[SERMON] Viz. — Clarifying What Matters Most

What does it mean to be clear about what you believe? In this message, Pastor Cyle Young of Heart o' the Lakes Church dives into one small but powerful word — viz. — found in the church's statement of faith. This Latin abbreviation meaning "namely" or "that is to say" leads into a rich conversation about the Christian ordinances of baptism, communion, and foot washing, and why the church must define the essentials while extending grace on everything else.

Drawing from Scripture and real-life stories — from hospital-room baptisms to a card game tournament conversation about faith — Pastor Cyle challenges believers to loosen their grip on preferences, stop fighting over methods, and refocus on the mission: loving God, loving people, and pointing the world to Jesus.

"In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty. And in all else, charity."

Transcript

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Back in January, we were talking about what we believe, kind of our statement of faith of who we are as a kind of an evangelical Christian church. So we took time to share kind of the seven basic points of all that all kind of evangelical Christian churches believe, and really about Jesus, about God, about sin, about forgiveness, all those things, heaven, mankind. And so we talked about that. During that time, we read a bunch of um different statements. And so one of those statements is there was a word in it, and today's message is about one word in that called viz. Anybody use this word in a regular week? Anyone ever said this word? So okay. I love this word. It's kind of like about what comes next. Like uh it's kind of, we'll talk about it, but I get I'm kind of young if you don't know who I am. And uh so I'm gonna make sure people know who I am. And uh today, this word, uh we, you know, we're kind of silly sometimes. We're like, wow, we should do a message about that. Well, we really, we really are. It's like I wasn't kidding. We're doing that. So uh but I would first I want to say this what we clarify in life reveals what we value. So let me ask you some questions. Who here has ever been in a relationship? Okay. Last service, they were not so easily to say. I was like, some of you, it's been lonely. Um so, all right. Who here has ever been in a relationship that's not like official yet? Like, like in a situationship. Okay, it's a new word. I know some of you are like, what does that mean? It means you like each other, you've been talking, but you don't know what it is yet. Anybody been in that? So it's called situationship. Well, uh, not this year, but last year I had a foreign exchange student, her name's Clara. She's actually here visiting today. So there's Clara. You can wave, yeah. Yeah. Clara is from Germany. We actually have another foreign exchange student, Maylin's up here, so I won't make her wave or say hi or anything. So we've been fortunate to have some amazing uh exchange students at our church uh the over the last five, six years. It's been awesome. But um, so Clara taught me something I didn't know at the time. And so it's something called an eye contact ship. Has anyone ever been in an eye contact ship before? Anybody? Nobody? Clara? So this is a thing. It is actually a thing. You can look it up. It's you ever had the moment. Now I didn't I've thought about it. I've thought about this a lot since I've known Clara. I think I was in an eye contact ship in eighth grade with a girl across from my my homeroom because we would look at each other, she'd look back at me. It was either that or it was stalking, one of the two. So an eye contact ship could be stalking. Uh really probably is. But um, you there's a thing called eye contact ship where you know you'd like to look at their person, they look back at you, and it's a whole relationship that you never speak, but it's just through your looks. Also stalking. So um, but uh so that's the thing. So these relationships, like what we have with social media, we have this opportunity that people are trying to define what your relationship is. Well, if you not really haven't had that talk about like what is this? Like, what are we doing? Then you're in a situation ship. And that's an actual definition of what's happening. An eye contact ship is a definition of what's happening. Stalking is a definition of what's happening too. Uh, definitely clarified by the courts. Um, so but we clarify, like, when you get to the point in your relationship where you like you know you love somebody or you you want to have kind of just be you and that person to really figure that out. You usually have the talk and like, hey, what are we, what are we? Like, are we boyfriend, girlfriend? Like, what are we gonna be? Anyone ever had that talk before? Anyone ever had that talk, like definition talk? Okay, a lot more of you have because if you have a ring on your finger, that is the talk to define things. So uh I don't know if you know that or not. Like, I hope you didn't just that just put that on one day, but like there was probably some conversations before that. We decl we did we define and clarify the things that we value. So I want to go back to one of those statements of faith. It was actually the last one. It was about the Christian ordinances. I want to read that with you, and so you'll see here step out of the way of it. So this is the statement of faith. Uh, it says, We believe that