. That's who we should follow. I'm not saying that it's wrong to pick up habits and phrases and things like that from people in our world, but let's be honest, at a baseline level, as Christ followers, the word Christian itself means little Christ. It means to be like a little Christ. Then our lives should follow his example. In fact, 1 John 2, verse 6, it says this whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did. Let's read that out together. Everybody together, ready? Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did. Now, a few things just to make note of here. Whoever claims, okay? Whoever claims. The reality is that a lot of times Christianity, the Christian faith, gets this rap for being a very exclusive club, like that tries to keep people out rather than invite people in. I mean, that's the way that people see Christianity a lot of times. I think it's a very narrow-minded thing that's very focused in on like who can we keep out, and it's a behavior modification deal. And the truth is that some churches are like that. And it just frustrates the heck out of me that we've got churches that are more concerned about protecting themselves than being salt and light in the world. But here's what I want us to remember this morning. He says, whoever claims. Whoever. That seems pretty open-ended, doesn't it? It seems pretty inviting to say whoever claims. And what's neat is this isn't the first time we see this in scripture. This is a pattern that the scripture shows us that God has an open invitation to anyone who would come to him. Anyone. It doesn't matter what you look like, what you talk like, what you act like, how bad you think you are, how good you think you are. Every person is invited to follow Christ. Every person is invited to experience the gift of salvation and the transformation that comes from that. Everybody's invited. It's not an exclusive club. In fact, it's based on a gift. And a gift that we couldn't earn. It's a gift that we've received because of the grace and the mercy of God. And I'm thankful for that today because I'm glad that He's invited me in. I'm glad that by His grace, somehow I chose to receive that invitation and to receive that gift, and it's changing everything about me. And hopefully it's changing everything about you. But he says, whoever claims to do what? To live. To live. Now he's not talking about like breathing, filling up your lungs with air or your heart beating in your chest. He's saying to live, as in to have real life, to have a life that is life beyond just existing, just making it by life just uh in a human form, kind of getting through the this thing called humanity on this earth. He's saying we can live. Whoever claims to live, whoever claims to live what? In him, to live in him. Live in him. Who's him? Jesus, God, right? Whoever claims to live in him, whoever says that they are a Jesus follower, whoever says they have put their trust in Christ, whoever says that they have put their hope in Christ for their salvation, whoever says I have life eternally because of Jesus. If that's you, okay, if that's you, if you claim that you're a Christ follower, if you claim that you have eternal life because of Jesus, here's what he says We must what live as Jesus did. Notice he didn't say it's a suggestion, he says it's must. You must. He's saying it's it's an it's a it's imperative that we must live like who? Like Jesus. Like Jesus. So here's the thing. Um every year as a church, we want to have a focus. Um spend some time as the elders, we pray and we ask God to give us really clarity about what's a thing we could focus in on for this year. What's an idea or what's an overarching sort of theme for the year? And as we were praying and as we were asking God for insight and instruction on that, really just continue to feel this tension between a church that wants to help people grow in their faith, and at the same time wants to be a church who reaches people that are far from God so that they can then come in and grow in their faith. Are you with me? We use big words called discipleship and evangelism. That's really what we mean is that disciples are growing more to be like Christ, and that those folks who don't know Christ or haven't put their trust in Christ, and maybe that's one of you sitting here today, that you would come into the family because you would understand that you don't have to work to receive the gift of salvation. You can get it by putting your faith in Christ, and that then you would start to grow with us because none of us have arrived. Okay? And we won't this side of heaven, we won't arrive. We won't fully figure out what it looks like to be the Christ follower, the per the the representation of Christ that he's called us to be as his church, both collectively and individually. Alright? And so as we were praying about that, we came to this thought that this year our theme, our goal would be to live like Jesus. Now, when I was thinking about that, I was like, that's about as foundational as it gets. I mean, that's about ABC as it comes. And yet, you know what? This is hard. It is very, very hard to actually live the way that Jesus lived. Now, what I don't mean by live like Jesus is I don't mean that we become a first century male Jewish rabbi. Okay? Sorry, women can sigh relief, right? We're not saying that we should live like Jesus in that way, but we are saying that the way that Jesus lived in his interactions with people, the habits that