Community in Chaos

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Community in Chaos

Spencer Cary

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Fellowship

Fellowship

Chet Phillips

Transcript

It's good to see you all this morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. We are in the last week of our Abide series where we are talking through ancient practices for enjoying God. Grab your Bible. Go to John chapter 15.

If you have one of the Bibles in the row, one of these blue ones, it'll be on page 526. If you don't own a Bible, take this one home with you. That's our gift to you. We want you to own a Bible. We want you to read it. That's actually how we started this series, talking about reading the Bible, how important it is for us to enjoy God that way through His Word.

I remember the first time somebody asked me, how have you been enjoying Jesus, or are you enjoying Jesus? And it struck me, it was a little odd. I wasn't prepared for that question. I'd grown up in the church, but the idea of enjoying Jesus and enjoying my relationship with Him was not something I had ever considered. Like, if they had looked at me and said, have you been obeying Jesus? Like, I was ready for that question.

When was the last time you repented of sin? Tell me what's wrong with you. Like, I'm ready for those. But then when it was, have you been enjoying Jesus, or how are you enjoying Jesus? I wasn't ready. Every week on Sundays, we come in here, we set things up, we do a walkthrough.

It makes our sounds work, and we walk through the order of kind of how we're going to do things, make sure people know who's going to read Scripture, all that kind of stuff. And last week, I had to bring my son with me, my four-year-old. So we went up there to do the walkthrough. I sat him in a chair. I said, sit here, be quiet. And he did that moderately well.

But one of the songs we did last week was Psalm 34, and it's called Taste and See That the Lord is Good. So as we were reading through it, they said, okay, and then we'll do Psalm 34, Taste and See That the Lord is Good. And my four-year-old went, gross. And for a lot of us, that's kind of our natural reaction to the idea of enjoying God. Is this like, uh, is that okay? Like, am I allowed to do that?

Like, obey, serve, follow, submit. Like, I'm ready for those terms. But the idea of enjoying God makes me catch a little bit and go, is this all right? Are we okay to do this? So, uh, in the, the book, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, it's written by C.S. Lewis.

They're on a boat and they are out, um, uh, adventuring and discovering new lands. And they go to this island and they come up on the island and they walk up, uh, and there's this table, beautiful, ornate table that is massive. And it is covered with every type of delicacy you could find. The most beautiful display of food you have ever seen at a buffet or your grandmother's house looked childish in, in front of this. It looked like something a kid made out of Play-Doh. Like, this was beautiful and delicious.

And it's sitting there out in the middle of nowhere on this pavilion and there's nobody around. And so the story is they, they walk up on it and some of the sailors, they've been to sea for a while, they really want to eat this. And other ones are like, don't touch that. Like, we don't know whose it is, but this feels weird. Like, this is odd. There should be some people here.

And if they're not here right now, they're going to come back and we can't just be piled around their table eating or it's enchanted. It's magic. It'll kill us. I don't know, but this is sketchy. And I was reading that and I thought that would be me. That would be my, I'd be going, huh, huh, huh, huh.

I know it looks good. Let's hold off a second. This may not be the best thing. I don't usually just walk up. If you found a dinner table in the middle of the woods, I probably wouldn't just be like, oh, cool. Let me eat.

Like, you know, you would just hold off. And I think that some of us, as we're talking about enjoying God, there's this, ah, should we? Is that okay? Is that how I ought to think about this? And Jesus takes the head of the table and says, pull up a chair. That we are meant to delight in God.

That we're meant to enjoy him. That the invitation to abide in Christ is an invitation to joy and delight. This is throughout the scriptures. This idea of delighting in the Lord, delighting in his law, delighting in his goodness, tasting and seeing that he is good. That we would see his glory, but that we would enjoy how good he is. Spencer, as we were talking last week about creeds and confessions, he quoted the Westminster Shorter Catechism.

And the beginning of it says that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Jonathan Edwards, who was a U.S. pastor and a missionary to Native Americans, says God is glorified not only by his glories being seen, but by its being rejoiced in, meaning enjoyed. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it. God designed the world to display his glory that it might impact our hearts and our minds that it might be delighted in and enjoyed. And that makes sense if you think about it, that if God is supremely glorious, when we saw his supreme glory, we wouldn't go neat.

I will just submit to that. No, we would, we'd be swept up in it. We would delight in him that if he is really good, when you grew to know him, it would be really good. We have the phrase, people say the proof is in the pudding. The original phrase is the proof of the pudding is in the eating, meaning your pudding might look nice. I'm going to need to taste it first.

Then I'll tell you. That's like if you see banana pudding and it's yellow, it might not be good. They may have not done this right. Maybe it is. Taste it. And that's what it's saying.

This idea that we would not only just see God, but that in seeing and knowing him, we would draw close to him and we would enjoy him. And that's our hope through this series. As we've talked about Bible reading, as we've talked about prayer, as we've talked about Sabbathing and serving, as we've talked about feasting and fasting, as we've talked about confessing, that we would verbally sing and confess with our mouths. These are all ancient practices that church has done forever. And the point is to draw close to the Lord and to delight in him, because to know him is to love him and to be loved by him and to be swept up in how good he is.

And this is our last week. And so we're kind of summarizing the series and we're going to talk through our last ancient practice. We're going to talk through fellowship, that we would love one another and that by loving one another, we are designed to enjoy God in that way. So let's pray. And then we're going to jump into John chapter 15. God, we thank you that in giving yourself for us, that you also give us to one another and that you empower us to have genuine relationships and walk in your love together.

We pray that as we study this today, that we would not just hear it, but that we would do it, that we would become those who practice what your people have practiced for centuries. We ask for all the help you will offer us by your grace and your spirit in Jesus name. Amen. John chapter 15, verse nine, Jesus is talking with his disciples. This is the night before he is going to be betrayed. Actually, Judas is off betraying him currently, and he's talking to his disciples and he is talking to them, praying with them, and then he'll go to the cross the next day.

And he says this, this is the same passage we started this series. And this is right after he says, abide in me. I'm the vine. You're the branches. Unless you abide in me, you cannot bear any fruit. You will do nothing.

This is right after that. He says, as the father has loved me, so have I loved you. But the same love that the father has for the son, he has for us. And he says, abide in my love. Abide means dwell in, live in, rest in. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.

Just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. That's again the same idea that to know the Lord and to rest in him and delight in him is to have joy. That that is the invitation. That is not begrudging submission, but that there is joy. And then he says, this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.

So I want to show you this verse 10. He said, if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love. Just as I've kept the father's commandments and abide in his love. And then you skip a verse. And the only reason we did that was so that it could all fit on the screen. This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.

So he says, keep my commandments. And then he says, this is my commandment. Now he has other ones, but he's highlighting this one in the middle of this conversation. He's saying, if you will keep my commandments, you'll live in my love. And he says, and this is my commandment. This is it.

This is the primary one. Love one another. And so by loving one another, we practice abiding in the love of Jesus. By loving one another as he has loved us, we practice, we walk in, we participate in the love of Jesus. And for anybody who's been a part of the church for some time, you probably have seen that and felt that. That one of the ways that Jesus loves you is that his church loves you.

And one of the ways you feel loved by Christ is how his church loves you. When you're having a hard time, when you're hurting, when you're sad and people call and care and show up, you feel loved. You also maybe have noticed that when you go out of your way to love others, you feel the love of Christ. He empowers it in you. And so there's this idea that we receive the love of Jesus as we are loved by one another. And that we are a conduit for the love of Jesus as we love others.

But this idea of loving one another helps us abide, helps us live in the love of Jesus. That we were meant to belong to one another. That Jesus was rescuing and redeeming for himself a people. That the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever together. That every time you get a picture of heaven, it's people piled around the throne. It's not individuals lined up getting to see him one at a time.

It's that we belong together as a family redeemed by Jesus. That we get to belong to Jesus. That we get to interact with him and that we get to love one another and abide in his love together. I saw a tweet recently. This is such a normal practice for Christians. This idea that we would belong to one another, that we'd have real deep meaningful relationships, is one of the most normal things for Christians and one of the weirdest things for our culture.

That's why we love TV shows that display it. Love TV shows that display people who have real deep genuine friendships. Because we long for it and we are incapable of doing it well. Y'all notice that? How the shows keep the same characters for long periods of time. And how that never happens in your life.

Your life has so many spin-off shows where new characters have come in and ones have gone out. Because we have this extremely difficult time of relating to one another. I saw a tweet recently that said, Nobody ever talks about Jesus' miracle of having 12 close friends in his 30s. But it's the truth. That we're so bad at having relationships and sustaining them. We desire this.

But if you are in a community group, you are bizarre to our culture. You are. The only thing that brought y'all together is Jesus. So maybe people will kind of go, Okay, I understand. Maybe y'all are supposed to do this. But you're having deep, meaningful relationships where you're sharing life with others.

Where you're confessing sin with others. Where you are intentionally overcoming the fact that the people in your group are exceedingly annoying. And you're sticking with it. Nobody does that. It's extremely difficult. Whenever I get to preach weddings, People sometimes get to ask me to preach weddings.

And I enjoy preaching weddings. It's stressful. Because people remember the stuff you say in weddings. Not the people getting married. They don't usually remember. Because they're just freaking out.

But other people listen. They kind of remember. So I always, you know, I just get up here with some notes and talk. You know. Not at weddings. I stand with a little book.

I stand still. I read my words. Even then, sometimes I accidentally say weird things. But if I get to preach your wedding, I'm going to tell everyone you're a sinner. It's one of the things I do at weddings. I say, in this corner, we have a sinner.

And in this corner, we have a sinner. These people are terrible. I don't go that hard after it too much. I did at my brother's wedding. I was like, I can vouch. This guy's the worst.

And then I'll say, but that's okay. Sin is what destroys relationships. You won't have a destroyed relationship. You won't have a breakdown of relationship without sin. Now, you may have people move or something and they're just not close to each other. But sin is what destroys relationships.

Lack of forgiveness, pride, fear, anger, bitterness. Okay. Jesus died for sin. He reconciled us to God. Your marriage can make it. Because the one thing that can destroy your marriage has been covered by Christ.

Now, sin still gets in and causes problems, but we do have hope because Jesus paid for sin. And so Jesus invites the church into that same situation. And we can actually have long-term real relationships where we forgive, where we repent, where we confess, where we work things out, where we try to fix. We get frustrated. We hurt each other's feelings. So then we're going to have a conversation about it to straighten it out.

And we make it five times worse. And guess what? You get to have another conversation. Sometimes you have to bring a third person there to help mediate the conversation because of how difficult it is for you two to talk to each other. And somebody else there. But we get to keep doing this because we know that sin has been forgiven.

And so we can have what Jesus invited us into. And when we do, we get to abide in his love as we live in love with one another. That we're designed, the church is supposed to love one another more than we love others. You know that? We're supposed to love those in the church above the rest of the world. We're meant to put on display the love of Christ as we love one another.

My wife and I, I was an intern at a Southern Baptist church in Lawrence County, South Carolina. It was kind of a rural church. And the pastor wasn't going to be there. And he'd ask somebody else to come preach. And so I was supposed to be like that guy's handler, you know, show up, make sure he knew where to go, get him his microphone, get him his water, whatever he needed. And so my wife and I were sitting on the front row.

And my wife, when she takes sermon notes, she always takes sermon notes. And if sermon's going well, she, you know, she stays focused. Otherwise, she'll start flipping around and like planning her week and stuff. So every once in a while, I look at her and I think, I'm like, you better turn back over and start paying attention again. She looks like she's real diligent. She's not in here.

I can talk. I can say whatever I want to about her right now. But she looks like she's really diligently taking notes. When she takes sermon notes, what she always does, she'll set them up and she'll write just kind of a heading over the thing. Well, this guy was real country. He was talking about Jesus and he kept saying Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane.

And he was going back and forth like this. And he finally said, and on the night when Jesus died, he told us who we supposed to love everybody. But he told us who we supposed to love special. And so my wife next to me wrote out who we supposed to love special in quotations as the title of the sermon. So I looked up and I saw it and I saw who we supposed to love special on the top.

And y'all, if I can just laugh at something and get it out of the way, it's fine. But if I can't laugh at it and I'm supposed to keep it together, it is terrible. And so I'm sitting on the front row like sweating and trying to like, because I just thought it was moderately funny. But you can't, there was no time, he wasn't laughing in the sermon. So I had to try to keep it together.

But that's the reality. The church are who we supposed to love special. Who we're supposed to be intentional about having real, deep, good relationships with. That we are designed to fellowship, meaning to be around in life together. To care about one another. To know one another.