the ordinances, viz., baptism and the remembrance of the sufferings, there's that, there's that word, viz., of the and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, are to be in use and practiced by all Christian societies, and that it is an incumbent on all the children of God, particularly to practice them. But the manner in which ought all it always to be left to the judgment and understanding of every individual. Also, the example of washing feet is left to the judgment for everyone to practice or not. It's because some of you don't like feet. Um, but it is not becoming of any of our preachers or members to traduce any of their brethren, whose judgment and understanding in these respects is different from their own, either in public or in private. Whosoever shall make himself guilty in this respect shall be considered a traducer of his brethren and shall be answerable for the same. We should do a sermon on traducer. I think we should have that one in there. But this is the statement of faith we talked about. And this viz was really talking about clarifying the ordinances. The ordinances are the kind of visible theology that we do that carries out our relationship and our love for Jesus. And so it's clarifying that by saying baptism and communion and somewhat footwashing are those ordinances. They're official, they're things that we need to do, and we need to practice them. And then it gives clarity to how and how not to practice them. And this word viz, it's a tiny word, but tiny words can carry massive theology. They can. And as we go through this, I want to hit some of those ordinances. I want to talk about them because I want you to know what they are. If you weren't here for that series and we won't talk about these, so the first one's in 1 Corinthians 11. We have this very famous verse, and it says, For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you. That the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. So Jesus had this moment with his best friends, which we refer to as communion. And Jesus was actually celebrating the Passover Seder Supper. He was, it's a it was something that had been celebrated for hundreds and hundreds of years, centuries. Jesus was celebrating it, and he kind of changed it to be a reflection of what he was about to do for them, which we still do that to remember him 2,000 years later. It's an ordinance. And when we remember Jesus through communion, we're remembering his body, remembering his blood that was poured out for us to give us forgiveness of sins. And so when that word viz in the statement of faith comes, it actually is a word that means namely, that is to say, or specifically. So the ordinance specifically, the ordinances specifically are these things. And when we worship, these are the ordinances, these are the things that are primary that we need to keep focused on, that are kind of visible theology for us and for the world, and it clarifies what they are. So viz is a clarifying word. And the statement of faith really says we believe the ordinances, viz. baptism and communion. And otherwise, really it's saying, let us be absolutely clear what we mean when we say the word ordinances, because it's a big word. Now, I don't know if you know this, but I've learned this. The township has ordinances, so let's do it's not the same. So that's why we need a variance to the ordinance, right? So ultimately, we want to be we want to be really clear about what we mean and what we believe is important and how we worship Jesus. And healthy churches clarify the essentials. It's really important. We clarify the essentials. We know what we believe, we know why we believe it, we know how to communicate it to others. Because confusion grows where truth becomes vague. When we have kind of this vague truth, I'm not really sure what's true or what I believe, then that confusion creates really it creates chaos. And so another one of those uh ordinances that we have comes really uh from verses like Matthew 28. It says, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. So Jesus, when he's when he's going from leaving this world to go to heaven to prepare a place for us, he tells his best friends, hey, by the way, go teach everything I taught you, go teach it, and baptize people. Jesus was baptized at the beginning of his public ministry. It was a very uh visible sign of change that he had started in the ministry and that God was was uh was with him and upon him. And so it was it was it was a noticeable thing and change that they would have seen. And he says, Hey, that thing that I did, I want you to go teach people, and I want them to do the same thing. I want them to be baptized. And we see that become an ordinance when Jesus kind of puts the importance on that. Hey, go out and do this and make this part of how you worship and how you teach and how you show people about me. And so the church must lovingly define what matters. We must tell people what matters, what doesn't matter, and we must do it in a way that's loving and define it so we know what these things are and what they mean. Romans 6, 4 speaks and says this we were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead, by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in the newness of life. So we know that baptism is for us. The Bible makes it clear baptism wasn't just for Jesus, it's for us. The disciples were told to go teach people, and then we're supposed to do