A Life Worthy of the Gospel (Philippians 1:27-30)
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
Morning my name is Chad I'm one of the pastors here we are in the book of Philippians so if you'll grab a Bible and go to the book of Philippians if you don't have a Bible there should be one tucked under the seat in front of you will be on page 570 in one of these blue Bibles um if this is your first time with us we're glad that you're here this morning we mostly just work our way through books of the Bible and that's what we're doing we're in Philippians this is a letter written by the Apostle Paul.
While he is in prison in Rome he was under house arrest so he most likely would have been chained to a guard in a home in Rome he's writing this letter to a Church in Philippi which is about 800 miles away um that has uh sent a gift basically like a care package for him where he is in Rome that they gave him this gift because when you were in under house arrest you were still responsible for your own care your own provision.
And so they found out that he was in Rome under house arrest they they send this gift to him and he's writing this letter back in thankfulness to them and he just got got done and what we were looking at last week in saying that he doesn't know whether he's going to live or die he doesn't know if they're going to set him free he doesn't know if they're going to execute him this where you get the verse that is to live is Christ to die is gain he's not just pontificating about a theological truth he's talking about a theological reality.
For himself while he is sitting in Chains facing a very real potential death he's saying if if they set me free I'll keep serving the lord it'll be for Christ fruitful Ministry is the way he puts it there'll be fruitful labor and if they execute me I'll go be with Christ to live as Christ to die as gain I I'll get what's better I'll get to go be with Christ and he's now turning from that to some instruction to the Philippians.
So we're in verse 27 he says this only let your manner of Life be worthy of the Gospel of Christ so now he's turning to giving them instructions he starts off with the word only we should perk our ears up he's boiling it down he's giving them something essential kind of a if if you forget everything else remember this now we know because of how talking with people goes this isn't the actual only thing he's going to say otherwise he wouldn't have written the rest of the letter.
But he is saying hey this is primary pay attention only and like okay what what's the main thing we have to do let your manner of Life be worthy of the Gospel of Christ oh is that all that's a massive instruction your manner of life so the way you live let your whole life be fitting matching to the Gospel of Christ do you know what the Gospel El of Christ is it's the message the reality the news that the God of the universe.
While we were in our sin and Rebellion against him took on flesh was born as a human that he lived a perfect sinless life so that he might pay the penalty for our sins he dies on a cross he's buried he rises again to show his victory over death and sin and hell that his his sacrifice was accepted he doesn't stay in the Tomb he's not just like a a a good man that we look to for for um uh some sort of motivation no he actually literally paid the price of our sin as a sacrifice and rose again.
So that we know that God's blessing is on him and that he accepts the sacrifice that he is the king of kings the Lord of lords that everything he said about himself is real that he rises and that all who Trust in him are forgiven your your debt is paid it's gone one of my favorite representations of this is in the movie Oh Brother Where Art Thou Delmer goes down in the water he gets baptized he comes back out he says all my sins are forgiven I'm clean I'm washed they're washed away he says even that Piggly Wiggly I knocked over in yazu and his friends go you said you were innocent of those charges.
And he goes well I lied and that's forgiven too and that's the reality that in Christ we're forgiven it's gone that he's paid the debt of our sin that was mounted against us that stood to accuse us that stood to drag us to Hell he's paid for it that there's hope and redemption and forgiveness and so Paul says let your life match that now for the Christians in the room we should want that we should want our life to match that we should immediately say yes I actually do want to live in such a way that it it's fitting that it matches that that it's worthy of that.
But that's a heavy request it's weighty someone came to you and said hey I I got a guest coming over to my house and I need you to help help me prepare a meal help me get the house ready they're going to be over on Saturday and you're like okay I can help cook they're like you're pretty good cook yeah I'm okay all right cool I need you to help cook uh it is the newly um crowned King of England Charles III he's coming to my house.
So I need you to make a meal fit for a king and you're like I was going to do cheese grits so I guess we could put shrimp in there I don't I don't know that's like my one dish I got like I didn't I for a king and this it's like yeah and remember he's British so nothing spicier than Salt but it needs to be delicious it's like okay here we go and that's some of what feels like here when he says I want your manner of life to be worthy.
And then all of a sudden he says of the Gospel and it's it elevates it to this oh okay what does that look like well he's going to tell us he doesn't leave us here to to just figure this out on our own he doesn't leave the Philippian Church to just figure it out on own he's going to say this is what it would look like this is a a life matching the Gospel before we read that part let's pray because as Christians we want this and we need the help of the spirit to achieve it.