And that's why Jesus says, abide in my love. And if you obey my commandments, you will abide in my love. And this is my commandment. Don't love one another. That we're supposed to. This is why.

One of the primary reasons why. We fight so extremely hard for community groups. Because we do not have to be around each other. You don't have to. You can go to work. You can go home.

Some of you work from home. You don't even have to go to a work. You just walk over to your desk. You just pick up the phone. You can order food to your house. We say this all the time.

That you can watch friends instead of having them. Like, you don't have to be around people. Culturally, it doesn't have to happen. Used to be in agrarian societies. You had to walk places. You had to work together with the rest of the community.

Or you would starve. But you don't have to do that now. The only working together with the rest of the community is you got to pay McDonald's after you drive through the thing. Like, there's no... And so, if we aren't intentional about being around each other, it won't happen. And if we don't intentionally say, yes, after they have hurt your feelings.

Yes, after they have sinned against you. Keep at it. Keep forgiving. This won't happen. But if we are intentional about it, we get to love one another.

And in loving one another, we get to abide in the love of Jesus. We get to rest in his love. We get to know his love. Some of you know this so extremely beautifully firsthand. Because you sinned grievously against your group. You fell headlong into sin.

And then you had your group chase you down and bring you back and love you in the midst of it. And it gave you such a clear picture of what it was like to be loved by Jesus. Some of you were in pain and in need. And your group rallied around you. Some of you were the person who was chasing after someone. And you were pleading with the Lord on their behalf.

And it dawned on you that this is how he loves you. This is why we tell people who don't know Jesus to join a group. Some of you, many of you, that's your story. You joined a group before becoming a Christian. And you saw what it looked like for people to actually love each other. You joined a group and you were like, this is the weirdest group of people I've ever met.

These are the most awkward conversations. These people have nothing in common. And then there was just something about it that kept bringing you back in. And you kept seeing it. And finally it dawned on you that these people loved you. And then it made sense that Jesus could love you.

Because in the atmosphere of the church loving one another, we put on display that we belong to Jesus. And we help each other know the love of God. And we get to participate in and enjoy the love of God. This happens through big things. Matt Freeman, their community group, the Kitty Wake group. There's a lady who lives across the street from them, from Matt and Katie, where their group meets.

And her house had just gotten kind of overrun. Her yard had gotten overrun. Her husband had passed recently and had just gotten out of hand. And so their group just went across the street and had a work day and cleaned her house. The outside of it pulled down leaves, cleaned out the backyard. Before and after pictures were amazing.

Let me tell you something that happened. That lady felt loved. That group felt love for each other. That group felt the love of Jesus for someone else. And they all grew in taking one step more in walking in the love of Jesus. Jordan Surratt tried to ride a motorcycle and messed his leg up.

I mean he rode it for a little while and then it removed him. And when he was hurt, there was another couple in our church family who just said, Hey, come live with us. You can't walk? Come be at our house. I wasn't involved in that at all. All I have really ever done with that situation is make some jokes at Jordan's expense.

And seeing how the church loved one another, I was encouraged. To see that our people care about each other and love one another and welcome each other in. There have been times where groups have paid for people's bills and done all these different things when there are situations. And there are small things, phone calls and text messages and late night. We're meant to exist in relationships. One of the ways we show we love one another is we just eat meals together.

We just get around each other in all the normal, mundane, boring parts of life. We watch friends together. We watch friends together. My wife and I are not the type of people who feel, like, experience the need for other people. We don't feel it. I've met some people who, like, they have to be around other people or they, like, hurt inside.

That is not characteristic of my wife and I. We're fine, you guys. We don't, we're good. We can hang out at the house by ourselves with each other and we're fine. We can hang out at the house not with each other and we're fine. We'll be okay.

We have a low quota for it. We need a little bit of relationship stuff. We need a little bit of it and then we're, like, I'm good. Like, I was, like, I hung out with a person, like, a month ago. I'm fine. I'll do it again.

I'll do it again around Christmas or whatever and it'll be good. That's kind of how we are. Like, I've only ever really been friends with the people who had to be around me. So if I was in class with you or we played on a team, if you lived near me. One of my best friends in college was my best friend in my freshman year of college because he lived next door to me. The next year he moved to another dorm on the campus and it was not a large campus and we stopped being friends.

Because I would have been his friend but he was just so far away. That's just kind of how we are. My wife is worse than I am. And that's saying something. But she is.

She just doesn't feel this need for community. And I remember when we first started feeling like we were going to plant church and I was watching these guys who were preaching. There were these guys that I was looking up to that taught the Bible well. And I remember multiple of these pastors saying, now, they all had community groups in their church. But they would say, now, I can't be a part of a community group.

I can't be a part of one. And they had really weird, unbiblical reasons. Because there aren't good biblical reasons. They were bad reasons. But I liked the idea.

Like, I was like, wait a second. Could I just show up on Sunday and, like, yell at people and go home? If that's what a pastor does, that sounded delightful. And then I kept reading my Bible and we got really convinced that we actually are supposed to be in life with one another. Convinced. And I have been so blessed and my wife has been so blessed by the fact that we have to be in a community group and can't not be in a community group.

And that because we've led a community group for five years, we don't even get to decide when our group's about to meet whether or not we want to go. I'm glad we don't even have to have that discussion. I don't get to ask, am I feeling it tonight? Because I know the answer to that question on some nights. I just got to, like, especially when it was meeting at our house. That was the best.

It was just like, and you go and lock the door. And then it was good. And we've grown and genuinely love other people and they love us and they know us and we've confessed in and we've walked in life and we have, we are better for it. We would not have chosen this on our own. And the reason I'm confessing this, and hopefully I'm not offending everybody in my group. We realize we're wrong.

But the reason I'm confessing this is that it might be temptation for you to say yes for those people who feel that, but I'm fine without it. And no, you're not because it's a commandment. Let's obey it. We're commanded, love one another. And that takes time and that takes knowing someone and that takes service and that takes sacrifice. And if we do that, we get to abide in the love of Jesus and we get to know more fully and more tangibly and more really what the love of Jesus is.

So I want to briefly talk through three enemies of fellowship, three enemies of loving one another. They're culturally just handed to us. You just received because you live here. First one. The elevation of self. How often have we heard things like find yourself, express yourself, get in touch with yourself.

Man, I really just need a vacation because I just got to get back to. It's been a long time since I've just spent some time with me. This idea of like I have an inner child. It was the first time I'd heard my inner child speak in such a long time. It's, you know, like you had this good, beautiful little self and the world ruined it. I got, I appreciate what they're going for.

Whenever you see those things that say nobody was born a racist, they just act like you were taught how to be racist. But that's not really true. Your sin nature teaches you that kind of mess. It does. They've done studies with toddlers where they just separate themselves out from each other based off of the way they look. This, but we have this idea that if you can just find yourself, if you just know yourself, you'd just be set free from self.

I mean, from, from the rest of the world. The problem with the elevation of self is that it kills fellowship. If I walk into my community group and I am the most important person in the community group, I am going to hate my community group. Because it's filled with needy, sinner people who did not realize I was the most important person in the room. That when we elevate self, when we walk around only focused on how we're doing and how we're feeling, we, we will kill fellowship. It is an enemy of it.

The second one is the elevation of freedom. Freedom. And some of you Americans just reach for your gun. But we've elevated this idea of personal freedom. That the true good life is me with no restraints. That's why all that people talk about adulting is hard.

The idea of having, everything was better and then I had children. And they needed stuff from me. And someone else would go, yeah, they're the worst. But this idea that obligation. Anything that infringes upon my freedom is the enemy. Anything that's difficult.

Anything that's harmful to my ability to just express myself and to be free and to do whatever I want. And that you, if you really love me, will just co-sign my freedom. I watched the most recent Wreck-It Ralph movie. That was the point. I can do any weird destructive thing I want to. And if you don't just co-sign that, you're the bad guy.

You'll turn into a giant monster. So I watched little movies with my son and then I have to go, that was garbage. Wreck-It Ralph was right. He should have kept her stuck in that video game and not let her go live on the internet. Sorry, I got way too into that movie. I was mad at it.

But that's the idea. That's what we're taught. Anything that infringes upon my freedom, I should just get to do whatever I want. And let me tell you something. If that is true, you cannot have relationships. Not any good ones.

Not any ones where you aren't just some sort of a parasite. That if you're going to have actual love relationships with people, they are going to infringe on your freedom. They're going to be obligations to you. And guess what? That's really good for you. You were meant to have obligations.

I was not meant to have all the freedom in the world. I was meant to be obligated to others. That's why Paul says, owe no one anything. Freedom. Except that you love one another. Bondage.

This idea that you are to owe love to those around you. To those in your group. That's why when you choose to just not come hang out with your group because you just need some me time. When you choose when everybody's doing stuff and you don't. At times what you're actually doing is you're elevating your personal freedom over the fact that you ought to show up in love and care and sacrifice for those around you. So if you are sold out on the idea of the best, most true, real version of you is the completely free version of you.

You will not have what Jesus has invited us into here. Also, for the record, the best, true, most real version of you is a complete sinner who makes foolish decisions. So I wouldn't just trust what you found on the inside when you find it. I got in touch with myself and now I'm going to listen to my inner child. Your inner child is going to tell you some weird stuff. That is going to lead you to hell.

So you might want to repent and listen to Jesus who knows better for you. Sorry, that's why children have parents. Just throwing that out there. Your inner child needs an adult. His name is Jesus and he is great. Elevation of the pursuit of pleasure.

So along with this, the elevation itself, these are all connected. The personal freedom, the pursuit of pleasure. The idea that anything that is difficult or hard or that I don't like is the enemy. Because the goal is the pursuit of pleasure. There's a book called The Hacking of the American Mind. It was written by a doctor.

He's not a Christian as far as I know. He wrote it from the standpoint of a doctor. He was doing research on sugar and then he decided to write this book. And what he said was, there are two primary chemicals in your brain, serotonin and dopamine. Serotonin is a contentment chemical. It tells you, I'm at peace.

I've had enough. Dopamine is a reward chemical meant to overpower serotonin. And it tells you, let me have some more of that. That was amazing. That's how he studied this when he found out about, like when he was studying sugar. So here, let me give you an example.

Water. It's like serotonin. You drink it. It quenches your thirst. And you think, I have had enough of that. At some point, you're just like, I'm fine.

I don't need more water. Mountain Dew. Every time I drink Mountain Dew, I think, I would like some more Mountain Dew, please. This is why. This isn't why, but this is why. A water cup is this big and your Mountain Dew cup is this big.

You drink this much water and you're like, I'm good. You drink this much Mountain Dew and you're like, free refills are only 79 cents or whatever. But here's what happened. And this is the point he was making was that our culture, our American society is designed to run off of consumerism, meaning serotonin is bad for the economy, you guys. If you're content, we're not doing so good. GDP isn't looking so hot.

We need you running off of dopamine. We need to convince you that true happiness is dopamine happiness, meaning next thing. Fill my cup back up. Give me another one of those. Let me have the next trip. Let me have the next experience.

Let me enjoy the next thing. I got to have, I got to enjoy. This is where the addiction centers is. If they can weaponize the addiction center of your brain through pornography and the internet and advertisement and sugar or high fructose corn syrup, which is delicious, by the way. They can keep us running on this hamster wheel of pursuit of pleasure. And we have bought into the idea that that is the goal of life.

Now, he says happiness is serotonin. Pleasure is over here. We would, as Christians, we've talked through this a good bit. Sometimes what we talk about is temporary happiness and joy. A contented enjoyment of Jesus. Now, we're meant to have both.

He got, Jesus invented both serotonin and dopamine. And when he says there's pleasures at his right hand every more, forevermore, that includes things like cake. But we're not meant to just operate here where everything that is personal pleasure is the goal of life. But some of us have bought into that. And let me explain something to you. Your group, over time, becomes serotonin.

It's not dopamine. Your group helps with the normal function, the rhythm of life, that you might walk in healthiness. But it is not something that you show up and go, community group meeting time! Unless you're one of these people that really loves people, and then maybe you get some dopamine stuff out of, like, having all these conversations and stuff. But it's not.

It's one of those things that we walk in as a practice for loving one another, and it grows us. And we abide in love with one another, and love for Jesus, and we feel Jesus' love. And it is not always in this pleasure realm. If your goal is this, you will not be in a community group for very long. You will not be able to have fellowship with the body of believers as you were meant to if we bought into this. Because those are enemies of fellowship.