it. It's supposed to be part of our worship, and when we do so, we die to our old life because Jesus was when baptism for us is a public sign of an inward change. When we get baptized, we we are confirming publicly to a community that we die to our old life, we're buried, and then we rise out of the water into new life in Jesus Christ. We are born again in our new life in Christ. It's a very important moment for people in their lives to be baptized. And so, and we walk in that newness of life that comes when we raise from the dead and we're born again in Christ. And so for the early church, baptism was not treated as optional symbolism, it was it was the essence of understanding Christ. His death, his burial, his resurrection, and our death to our old life, our burial, and our resurrection and new life in Christ. And see, for the early church, they they clarified baptism, they practiced it, and then they protected it. See, for for us, ordinances are visible theology. They are. It's a way that you can see faith. People live out their faith. We do communion, it's powerful, but you can actually, you can actually almost put yourself in that room in that moment when you're eating the bread and you're drinking the juice. You can you can see the power of what that moment that Jesus had with his closest friends and what he was communicating the truth. With baptism, you can stand on a beach and you can watch someone get baptized and go under the water and rise up out into new life. They're visible theology. And for many centuries, uh for really for until modern times, most people could not read. They were illiterate. And so these moments, these ordinances were really the way that people understood like church and traditions and truth. So one of the reasons why you go into like a lot of those famous Catholic churches you see, they see all these huge paintings on the wall. The paintings are on the wall for a purpose. People couldn't read. So they saw the painting and the picture, and it taught them a truth. And that's how they learned. And they would come in and they would see the stories and they would understand. Ordinances are also just like that, they're visible theology. See, baptism, it preaches, communion, it preaches, and foot washing, it district demonstrates humility for those who do it. Now, I'm not saying they have to do footwashing. Cody's up here, I know, with Santa's on today, so I think some of you think that's gross. I'll hear it later. That's so disgusting, right? We do, I hear it. But for us, faith was never meant to stay invisible for people. It wasn't. It was supposed to be public, it was supposed to be displayed. People were supposed to see your faith. And the statement of faith that we're we this was part of, it defines the essentials while allowing freedom in the methods. That's what I love about it. We're in a denomination, it's the United Brother Church, and we don't talk about it often, but the United Brother in Church focuses on the main thing. It's all about the Bible. What does the Bible say? What does the Bible not say? What the Bible says is essential, and we must do that, believe that. What it doesn't say, or it leaves room for interpretation, is a non-essential, and we try to bring clarity to it, but we don't traduce the brethren. All right, we don't fight over the methods. For example, baptism here, baptism here, we do baptism, and you go under the water, and then you come out of the water. Actually, I think we go backwards. Sorry, we go backwards and back up. All right, that's what we do for baptism. We do full immersion. But there are other ways to do baptism. There's sprinkling. You can take water and you sprinkle it on for baptism. There is pouring. You take water and you pour it over someone's head. It doesn't matter to us. If you have a mode that matters to you more, we'll do it. Because we're not going to fight about the mode, because what matters is the heart change. We believe baptism is about a public sign of an inward change, an inward reality. Now I'm following Jesus. I'm publicly proclaiming that to the world. However, you want that to look, it doesn't matter. For me, I grew up in a denomination where if you didn't go all the way under 100% of your body, then that is a problem. And if you know your pinky was out, you're probably going to hell because it just didn't work. Right? Like that's just the way it is, right? And there are churches that believe that, 100% under, and if you don't, you've got to be rebaptized, right? You got to be immersed. And um I was at a church, I was at a church before where you were you were baptized three times. So it was it, you go do it in the name of the Father, name of the Son, name of the Holy Spirit. We just call that waterboarding. And so it is. The third time, I'm telling you, the third time they come up like because they like you just waterboarded them. Like that's you want to make sure it worked, right? So but that's that's the the mode is different. There are there, some of you grew up in traditions that had uh pouring, sprinkling. Um, you know, those are different traditions. So uh I was at a church and I was serving where they they believed that you had to have full immersion. The problem is, I was at a hospital room with a woman who was dying of cancer. She was like 60 pounds, she was days away from death, and she wanted to be baptized. There was no way to take her to baptize her by full immersion. That was