Lord we ask that we would by your grace live a life that corresponds to the Gospel that we would live in such a way that we proclaim the truth of the rescue and the hope and the kingship of Jesus May our Church look this way and may our individual lives look this way and may by your grace and by the work of your spirit this be carried out in a real practical level in Jesus name amen all right only let your manner of Life be worthy of the Gospel of Christ.
So that so now he's going to say if it if that's happening if it's worthy of the Gospel of Christ so that whether I come and see you or am absent whether I'm released from prison and get to make it to you or I'm kept in prison or I'm executed or I just can't make it to you I may hear of you that you are so now he's about to say if your life if you're living in a manner worthy of the Gospel this is what I'll hear about you this is the report I'll get that I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind striving side by.
Side for the faith of the Gospel and not frightened in anything by your opponents I'm going to read that again that I may hear of you that you are standing firm fir in one spirit with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the Gospel and not frightened in anything by your opponents a life fitting to the message of the Gospel a life fitting to what Christ has done for us is one that is Unified in the spirit with the Church.
For the Gospel fearlessly unified in the spirit with the Church for the Gospel fearlessly that's what he lays out for them so let's talk about that the first part unified in the spirit he says that I may hear that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind this is the unified in the spirit with the Church so that you're in one spirit with one mind you're on the same page and specific to this context he has said right before it that there are those who are uh out.
For selfish ambition they're out for their own name they're out for their own good and then below it he's going to talk about what we read together which is the humility of Christ and how we should have the same mind among ourselves that though he was in the form of God he humbled himself and took on the form of a man that we should be humble and and relate to one another so there's this idea of that we would relate to one another in humility.
Now there is some question as to whether or not when he says in one Spirit he means the Holy Spirit specifically and that should be a capital S which is what the NIV does with it it's the same word same word he uses in similar phrasing that he uses in chapter 2: 1 where it says any participation in the spirit and that's capital S we to understand that as the Holy Spirit or if he just means kind of the way we use it which is school spirit or we were all of the Same Spirit meaning we were all on the same page.
And then it really just means in one spirit with one mind is kind of saying the same thing twice I think if you were to follow Paul's logic because he uses this phrasing in other places in Ephesians 4 he uses it in Corinthians that if you were to ask him about it and say okay well what do you mean unified What Spirit what what's our Unity over he would You' eventually get to where he would be saying oh well the Holy Spirit like the the Holy Spirit is the one who's the one spirit that we have that's going to keep us unified there's no way.
For the Church to be unified without the work of the spirit and so it's going to be ultimately a work of the spirit for this to happen whether or not we need the Holy Spirit to work whether he intentionally brings it to mind here the Holy Spirit to mind or whether or not he is just saying to be unified that's still a work of the spirit so that we would be unified in the spirit with one another on the same page have you ever thought be a lot easier to be a Christian.
If I didn't have to hang out with these other Christians have you ever thought like I would be in a group and I know y'all say we should join a community group but that's going to be tough yeah it is do you know how agreeable I am when I'm by myself every one of my ideas is brilliant like I got married and I was surprised that she wasn't able ble to catch up with that as quickly as I thought it's like I don't know you don't think I'm I'm confused I've always thought I was a genius why are you acting like this.
But I'm patient with her um the idea that we're going to have to relate to other people takes work it takes effort there's there's difficulty and it takes the work of the spirit to be in us to create humility to create Grace but y'all we don't get to say well I love Jesus I just don't love the Church oh I'm I'm spiritual I walk in the spirit the Holy Spirit he you know I just I go alone and the Holy Spirit just tells me stuff and it's wonderful and it's like what Church are you a part of I don't need one of those you haven't been listening to the spirit he loves the Church he.
Loves Jesus and he loves the Church and he's going to help you belong to a group of people who love Jesus and love the Church and it's going to take humility and it's going to take work and it's going to take effort it's going to be frustrating in times but it's also going to be really beautiful we're better together it's going to be wonderful and you're going to grow in ways that you hadn't intended to you're going to grow in ways that you never would have grown.
If you were on your own and I do want to add this if people if you're saying okay I want to know how to listen to the spirit I want to know how to walk in the spirit what I would say is you begin by sticking your facei in your Bible and then putting yourself around other Christians that's how we walk well in the spirit that's how you learn how to hear the voice of the spirit to discern the voice of the spirit do you know the word of.
God you know that he's not going to lead you outside of what this says he's going to to speak and to teach you things but he's not going to say something contrary to the Scriptures and you begin to discern his voice you begin to learn how to walk in the spirit I want you to walk in the spirit I want you to be filled with grace I want you to be used by God mightily and I I want you to be in the word.