Because here's how fellowship works. He says, this I've commanded you. This is my commandment, verse 12. That you love one another as I have loved you. That's the key. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

There's a danger in talking about this type of love that we would immediately start saying, well, my group doesn't love me like that. I got hurt. Nobody said, come live at my house. I did this. I was sad. Nobody called me.

I said, huh, huh. And we don't realize that we flipped it around and took the command to love one another and turned it into be loved by others. We're called to love one another the way Jesus loved us. See, sometimes we walk in and we go, well, I'll love them if they love me the way they're supposed to. And we've automatically destroyed what Jesus just called us to. Because Jesus did not love you because you loved him first.

Jesus did not go to the cross to rescue all of those who were acting well. He died that he might save his enemies. And he says, love one another as I have loved you. And here's the beautiful part of this. You can't do that unless Jesus is at work in you through his spirit. That's why the church has a corner on the market of genuine fellowship.

Because you have to have Jesus at work in you for this to work. That's why the culture loves it and can't replicate it. That it always falls apart. Because sin eventually will destroy it. But it will not destroy this.

The church will exist as an eternal family forever. Because it is a group of people that have been purchased by the blood of Jesus. And made into an eternal family where love is the house they live in. Forever. And that we were meant to. When you love this way, Jesus empowers this type of love.

A sacrificial love. A self-sacrificing friendship. A self-sacrificing love is an invitation to abide in the love of Jesus. Because that is the type of love we receive from Jesus. There is no entry exam. There is no bar that we have to jump to meet Jesus.

All we have to do is come to him and admit that we can't jump any bar. That if there was any hurdle in our way, we would fall flat on our face. That we need the unearned grace from Christ. And if that's the type of love we receive from Jesus, it's the type of love we get to give to your group. So here's the question.

Are you giving them unearned grace love? Because that's what we're called into. And that's how we get to walk in the love of Christ. If you were the only person, if you were sitting here right now and pharisaically telling yourself, yeah, I'm the only person in my group who does that. Good. You're the one who's getting to walk first.

And what it looks like to abide in the love of Jesus. And you get to help others who need it, need his love dreadfully. You get to invite him into it as well. And I would argue that if you're bitterly saying that to yourself, you might be incorrect. That you may not be the person in your group who's doing that super well. But that we're invited to love one another with a self-sacrificing love.

And in so doing, the love of Jesus is alive and well in our hearts. And that there's joy that way. We know this in small ways. This idea that self-sacrificing love is genuine love and that it works on us. The best example, I think, is children. My brother and his wife go on vacation a lot.

And this past week, we watched their daughter for four days. His daughter, my niece, Oakley. And I love her more now than I did prior to this. And that is not because she was delightful. She honestly brought very little to the table. She just caused problems for four days at my house.

She made everything more difficult. Remember the story I told you earlier about how I had my son with me here last week? That was because my niece was at my house and we only have a certain number of car seats. And we had to rearrange her entire schedule. But I love her more now.

And here's why. All I did for four days was serve her. She's one, by the way. She showed up at the house. She doesn't talk. She does cry.

She doubled the amount of diapers and all that good stuff at the house. And I love her more. Because all I did was sacrifice. That's why you love your children so much. That's why in my relationship with my wife, there are times where I'm very frustrated with her. And that's because she has forgotten that I'm the most important person in the house.

And you guys, when I explain it to her, she doesn't even listen. But when I'm serving her and when I'm sacrificing for her and when I remember that true love is a self-sacrificial love and Jesus goes to work in my heart so that I can actually do that because I have to actively repent consistently the whole time. I do that because as soon as you do one self-sacrificing thing, you go, look at how amazing I am. Jesus, aren't you proud of me? And then you bring it up to your wife. Did you see how much I sacrificed for you?

Then suddenly becomes some sort of thing to get something back and it's just this weird stuff. But we, when I'm actually doing that, when I'm actually walking in that for the short period of time that we can keep it together, love grows in our home. That's the way it works. So do that. Walk in the self-sacrificial love of Christ. I want to close with this quote from Jeremiah 6.

Thus says the Lord, stand by the roads and look. Ask for the ancient paths where the good way is and walk in it and find rest for your souls. Jesus says, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest. He invites us to abide and we have talked through ways to do this. To read, to pray, to feast, to fast, to be in life together. Doing those things together.

To confess and sing together. And the very last line in that verse is kind of funny to me and it's super sad. But they said, we will not walk in it. There is a way for us to walk in enjoying Jesus that has been practiced by the church for thousands of years. That we might enjoy God, that we might know God, that we might love one another, that we might foster what it looks like to belong to each other and belong to Jesus. And there is a temptation for us to just go, no, I'm not going to do that.

To keep saying, I'm just too busy to read. I really just don't have time to pray. I would love to be a part of a community group, but it just doesn't work with my schedule right now. Okay, okay, you convinced me. I'll give feasting a try. But the other stuff doesn't really work.

Don't do that. Let's be a people who delight in the Lord because he is good. And let's do that together. Let's commit to one another, to love one another, and to walk it out together, what it means to enjoy Jesus. Because he is good. Matt's going to come back up.

We're going to sing as we close our time together today. And we're going to take communion, which is where we celebrate that Jesus Christ died for you. He gave, he laid down his life for you. That you might receive grace, that you might receive love, that you might be welcomed, that you might be adopted, that you might be brought in. And there is nothing that stands in the way between you and Jesus, except for your own pride. That you get to run to him, and be forgiven, and be welcomed, and be made new, and get to belong to a group of people who are actively trying to walk that out together.

So as we take communion, that is for the church, those who have repented of their sin and placed their faith in Jesus. So as we take communion in a moment, we're going to remember that we all have access to the Father through the broken body and the shed blood of Christ. In a moment, as we line up, one of the reasons we put communion in the front is so that as we're together, we would remember that we belong to each other. We want the church, your church family, to get in your way as you are trying to sing and as you are trying to finish out the rest. We want you to see them. We want you to know that we belong to each other because Jesus died, because his body was broken, because his blood was shed, because we placed faith in him.

We belong to one another. We get each other, not just him, but we get each other and that we get to walk this out together in life. So I would encourage you to, if there's something that is keeping you, maybe it's one of those three things, maybe it's some bitterness you have against somebody, maybe it's some frustrating you have that you would take a moment to repent, that you might grab someone you need to talk with and say, I'm sorry. You can go over to someone and say, I'm sorry, I'm genuinely frustrated with you and we can't work that out right now, but I just want you to know I don't want to keep being frustrated with you.

I want us to work it out. We're going to have to really talk about it. We're not going to fix it this moment, but I'm going to tell you, I'm committed to us fixing it. You can have that conversation. Someone comes and grabs you and says, I'm frustrated with you. Don't be surprised you're a sinner.

Just listen. Also, don't be surprised if the thing they're frustrated about is super weird and you didn't even realize it happened. They're a sinner too, but y'all can work it out and it can be good. So in a moment, before you take communion, if you've got some issue with somebody, if you've got some frustration with somebody, go grab them, pray together, say, Lord, we need your help so that we might love one another self-sacrificially. If some of you realize that you have just been kind of treating your group as if it existed for you and you are therefore very frustrated with your group, repent.

And then come take communion as someone whose sins have been forgiven and who gets to walk in a redeemed life. And may we walk this ancient way that we might find rest for our souls. If you are not a Christian, please do not take communion. We want you to have Jesus. We want you to know him. Repent of your sin prior to doing this.

This is for the church. Let's pray. God, we thank you for your grace. And Lord, we need it. Thank you for your love that you sacrificed yourself for us. That you lay down your life that we might belong to you.

We pray, Lord, that you would empower us as we seek to lay down our life. Not elevate our life, but lay down our life for those in our group and those in our city that we might love your church the way you love your church. That we might love one another the way you love us. We ask for your grace to do that well. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Simply Unstoppable

Simply Unstoppable

Chet Philips

Transcript

Good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. We are in the fourth week of our Multiply series. We'll finish it up next week. And we began this year talking about how Jesus commissioned his church, sent his disciples out to make more disciples.

And so we've been discussing what it looks like for us to make disciples and how we go about that and how we multiply disciples, how we equip people and send them out, that we share the gospel with them, that we walk with them, train them up into what it looks like to follow Jesus and equip them to do the same with others. Jesus talking in Matthew chapter 13 says this. We're not going to turn this on the screen. We'll be somewhere else this morning, but I want to start here. Jesus talking in Matthew chapter 13. He says he told them another parable.

He says the kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour till it was all leavened. Now, if you're like me, baking analogies. Am I right? Like as soon as he said the kingdom of heaven is like leaven, you were like, yes, leaven. No, what he's saying is three measures of flour is 36 liters. And unless you're Raz and from Australia, that doesn't help you that much.

It's like two five gallon buckets. It's a lot of flour that you just put a little bit of leaven in and the leaven takes over. What he's saying is that the kingdom of heaven seems simple, seems small, that if you zoom in on it, if you look at it and just kind of investigate it, you go, that's it. And Jesus says, yeah, that's it. Now, wait a minute. And it's going to take over.

When you zoom in on the gospel that the God of the universe would die, that he would come in humility, that he would live simply, that he would die on a cross, and that you would go, really, that's what he came to do? He didn't come to set up this kingdom. He didn't come. He said, no, the kingdom of heaven starts small and then overtakes everything. And so that's what we're talking about, that discipleship works that way, that the kingdom of heaven grows that way, that it's small and simple and it's bit by bit, but eventually it spreads and overtakes everything, that the kingdom of heaven expands.

And so grab your Bibles, go to Acts chapter 2. That's where we'll be today. So Jesus sends out his disciples. He commands them to go make more disciples. And then we pick up in the book of Acts as the church spreads and we see what the disciples did so that we get to learn from them how they went about making disciples. So what happens is in Acts chapter 1, they pray, they replace Judas with another disciple.

They say, we're going to keep the number at 12. Then the Holy Spirit falls in Acts 2. Peter stands up. He opens his mouth. He proclaims the gospel. It's what we talked about last week.

We would share the gospel and people believe the gospel and they say, what do we need to do? And the disciples were like, we're ready for this because Jesus has just told us. Be baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. That's what he said. Go make disciples, baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So they say, repent of your sins and be baptized.

And then we get to see how they began to teach them to observe everything that Jesus commanded, how they began to make disciples. And so our question today as we look at this is, what does discipleship look like? How do we make disciples? How do we grow as disciples? We've been talking about how we share the gospel, how we get people to believe the gospel and be baptized. And now we're saying, okay, what does it look like to help them observe everything that Jesus commanded?

So I'm going to pray. Pray with me and we'll study this this morning. God, we ask that we would be disciples who make disciples for the glory of your name and the growth of your kingdom. In Jesus' name, amen. So today we're going to look at four aspects of discipleship.

That what needs to be in place, what needs to take place in order for us to be making disciples. What is the content of discipleship? What is the context of discipleship? And so that's what we're doing. We're in 42. And they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

So we're going to start there. The first thing that we're going to see is that discipleship is a life of learning. If you're going to be a disciple, you're going to commit to a life of learning. That you're going to consistently be learning and growing. And so it says they devoted themselves. And I want us to see that first.

They devoted themselves. One of the things we've talked about a lot in our church is that we belong to one another. That we're family. That we're members of one another. And so we rightly have taught that we ought to pursue one another. We ought to correct one another.

We ought to, when somebody's running in sin, we ought to go to them and challenge them and point them back to the gospel. But what happens is over time sometimes, especially the good-natured, good-hearted ones of us. Some of us are like, not exactly there, but others of us start really trying to want Jesus on behalf of somebody else. Start trying to want to follow Jesus on behalf of somebody else. And that's not how it works. They have to devote themselves.

We have to devote ourselves. The people who follow Jesus are the people who wanted to. Now, certainly we should correct each other and certainly we should go to one another when we're in sin. But eventually, some people are going to choose not to follow Jesus and we can't want Jesus for them and we can't follow Jesus for them. The encouraging thing is if you want Jesus, you'll get him. If you want more of Jesus, you get more of Jesus.

But if you don't, you won't. And so the first thing we have to see is that they specifically, intentionally devoted themselves to the things we're about to talk about. So it says they devoted themselves first to the apostles' teaching. So the apostles were the twelve disciples that Jesus had sent out, proclaimed the gospel, and then people said, what do we do? We need to repent and be baptized. And then the apostles began to teach them everything that Jesus had taught.

And so they devoted themselves. They were hungry for it and they ate it up. So how do we do the same thing? We devote ourselves to the Bible. That's the apostles' teaching. That they were taking the Old Testament, explaining how Jesus showed up in it, and teaching the new things that Jesus had explained.