never gonna happen. So we did, we took a water bottle and we poured her, and we baptized her right there, threw her wig, water running everywhere, just soaked her to the bone, and she wept because it was so powerful, so meaningful. And honestly, it was probably the favorite baptism I've ever done. Just standing, her and I in a hospital room all alone with a bottle of water. So that was it. And so when you think about it, what what the United Brother Church believes is we don't want you to fight about things that don't matter. What matters is are you getting baptized? Are you publicly confirming to people that I follow the Lord? Is their life change in me? That's what matters. See, we gotta define the essentials. Uh the the United Brother Church actually uh says in in the essentials, they have a statement actually from the beginning. In essentials, unity and non-essentials, clarity, and in all else charity. That's actually a statement of the United Brother Church way back in the 1800s. And so that's the really for us as believers, that's what it should be. We should be stand on the essentials, not fight about the things that need clarity that we can disagree upon and move forward. Now, what are some of those things? I don't care. For example, I don't care how old you believe the earth is, the world is, the universe is. I don't care. Do you believe that God is the creator? That Jesus is the firstborn of creation? Do you believe that that's what the Bible says is very clear. I don't care if you're younger, old earth, gap theory, whatever. So you can believe any of it because we can't prove any of it. What we can prove is God created it all, and he will reclaim all things and restore all things, and that's the belief. So I love to talk about creation. I'll talk to you. I just don't have any real answer. So I like that's where is the Garden of Eden? I don't know. It could be on our planet for all we know. So does it matter where you believe it is? No. So like it doesn't. Like there's things that we if we can disagree upon, but the things that we must agree upon are the things that really truly matter. Because ordinances matter deeply, but the exact manner is left to conscience and understanding, and we shouldn't fight about it. If you if you so you have a family member, a friend who goes to our church and they have a uh they have a you know strong conscience about something, okay, just don't fight with them about it. Like if it doesn't matter, who cares? Like let them have their own, you know, let them be immersed, let them be sprinkled, whatever they want to do. Because truth without grace, it becomes tyranny. It does. And I'm gonna be honest with you, the the in the history of the modern history of the church, there have been some tyrannical periods of time. Let's just talk about the Spanish Inquisition, right? There's been some times the church has not done well. They've used truth to be tyrannical. That is not what we want to be. Legalism, that is all legalism, becomes tyranny for people. And then grace without truth becomes chaos. When it's just all grace, all grace, and then everybody's doing whatever they want. That's just chaos. There's a balance between truth and grace. We need to know what God's truth is, we need to know the essentials, we need to stand on the essentials, and all the other things we need to have grace and give charity to each other. See, mature believers can disagree without becoming enemies. I have pastors who I disagree with that are my friends. I just, we don't, I don't know. Once saved, always saved. Eternal security versus can you have free will and can you backslide? I think it's just a semantics argument, truthfully. I think we're all saying the same thing. We just like to package it with different words and descriptions. But there are people who will not speak to me because I don't agree with them on that. And I just think that ultimately we just should be able to get along and have those conversations because the core of that, the essential, is we all follow Jesus Christ. We believe in our heart that he was raised from the dead, and we confess with our mouth that he's Lord, and we will be saved. The other part we gotta leave up to there's the Bible can tell us both. See, Romans 14 4 says this. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls, and he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. What it's essentially saying is it's not your job. It's not your job to like pass judgment on someone else for their beliefs. If their beliefs are acceptable in the Bible. There are things that the Bible says that there are a couple different ways we could look at it. Not necessarily the things that the culture says, right? There are clear biblical truths that go against the norms of our culture today that we stand with the Bible. We do not stand with culture. Just because you want to believe something doesn't mean it's acceptable. Like there are essentials that we must stand upon. There are non-essentials, which are things that the Bible may lead you to believe one versus the other. For example, we just talked about this in my men's Bible study. Predestination versus free will. Are we predestined by God in every moment to do exactly as God wills for us to do, or do we have the free will to choose? The Bible kind of says both. So we can kind of not fight about both. So those are both things that we can find where you fit or how it works. I think