So that it's tethered as we do that and so that we get to walk in Church family together I want you to be in a situation when you were about to do something really stupid but you're in Church family and everybody in your group says we love you you that's really stupid I want you to be mad at them and I want you to submit to them I want you to get your Bibles out I want you to say why is it dumb why does everybody disagree with me I don't want you to go home and go wow I'm the smartest person in my group I'm the only one who knows what's right I want.
You to have some humility I want you to get what he's saying is that they would be in the same mind on the same page but it's not just for no reason it's not just so that they would have each other that's wonderful but there's a purpose behind it he says I want you to what I want to hear about you is that you're standing firm yall haven't fallen apart you haven't split up that you haven't been knocked over why standing firm in one spirit with one mind striving side by side.
For the faith of the Gospel there's a purpose to the unity given to the Church and that's the proclamation of the Gospel that we're better together in proclaiming the Gospel and declaring that message y'all know that we have one primary thing that we're about as a Church is that some more people might meet Jesus every once a while I'll hear things and I'm like yeah yeah people say like I like the Church when it was small and then it's gotten bigger Praise.
Jesus you know it got bigger with a bunch of Sinners who needed Grace right and they're like yeah but they're aggravating yeah so are you me too that's that's the we we need Jesus we're we're here to Proclaim this message we're here to work together with this this is why we want to keep the main thing the main thing you know we don't do a whole lot we have a big pretty building the Lord's blessed us with but we don't do a whole lot at this building we don't invite a whole bunch of people here we don't have a bunch of programs here.
Because we want you to be out in the world telling people about Jesus we want your time to be freed up we love Gathering and pointing to Christ together and singing together and walking and studying the Scriptures together but we want to be be missionaries out in the world that's the main thing that's what we're after is to be standing firm with one in one spirit with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the Gospel there's a Church that I know of I'm affiliated with it.
Well enough I know that at one point I think they're a good Church I think they love Jesus but I know that at one point they had multiple business meetings heated passionate business meetings over the purchase of doorknobs we're not going to do that here because it's not the main thing I I'm be honest with you I don't want you to be that passionate about doorknobs I just don't and if you are I want you to keep it to yourself honestly maybe don't tell people you know like we we want to be about seeing people meet.
Jesus which means that we give some freedom to our people who run Ministries to make decisions and and to handle their own budget and to do some things and every once in a while there should be times when you show up and see something you don't like I don't like that color and then you should remind yourself the Gospel is the main thing I've had people say to me I don't like this and I'm like yeah me neither Move Along let's go it's not the main thing we want to be pulling together striving not having Strife.
But striving for the Gospel which means that it should take some effort and some labor and some sacrifice that is a life matching to the Gospel I think that if we were to fill this out if we were to say okay I'm going to try to guess what Paul's going to say to have a life live a life in a manner worthy of the Gospel so that I may hear of you and if we begin to fill that out we would begin to say he's probably going to say this he's probably going to say this he's probably going to say this I'm sure we would put good things on the list.
But it's possible it would all boil down to at some point behave be moral live a life good enough but it's not something that we earn we respond to Jesus in obedience certainly we respond to Jesus in Repentance but a manner of life in a Church that matches the Gospel is a bunch of people who want to tell other people about the Gospel because it's so good that he redeems Sinners that he offers Grace that he rescued us not because we're good and not.
Because we're intelligent and capable and hardworking and that you need to come be a part of us if you're good enough it's no it's he saves Sinners he redeems the weak he died for us while we were still his enemies we have a king who rules and Reigns in love and grace and kindness towards us so that we strive to share the Gospel we're going to get to uh end our time this morning we're not about to so don't get all excited there's more to go.
But when we end our time long long time in the future from now we're going to get to pray over two Community groups that are getting launched out and I'm so excited because launching healthy Community groups the multiplication of healthy groups is one of the things that we've said that this helps us see that we're actually trying to do this and every time we multiply a group everybody in the group a lot of times is like Yay because it hurts it's sad I've told people before.
If your if half your group is being sent out and your response is good riddens you probably weren't doing a real good job of being in your community group you should love those people you should miss those people I had someone this past week say to me I miss every group I've ever been a part of yeah absolutely but we're striving for the Gospel which means there are times that takes sacrifice it takes effort it takes a little bit of something hurting a little bit.