That within about 15, 20 years, we started having the letters that we have being passed around the churches. In about 30 to 40 years, we started having the gospels written down, bound together, that we have. By about 90 years, we had all of the New Testament that was being shared and spread around. And so we study the New Testament and we study the Old Testament in light of Jesus. And that's us devoting ourselves to the apostles' teaching. So that if you're going to be a disciple, you're going to be hungry for the word.

You're going to study the Bible. That's one of the reasons we gather on Sundays. That's why we read biblical texts. That's why we say them out loud together. That's why we study them together. That's why we study them in our groups, is that we would be devoted to the scriptures.

And as Americans, we have the least excuse whatsoever to not be devoted to the scriptures. Your phone will read the Bible to you. If you pay a little money, James Earl Jones will read the Bible to you. We have podcasts and websites. We have ways to access the Bible in multiple translations. Not just in English, but in multiple translations that we might pursue the word together.

And so what I would say is that the content of discipleship is a life of learning. That we are learning and studying the Bible. Studying the scriptures together. That we might grow together. I would encourage you to do a couple of things. If you're new to trying to read the Bible, I would encourage you to find somebody who's not new to trying to read the Bible.

And y'all read it together. Or just say, hey, I'm going to read these three. We're going to read the first three chapters of Matthew over the course of this week. And then we'll talk about it. And you just write down things that you have questions about. You know you can read your Bible and text somebody and say, hey, what is this doing?

I still do this. I'll open my, I'll be reading my Bible. I'll open up the Bible app. I'll copy the verse. I'll send it to a group of guys. And I'll say, what on earth is that talking about?

Is it this or this? And we discuss it. And I grow. It's edifying. I would also encourage you to get a study Bible. They're very helpful.

If you want more, if you want to listen to podcasts or know some websites, we'd love to talk to you and point you in the right direction. I would not encourage you to just Google your questions. I would encourage you to go to resources that have already been tested for faithfulness. So it says they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching. We're going to skip over the fellowship because that's what we're going to talk about next more in depth. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching to the breaking of bread.

This means two things. It means that they shared meals together. That they got together. They shared meals together. But specifically as we see this play out in the New Testament, these are intentional gospel meals.

Intentional church family meals. That ultimately this is communion as we have it now. That they would get together and specifically intentionally say, we are reminding ourselves over a meal of who Jesus is and what he's done for us. One of the ways we've done this in our community groups is when we've taken communion in our community groups, we've actually gone in a circle, person by person, and said, how do you need the gospel right now? What is it that you're fearful over? What is it that you're in doubt?

Where are you sinning and not believing that the gospel is better than the thing you're chasing? Where is it that you need the good news? And somebody would just confess or they'd say, here's where I'm struggling. And the rest of the table would just say, well, here's how Jesus is better than that. Here's how this is good news for you. Here's what you're celebrating when you take communion tonight.

And we would ask at the end of that, do you understand when we take communion what you're celebrating? How Jesus is good and how the gospel is for you? And they say, yes. And we go to the next person. And that's what they were doing. They were actively, intentionally applying the gospel to life.

They were sharing gospel meals. They were reminding each other of what Jesus had accomplished for them. And they were spending time together. So they devoted themselves, not only to just learning what the apostles were teaching, but to applying that in repentance and applying it to their lives as they celebrated communion. And the prayers. That they were intentionally, collectively praying together and praying separately.

That they were devoted to the apostles' teaching, to the breaking of bread, to applying the gospel to life, to practicing the gospel in life through repentance and through celebrating what Jesus has done and praying. That is the content of discipleship. That if you're like, I'd love to try to walk with somebody, but I don't know what to do. Okay. Get together. Get your Bibles out.

Talk about how the gospel applies to life. Repent of sin. Celebrate that Jesus is good. Pray. Boom. That's the content of discipleship.

That's what they were doing when they gathered together. This is how they were practicing this. And the other thing they were devoted to is the fellowship. That's the context. That this happens in relationships. And so discipleship is a life of learning, but it's also life on life.

That you would actually be around each other. This is what it says if we keep reading. So it says they devoted themselves to the fellowship and all came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles and all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to any to all as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts. That they were around each other day by day.

They were gathering in big groups. They were gathering in homes. They were sharing their possessions. They were with each other in life. I want to read Deuteronomy 6. When the law was given to the nation of Israel, God gives this command.

It's called the Shema. Shema just means here. This is the command that Jesus says, if you'll go to Deuteronomy 6. This is the command that Jesus says is the most important command. Hear, O Israel. Yeah, cool.

All right. This is what Jesus tells them. This is the greatest commandment. It says, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today should be on your heart.

So the first command is that you would love God and that you would have his words in your heart. And then he says, and you shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise. He's teaching them how to train others, how to equip others. First step, love the Lord. Have his word in your heart. Second step, live your life.

With others, that's what he's saying, that you would love the Lord so much that when you're just typaling your children, that it's what you talk about when you rise up. That's what you talk about when you sit. It's what you talk about when you walk. It's what you talk about when you lay down, that it's part of life, that your love for Jesus is so part of your life. Now, this was a command specifically to parents for their specific children. So for me, it'd be my two boys.

But it was also a command to the nation of Israel for the next generation, that they would teach their children. And it is how discipleship works, that you are around people in life. So I want to pause for just a second and talk about discipling children. And then we'll go back to talking about exactly how we do this in application to each other. Parents, you're supposed to disciple your children. The church is supposed to join in that and help that the collective call to disciple and raise up children is something that takes place in community groups that we try to help with in Kid City.

But primarily, you are around your children way more. And here's the thing. Sometimes parents go, all right, I don't know what to do. Like, am I supposed to read a Bible story? Or am I supposed to, are we supposed to do like family worship and every night or just once a week? And how's that supposed to look?

And they get real stressed out about it. And I understand taking it seriously. And it does help to read Bible stories. And it does help to do family worship. I mean, that's as easy as playing something on a podcast, singing with them. Or if you're with my son singing Joy to the World, 365 days a year.

This is his favorite song ever. And sometimes I'm just like, no, bro, we're not singing that tonight. Like, I just, I don't like Christmas that much. We've got to sing something else. There are other songs. But like, walking with them, training them in specific moments.

But really, your kids pick up way more who you are and what you love all the other times during the day than just some specific moments when you say, okay, now we're going to teach. Now we're going to learn. Because that's what he's saying. Teach them diligently, meaning be intentional. But also, when you wake up, when you walk, when you sit, when you lay down.

By the time your children are in middle school, they've got a real good handle on what you actually care about. By the time they're in high school, by the time they're graduating, they've got a good, good handle on if you really love the Lord and his word is in your heart. Or if what you really appreciate is the praise of men. And you were always worried about how your family appeared to others. If what you really cared about was your own personal comfort. They've got a good handle on that.

You actually make, you reproduce who you are way more than reproducing what you teach. This is just true for any amount of discipleship. You reproduce who you are way more than what you teach. We can see this very simply in some of our community groups. We've seen it as we started out. Matt and I were the first two group leaders.

Matt's groups tended to be very encouraging towards one another. Very loving. There's like a lot of hugs in their groups. My groups tended to be easily distracted and sarcastic. It wasn't uncommon for us to quit studying the Bible to make fun of one another. Lose our train of thought.

And it just had to do with I was trying to teach the Bible but unintentionally just sharing a lot of what I'm like. Easily distracted and sarcastic. I didn't promote encouragement. We promoted saying mean things to one another. And that's what happens and that's what he's saying is that that life on life discipleship is how you raise your children. I want to tag one more thing with raising children.

Your children matter and if you are new to parenting, which a lot of people in this room are, they're like little cannonballs into your life. You had a nice little life and then you had a child and they're terrorists. They are. They're. I'm going to scream until you feed me. That's how they enter the world.

And then I'm going to scream because I went to the bathroom. I'm going to scream because I'm sleepy or I'm going to scream. And you know that I just slept, that I just ate and I have a clean diaper. I'm just going to scream. They're terrorists that you're deeply in love with. It's super weird.

And what happens is it's pretty easy early on with your children to start bending your life to them. You have to. But at some point, you've got to help them bend their life to Jesus. And you've got to help them see that life, that he, it's a long-term value play, that he matters more. And so what happens is at some point, we're like, I've got to work around my kid's schedule. And at some point, you've got to say, no, my kid's schedule has got to work around how we follow Jesus.

And this will happen when they're young with nap schedules and with bedtimes. And it will happen when they're older with sports and school. Now, it's a life of loving Jesus, which means that for some of you, you need to say no to travel sports because it affects how you follow Jesus. And for some of you, you need to say yes to travel sports because it's one of the best places to teach your children how to be on mission and how to love people and how to serve people and how to connect people and how to share the gospel. But over the course of a life, your children will pick up, did they matter more than Jesus?

Did their schedule matter more than Jesus? Did sports matter more than Jesus? And whether or not the value play was at right in your home or was he in your heart and his word in your heart and your life was, how do we rise? How do we walk? How do we sit? How do we sleep in a way that we love Jesus?

And that is how discipleship works. It happens life on life. So Jesus gets disciples and the first thing he says to them is just come follow me. You, come follow me. Leave your tax booth. Let's go.

You, drop your nets. Follow me. Let's go. And he just starts going. And then they start picking up what he's like as he goes. That's how it happens, that they're around him in life.

Teaching my son Bible stories. He's two and three, so we would just act him out so that he'd help remember him. I remember one time I was laying on the floor. My wife comes in. He's throwing all his Nerf balls at me. She's like, what are y'all doing?

He's supposed to be getting ready for bed. I'm like, well, we're doing the story of the stoning of Stephen. And she said, are there not appropriate children's stories you can do? I was like, he's loving it. In a second, he'll get to declare that Jesus is great and I'll throw balls at him. It'll be wonderful.

But I was doing one where, sorry, I was doing one where we were trying to help him see, you know, Jesus just trained his disciples in life. And so what we said was, you're the little kids. Your mom's going to be Jesus. I'm going to be the disciples. I want you to come over and ask me, can I come see Jesus? Y'all know this story?

The disciples tell the children no. And so he would come over and say, can I see Jesus? And I'll go, no, you can't see Jesus. And I'll just push him to the ground, which is a little more than what the Bible says it was, but I was trying to help him pay attention. And then finally his mom would say, no, let the children come to me. And he would go over there and she'd hug him and tell him he was wonderful and we'd do it again.

And I thought this was great, but what I ended up teaching was the disciples were bad guys because at one point I was like, we're disciples. He's like, no, we're not disciples. We're the worst. But the disciples on that day learned something because they were with Jesus in life and they began to see how he valued the world and how he loved children. And what happens is that's how discipleship takes place, that it isn't just sufficient to get with someone for one hour and teach a thing, but we're actually meant to be around each other in life so that we might share who we are. That is why you will disciple your children, whether you want to or not.

You will train them. You will teach them what is valuable, what is good. It will happen. That's why he says be diligent. And at first you got to love the Lord and you got to have his word in your heart. And the truth is anybody that walks with you in life will be slowly discipled by you.

And so what we need to do is love Jesus and then intentionally be around one another that we might help grow one another towards Jesus. That's what we see throughout the New Testament. First Thessalonians 2.8 says, Paul's specifically writing to Timothy there and he's saying, you know me, you've been around me, you know my life. Not just you've read all my letters. No, no, you know me. You know what matters.

And that's what he says in 1 Corinthians 11.1, be imitators of me as I am of Christ. And that is a lot of how discipleship works. As you say, no, walk with me as I walk with Christ. Follow me as I follow Christ. Let's walk together.

Let's imitate one another as we imitate Christ. As we picture this out for one another and display this to one another. That we're meant to walk in life together. So the content of discipleship is scriptures, actively, intentionally applying the gospel to life through sharing meals and through sharing communion and through applying the gospel to each other and walking in repentance and praying. But the context for all of that is normal, everyday life.

Life, not some extra bonus time, not once a month at Starbucks. Everyday, normal life. And it's life on life, but it's not just life on life. It's life in community. It's not just you and one other person walking together. It's not just you and two other people walking together.

But it's a communal picture. So let me show this. We showed this a couple of times. This was kind of Spencer's. It used to have little names in there or whatever. But Spencer's line of this person shared the gospel with these people, helped disciple them.

They shared the gospel with these people, helped disciple them. And the truth is, if that's just evangelism, just sharing the gospel, that is how it looks. This person shares the gospel. They share the gospel. And it does spread and grow and multiply. If it keeps going, it gets beautifully ridiculous.