he had, the way he the things he valued, the way he went about his life, that we can take on those characteristics. We can live like him. And we can do that because he can strengthen us and empower us to do that. And I believe that when God's church makes that our pursuit, rather than just being moral people, being good people, or just being religious people, when we say when we say we're gonna actually live like Jesus, in fact, when we live like Jesus, we'll probably offend some of those people. To be honest, as we go through this study this year, I think you're gonna come to some points where you're gonna feel like, wait, wait, wait. Jesus seems to be contradicting a lot of what I know about religion. Yes. Because Jesus wasn't a conformist, he wasn't just trying to fit the mold, he was trying to love people well and to reach people who were far from God. He was hanging out with the people that many times church people don't hang out with. He was doing life the way that a lot of times church people don't do life, and I'm not talking about being unholy, I'm talking about he maintained his holiness, he maintained his set apartness, but he loved people where they were and he was with people. And he invited them in. And so when we think about living like Jesus, what would happen if his church actually lived like Jesus? What would happen if Point Community, which is just one small expression here in South Austin? What would happen if we actually, as his people, started saying, God, what would it look like for me to take steps to look more like Jesus in my everyday life? You think that people's lives around us would be changed? Absolutely they would. And not because we're good, but when you give yourself over to that and God begins to work in you, it changes everything. It changes everything. Now, we're gonna talk in a minute about the fact that we are all at different places in this journey. So don't think for one moment I'm saying that what we what we need is a church full of clones. We don't. We don't need everybody to have the same exact personality, we don't need to have everybody the exact same way of life. Like I said, we don't need everybody to be male and single and a Jewish rabbi like Jesus was. But what we do need is every person who says that they are a follower that claim to say Jesus is my Savior, that I have life in him, to actually take the next step of looking and following Jesus. Okay? So I want us to look as we start this. We're gonna look in the book of 1 John. We're gonna teach through the book of 1 John over the next uh number of weeks. It's gonna take us a little while to get through it, but we're gonna take, we're gonna take a journey through the book of 1 John as we start this goal of living like Jesus. I think 1 John is a great book to do that, is to really establish who Jesus is and how our lives should look different. But throughout the year, we're gonna keep coming back to this focus, to this theme of how are we personally living like Jesus. And I'm gonna give you some tools at the end of the of the talk today on what that can look like in your personal walk with God. So if you've got your Bible, go ahead and open up to 1 John chapter 1. And if you don't own a Bible, there's some Bibles underneath the chairs around, you can pick up one of those. And uh, if you you don't own one, you're feel feel free to take that with you as a gift. I'm gonna read this to us. I'm gonna read the first four verses and then we're gonna kind of come back and unpack them. What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have observed and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life. That life was revealed, and we have seen it, and we testify and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father, was revealed to us. What we have seen and heard, we also declare to you so that you may have fellowship along with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. Now, before we really dive into what John is trying to say in these first four verses, which are pretty loaded, um, let me give you a little context, okay? So the book of John was written by the apostle John, and he was the last living disciple. Okay, he was the last one, uh, because all the rest of them at that point had been killed for their faith. They had been martyred. So John's still around, and he is riding to a group of people around the city of Ephesus. Okay, Ephesus was just one of the cities there that uh they had been working, and not just John, but Timothy, uh Paul and Timothy were in Ephesus. In fact, Timothy was one of the pastors there in Ephesus, if you've if you know your Bible, and if you don't, uh just kind of bring you up to speed on that. Like Timothy is one of the great young pastors in the New Testament. He actually uh receives these two letters from Paul called 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy, the great uh sections of Scripture that we would talk about what it looks like to be a godly leader in the church. In fact, we use that when we're training our elders. And Timothy was a pastor there, and they were really struggling, even in the first century, to make sure that people believed rightly about who Jesus was. Because there had been this heresy, this false teaching, this false idea come in that Jesus was the Messiah and he was God. We kind of accepted that. What they didn't accept is that Jesus was actually human, that he became fully human. The word we use is incarnation. Concarni