For us to be able to see more people come to know Jesus it's the best way I know to put it I talk to our group leaders about this I tell them tell your group this this is the way I think about it at some point if I'm hosting a group you're hos on a group the table is full I got a table at my house that seats 8 we put a table outside to seat children cuz we love them so much we just don't want to hear them you know.
While we're trying to eat want to be able to see them there's a glass window you know put that stick in at some point Point there's no more room in my house and you love these people and so there's this this desire to go we did it this is it but as a Church family what we're hoping to do is to have group leaders train leaders in training and then eventually send them out to make disciples and to multiply and when we do that.
Now there's space there's space at this table and there's space at that table every time I've ever multiplied a group every time I've ever sent people out I'm sad about people who are leaving this group who weren't in my group the last time we multiplied which means that if we hadn't done that I never would have known this person loved this person seen this person meet Jesus we didn't have room for him we have room for him now and now we got to make more room.
For the next person who's going to come in and y'all there is a table that has enough seats there is a wedding supper of the Lamb that has the right number of seats and there's going to be a day when we get to all sit around it and there's going to be a day when we get to see the people who we got to know in life for a season to come to know Jesus but then we get to see the next person who we got to.
See come to know Jesus and the next person through our striving to proclaim the Gospel the effort and the intentionality that we put down and there's going to be a day when we sit at the wedding supper where the king rules and Reigns for all of eternity and there are enough seats at the table but until that day comes we strive so that more people might come to know how good and glorious King Jesus is more people might be at that table.
So some of your money should walk out the door and go to Mission work to generosity to this Church some of there should be times where you're you're mourning the loss of a community group while having to celebrate the launch of a new one we should put effort in to see people come to know Jesus that's the goal so we stand firm in one spirit with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the Gospel and then he says this and not frightened in anything by your opponents not frightened in anything by your opponents he says I want to hear y'all are on the same page you're laboring to.
See people meet Jesus because he's so good and the Gospel is so good and the hope of Eternity is so good and the fact that this isn't all we get there's this this reality of forgiveness and joy I want to hear that you're proclaiming that and I want to hear that you're not afraid afraid of anybody who tells you to shut up you know that Christians we're not supposed to be scared of everything this is one of the things that that grats on me in our current cultural climate is that I hear a lot of noise on like online and stuff of Christians like ringing alarm Bells all the time we're not supposed to be.
Scared of everything y' we have such a bigger story with a king who wins and he's specifically saying they have opponents and they know that the one of the people who's the starter one of the starting people of the Philippian Church was a Jailer who Paul met because Paul was beaten and thrown into jail Paul's writing this letter from prison they have real opponents who don't want the proclamation of the Gospel he says I want to hear that you're not afraid of them.
And if you follow Christian logic what are we afraid of they have nothing they can give you on the on the grand scheme of Eternity there's nothing that anybody if you're a Christian that anybody can offer you there's nothing that they can take away from you and you can say like Paul who very really means this if I live I'll serve Jesus and if I die I'll go be with him so he says this not frightened at anything by your opponents this is a clear sign to them of their destruction.
But of your salvation and that from God that a lack of fear in the face of opposition declares the Gospel it co-signs it it's a clear sign of your salvation and their destruction because those who would oppose the Gospel are going to use human means to oppose it but human means aren't supposed to work on Christians all of them are supposed to Short Circuit we'll throw you in jail okay that's how jailers meet Jesus the Philippian jailers is like I I I just I know it was bad.
But I'm so glad he got arrested maybe they shouldn't have beat him but I'm glad he got arrested Paul says that everybody in the Roman guard they know about the Gospel because Paul's sharing the Gospel to the Roman guard while he's in jail we'll take everything from you okay I'll get Eternal versions of all that stuff because the Bible says anything sacrificed for the Lord that our reward is great in heaven like that anything that you try to take from me is actually ultimately you accidentally gave it to me forever like I don't I don't know exactly how that works I don't think it's like I got the best Toaster in life life.
If you stole it but it's like I think that there's just reward he honors this we'll kill you okay half a second later I'll be standing before the king and I'll have done all the work I ever had to do it's a clear sign to them of their destruction but of your salvation I love this quote it's a story from a pastor in Romania when they were under communist occupation he was preaching the Gospel and putting it on tapes and passing them out and he had passed it out and he got called in by some communist officers who were trying to stop the Church and they were correcting him rebuking him threatening him and he.
Says this during an early interrog ation I had told an officer who was threatening to kill me so he says sir let me explain to you let me explain how I see this issue your Supreme weapon is killing my Supreme weapon is dying here's how it works you know that my sermons are my sermons on tape have spread all over the country if you kill me those sermons will be sprinkled with my blood everyone will know I died for my preaching and everyone who has a tape will pick it up and say I'd better.