You know, kind of like leaven. All right, so, but what happens when we see that in the discipleship mindset is, okay, you immediately start picturing this next picture, which is this, which one am I? Who am I ready to be? Am I a discipler? Or do I need to be a disciplee? Like some people looked at that and saw and said, I'm not ready to have two or three people that I'm helping coach and equip.

That's overwhelming. And some of you saw it and thought, okay, I'll do it. Yeah. White knuckle. And this is your little chart here. This is how you follow Jesus sometimes or how you decide it.

I'm going to try harder. I'm going to do it this time for real. And you get fatigued. You're tired. So you quit.

Then eventually you feel bad again and you try harder again. That's the wheel of religion. Some of you are like, yes, that's me. I'm in like a hamster wheel of that. Okay, that's not the gospel. Try harder.

Get exhausted. Quit. Feel bad. Try harder. Get exhausted. Quit.

And there are churches that are just running through with like, all right, we're going to work with the 20% that are in the guilt zone right now. Y'all in the guilt zone? You ready to work? Y'all are fatigued? You quit? We'll get back to you when you feel guilty again.

We don't want to do that. And we don't want discipleship to look like that. And we also don't want you to be fearful and say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I can't. I just need to be coached up. Because the truth is that's not the best picture of discipleship.

That's not a good picture of the gospel, but it's also not a picture of how we go about discipleship. So the next slide is how we intend to go about discipleship. We want to be in community groups. Now, community groups aren't in the Bible. We are trying to actively apply what we see in the Bible, which was they were around each other day by day. And they gathered in homes.

And they gathered together, large groups in the temple. They gathered in homes. They shared life together. And here's what we know about Americans. You don't have to share life with anybody. We say this all the time, but you can watch friends instead of having them.

You can be very independent. You're taught that you're supposed to be. Like the ultimate hero of America is like the marble man out by himself smoking on a hilltop or whatever. And doesn't need anybody and doesn't want anybody. And he's going to get cancer and die. It's going to be awesome.

But we're actually meant to be in life together. And so what we do is we say, no, no, no, no. We're going to be intentional, diligent about making this happen. So here's you. And don't tell anybody I told you this, but you are the shining star in your group. You're the best group member.

Here's how this works. You're connected to everybody. And everybody's connected to you. Once you're in a community group, you get to know everybody. You're connected to everybody. Everybody's connected to you.

And I didn't tell Miss Bebe I was going to say this. And she's here. So hopefully she'll forgive me. But Miss Bebe told me one time that one of the things that she began to enjoy and appreciate about community groups was that she could no longer read her Bible the way she used to. She used to read her Bible and she could only think from her perspective. She read it like Bebe.

And she said, I now read my Bible and I see everybody else. I hear everybody else. I know people who have small children. I know people who are in this season of life and this difficulty. And she said, I read my Bible now with our group in mind. And it's changed the way I read the scriptures.

And what we're seeing is that we're supposed to be connected to other people. And we're supposed to be connected to other people where the thing that we have in common is Jesus and nothing else. There are supposed to be people in your group that you have an extremely hard time talking to. That's how it's supposed to work. And it's possible that you have a hard time talking to them because they have a hard time talking with everyone. And it's possible you have a hard time talking with them because you have a hard time talking with everyone.

And it's possible you just aren't on the same page. But that's how it's supposed to work. that we're supposed to be around people that we don't naturally connect with because they help us grow and they help us see things that we don't see otherwise. But you're connected to everybody. Everybody else is connected to everybody. So this is what groups look like.

Because they're supposed to be connected to everybody. But it's life on life and life in community, so there's also this. You're more connected to a few people. Just how it works. You get along a little easier. You're in similar stages of life.

You live near one another. Maybe you're not in similar stages of life. Maybe they're empty nesters and you have small kids, but they love small kids, so they just hang out with you all the time because they have more open schedule. I don't know, but you've got some people that you connect with a little better. And the truth is, that's the case for everybody in your group. That everybody's got somebody they connect with.

There we go. That's what it looks like. Now, for some of you, seeing this web and thinking about a community group, you're like, yes, I'm an extrovert, and that's a trampoline of awesomeness. And some of you who are introverted is like, that looks like a spider web of despair. I would get trapped in that. It would suck the life out of me.

This would be terrible. So I just want to talk for just a second about what this looks like and how this plays out and talk to a few different people. So some of you think, no, no, no, no, no. I have the thick lines with everyone. What I'm willing to bet is you make a certain depth of relationship and never go past that. So everybody feels like they're on the same level.

Everybody's your thickest line. And what you ought to do is get to know people a little more deeply. You ought to walk a little more closely with some people. We want to have people that can speak into your life. You want people who love Jesus, who are not you, who see the world a little differently, be able to speak into your life. One of the things that frustrates me to no end that happens all the time in churches is someone just announces some big life change, some big we're doing this, we're doing that, and everybody just goes, oh, congratulations.

We're in a community group, but we end up being like Facebook friends. We just all press the like button. And somebody needs to know you well enough to go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I got some questions. Not saying this is a terrible idea. Just saying I got some questions because I know you.

I've walked with you long enough to know that one of the things that you have as an idolatrous nature in your heart is this wonderlust, that you have to be in some other city in order to be happy, and you get bored with places, and you don't know how to build deep relationships. And so when you said, I've got a job. I'm moving to Tulsa. And everybody said, yay, congratulations. I immediately thought, that might be terrible for you. Let's talk.

Someone when you say, I've met the man of my dreams. I've met the girl. She's the one. Someone who knows you well enough to go, isn't this your fourth one? In like four years, like don't you do this every time you meet somebody? I'm sure they're nice, but let's just tone it down a step.

People who know you well enough to not just cosign everything, but love you. Now, for the introverted person, keep the spider web up there, please. For the introverted person, there's a lot of slides. Thanks, Nick. You're doing a great job. Way more than normal.

Usually it's like, here's a Bible verse, and then we just go for it. For the introverted person, some of y'all looked at that and thought, some of you looked at it and thought, I've been in the group for a while. I don't have a deep connection with anybody. And that may be true. I'm sorry if it's true. Don't be okay with that and don't think that's how that has to work.

You may need to insert yourself a little more. If you only build relationships one-on-one, you may need to invite people one-on-one. There are some people in your group who feel perfectly, beautifully connected with you because their level of relationship only goes to a three. I feel super close to everybody in my group. But that's because I have to work real hard to get closer with people.

My wife, it takes her like 15 years to develop a friendship. Now, once you're there, she'll help you bury a body. She'll stab people for you. She is on your team. I feel sorry for any teacher or anybody that ever messes with one of our children. People think I'm intense.

I'm going to be the person just holding her and she's going to be like, I'm going to get on my back. No, no, hold on, hold on. So some of you, it takes a while to build relationships. Keep doing the hard work of relationship building. Some of y'all see that and think everybody's already full. They already have all the relationships they can handle.

That's not true. That you're meant to be welcomed. So here's what I want. If you're that person who just says, I don't feel like I've connected with anybody, announce that to your group in a non-condescending, non-condemning way. Just say, hey guys, I'm having a hard time and I really would like to hang out with someone one-on-one. Community groups.

Make that happen. I have a hard time making friends in groups. So I end up just sitting next to this conversation and sitting next to that conversation and sitting next to that conversation. And I feel like I'd be intruding to press into that any and I need some people to just, can somebody just hang out with me? Can we just get a cup of coffee? Can we get, I just need to.

That's why one of the reasons why our groups try to do fun things periodically is because it helps change the dynamic. We believe fun makes family. Okay. Content. First aspects of life of learning. And the content is the word.

Applying the gospel to life. Praying. The context is a life on life, life in community. And we actually have to see each other in real life and we have to be around people who we would not normally choose to just be around. And that's what makes the church beautiful. That's where all the one another's come in.

That we love one another. That we serve one another. Then he starts saying things like bear with one another. Forgive one another. Be patient with one another. Do you know you have to bear with, forgive, and be patient with?

People who frustrate you. People who you're around more than just a little bit. A lot of us have been in a group and we've gotten super frustrated with people. And it's the moment, the moment where we can apply the gospel. And we can confront and we can confess and we can forgive and we can bear with and we can be patient. It's that moment where we can really do some Bible things.

And you know what we do? We say this group's messed up. Filled with sinners. I'm going to find a church where they're not like that. We go to our next church. We say my last group was terrible.

And they were so sorry. They wouldn't build friendships with me. We're so sorry. They were the worst. We're so sorry. Come.

We're not like that. We love Jesus. We love you. Come. And you're like, this place is great. And it is like a year, year and a half, two years until you start trying to build some real relationships.

Until your friend Karen does the same crap she's done 1,500 times. And you're like, you know what? They're all the same. It's like, no, you have a moment to grow, to repent, to be gracious, to forgive, to be patient, to bear with. And when you do that, it becomes beautiful and glorious and we grow. So that's discipleship.

Life of learning. Life on life. Life in community. Now, immediately you might ask, okay, cool chart, bro. How on earth do I have time to do that? I'm glad you brought it up.

Here's February. How on earth do I have time to be in life on life, life in community? I'm super busy. Okay, well, your group meets every Tuesday. Every Tuesday. Did you know that?

Some of you are like, it's Wednesday. Okay, whatever. Once a week. And for two hours, hour and a half, if y'all are quick and got a bunch of people with little kids and you want to go home. Three hours if you're super chatty. Two hours studying the Bible.

Praying together. Sharing a meal. Applying the gospel. Confessing sin. Every single week. We get together every Sunday.

Every Sunday. We're here. Unlock the bill and we pay for it. Every Sunday. We gather together to devote ourselves to the word. To be around one another.

Some of you, a community group isn't enough for the amount of relationships you can have. Some of you, it feels too much. It's overwhelming. There's 12 people here. I can only have two real friendships. So it's like, okay, we'll find those two people, corner them and talk to them.

Some of you are like, I need 45 friendships. I will know everything about you. I will remember you. I will know your birthday. You're the people who are super frustrated when anybody forgets anything. Because you're like, how on earth can you not?

If you love people, you know every aspect of their life ever. And you can keep up with everybody ever. Show up on Sundays and get to know people. We want to be a bigger group. We want to have, you can have friendships outside of your group. We want you to be intentional with the ones in your group.

But you can, don't feel like it's wrong to have other friendships. If that's you, do that. We gather on Sundays, but you get to see, there's a handful of guys in our community group that show up early on every Sunday. I get to hang out with them on Sundays. Sometimes we get into really intense conversations about the Bible. Sometimes we get into really intense conversations about SEC football.

It doesn't matter. We're walking in life together. Serving, seeing each other on Sunday. Seeing each other when we get together during the week. Let's say your group decides on a specific Saturday that you're going to do some kind of a mission outreach something.

You're going to try to get around some people to share the gospel. You're going to all go to a park and just try to meet people. You're going to go downtown and hand some food out in some areas where homeless people hang out. You're going to go serve at a school. So all of y'all are going to see each other on Saturday as you're on mission together.

Let's say there's a Friday during February when somebody just says, hey, we're going to a movie. If anybody wants to come, come on. Hey, we're all going to go eat at Cracker Barrel. Hey, we're doing a game night at our house. And so you get to hang out then. Let's say that on Thursdays, some of the guys are able to get together for lunch.

Or some of the ladies get together for an extra Bible study. Or maybe they get together for breakfast. Or you figure out a way to trade off who's watching kids. And you figure something out. The guys in my group used to eat at Denny's every Thursday morning. Now we're trying to get some lunches.

It happens about twice a month. And it's not everybody, but it's whoever can make it. Now it's 2019. I'm not going to tell you which color represents which gender. You can pick that for yourselves. Let's say that with the people that you hang out a little more with, you get to see them more often.

Your life overlaps a little more. It's easier for you to watch kids together or not have kids. Or you both get off of work at 11 p.m. and you play video games or whatever. You get to see some other people. But look at that.

That's a normal schedule in people whose lives are busy, who've set out some intentional time, and then who go out of their way to overlap their lives. It is doable for you to be around people. It does take some effort. It does take us working with our schedules because we're busy people. And if we're not intentional, our schedules will fill up. But it's possible for us to devote ourselves to being around one another, to walking in life together, to pointing each other towards Jesus, and to be around each other in enough circumstances in life that we might be able to grow together as disciples.

Lastly, it's life on mission. That we were meant as Christians to be making more disciples and sharing the gospel. And that when we stop doing that, we become unhealthy. If your group ceases to be on mission, it will start becoming unhealthy. I can tell you the best way to be miserable anywhere in your community group, but you can also import this into your marriage or your roommate situation, whatever, is to show up and think that it is about you. When we cease to be on mission, we forget that we're supposed to be actively sacrificing to see other people grow and to see people meet Jesus.