with meat, right? That's what helps me remember that. Okay? So he was incarnated. Some of you are like, that's sacrilegious. I'm just saying that's what it means. Okay, con He was in the flesh, okay? Jesus really was a human being. He really was a man. In fact, when he died, his death was real. When he was beaten, he felt real pain. When he suffered on our behalf, it was real suffering because he was a human being. Are you with me? Okay, so he was flesh. And John really is trying to say, listen, guys, I don't know what they've been telling you. I get this sense that they're telling you that Jesus was not really human, he wasn't really flesh, he really didn't come. And notice what John says to combat this. He says, What was from the beginning, almost like to say, kind of like, hey, we understand he was God, okay? We heard him. We have seen him, we have observed him and have touched him with our hands. I mean, it doesn't get any better than that, right? He's like, You respect me as a leader, right? I saw him, I heard him, I touched him. He was a real man. And so he wants to make sure that they get that. And here's the thing is that in the in the church at Ephesus, they really weren't struggling to fully embrace that, but what was happening is eroding their confidence in who Christ was. That sounds familiar, doesn't it? When you stop and you back off and you think about the world we live in, doesn't it seem like there's constantly these voices that are trying to erode our confidence in who Christ is and what he has done? Doesn't it seem to you like that everyone wants to kind of attack the fact that, you know, we'll accept Jesus as a teacher, we'll accept him as a good person, we'll accept him as a quality servant to follow his example, but don't tell me that he's God and then I gotta put my trust in him to actually get to heaven. Like, don't tell me that stuff. And try to try to erode our confidence. In fact, if you've had any conversations with people who are anti-faith or don't believe the message of the Bible, and again, maybe that's some of you in here, some of the arguments are pretty stout. I mean, there's some pretty solid arguments that are brought forward to try to make the case that we shouldn't put our trust in Jesus or that it's not really real. And they'll they'll make this very strong intellectual case for why you shouldn't put your trust in Jesus. And if you interact with those people long enough, it starts to mess with you. It can start to erode your confidence in Jesus. And here's part of the reason why we need community. Why we need community, like Abby was talking about in the film, in the video, is because we need people around us to remind us who Jesus is. As silly as that might seem, we need people who say, no, no. Jesus is the Son of God and He's our Savior and He's our Lord. And you don't discredit him. We got to keep pointing back to Jesus, pointing back to Jesus. When we say we're a church who points to people to life in Jesus, we don't mean just people who don't know Jesus. Are you hearing me? We don't mean that we just need to point people who don't know Jesus to Jesus. We need to point each other to Jesus constantly. Because our problem is that we tend to point people to ourselves, and we even point ourselves to ourselves to be the Savior of our life. But only Jesus is that. And so as that confidence is eroded, remember John, who was one of the apostles, who was one of the first disciples, he saw Jesus. He heard Jesus, he felt Jesus, he touched Jesus, he hugged Jesus, he sat next to him and had communion, uh, the Lord's Supper there at the very end of his Jesus' life. And he's saying, He is real and he was revealed. He came as a man. And we can have confidence in that this morning. But think about that for a second. He starts out by saying what was from the beginning, and then he comes down a little way, and he says, We testify and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father. So he is God, and he is human. If he is God, that means he is perfect. Now, we don't always feel like God is perfect. Can I be honest? Some of you in this room, you're like, God's not perfect. I mean, look what he's letting happen to my life. Look how it's falling apart, look at these sickness, look at the suffering, look at the issues in the world, the stuff that Casey brought up earlier, as you kind of go watch the news just for a little while, and you just get overwhelmed by the reality that our world is in trouble. And it's not a new thing, guys. But in the midst of all that, we've got a God who is perfect, who knows our pain. And he has for a season, and in his mind it's a lot shorter than in our minds, he's allowed the world to spin, and and I not out of control because I believe that God in his sovereignty is bigger than all that, he's holding it all together, but he's he's let the the evilness of men's hearts reign. But no, that's temporary, okay? Because one day he's gonna fix all that and he's gonna bring justice to all that. So it's not it's not forever. It's because he is slow to anger, he's abounding in love, he is merciful, he's gracious, and he wants people to turn back to him. And he wants even in the struggle and the strife and the hardship, and you may be going through some of that today, he wants you to turn to him, even in all that. But notice he says he's the eternal God, he's he's With the He's eternal life and He's with the Father. And it was revealed to us. So if we're gonna