Listen again to what this man preached because he really meant it he sealed it with his life so sir my sermons will speak 10 times louder than before I will actually rejoice in this supreme Victory if you kill me after I said this the interrogator sent me home it's a clear sign I I have hope that you can't touch so when he says that the Church is to be unafraid in all these situations it's because we have something they can't touch and we serve a.
God they can't touch and he owns everything and guards everything and leads everything that we can trust him and so in the middle of all this there's nothing that they can give to us or take away from us a life a Church lived out in response to how good the Gospel is is that we would be humbly unified working side by side laboring together and we are better together we we want you to be a missionary where you are if you're the only person at your gym.
If you're the only person in that class if you're the only person uh on your floor at work that's a Christian we want you to be a a missionary there but we also want to be missionaries together because we're better together our groups are better together there are certain things that you're good at strong in built for as a Christian that someone else in your group isn't and so we work better when we're a team when we invite people in.
When we intentionally invite ourselves into other situations so look a lot of times as a group you can say hey I've been inviting this person who doesn't know Jesus to join our group but you can also invite the people who do know Jesus to join that person meaning that you know that they're going to go see this new movie or that they really would go throw axes or do a poker night or knit and drink tea or whatever it is is you know they'll accept that invitation.
So you just smuggle other Christians into the situation hey would you like to do blank and they say yeah and then they show up and two people from your group are also there and you just say hey welcome whatever and y'all hang out and just be normal Christian people who are kind and fun to be around and then later when you say hey you want to come hang out with our group you already know blank blank blank you already met this person at that thing it's easier to walk in you ever been invited to a party and you only know one person there what do you do.
Okay if you're like one of these people who's really good at parties I'm not talking to you I'm talking to everybody else what do you do you follow that yeah don't go correct you follow that person around like a lost puppy like hey be my friend hey talk to me hey hey hey hey hey or you do what I do you grab six cookies and stand in the corner just I'm I I don't know my friends over there I only know them and someone's like oh hey how you know them and you're like they my friend and they're like oh neat.
And then they walk off and you're like I'm I'm real good at this that shouldn't be your invitation all the time to people who hey do you want to come hang out at my house uh with a bunch of people you don't know read a book you don't care about and do some weird things that you're not sure about like pray also since you don't know much about Christianity it could be weirder than that and you don't know surprise you want to do that I invited them they didn't come yeah.
Okay it was a it was a high you know it's a high bar but if you can get your Church family around them to be friends with them to be kind to them to show them that we aren't weird and that the message is wonderful so that we're alive in response to the Gospel unified striving side by side for the Gospel without fear and he keeps going he's going to say he's pressing into this idea and he's kind of bringing this in front of them.
Look at verse 29 for it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake it's been granted to you that you should not only get to believe in him that that's given to you that's granted that was Grace to you that was given to you that's what granted means it's a gift it was given to you that you would believe in him but also that you would get to suffer.
For his sake we're going to talk about suffering for his sake in a second but take a moment Do You Believe In Christ that was given to you he says it was given to you that you would get to believe in Jesus God do you know that there are people who don't there are people who don't have a hope of an eternity there are people who haven't had their sins forgiven there are people who are still dead in their trespasses and it's been given to you that you would believe some of you you're the only person in your family who believes some of you you're a wild minority from your your country of origin who.
Believe it's odd that you would believe some of you this is a lineage of Christian faith in your household and that was granted you by the grace of God Don't Blink at that I mean don't sneeze at that don't don't just move on past that like that's just something to take for granted it's something to understand that it's been so wonderfully good that you have a hope of Eternity through the work of Jesus that was not earned by you it was not given to you by your works or your ability or your intelligence.
But it was given by the blood of Christ and his goodness and mercy on your behalf and he says it was given to you that you might believe and it was also given he's talking to the Philippian Church but I think this rolls right into us that you would get the opportunity the grace the gift of suffering for the sake of Christ and that's how we're supposed to see it do you know that if you'll strive for the sake of the Gospel there's a chance that at some point you'll get to suffer reproach.
For the name of Jesus and do you know how wonderful that is there's a chance you might get mocked or reviled do you know there's a chance that someone might oppose you do you know there's a chance that something really Earthly bad might happen to you that is as this beautiful Heavenly gift that you might get to suffer for the sake of Christ that you might actually get to drop some sweat and some blood and some money and some effort and some tears.