And when we stop doing that and when we fail to be on mission, that's what the disciples, what it says here is that day by day, attending the temple together, this is verse 46, breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. They were walking in life together, loving one another, serving one another, sharing with one another, and making their city better, proclaiming the gospel, and people were hopping in all the time. The Lord was saving people day by day.

Let me tell you what happens. If you start hanging out with your group and y'all cease to be on mission, you start thinking that the purpose of your group is for your own personal edification and your own personal growth. And you show up and you start asking questions like, what am I getting out of this? Who's talking to me? You see people enjoying, you ever been out to eat and you're having a good time until there's two tables over is having a better time? They're laughing real loud and everything's going super great.

And so suddenly you're like, well, my dinner's not as nice as it used to be because look at them. And so what happens sometimes you start hanging out with your group, you start hanging out and you start going, well, they're better friends than I am. They talk during the week. They just said they got caught. And you start, and we forget that the whole purpose is that we collectively grow together, that you're here to serve other people. You're here to pour into other people.

And we're actively walking in, helping other people meet Jesus, that we would be on mission together. And there's joy in that. Also, mission happens better in community because there are things that you're gifted at that the person next to you isn't, and vice versa. And as we serve and connect and love together, more people meet Jesus. They get to see what the gospel does among a group of people, and more people buy in because more people connect, more people understand, more people see how on earth do y'all hang out with each other, and they get to begin to see what it looks like for people to follow Jesus together.

And then they, maybe you're really good at inviting, but somebody else is really good at getting close to somebody. I've had that happen in my group. I've been friends with somebody for a couple weeks, known them at work, bring them to our group. They finally come, they hang out a little bit, they hang out one time, and afterwards, a week later, one of the people in my group will go, hey, how's that? How's that issue that they've been struggling with? How's that going?

I'm like, what issue? What are you talking about? They were like, well, they told me they were struggling with issues. They were like, well, nobody tells me that stuff. Nobody, my coworkers aren't volunteering that they're struggling with things with me. That's not how conversations go with me.

I've never really just made a conversation go there. I have to have been someone's pastor for two and a half years, and then they're like, maybe I'll tell it. But there was somebody in my group who just went over and said, how are you doing? I don't know, the Holy Spirit works in that. The person looked at them and went, terrible. And they talked, and they worked, and the Holy Spirit works, and people end up getting closer to Jesus, so they meet Jesus, and it's because we collectively are on mission better together.

So that's what happened in the New Testament church, and that's how we walk this out. So I want you to know it is doable as you commit to all the small things, that you're going to love the Bible, you're going to have God's Word in you, and you're going to commit to being around each other. You're going to commit to showing up to your group, to showing up on Sundays, to talking to people, and we're going to commit collectively to try to help other people meet Jesus, and guess what? We'll make disciples. See, that's what Jesus is saying about the leaven. So if you zoom in on it, it doesn't seem that spectacular.

If actually, if you just walk somebody through the February schedule, it's like, yeah, we meet every week, we meet on Sundays, yeah, we're confessing sin, we're walking together, but the truth is, you pull that out over a year for someone who's bought in, committed, devoted themselves to the Word, devoted themselves to the fellowship, devoted to applying the Gospel, and guess what? They're growing. And if we're actively devoted to sharing the Gospel with people, more people are hopping in, more people are growing, and none of it looked that spectacular, and none of that was overwhelming, and none of that was amazing, but it was we just collectively decided, this is who we're going to be, we're going to be around each other, we're going to devote ourselves to the Word, and we'll get to see it happen. That a little bit of leaven is going to take over the whole thing.

And so, if there's any aspect of that, that you have opted out of, don't. Devote yourself to it. Some of you, it needs to be, you need to devote yourself to the Word. Some of you, it's life on life. You hang out with your group, but other than that, you don't really get to know people, you're not really talking to people. Some of you, it's life on life, but you won't hang out with your group, so you only hang out with somebody one-on-one, but you never get in the community aspect.

Some of it's a mission. But that was how they made disciples, and that was how they began, and the church exploded. with people meeting Jesus, and people growing. And that's what we want to see, and that's what we hope to see. The band's going to come back up. We're going to sing one song together, and as we sing, we're going to take communion, because as we've gathered to fellowship today, we're also taking communion, we're breaking bread together, to remind ourselves that Jesus saves sinners, that He's good, and that it's not on us to just try harder, or to do better, but to trust Him, to work in us, and to be faithful in all the small things, knowing that He ultimately makes them effective.

That He's died, that we might be redeemed, and then if you're sitting here today, and realize I hadn't been doing this stuff, you don't need to feel overwhelmed, or crushed, you need to run to Jesus, and know that He works, and He redeems, and He's good, and you're holy, blameless, and above reproach, and we get to take communion, and walk this out together. So if you are a believer, if you are part of our church, we'd love for you to take communion. If you're not a believer, we would ask that you refrain from taking communion, because we want you to know Jesus, before you practice the remembrance of His death, and His resurrection. Let's pray.

God, we thank you for your grace, and your goodness. We pray that we would be active, in all the small things, as your Holy Spirit works in us, that we might see disciples made, that we would be intentional about it, that we'd be devoted to it, that we'd be diligent in it, daily, in all the small ways, to overlap our lives, and to be around one another, and to study your word, so that we might proclaim your gospel, and see more people come to follow you. We love you, and we praise you in Jesus name. Amen. Y'all stand, sing when you're ready. Take communion.

During the sermon, there were many slides used to visually display the concepts taught. We have included them below with a brief summary to help you better follow along while listening to the sermon online.

Discipleship multiplication as described by Spencer during the first sermon in our Multiply series.

When we start considering discipling others we may begin to think of it as a simple dichotomy: Am I a prepared to be a disciple-er” or do I need to be a “disciple-ee?” But the truth is more easily accessible.

As discipleship plays out within groups you are connected with everyone in your group and everyone is connected with you. Therefore you are both able to pour into others and have them pour into you.

You are not alone in your group. Everyone is intended to disciple everyone; therefore, the weight does not fall entirely on you.

You will naturally have deeper connections with some people than with others and you will spend more time discipling those you have deeper connections with and having them disciple you.

As long as you are invested in your group, you will have deeper connections with some people than with others. Spend your time cultivating those relationships understanding that this is how it works for everyone. In this way discipleship gets to be both Life on Life (deeper relationships) and Life in Community (the full group dynamic).

By committing to your group, you will have opportunities in your schedule to be around people in your group. We gather on Sundays, meet once a week, and have various rhythms throughout the month to ensure the people within our groups are spending time together. It take intentionality in our already busy schedules, but it is doable and it is worth it.

The Goodness of Gathering

The Goodness of Gathering

Matt Freeman

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Transcript

Yeah, I hope you enjoyed the holidays. Hope you had a good break. I know I did. Got to spend some time with family and all that kind of stuff. But after two weeks, I'm ready to get back together with people.

I'm like, where is my people? I'm ready to sing. I'm ready to see everybody. But we're kind of a young church, and so a lot of our church family has been traveling over the last couple of weeks, and they're starting to get back into a normal routine of things. USC kicks back off tomorrow, so some of our college students will be traveling today. So just keep them in your prayers.

College football playoffs have been going on. Go Tigers! Amen. That is not the response I was expecting. I'm excited. Did someone just say roll tide?

Get. Go. Okay. Well, there's kind of this lull this time of year between Christmas and New Year's where we all kind of just start reflecting a little bit. We start looking back on 2015 and saying, okay, well, I wish that could have been better. I would have done that differently.

You start looking at time with your family and stuff like that, and you look forward to 2016 and maybe some changes and stuff you want to make. But all of us kind of do this reflection. You're thinking about your family. You're thinking about all that kind of stuff. So hopefully you've had some time to do that.

Maybe you do resolutions. Maybe you don't. Even if you don't, it's still just kind of rolling around in the back of your mind thinking about last year and going into this year. And so over the break, I took some time and just wanted to pray over Mill City Church and just ask some questions. Ask, how are our groups doing? Are we training leaders?

Are we accomplishing the mission that we feel like God's called us to do in this city? Are we making disciples? And so as I pray through that and ask those questions, with that being said, I want to ask you a question, and I need you to participate and help me out. You're going to have to raise your hand. Okay. I need you to raise your hand if, from this stage, you have heard this statement or something similar.

Okay, you ready? We are our groups. If you're not in a group, you need to get in a group. If you're just hanging out on Sundays, you're missing out, get in a group. Hold them up if that's you. Good.

You can put them down. All right, that's actually a good thing. Some of you have heard that for years. You've heard it on repeat for years now. It echoes in your dreams. And the reason being is we believe that following Jesus is an all-of-life commitment.

So when you start following Jesus, it infiltrates how you think about work. It begins to influence how you live with your family. It impacts everything. And since that's true, being the church can't just be what we get together and do on Sundays. It's got to be more. And what we see is that the early church understood that, and all throughout Scripture, is that life is meant to be following Jesus in relationship with other believers on mission.

So letting the gospel impact your life as you're in a community on mission, gospel-centered community on mission. See what I'm doing there? See? See what I'm doing there? All right, you're smart.

Here's how I want us to start off this morning. We're going to put some Scripture on the screen in just a second. It's a foundational passage for us as a church. Some of you will be familiar with it. But we're going to be in the book of Acts looking at chapter 2.

And what we're seeing here in the book of Acts is what we have recorded of the early church. You don't have to turn there. We're going to put it on the screen in just a second. But what we're getting in Acts 2 is a snapshot glimpse into first-century Christians and how they were trying to follow Jesus. And so as Luke is writing Acts, he's not necessarily writing to tell us how we should do things. He's mostly just describing what he's seeing.

So it's not necessarily prescriptive. It's more descriptive. And this is a huge foundational passage for us as a church. And I think we're going to have it on screen. Yeah. All right, cool.

So Acts 2, 42 through 47. Let's read this together. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship. to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And all came upon every soul. And many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common.

And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts. Praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. Okay, and as soon as you read that, if you're a part of a community group or if you've been hanging out with our church for a while, you're already seeing aspects of who we are as a church show up. Things that we're shooting for as a church family.

It said that they fellowshiped together, which meant that they actually spent time together. They broke bread in each other's homes. It said they were devoted to the apostles' teaching, which just meant that they were engaging with Scripture together. It said that they were praying together. It said they were selling possessions and giving them to those that had need. This was a group of people who were living this out together, and we absolutely want to see that modeled in our community groups.

But here's what I want to do this morning. I want to go back. We're actually going to look at another section that we just read and emphasize something that we haven't necessarily spent a whole lot of time talking about as a church family. But it's just as beautiful and just as important as the other stuff that we looked at. It's actually in verses 46 and 47. Let's look at it again.

And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. So what we see in the early church right there in verse 46 is this balance. We see this balance in how they followed Jesus together. There was this collection of all of them together where they were attending the temple together as a big group of people. And then it said they gathered in homes.

So there's this gathering all together in the temple courts, and then there's gathering in homes. And so the church has kind of exploded at this point. There was about 120 followers of Jesus, and it has just grown to 3,000, which 3,000 is a logistical nightmare. A logistical nightmare that I would be happy to have, guys. I'm not going to say. So if you just want to keep inviting your friends and family, we'll figure it out.

I'll say that. We'll figure it out. We'll put people in classrooms. We'll get it all figured out. But the church grew, and what we see is this ebb and flow to their relationship where they saw value, where they saw merit in all coming together and then scattering as smaller groups into their home.

They all gathered together and then scattered as smaller groups. And so some of you have even asked us before, like, why do we call this a gathering as opposed to maybe how some churches call it a worship service? And that's honestly one of the reasons from these verses because we believe it's a better description of what we're doing when we all come. We're coming together. It's a gathering of the church. And worship is more than just what we do on Sunday.

Worship is what we do with our lives. And so as you look at that passage, you can see, okay, that's what our church should be shooting for. That's what we're shooting for, and we're accomplishing that in our community groups. And we talk about them all the time. We want people to actively be living out their faith in Jesus. But if we're not careful, what can happen is we can talk about our community groups and living it out so much that we begin to neglect this beautiful expression that God has given us.

That we can talk about our groups so much and emphasize them so much that we kind of push gatherings to the side, and they kind of lose time, and they kind of lose value in our eyes. And what we've said a lot from this stage is if you're just hanging out on Sundays, you're missing out. What we haven't said as much as if you're just hanging out with a group and catching the podcast before you hang out with them, you're also missing out. And I realize there are people in our church family whose work schedule doesn't allow them to be here with us on Sunday, and I'm thankful that we record our sermons.