be people who live like Jesus, we need to recognize who Jesus is and to acknowledge that He is God and that He is man. And at being God, being perfect, that when He came in the flesh, He was a perfect representation of what humanity is supposed to be. He was a perfect image of what we were designed to do and what we are designed to say, how we are designed to live. He is that. So that's why He's our goal. And that's why when we say we need to grow up, we don't want to just grow up to be like somebody else. We want to grow up to be like Christ because He's our example, He's our goal, He's what we're shooting for. So He became a man. But notice what he goes on to say, John, the writer here. He says, He was revealed to us, and what we have seen, this is verse 3, what we have seen and heard, we also declare to you, so that what? That you may have fellowship along with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father. Now I grew up in Baptist churches when I was a kid. I'm kind of a church brat, and so in some ways I've got um this baggage that's there. But when I think about fellowship, I think about food. That's just what comes to my brain. I think about food, I think about Sunday nights, fellowships, hanging out with people. Maybe that wasn't your story. I'm just saying you missed out. Okay, there used some there were some sweet days back in then, you know, like uh I would eat all the casseroles that the ladies made, and then mainly it was the desserts I was most excited about. And so um we would get together and we had these fellowships. But what he's actually saying here is not just talking about like some time when we gather and eat a meal together, though that's part of fellowshipping together. He's talking about real community where people are connected at a deep level. It's not surface level. Now, when you come to church on Sunday, how many of you ask the question to someone at least once or get asked the question, how are you doing? And how many times we go, Good. But it's like in your brain, it's going like you really don't want to know the answer. Anyone been there? When I think about genuine fellowship, I think about people who get below the surface and it's authentic connection. It's genuine in the sense that, you know, we don't just unload all of our baggage when somebody asks us how we're doing. But regularly we're in relationships with people where there's a connectedness, there's a closeness. And it's not just a, hey, here's how I'm doing. It's I care about you and I want to pray for you, and I want to help you, and I want to support you as you go through that. Like that's fellowship, that's connectedness, that's a closeness that's there. And here's the thing: that is not normal behavior for people to actually care and to be genuine and to get invested in each other's lives. You know why? Because of sin. That's what the Bible tells us. Let's go back to the very beginning of the scripture in the book of Genesis. If you go to the book of Genesis, what you will find is a story where God creates everything, right? This is this is not new for most of us. He creates everything, he speaks it into existence. And once he speaks it into existence, he gives them one rule, and they break the rule. This is a very quick summary, right, of what's happened in the first couple chapters of Genesis. So by chapter three, just barely into the story, they break the rule, and what happens? What happens? Separation. We call you ever heard that word? Separation when you talk about the gospel that we're separated from God. And we're also separated from because in that story, we see that first off, they run from God, they hide from God. They've never hid from God before, but they're hiding because they feel all the shame and guilt that comes on them. And so there's this brokenness in their relationship. There's a separation, there's something between them, there's a barrier. But not only is there a barrier between them and God, but then they turn into the blame game. And God holds Adam accountable, which he should have, because he gave him the instruction, but Adam passively sits by and lets his wife take this fruit. We want to blame her, but he was just, he was right there. And so basically what happens is that in that process, they begin blaming, kind of blame shift, and their relationship is broken. Listen, you and I were wired for fellowship. We were wired for closeness, for connectedness, for interaction with people where it was genuine and it was deep and it was real love. I'm not talking about romantic love. I'm talking about a deep love and affection to one another to say, I care about you. And if you hurt, I hurt. And if you're celebrating, I'm celebrating. And if you're struggling, I'm struggling with you. I am with you. This is why the church should be a place where people don't feel alone. Because we're connected. And that's why we emphasize time and time again that if you just come to church on Sundays, that's awesome. We welcome you here. We're glad that you're here. But you want to really experience church, you need to experience fellowship. And that happens beyond just a Sunday gathering that happens, that's an hour and 15 minutes on Sunday. Serving with a ministry team where you get to interact with people and love people and serve in that way. Going to a life group, experiencing what it's like to sit down and talk about what's really going on. Not just study the Bible, but actually talk about real life