For something that rolls into eternity that's how we're supposed to see that that's what Jesus says Matthew 5 he's talking to his disciples he says blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the the Kingdom of Heaven blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
If we labor for the Gospel there's a chance that we get to operate on Jesus's account that we get to be reviled on his account that we get to be participating him in suffering for his sake and it is blessed that's why the disciples in Acts chapter 5 when they're beaten for sharing the Gospel it says then they left the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name so what if you strive to share the Gospel with people in in your school in your classes and what.
If they oppose you and what if eventually they revile you and they accuse you and what if on that day we do what Jesus says and we look at him and say thank you thank you that I got a taste of what it was like to be you and to suffer and thank you that I got to join in your suffering for the sake of those who don't want to know you what if you share the Gospel at work and I tell you not to and you do it again and they say.
If you keep this up you're going to be in trouble what if you graciously humbly say I'm G to have to keep trying I'm going keep trying to share the Gospel I'm not what if one day you get fired not because you're bad at your job I want them to have to find three people to replace you if you get fired but but what if you just had these opportunities and you were sharing the Gospel and you were trying to point people to.
Jesus and they were opposing you and what if you walk out into the parking lot and you look at the sky you look up raise your eyes to the Lord and you say Lord I don't know how I'm going to pay my bills because that was my job but I trust you and thank you that I got to suffer reproach for the sake of your name now there's ways to walk this out in wisdom and there's ways to be as wise as a serpent innocent as a dove.
But y'all we're not supposed to be afraid we're not supposed to have one little remark from some kind of an opponent to the Gospel and we just clam up and stop may we stand in the spirit with the Church for the Gospel fearlessly because it's so worth it because the message is worth it because none of the other things that we labor for are ultimately worth it none of the other stuff lasts none of the other stuff stretches into eternity no other message no other no other person forgives sin rescues there's a movie that came out in 1998 called Saving Private Ryan and it's it's a good movie it's a war movie there's a.
Four brothers and three of them die and they go to write all three of the letters and send all of the folded up American flags to the mother at the same time they notice that there's one brother left and they just decide we're going to go find him and we're going to send him home it's the premise of the movie so they task a captain and a handful of people to go find Ryan and bring him home and as they're going several of them die they die going to get one guy out of the War the movie ends With Private Ryan as an old man standing over the graves of one of the men who.
Died for him and talking to it and he says I've thought every day about what you've did and I've tried I've tried to live something fitting and y'all we're the people who know Jesus know what he did know what awaits oh let's live in a way fitting let's respond in a way worthy to the Gospel let's live in a way that makes way more sense with Christ and Eternity than with the American dream let's pray L we ask that by your grace the reality of Eternity would grow grip us we ask.
Lord that you would help us to see the hope that is in Christ and to respond to tell other people about him to repent of our refusing to submit to a Church to repent from our not walking in the spirit and studying the word word and and listening to your voice and following your will to repent of all the times when we've lost the thread on what the main thing is so that we're worried about other things that don't matter.
Lord to walk fearlessly together and to see people come to know you we pray that you would bless this Church with more and more people who are saved by grace that will step in and walk shoulder-to-shoulder with us to see more and more people be saved by grace because this message is too good for us to sit on it you are a glor glorious King and we love you in Jesus name amen amen verse 30 says engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had.
Now here that I still have and I should have read that earlier the band's going to come back up what Paul's saying is that they are laboring I went to pray and I was like I didn't read my whole text Paul's saying that they are late laboring in the same conflict he's telling them not to be afraid in the same conflict that they saw that he had meaning that he was preaching the Gospel and went to jail and that they see that he still has.
Because he's in jail meaning they had real opponents and so I should have just read that earlier and said that sentence earlier and then said all the other stuff I said you're welcome the hope as we stand and sing and respond is that we would take a moment to consider the matchless worth of Christ and that we would say Okay Lord let me let me have a life that tries to mirror that and point to that let me have a life that only makes sense in light of that let's stand and sing.
To Live is Christ, To Die is Gain (Philippians 1:18b-26)
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
Good morning my name is Spencer I am one of the pastors here we are continuing to walk through the book of Philippians we're in chapter 1 still uh we're going to be in the second half of Verse 18 all the way through verse 26 so you can follow along with us on the screen you also can follow along in a blue Bible it's on page 570 you can track along with us so the other day it dawned upon me that my oldest uh is going to turn nine this year which means that we're kind of at the halfway point of her being in the house.