But there's just something unmistakably holy and good about when the whole church gathers together, and we sing and we listen to the word, that there's something beautiful about that. And so after having two weeks off, we're back together. So that's what we're going to be talking about this morning is the goodness of gathering. The goodness of gathering all together as a church family. And here's the question we're trying to answer. We're going to put it up on the screen.

This is the question we're trying to answer. If being the church is what really matters, why is it important that we gather together? So in essence, if being the church, if living it out, if letting it impact you 24-7 is what really matters, why is it important that the church gathers together? We're going to talk about it in three different ways, and I'm going to go ahead and give them to you up front. I never do this, but I want you to see it. The church gathers to open the Bible.

The church gathers to respond to God and celebrate the gospel. And the church gathers to be sent out on mission. And we're going to focus on those three things. And what we're going to see is you can look at them and see we do those things in our community group. But we're going to talk about how when we do them on Sundays, there's something beautiful and distinct and unique about what Jesus does in us and for us when we all gather together.

So let's pray before we hop in. God, I ask that you would submit this in our minds and our hearts to understand the value and the goodness of all gathering together. Lord, of seeing your word laid open and having its truth applied to our lives and singing together and responding to you. God, there's nothing better than being in your presence and enjoying the relationship that you purchased for us through what Jesus did on the cross. And so, God, we pray that your Holy Spirit would lead us, would give us the ability to see what you're showing us in Scripture clearly today. In Jesus' name, amen.

All right, so grab a Bible. This part is actually not going to be on the screen, so I want you to grab a Bible. If you don't have one, grab one of the blue and white ones that we have in the seat. We're going to be in Nehemiah chapter 8, which is on page 258 in those blue and white Bibles. And let me go ahead and say this. If you don't have a Bible, we're going to be talking about how important it is and how good it is.

We want you to take that one with you. That's our gift to you. If it's your first time hanging out with us, you don't have a Bible. If you want a Bible, please take that one with you. But we're going to be in Nehemiah chapter 8.

And again, what we're trying to do today is talk about the beauty of the whole church gathering together. And why it's important and good and valuable. And again, today's not meant to be corrective as much as it is an encouragement into understanding why we do what we do. You know this. Anything that you're doing, when you start to put vision into it and people start to help you see the purpose and why, it just makes it more enjoyable. It just makes it better.

And so for us, my hope, my prayer for us this morning is as we look at this passage, we're going to be encouraged. We're going to begin to look at gatherings with new eyes, with a fresh attitude, with a renewed sense of the goodness of us all gathering together. And we're going to be looking at that in Nehemiah chapter 8. And most of the time when we're gathering on Sundays, we're in the middle of a series or we're walking verse by verse through a book of the Bible. We are jumping straight into the middle of Nehemiah. So let me give you just a little bit of the back story.

Okay. In Nehemiah 8, the people of God, the Hebrews, the Israelites have been taken captive. That God allowed them to be taken captive because they had stopped worshiping him. They started worshiping false idols and being like the people around them. And so God allowed them to be captured. And now God has rescued them and they're coming back into the promised land.

Okay. So this is the people coming back into the promised land. They're being led by Nehemiah, being led by Ezra. And they've been here for about a week at this point. And it's not going super well. Now, miraculously, they have been able to get the wall built back up to kind of protect the city.

But there's so much to do. I mean, this city has been desolate for almost 70 years. And they've got all this different stuff to do. And what's interesting is the people, one of the first things that they want to do is they want to get together as the people of God to worship God by listening to the word of God. They said all that other stuff can wait. That stuff is good and valuable and important.

But all of that stuff can wait. And I think even just as we're hopping in, there's a lesson there. There's a lesson there just to see that the rest of that can wait. We're going to gather to worship God. And we see kind of Nehemiah and Ezra. And what happens is all the people kind of gather into the square.

And that's a little bit of the picture of what we're getting right here in Nehemiah chapter 8. Let's look at it. Nehemiah chapter 8, verse 1. Let's read it together. And all the people gathered as one man into the square before the water gate. And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses that the Lord had commanded Israel.

So Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could understand what they heard, on the first day of the seventh month. And he read from it facing the square before the water gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand. And the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law. And Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that they had made for the purpose. And beside him stood Mattathia and Shema and we'll just say four of his other close friends to the right. And Padaiah and six other homies to his left.

Verse 5. And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was above all the people. And as he opened it, all the people stood. So like I said, the city's been deserted for about 70 years and the people are starting to come back. And they need to rebuild the temple. They need to rebuild the city.

They need to reestablish life. And if you think about it, there's a ton of stuff that needs to be done. I mean, where's food coming from? Farmers have got to start planting so that there's food. They've got to figure out how fresh water is going to be in the city. They've got to clear roads.

They've got to set up systems for market and trade. And all of that stuff has to happen. But from early on, the people say, we need to all gather to hear from God. And that's important because the nation of Israel learned something while they were in captivity. The reason that they had to go into exile is that they lost that laser focus with their lives. They lost that focus that if God is supreme and God is the most important thing and God's our focus, then it puts everything else in its proper place.

Then work begins to make sense. The family relationships begin to make sense. And they had lost some of that focus. And so all the people gathered together into the square. It's awesome. There's like 50,000 people all together in the square.

And what it says, they said, they sent Ezra the scribe to go get the book of the law. And we don't know exactly who the they is. It could have been just the people who were also kind of on the platform thing. It could have just been all of them going, Bible, Bible, we want the Bible. I don't know if it was like that or not. But they sent Ezra to go get the Bible.

And it says he stood on the platform and opened it. And he read from it. And how long did he read? He read from morning to midday. He read from morning to, that's like eight hours. I mean, guys, you know I'm all about a long sermon.

I mean, but that's intense. So to illustrate this morning, I'm going to see how long I can go. So I pass out. I ate my Wheaties. I drank a Gatorade. I chased it with a Red Bull.

Let's do this thing. I mean, that's a long, that's a long time. And it says the ears of the people were attentive. They were listening. In fact, as soon as he opened it, verse 5 said the people just stood up. I don't know if that was like a collective.

Should we stand? Do you stand? I'll stand. One Carl stands and everyone else stands. I don't know. But the people were attentive.

They were hungry for it. They knew how desperately they needed the Word of God. And so that's honestly the first reason that we get together on Sundays is that we gather to open the Bible. We get together collectively as a church family to open the Bible. Now, immediately you're going, okay, well, I mean, I can read the Bible on my own at home. And most times when my group isn't playing Phase 10 or Catchphrase, we're opening the Bible too and studying it.

So I don't, what's the point? And let me say this, I want that to be a rhythm in your life. I want you to be opening the Bible and seeing the truth that's there and getting together with your community group and studying it too. Those are all beautiful disciplines. If that's not something that's going on in your life, if you're not diving into the Word, let that be your takeaway this morning. Hear that.

Just open the book and start reading. Let that be a part of your life. If you don't know where to start, I would love to talk to you after we're done and explain some different areas that you can go in and read. But, yeah, we do. We open the Bible at other times. We do it in our community groups.

But what we're trying to do in our community groups is more talk about how does it apply to our lives. We're going for application. Like, where is this leading me to repent? What does this mean for how I approach things? Where do I agree? Where do I disagree?

What does this person think? And we kind of wrestle with it all together. And when we gather as an entire church family together, there's something different about it. When we all gather together, there's something unique about having a posture of sitting and receiving and soaking something in that's being taught. I'm going to say that again. There's something unique about sitting and receiving and just soaking in something that is being taught.

And when I was in college, if I was in a class and I had a professor at the front of the room, unless I was given permission to ask questions or permission to speak, my posture in that class was listener and learner. There would be time when I got together with other people or a study group to be like, well, I didn't agree with that or that didn't make sense or I wonder if that's going to be on the test, but not necessarily in that moment. In essence, what I was saying in that classroom was, okay, I'm submitting to the authority of the professor, his education, and the content that he is teaching. And again, that's just an example to get us thinking along those same lines, but even that begins to break down.

Because what it's saying is there's something special about the professor, but when the church gathers, there's nothing special about the person who stands on the stage and opens the Bible. What's special is God and his word that he wants to communicate into our lives. It wasn't about Ezra. You want to know how I know that? Ezra wasn't the only person on the stage. There were a whole bunch of other people.

The stage wasn't for Ezra. The stage was for the word of God. So the word of God could be over top of all the people. And I think that's a beautiful picture of how we should see the word of God in our own lives. That we should see that God is over us and his word is over us in a way that we're not trying to take our life and justify it by the word. No, no, no, no.

We're running to the word to help us understand who God is and how we might live in relationship with him. So there's something, there's just something different about it. When someone's standing up and teaching something and you're just soaking it in and receiving it. And I'll tell you, in our culture, specifically with my generation, that kind of teaching is just kind of waning in popularity. It's not something that people are really excited about. They don't want to go and sit and listen to someone.

And some of that's because a lot of people in my generation are like, is there absolute truth or is it all just kind of relative? And we know that there are different styles of learning now. And so do we really need that type of teaching? That's why I think it's beautiful that we have gatherings and we have our groups and we're discipling each other in all of life. But there is something unique and special about opening the word of God and letting it be spoken into our lives.

And we see it all throughout scripture. Our God is a preaching God. That God uses his word to accomplish his will. From the very beginning, God stands up and he preaches. He preaches the world into existence. And then throughout the Old Testament, he uses prophets and he speaks through them into the lives of his people.

And then Jesus comes and he preaches repentance and the gospel. And then he raises up his disciples and sends them out to preach the message. And so when the church gathers together, what we're saying is we will sit under the authority of Jesus and allow it to shape our lives. And there's something beautiful about not just doing it by yourself, but doing it all together. Where we're collectively sitting in the room and you're looking around and people are head nodding and people are saying amen. And it's this beautiful excitement of saying, no, I'm not just doing this by myself.

We're actually getting to do it together. There's something unique about that. There's something beautiful about how the Holy Spirit uses that and works that in our lives. And in fact, the Bible talks about itself. The Bible teaches us about the Bible. And I want to read a couple of these things because it's awesome.

Here's what the Bible says about itself. That it's breathed out by God. You'll hear arguments of people, yeah, well, it was written by human authors. No, no, no. Hear this. It was breathed out by God and he just chose to use those authors.

And it's profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training. That the Bible, that it makes man complete, equipped for every good work. That it keeps us from sinning. That it's a lamp to our feet and a light to our path and so forth and so on. The Bible just describes itself as God's word to do work in our lives. And there's something valuable about when we get to do it together.

And here's another thing that makes gatherings distinct. There are times when I'm sitting there and Chet's preaching or maybe Raz is preaching. And I am loving everything that is being said. I'm digging it. I'm being encouraged. I'm being reminded of my identity, being in Christ.

I mean, I'm just, I can feel myself getting excited because it's the truth of it. There are also times where I'm sitting there listening and I'm not so excited about it. And I'm going, ah, I don't want to do that. Oh, I'm not naturally inclined to do that. I'm actually being convicted. I feel like I need to repent.

This is really making me uncomfortable. And what I want to do is head for the exit sign. But I don't because I'm in a group of people that are collectively saying we submit to the authority of God. And in fact, those moments where you want to head for the exit sign or maybe it's rubbing you wrong and you don't understand and you don't like it. Those may be the times that you want to lean in and listen just a little bit more. Because it may be that the Holy Spirit is working and moving and trying to show you something completely new.

And when we're all gathering together, it's not just you having to figure out how to do it. You've got a group of people around you that are willing to encourage you and walk side by side with you to see you accomplish Jesus' will in your life. And so the church gathers to open the Bible. Verse 6, let's keep going. Verse 6. Sorry guys, I got the power this morning.

Verse 6. And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, Amen, Amen, lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground. Also, Jeshua and Bonnie, and you can just skip on to where it says the Levites, helped the people to understand the law while the people remained in their places. They read from the book, from the law of God clearly, and they gave the sense so that the people understood the reading. And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe and the Levites who taught the people, said to all the people, This day is holy to the Lord your God.

Do not mourn or weep, for all the people wept as they heard the words of the law. Okay, so as the word of God was being read, the people began to respond. We know that as soon as the Bible was open, as soon as the scriptures were open and they started reading, it says that the people just stood up. And I don't know exactly what that was like, but the people just stood up. And then it says they began to raise their hands. So I don't know exactly what that was like.

I don't know if it was any of this or any of this. Or maybe it was more of just a stretching out, like give me more. Or maybe it was more open hands, like let me receive this. And then it says they fell and put their faces to the ground. This picture of humility. Guys, remember, the city's not cleaned up yet.