it's a sliding scale that God uses when he chooses, and we don't know, and that's just up to him. But ultimately, we don't fight about that. It doesn't say like you can do these crazy things that the culture says you can do and be it. Like those are would be things that are clearly wrong. So there is truth, and there's things that's not truth, but we we don't want to pass judgment on other believers for potentially believing something the Bible says could be that way. We just need to love each other, like with baptism. If people believe in, they're they're baptized and they were poured, guess what? That that works. They were sprinkled. I was serving in a church, and people would come to church and they wanted to join membership, and they were not allowed to join membership because they were baptized by pouring. And the church said, You that doesn't count as baptism. You're not baptized. Did you know what that did to those people? It created a bunch of really upset people. Because what you're telling me is my faith is not good enough. Your faith is better because you went all the way under the water, and my pastor, who I grew up in church and poured into me, just poured water on my head. That creates a lot of hurt, a lot of a lot of hurt. That creates church hurt. And so we had to navigate that with people. I served alongside of people who would never join that church because of the way they were treated, because of the way they were baptized. But they were baptized because they loved the Lord. You see, what you have to recognize is we're passing judgment on people when we should be trying to glorify God. See, the church today is full of people fighting over methods while forgetting the mission. We just came out of a series about the main mission, the main quest. It's lost people and how. Helping them understand to know Jesus and to follow Jesus and make him known in the world. That's the mission. But we get so lost in all these side things that we lose sight of Jesus. And while we're doing that, we're forgetting the mission. We we've kind of realized that meanwhile the world still needs Jesus. Needs Jesus. So, Viz, this word reminds us to clarify the core. We've got to clarify what matters. The essentials they matter. We actually did a whole series on the seven essentials, the kind of the foundation of faith that Christians must believe on and agree on about. The other stuff that's in the Bible, we can disagree on and love each other and walk through it. The things that we know clearly are the Bible is against, then we stand together against those things. But we've got to clarify the core. We also have to loosen our grip on preferences. A lot of us care way too much about our preferences. I could care less about preferences. I love change. I love to embrace change. People always ask me, do you gonna care about this? No. The answer is I don't care. Let's try it. I don't care. I don't care what the collar of the carpet is, I don't care what stuff looks like, I don't care when we do stuff. I just don't like change for me. It's like, well, try something. If it doesn't work, we'll try something else. But for some of you, you're so you you have your grip so tight on your preferences about things, about beliefs, about things you were taught, about modes of baptism, about whatever types of sermons that you've lost sight of the core. You know, I I people, I this is a regular one for me in my circle. People fight about messages and message content. Like, well, if it's not verse by verse exegesis of scripture, then it's not correct. Yet Jesus didn't preach that way, but still it's not correct, right? Or if you use, if you use a topical sermon series, it's not then that's not the best way, or it is the best way. People fight about this stuff all the time. What they do is they get so full of themselves and their preferences, they lose sight of the core. Because I believe this. I can go to any church that's preaching God's word, and I can learn something, and I can walk out with something. And if I don't, it's a me problem, it's not a them problem. Because the Bible does not return void ever unless I'm the void. That's the truth. And so we have to loosen our grip on preferences and start worshiping Jesus. It doesn't matter the style of music. I love Christian EDM, I love electronic dance music. We should have disco lights and laser beams in here every Sunday. It would be amazing. This this image is my view of heaven. So, like I'm just telling you, I didn't, it's not really, but it I wish it was like that, like laser beams. I think it should be good. Awesome music, flashing lights. I love that stuff. That's not what we do here. So we have to set our preferences aside to get to the core of what we're doing together to worship the Lord. And see, the early believers, they fought for the essentials. They wanted to make sure people knew what mattered. They didn't fight for personal kingdoms. And they clarified those essentials. I don't know if you know this, but we the early church did baptism very early on in the early church because Jesus told his best friends, go do this and baptize people. Now, in the early church, they did baptism differently. We don't do it the same way because they did it naked and they did it so in the stream, so the water would help push you back up out of the water. We're not doing that. Fully clothed on a beach, uh, that's it for us. But like some things have changed about the