God willing uh and that there's not a lot of years left to really you know influence to be able to show her what it means to love Christ what it means to display that love to others what it means to uh have a Gospel centered life like we don't have as much time it's and I'm also you know I'm not naive I understand that when she gets more into uh you know the teenage years that my influence is going to WAN a little bit and her wife as she starts to become her own adult uh person.
But it's just I mean it's kind of hit me honestly oh man um you know we you know we read the Bible at night we do some worship songs at night we we try to have some time where we talk about applying God's word to um their lives and to our lives and it's like I want to I want to maximize this time as much as possible because I'm losing it the time is is is running away and that's going to happen with each of my children as they get older old and as I get closer and closer to 40 which is typically the time where a lot of men start to ask Big Life.
Questions because you're at the halfway point of life and you're like I I mean this is like I'm I'm I'm nearing I'm nearing the end the halfway point is just going to keep going like and that's when you know midlife crises come into play and people make sometimes really bad decisions uh you know some of those are less bad than others uh you know some might say I'm going to get a car I I got to get I got to get the car.
Because if I don't get the car like what am I doing if I'm I got to travel I got to get to Europe I got to do this I got to do that there's all types of things some things I think are good people might say I got to go back to school I got to refocus I got to you know join a gym do CrossFit whatever it is like I but there's just this evaluation when you understand that time is a finite resource and you don't have much of it left.
But what are you actually going to do that reality check Dawns upon us and it does leave you asking questions like I'm just like am I am I always going to drive a Prius is that how this is like I mean I'm just kind of Peace meing this car together as it goes like am I am I going to like keep wearing flannels and rocking beards I started that Trend like in my early 20s and it's I mean it just kind of continued like those can like fall upon you and you start to re-evaluate and I think to have the really the the finite nature of time and really the reality that death will one.
Day come to us all I think that's actually a good thing to do I don't think you should do that at 40 years old I think you should regularly as a Christian think about that reality and to make the best use of our time and to live the best life that you could possibly live that we should ask the question what is the what is the ultimate life worth living now I have good news for us today the book of Philippians and where we're at in this part of the book speaks directly to that it gives us.
If you're asking questions about how should I live my life but is the best possible life I could live we're at the place that absolutely addresses that God has a good word for us today so I want to pray for us as we really lean into that question and then we'll walk through the text together heavenly father I pray that you would help us be open to receiving your word and that we would not just be hearers of the word but we would be doers and that comes through.
First acknowledging the Gospel and trusting in you and out of that Faith Comes repentance that changes the way we live so that we can worship and honor and Delight in you God I pray that you would do that work within us this morning so that we might be a people that take this life life seriously in Jesus name amen all right so we've been in Philippians in chapter 1 for a bit one of the things we've seen the last few weeks is that Paul in his imprisonment as he's in Rome he's in prison and house arrest the Philippians they're they're exchanging letters in this letter he is talking about how his imprisonment is being used.
To advance the Gospel it's encouraging Believers Christians on the ground in Rome and he was excited about that even as we saw last week that there are some people who were preaching from Bad motives from selfish ambition a rivalry with Paul but there are others who are preaching with good motivations and he goes regardless of the motivations I'm just jacked I'm rejoicing because the Gospel is being preached because Christ is being proclaimed so he's at this moment where he's just rejoicing that Christ is being preached and he has something else to Rejoice about in the back end of.
Verse 18 where we pick up when he says yes and I will rejoice for I know that through your prayers and the help of the spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my Deliverance that's his rescue he's going to be rescued as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body whether by life or by by death so he's not just rejoicing that the Gospel is being repe is being preached and being proclaimed he's also rejoicing.
Because he's going to be delivered and this is I I don't want us to miss this isn't the main point of this but he says due to your prayers through the prayers of the Philippian Christians and the work of the spirit that he's going to be delivered which just should really Center us on like prayer is unbelievably important God accomplishes his will through his people through the prayers of his people from Old Testament into the New Testament so we should be a people that are praying.
For God to work we have a prayer list that goes out to members in our Church who've opted to receive that text that goes out on Monday we have a prayer list that you can if you want things prayed for you can go on our website to uh I think it's one of the times if I had it off top of my head I'd tell you but I don't but it's somewhere in there you scan all the tabs you'll see pray and you can put in a prayer request it goes to that list we should do that.
Because prayer matters God accomplishes his will through the prayers of his people over and over and over again and don't I want us to miss that as we launch into the rest of this that they've been praying for his Deliverance they've been praying for Paul and he says I'm going to be delivered now that word delivered comes from the same Greek word uh for saved sotia so this is saved this is delivered and the question is okay from what from what are you going to be delivered is it what you were just talking about is it your imprisonment that you're going to be delivered from prison is he going to have his Tim Robbins moment.