We don't know what's on the ground. They don't care. It's this posture of humility as they hear. In fact, verse 9 says that some of them were moved to tears by what they heard. And so one of the reasons the church gathers, one of the reasons we gather, is we gather to respond to God and celebrate the gospel. So we gather to open the Bible, but the other thing we do is we gather to respond to God and celebrate the gospel.

So that as the word is proclaimed, we begin to respond. And the church, the people of God, the church throughout history, across people groups and tribes and languages, has always found this way to gather together and respond and to celebrate. Some people may do it with a whole bunch of instruments and a whole bunch of people singing and dancing. And this group over here may not use instruments at all. And then you've got this group who may meet in a building, and this group may meet out in a field. But the church has always found ways to respond to God collectively as a group.

And truth is, we do this in our community groups as well. We respond to God in our community groups. We talk about how it affects our lives. We wrestle with that together. We don't just say this is like information for you. It's information that impacts your life.

Like how do you live this out at work? How do you live it out in your marriage? How do we encourage each other to do it? We repent and confess to each other where we're off and where we're struggling. And in the midst of doing that, we celebrate the gospel. We celebrate the good news that Jesus came and he lived a perfect, sinless life, and he died on the cross so that we might have life in him.

And he rose from the dead. Like we celebrate that and we encourage each other with that truth because it's not just good news then, it's good news now. And so we remind each other, we don't just say you should love people. We say because he first loved you, we get to love others. Not just go out and serve, but we serve because he served us. He came and met us at our greatest need.

We encourage each other with the gospel. But when we all get together as a big church family, we get to respond in some different ways. It's kind of different. Maybe some things that you don't get to do in your community group all the time. We get together and we pray all together. We ask God to do stuff on behalf of our city to move and to work and to bring people to salvation.

There are times when we celebrate communion, where we remember the broken body and the shed blood. There are times where we give, where we give our finances to support what Jesus is doing in the city and doing through this church. We get together and we baptize people. And when we baptize people, we get fried chicken and we throw a party and we dunk people in water and we go crazy. So crazy that we can't talk.

I mean, I love baptisms. Just so you know, Easter, baptism, that is happening. So if you're trying to figure out whether you should be baptized, interested in being baptized, let me put that plug in. That's coming at Easter, so not too long from now. But one of the main ways that the church responds to God when we're all collected together is that we sing.

We get together and we sing. And y'all know, y'all know I love that. In fact, on the Sundays where I preach, I get really excited because we've got super talented musicians who love Jesus and are a part of community groups who lead us to sing truths about Jesus. And I love when I just get to be a part of that. But I also love the times where I get to be up here and I get to see your faces.

I get to see you sing. I get to see you raise your hands and then sometimes just sit and reflect on what's being sung. It's the best. And we live in a culture that highly values music. That's a big deal kind of in our culture right now is music. And maybe on the other side of that, maybe just more the entertainment side of music.

And some of that, like the value of that, has kind of seeped into our American Christian culture so much so that when people think about church and what the church is and stuff, what they've got in their mind is just what we get together and do on Sundays. It's an incomplete picture. So much so that you'll hear people say, I go to that church. What they mean is, what they're saying is, I go to that building on that street at that time on that day. And they're missing out on the fact that the church is the people who have been rescued by Jesus and it's all of life and that's just a picture of what we do.

But I kind of grew up with a similar type understanding. I kind of grew up thinking about Sundays as a really big deal, that that was kind of the pinnacle of everything that Christians did. I grew up in a church that had like a lot of music. We had all kinds of different musical stuff and there were choirs and there was an orchestra. I mean, it was crazy, a whole bunch of stuff. You kind of had to dress up to go there.

But it was good stuff. And afterwards, like any good kid, I would like run around and play tag with my friends. But there was always that little old lady that goes, Don't run in the church! And I just wish I knew then what I knew now. Because I would have turned around and been like, The church is people. And just like taken off running.

But our church valued Sunday. Sunday was a big deal. It was what was talked about. It was what was celebrated. So much so that we did it twice on the same day.

You went home and took a power nap to get ready because you're coming back. Like, we're doing this again. So the church I grew up in really valued Sunday. Then I got to college and I got introduced to my first mega church. And oh, buddy. Lights, lasers, smoke machines.

I mean, music that would like melt your face. Thousands of people just standing, singing. I mean, it was, whew! They cared about Sunday. I'm telling you. And I'm telling you, it was awesome.

It was beautiful to see all those people worshiping together. But even then, I'm starting to go, okay, is there, what else, what else should I do? And it's kind of like, oh, you can come back next Sunday. All right, I'll do that. But there's got to be more.

There's something more to it. And then I started working for a church while I was in college. And part of what I did was help plan. What did we do on Sundays? And all along the way, I'm trying to figure out, okay, how does, how does this work? Like, what is this?

Sundays are important, but it's not just Sundays. It's all of life. And as I grew in my understanding of the gospel and as I began to read in scripture, it's not a competition between Sundays and all of life. It's both. It's this beautiful ebb and flow, this back and forth of the church gathering all together and then scattering out. And it has just changed my understanding of why the church gathers and why it's important.

And one of the reasons we do that is so that we can get together and have good music. It's so that we can get together and sing at the top of our lungs and to raise our hands and to respond to the truth that's being said. Because God uses music in such a special way. Let me show you. It is highly unlikely that during the week you have walked around with the three main points of a sermon stuck in your head. Right?

I mean, most of us, by the time we're going to hang out with our community group, we're going, what were we talking about on Sunday? Sorry, guys. Maybe I should go listen to the podcast before I could hang out with our group, even though I was there on Sunday. But you have had a song stuck in your head. Right? We've all had that annoying song that gets stuck in your head.

Or maybe it's your favorite song. You just sing it on repeat all the time. Because music has that ability to stick with us. Let me prove it to you. Ready? Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm.

Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm. What song did I just hum? Hail the King. Right? Hail the King. I hummed Hail the King.

Okay, what were the words that I was singing? We have by faith through Jesus. It's only. That was, guys, if we were a choir, we blew it. But yeah, for the most part, you could recall those lyrics.

And sometimes, we sing that song a good bit. That song gets stuck in my head all the time. And do you see how beautiful that is? That in the middle of your work week, when you're at work and you just got chewed out by your boss, or you just had an argument with your wife, that song pops in your head and you're going, no, no, no, I've been justified. That there's a Creator God and I rebelled against Him. But He sent Jesus to die on the cross so that I might be saved, so that I could have salvation, not because of my work, but Jesus' work on my behalf.

That I could place faith in Jesus. And it's a gift of God's grace. And as I begin to remember that, it just reshapes everything. It has this beautiful impact on our lives. And so when we get together, we celebrate that truth. We're reminding ourselves.

And here's another thing. Here's something that's really important to point out. Our worship, when we get together on Sundays, is just a foretaste of what's coming later. It's just a foretaste of the future that is waiting for us. I mean, you can honestly just start thinking about Sunday as heaven practice. Go ahead and get that in your mind, like you've got to get stressed, get warmed up.

This is heaven practice for the eternity that we've been created for us. And we all know this. When there's something to celebrate, the phrase, the more the merrier, absolutely fits. When you're excited, when you want to throw a party, when you want to celebrate, the more the merrier. Let me illustrate. If I'm sitting at home and I'm watching the Clemson game by myself and they win, I mean, I'm excited.

I mean, you know, I may woo-hoo. And then I may change the channel and flip to another game. And the rest of it, I just go on with the rest of my life. If I'm watching the Clemson game at Charlie Earp's house, I'm like jumping up. And I'm doing like some of the fist pumping type stuff. And we're high-fiving and we're getting really excited.

And we're making fun of the people who weren't pulling for Clemson. Like, it's just this bigger celebration. If I'm in Death Valley with 80,000 of my closest friends, I'm storming the field. I may take my shirt off and run around. I have no, I mean, it's amazing when you get with a group of people and just celebrate it. And that's what heaven's going to be like.

There's going to be people from every tribe and language and tongue and people group. That have come to place their faith in Jesus. And we're all going to stand around the throne and sing and bring praises to God as we stand in the presence of our Savior. It's going to be awesome. And heaven's not just that. It's not going to be just that.

We're going to do other stuff as well. But it won't be less than that. I can tell you that. It won't be less than that. And there's this, I was at a concert with Katie a couple of years ago. And there's a Christian artist named David Crowder.

You may have heard him before. And before the concert they said, if anybody works for a church or is on staff for the church, come to the back. We want you to pray with David. And David Crowder prayed that night. And it was something like this. I just want to read this to you.

Let's see. He prayed, I mean, that blew my mind when he prayed that because it's absolutely true. Let our feet be lifted off the ground just a little so that we might experience what heaven is going to be like. It's going to be this amazing time of worship. In fact, there's this really cool scripture that I read in Zephaniah 3 this week where it says that Jesus is going to stand in the midst of his people. And he's going to sing over us.

Like a great choir master, he's going to stand in the midst of us and sing. And we're going to sing. It's going to be this beautiful time of celebration. And we get to mimic that. We get to mirror that as a church on Sundays. And let's kind of bring this thing to a close.

Let's jump back into verse 10. Then he said to them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink sweet wine, and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready. For this day is holy to our Lord. Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. So the Levites calmed all the people, saying, Be quiet, for this day is holy.

Do not be grieved. And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing because they had understood the words that were declared to them. So the church came together to sit under the authority of God's word. And as they heard the word, they began to respond to the word all together. And then what does it say that they did? It says they went their way.

It says they went their way to eat and they went their way to drink. Back to their families. Back to their work. Back to everything. Infused with the truth that they had been taught and what they had celebrated. The third reason that the church gathers is we gather to be sent out.

We gather to be sent out. We don't stay here. As good as this is and how fun is this, this is fun and good. We don't stay here. We're sent out. And we know specifically on this side of the resurrection, for those of us in this room that have placed faith in Jesus, we know that we've been sent out specifically on mission.

And so we gather to be sent out on mission. The mission that Jesus has given us, which is to go and to make disciples, to share his love with other people, to help them come to know his love and to begin to follow him and to place their faith in him. And yeah, we do that in our groups. We get together and we talk about the people that we're building relationships with and we pray over them that Jesus might work in their life. But there's something different about when we do it all together.

It's way more like General Patton and his troops. It's way more like Mel Gibson riding on a horse in front of the Scottish. You ever seen that movie? Oh man, it's amazing. Braveheart's amazing. It's this call to this is who you are.

Go and do that. This is who you are. He doesn't say go do this because of who you are. He says because of who you are, go accomplish the victory. And that's what's true for us. As Christians, our identity is seated in Christ.

And so out of who Jesus has made us, we are sent out. And so I hope that this morning you've been refreshed. I hope that you've been reminded of the goodness of gathering, that it's not this competition between whether you're in a group or whether you come on Sundays. It's this beautiful ebb and flow that we see in Acts 2 and we're seeing here in Nehemiah 8, that the church gathers together and then we're scattered out. And so just to kind of bring us to a close, we gather to open the Bible, to let it have authority to speak truth into our lives. We gather to respond and to celebrate the gospel.

We stand and we sing and we proclaim and we pray and we give. And then we're sent out all mission together, that we accomplish the mission of Jesus as this church in our community groups. And it's this beautiful expression of the church being one all together and then going out together all mission. The band's going to come back up. Here's kind of how I want you to respond with this. I want you to have fresh vision and fresh eyes for Sundays.

And I want Sundays to be an important part of how you follow Jesus, that you see how good and how valuable it is, that you begin to let this be an aspect of how you build community with other believers, that you stand shoulder to shoulder, you stand side by side with other Christians and you sing at the top of your lungs and you remind yourself of what's true and you pray all together and you give together and then you go out so that you're sitting with and you're seeing people that are in your community group and in other community groups and you're going, yeah, let's go out. Let's be who Jesus has made us to be. He's made us to be His church. And so what we're going to do now is we're going to sing a song that says that.

We will be the church to live out your heart. Oh God, arise up in us. We'll show the world how you love. Take heart. You have overcome the world. That's the message.

That's the message of the church. It's the message of the gospel. And we stand and respond and sing those things at the top of our lungs because they're true and there's something beautiful about getting to do them together. together all as one big church family. Let me pray over us. God, I pray that you would let that sink in or that the joy of gathering with your family and gathering with your people would culminate in Sundays where we preach the gospel and we sing songs at the top of our lungs for your glory and for your namesake and then we're sent out together on mission to see more people come to know you come to love you and place their faith in you.

And so God, I pray that your spirit would move in us to remind us of who we are as your people. In Jesus' name, amen.