modality, but it's still baptism. It's still baptism. Now, John 13, 4, 14. It says this if I then, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash another's feet. For I have given you an example that you also should do just as I have done to you. Now, there are churches that believe foot washing is an ordinance. I actually served in a church where foot washing was one of the three ordinances, and so they would wash each other's feet every year. Then they had a meal and a ceremony, and they would come together and you'd wash each other's feet, men with men, women with women. Not very many people showed up. So it was only the feet people. The people that liked feet, they were all there. It really was. But um we we don't see it. You could see in that statement of faith that this is an important thing. The humility of being a servant leader like Jesus matters. That's why foot washing has been an ordinance for for many years for a lot of churches. But like there's it, people have changed. Society's changed a bit with their with their like or dislike of feet. It's ultimately you can wash someone's feet without actually touching their feet. It's this humble mindset, this humble servant leadership that you can exhibit that shows Jesus this humility. So what the brother says is hey, if you want to feet wash great, if you don't, don't, but don't make people feel bad about it, right? If you don't. Because Jesus cared more about humble obedience than he did about religious performance. When we see Jesus interact with the religious leaders and they're just trying to pick him apart and find something flawed with him, he's just humble. He loves the outcast, he he talks to sinners, he goes to the hurting, the blind, the diseased, he heals them. He wasn't there to put on a religious show like the Pharisees. He's often spoken against the show that they would put on and just went out and loved people. That's how we're supposed to see the ordinance. These things that we do, they're not for a show. They're just to love Jesus, to remember him, to remember his sacrifice, to remember our place with him, to show the world Jesus. See, the point was never for Jesus to win arguments, it was to become more like the Christ he was supposed to be, so then we could become more like Christ. And we could learn how to do that. And I think sometimes Christians are crystal clear about doctrine and are completely unclear about love. I mean, some of the people I think are the most unloving in my life that I've ever met are Christians who're supposed to love the Lord, but they're awful people. So and they're awful to each other because they were completely unclear about love. We get so heady and full of ourselves and our intellect and our instruction, and I know all this stuff, and I you don't can't teach me anything, I already know it. When we do that, the danger is we're the void. We're the void. See, Christians have always been tempted to weaponize truth. We see that from time to time. We see it now in our regular world, people when they weaponize truth. That was never the intent. It wasn't supposed to be a weapon, it was supposed to be a net. We're supposed to catch fish, right? Not throw dynamite in there, right? So we're supposed to weaponize it. See, what does this mean for you? Why are we talking about this? I think we need to be clear about Jesus, who he is, what we believe about him, and how we love him and tell people about that love. We need to be faithful in our practice. We need to regularly participate in the practice of our ordinances, the practice of our faith, the practice of reading God's word and talking to God, those things. And then we need to be gracious with people. And just because you're gracious with somebody, I'll just say this. Just because you're gracious with them does not mean they're going to return that favor. I had this conversation earlier this morning with somebody who I challenged to do something and be gracious, and they did, and said, Well, they weren't gracious back. They were not. They were not. But you're not responsible for that. We're responsible to be gracious like Jesus was. That's what we're asked to do. Because truth does matter. God's universal biblical truth, it matters in the world. Ordinances matter. Remembering Jesus, remembering his sacrifice, remembering our place with him through baptism, through communion, potentially footwashing, it matters. Our unity matters. Not fighting about things that don't matter. I don't care if you're Calvinist, I don't care if you're Lutheran, I don't care if you're Wesleyan, I don't care if you're a Minian, I don't care if you come out of a Catholic background, I don't care about any of that stuff. We can talk about it. What matters is do you love Jesus? Does he have your heart? Is your life for him? And are you teaching others to follow him? That's what matters. And how we treat each other, it matters too. The world sees the way that we treat each other, and often, you know, uh, I just get so disappointed when I get on the internet to see how Christians attack Christians all the time. Oh, let's find a Christian that's in trouble and fall, and let's let's make sure the whole world knows how awful they are. That's that's how we treat each other. And it's terrible. The way we treat each other, it matters. And so if you know, like in this series, in this message, you're just thinking, hey, I you know, I need to do to better or be