and how it applies to your life and how God will reach you and help you in the midst of all that. Okay? We want you to experience that. We don't want something from you as much as we want something for you. We want that for you. Because we believe your life will be so much fuller when you experience the kind of relationship. So he says in this passage, he says that we get to declare the message that Jesus comes. That's the good news, is that while we were separated from God, we were separated from each other, Jesus comes into the scene, and what he did on the cross as fully man and fully God is he brought that relationship back together. It was separated and he restored it. Now, we don't always feel this way, do we? We don't always feel this way, but this is what he offers us. You see, he offers us fellowship, a reconnection with him, and a connectedness to one another. And I want to make sure you hear this this morning. If you say and I say we love God and we are connected to God, but we do not love our brother, our sister. We do not care about people, we are lying. In fact, it's gonna come up later in the book of John. Because you can't say, I love God and not love people. That's why Jesus even said his greatest command. What is the greatest command? He could have listed all kinds of things, but he said, Love God and love people. And those two things are interconnected. Your fellowship with God, your fellowship with man, your connectedness. And Paul, or John here, he says, I want you to experience that. I want you to have that fellowship. I want you to have that fellowship with us, that we're all in this together, that we get to celebrate the beauty of the gospel, the gift of the salvation that we have. But I also want you to experience what it's like to live with people in community and really care deeply about one another. There shouldn't be lonely people in the family of God. There shouldn't be people that are isolated. And if that's you today, my encouragement to you is to press into the community of people around you. Don't run, don't hide. That's what the enemy wants you to do. Press in. Our world is full of crowded loneliness. We're around crowds of people, and yet we feel very disconnected. That's because there's no fellowship. And God says, I want to give that to you all. I want you to experience that. And that's what I love about being a part of Point Community Church is when I come here, I feel connected. I feel that there's a love, a genuine warmth here. And it's because of Jesus. It's because of what he's done in our lives, and we feel that common bond, and we get to see that lived out. So we want to live like Jesus in that. But the fourth thing he says, the next thing he says in verse 4, he says, we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. Now, I don't know about you. I don't know all of your upbringing, uh, whether you're around you know church as a kid or not, but I think a lot of people they view um going to church or being a part of religious uh uh church things. I want to say just religious things, because the gospel is so much more than that, but they see it sometimes as a drudgery, like it's a burden, it's something I have to do, and something that I should do. And those are it is actually true that we should do it, but I love it when church goes from something I have to do to something I get to do. Well, that's something I'm I get to be a part of. And you know what happens in that is that now you recognize that there is there's really a joy that's that's so much greater than what this life can offer. Um, everything in this life is offering us this facade that it will satisfy, that it will meet our deepest longings, and it can't, and it won't, right? But he says here, he says, I want our joy to be complete. I want you to know Jesus, and when you know Jesus, and when you understand who he is and what he has done, and when you have that fellowship, that connectedness, you're gonna find joy. It's not gonna be a burden to you, it's not gonna be a beatdown to go to church. It's gonna be a get to, be with other people, and celebrate what God has done. That's what I want. Is that what you want? I believe that God wants that for you. And again, if you're here today and you're not a believer in Jesus, uh, you've never put your trust in Christ, maybe this doesn't make sense. Maybe you're searching right now, maybe you're just on this trail of trying to figure this out and you you see people from a distance and you're kind of attracted to it, but you're not quite sure what to do with it. Listen, being a part of the the church is is about being in relationship with people. And being in relationship with God, it's it's relational. It's not just it's not just a service you attend, it's about doing life with others who love God and who love you, and you get to love back and serve them. Is it messy? Yeah, it is. It's messy. But does it bring joy? Absolutely, it brings joy. I love what Abby said in the video. He said, My my second family. We are a family, and that's what we should do for one another is to serve each other and to be family, and that brings joy. And it's not just a temporary joy, but it's a lasting joy because our community, our connectedness is only gonna increase as we get closer to God, and one day when Christ returns, we will be with him and it'll be we will be complete, it will be whole. And what they experience in the garden, without that barrier, we're gonna experience again. It's gonna be awesome. It's gonna be awesome. So being a Christian is more than just a way to heaven. Being a Christian is a way of life, following Jesus that will lead us to true freedom, deep relationships, and lasting fulfillment and joy, satisfaction. It will. It will. So I told you that we were setting up this goal for the year, and so I want to just get practical for a second to say how can we, as a body of believers, live like Jesus? How can we grow in living like Jesus? First off, let me say this. Um, Jesus doesn't say, come follow me if you're a Navy SEAL Christian. Everybody else, I'm sorry for you. Okay? You know what I'm talking about? Sometimes, if we're not careful in the church, we can say to people, look, everybody has to be able to do this today. And if you do that, then you make this assumption that there's some spiritual people and there's some unspiritual people. And let me just let me just say to you that when Jesus, even when he invited his disciples to follow him, he knew they weren't where they needed to be. But he met them where they were and he invited them to take a step of faith. To take a step of faith to follow him. Now, I know that instantly when I say live like Jesus, some of you, particularly maybe men in the room, men in the room, we tend to go, yeah, whatever. You know, I can't do that. You know, you're gonna tell me I have to read my Bible 18 times a day. You're gonna tell me I have to pray 42 hours a week. You know, like, what are you gonna tell me? You're gonna tell me all this stuff that I'm gonna have to do, and I can't do it, so I'm just gonna give up already, right? Listen, wherever you are in your personal walk with Jesus, my encouragement to you this morning is just take the next step. The next step. Because it's about one step at a time. And everybody's step is a little different. Everybody's step is a little bit different. So, practically what I mean in that. Well, for some of you, you've never read your Bible. Like personally, sat down and read your Bible. You you come to church, you hear somebody people talk about the Bible, you hear people, you know, uh teach from the Bible, but you've never personally read the Bible. A next step for you would be let's spend some time actually reading the Bible. Maybe it's even just once a week to get started. Okay? Um, I was talking with a man the other day, and uh he has been coming here to church, and one of the things he told me is he said, I'm just I'm I'm a dumb Christian, I don't really know anything, I don't really, I'll I can't really ever lead anybody spiritually. And I'm like, where did you get that? And he said, I just don't know the Bible, I'm not smart. I'm like, so you can't be a Christian if you're not smart? Like, where did that come from? And I think some people feel that way. They feel like if I don't know the Bible, if I don't know all these things, then I can't be a Christian. But that doesn't say that in the Bible. It's take the next step. Whatever that step is. The illustration that helps me with that is I told you earlier, I like to play sports growing up and I love getting in the weight room. That doesn't show anymore, but used to. Um, I used to love getting in the weight room and love love lifting weights. But you know, it would be the dumbest thing in the world for me to go into the weight room and to throw 500 pounds on the bar and say, okay, go lift that today. Not gonna happen. In fact, I'm gonna die. Okay? It's gonna fall on me and choke me and I'm gonna die. My family, my wife's gonna be a widow, okay? So the point is is is silly, but here's the here's what I want you to hear. Like, you can't start today and like go from zero to a hundred like that. It doesn't work that way. This is a journey. We're all on a journey, and we need to encourage one another wherever we are to take the next step. To trust God in small things. And he who who does that in the small things, it'll it'll grow over time. It's a lifelong journey, and we'll never fully arrive. No matter how long we're on this journey, there's always something God's pushing on. You know, I figure like I see God do something in me sometimes, and I'm like, okay, I'm so glad God's fixed me now. I'm good. And about a week later, my wife says something about, and she's very careful in how she says this, so don't don't hear me saying she's a nag because she's not. And then Proverbs says that that's a dripping faucet. And um, so she's not that way at all. But here's the thing she'll ask me something, and it'll like strike something in me that the God will use that and go, oh man, I am messed up there. Dude, I didn't realize how jacked up I am in that. And and literally I'll start to pray and I'll go through that, and for a season, God will work that out of my life, and I'll be like, Yes, I'm done. And then three days later, something happens with my kids, and I see a whole nother part of me that's broken and messed up. And God, listen, it's a constant journey, and we never fully arrive this side of heaven, but we can live more and more and more like Jesus. We can love more, we can increase in that, we can serve more, we can increase in that, we can increase in our passion for people to care for them, serve them. We can grow. We need to grow. So, one of the tools that we want to use is a little thing called a journal. You know what a journal is? Um, and some of you are like not journal people. In fact, I actually hate journals. Um, I'm not a big fan of