better, then do it. Like, if you need to clarify the truth of the Lord in your life, if you need to let go of some of your preferences, I mean, we've got people, we've got 700 people over two weeks, easily at our church. They come from all kinds of backgrounds. That means all kinds of personal preferences about how church should look, how music should look, how the sanctuary should look, how the decoration should look, how the sermon should be, all that stuff. You gotta let that stuff go and say, if God's got me here, I just gotta be here with these people. And I gotta, I gotta plug in and I gotta figure out what that looks like. And I promise you, those three things that we say that we are on our on our 330, that's what we're trying to be. We want to be a church that boldly introduces our community, Jesus. We want to be a church that embraces a culture of honor, and we want to be a church that multiplies through discipleship. That's our goal. And if you agree with those things, which are tenets of what we should be doing as Christians, then be all in with that and let the other stuff go. You got Spotify to listen to the music you want to listen to, right? You got YouTube to watch a different message, you got all these different things, you got books you can read to go deeper in different things. How are you actually actively living out and serving the Lord humbly as a servant leader within a community that's about pointing people back to Jesus? I think one of my most favorite things uh I've done in a while is um like I I told you guys doing this last year because I'm nerdy. I play games, so I play a game called Rift Bound. I was playing in a competition Friday night. Well, there's like eight of us, uh, mainly from our church or the other campus. And I was playing against a guy uh from the other campus. His name is Alex, great guy. And uh Alex and I were competing in this tournament, and then during the conversation, he goes, Hey, I want to ask you something. I was like, Okay, cool. I figured it was about the game. He said, No, I want to get baptized. And I'm like, oh, that's awesome, man. He's like, Can I ask you some questions about it? It's like, yeah. I was like, I mean, we're we're in a competition right now, winner-loser thing, right? Um, so during the turns of game two, um we're taking the time to talk about baptism. I'm explaining it, you know, I I take my turn, pass to him, he's taking his turn. I was like, so yeah, baptism is the death and burial and resurrection of Jesus. That's what it shows. And when we get baptized, we actually died our whole life. And we're I'm doing the motions, sitting in the arena in Jackson with a room full of people. We're talking about baptism. Because that's what matters, right? That's what we've got to clarify. And so we're going, and now he's trying to take his turn and we're talking about baptism. This whole thing's timed. But it was like one of the famous, like my favorite moments of the recent past. Because it was, I think the words like nodding hill was surreal, but nice. It was really great. Uh, but because it's not what I expected, but it's how God used that moment to be powerful. We're actually meeting Wednesday to talk more about baptism, and so I think Alex can get baptized on 6-7. And that's exciting about what God can do and how these ordinances they matter, and the truth matters, and living for the Lord matters. And so, my challenge for you is make sure you're living in a way that matters, that the truth is clarified, you know what it is, and it matters. If you missed that series, you weren't here attending during that series, go back to January, listen that series. Just kind of the seven truths that really all the evangelical churches must believe because the Bible is really clear about those things. And we stand on that and we stop fighting about the little nuances that don't matter, and we focus on Jesus. We are not the world, we are of Christ. And we live for Him, we serve Him, we read His Word, we apply it to our lives, and yeah, the world's lost and does there's a lot going on in the world that's wrong and we can't be part of. But the things of Christ, we move forward together to glorify God in a lost and broken world so people know Jesus. Because when we say love God, love people, we do so in a way that points them to Christ by the way we live, by the way we love, and by how we live out our faith. And so let's pray together that we can be a church, that we can keep those main essentials, the essentials that we stand on. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we just thank you for the time to just talk about ordinances. Lord, that we can clarify specifically what that means. And Lord, we just pray we can be a church that through those visible moments of theology that we celebrate together, Lord, we we allow those to be the roots of our spiritual faith. Lord, we we know who Jesus is. We live for Jesus, and Lord, we humbly serve the world just like Jesus did. We understand that communion and baptism and even footwashing, Lord, are powerful ways that we remember Jesus and his love for us, his sacrifice for us, and his plan to give us life everlasting and eternity if only we follow him. Lord, we pray that we can be a church that loves you, that loves people, that we stay on mission to show the world that love by the way we live, and then by we, Lord, the way we share. Jesus Christ. We just pray this in his name. Amen.