writing in journals in general, uh, because every time I start, I make it two days and then I stop. Um, but here's the thing: what we want to do is encourage us, anybody who wants to, we we've we purchased some of these and they're at the back table. And if you're gonna use it, okay, um, I want you to pick one up. And instead of writing in your sermon guide uh on Sundays, your notes from the sermons as we're walking through this year, I want you to write them in here. And and on that guide, if you notice uh the new guide that we just put out today, on the back of it, there's a reading plan. It gives you some scriptures that you can read through every day. And I want you to take some time, whenever that time is, but set aside some time and actually go read those verses. Okay? There's a daily reading plan. And for some of you, you're like, I already read the Bible daily. Great, here's a plan for you. Okay, you can use that. Some of you, like I said a while ago, you've never read the Bible. Great. Here's a place to start. But I want you to read that, and there's a there's a sort of a pattern. You don't have to follow that exact pattern, okay? But there's a pattern there to pray. Thank God for who he is, what he's done. Ask him to speak to you, okay? Read the Bible. Ask God, what are you trying to show me in this? Like, try to see some things that are there, write those things down. Then go, how am I going to actually apply that to my life? How's that gonna change who I am? How do I need Jesus to help me actually apply that to my life? Because you can't do this alone. Let me say this again. You cannot do this alone, right? You need people and you need God. You need God and then you need people. Okay, that's that's the word probably better. But but both ways, you need other people to help you do this. So as you get a journal, as you start to spend time daily praying and spend time daily reading, whatever your next step in that is, I believe that it'll start to change your life. It'll start to deeply impact who you are. Okay? And hopefully, here's the goal. So maybe this is like a carrot out there. You're gonna get to the end of this year, uh, 2014, 15 school year into the next summer. And as we kind of wrap up this goal, you're gonna have a record of what God's been teaching you over the course of this year. Okay? And you're gonna open it up and you're gonna go, I remember way back in September, we started this process. And I was only able to read the Bible one day a week. That's all I could do. But the more I read, the more hunger God put in me. And I started reading the Bible daily, and I started changing. And you have a record of what God's been teaching you and showing you. You have to build into yourself those habits. And as I said, you need God, God's help, God's strength, God's empowering presence in your life through his Holy Spirit to actually stick this out and to make it happen, okay? To make to make this reality. And the reason why I say that is because if I just tell you to try to be a better person, but I don't tell you to put your trust in Jesus, that I don't tell you to rely on Jesus to do it, I'm just setting you up for failure. Like, if I just told you, hey, look, go work on your relationships or go work on um you know being a better dad, and I gave you some tips and tricks or some how-tos to do that, but I didn't tell you that to rely on Jesus to do that, that would be really bad leadership on my part. It'd be really unbiblical leadership. Are you with me? What I'm saying to you is you're gonna need Jesus to actually grow to be like Jesus. You're gonna need him working in you because you can't do it on your own. I can't do it on my own. And so I want you to invite him to help you. I want you to acknowledge, I want us all to acknowledge that we need God to help us. And secondly, I want you to invite some people into your life to help you. And that's why we say life group is so important, so so significant. There's some guides on the back table that as you lead today, there's a guide with some life group names, information. And I challenge you just to take the next six weeks and join a group. Just the next six weeks, okay? You can see the end of that, right, man? Okay, today, you know, this go this week, you can do it for six weeks. I challenge you just to try six weeks in a group, being honest, being real, listening in, learning from others, living in fellowship, community, and see if God won't change the way that you see your faith, won't start to change parts about you, okay? But invite people in. Invite people into your life to help you. You're gonna need their help. The first step in living like Jesus is acknowledging that Jesus is who the Bible says he is. The first step is that. And so if you've never put your trust in Christ, if you've never put your faith in Jesus today, then my encouragement to you is start with him. And if you're not a believer in Christ, we invite you to come along on this journey. Living like Jesus, probably not gonna work because you can't do it on your own. But you can you can investigate his life, you can look at his life, you can explore his life, you can start to learn what he was like. And my hope and my prayer is that one day you would understand that he loves you more than you can even begin to imagine. And he wants to have a relationship with you and that you would accept that relationship, that gift, that offer, to be connected to him. That's what I pray for us.