Where he goes through the tunnel or the the what do you call those pipes that Shaw Shank and gets out into the water and looks up in the sky and he is free which if you don't know what I'm talking about I'm so sorry for you if you've never seen Shaw Shank Redemption first off how dare you like just you've missed out on something this is one of the top five movies if you have this Tim Robbins moment where he's just he's.
So excited to be is's going to be delivered is that's what's happening here so some will argue that's happening others will say no he's actually he's moved on that was so verse 17 we're on to new and better things in these next few verses what he says is is that they will turn out from my this will turn up for my Deliverance verse 20 as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed but that with full courage.
Now as always Christ will be honored in my body whether by life or by by death others will say no no he's moved on from imprisonment he's talking about eternal Deliverance he's talking about death he's talking about the fact that because he believes that Christ was crucified for his sin and he put his faith in Christ and because he put his faith in Christ God the Father looks at Paul and says that he stands righteous because of the righteousness of Christ and not his own.
Because Jesus died for him he stands confidently waiting to go into the next life waiting to be delivered into the next life where he will be with Christ for eternity so some will say no it's it's more that's what's happening here I think the language here between two ideas I think he's being a little bit vague and koi for a reason I think he's kind of going with both and when you read the rest of the passage I think you'll see that he actually means both very practically as he works through this that he does expect to at some point be released from this Roman imprisonment and also he is eager.
For what is next after this life which he picks up in verse 21 for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain if I'm to live in the flesh that means fruitful labor for me yet which I shall choose I cannot tell I'm hardpressed between the two my desire is to depart and be with Christ for that is far better we'll pause there verse 21 is one of my favorite passages in the Bible like it is Shaw Shank Redemption top five level at of all the passages in the Bible this this right here is it you can come back to it over and over again and the deeper you weit into it.
The more satisfying it actually is to live as Christ to die as gain now his basic argument is pretty easy to follow if you're going to live it is for Christ if I'm going going to live a life it is going to be for Christ if I'm going to get out of this R imprisonment and continue my Ministry it's going to be for Christ it's going to be fruitful labor is the language he uses In this passage which will further unpack in the verses that follow that means more churches planted that means more Sinners saved that means more Christians discipled.
If I'm going to live huge win if I'm going to die huge win because if I die I gain I gain eternity I gain an eternal life with Christ I depart this painful broken marred sinful world and I get to be with Christ and that is far better so here is why I think this is one of the most important passages in the Bible it's hard to find a more succinct summary of what the Christian life looks like like this is the headline.
For the Christian Life and when I say headline I mean like how headlines used to be it used to be that you got a paper and that paper was like a physical paper and it smelted really good and you would look and you'd see headlines and the headline was a few words that summarized the whole article you could read the headline you get a general gist of where it was going nowadays headlines are not that they're clickbait sometimes have nothing to do with what's in the article.
Because journalism's lost complete ethic bearings and just but it's just the actual headline like what what actually like this is it like the old school headline you see this to live as Christ to die as gain that's the Christian Life and there's a whole lot more that can be said about that when you read the rest of the Scriptures but you have that right there and you understand what it means to be a Christian that when you actually trust in the finished work of.
Jesus when when you trust in his perfect life and the righteousness that comes through that that gets accredited to our account when you trust in his death that I a sinner and I need a savior and his blood covers me you trust in his resurrection that I actually get to have a new life in Christ because death no longer has a grip on me and that he ascended to the right hand of God the Father where he rules and Reigns from and I get to serve him out of that hope.
When you understand that the rest of the Christian Life is this you put all your chips on that hope on that reality you don't H your bets it's all in on Christ and now what to live as Christ to die is gain so I want to spend some time digging into this phrase because I think this phrase is unbelievably important if you understand what the best life is to live so let take a look at the first part to live is Christ he goes on to say.
If I'm to live in the flesh that means fruitful labor for me now he's going to go on to unpack this in the next few verses and just say that this is serving your brothers and sisters in Christ this is in service of the Church but that's what it means to live as Christ means to serve Christ to live is to serve that's the Christian Life to Live is to serve I went to a college called Presbyterian College and they had a a motto in Latin was called Dum vivamus servamus which was.
While we live we serve and at one point I'm sure in the history of our college that was attached to Christian values this is no longer a Christian College not remotely close but just like Harvard back in the day was founded as a seminary this was founded as a Christian College back in the day and at some point someone made the connection that the life that you live in Christ is one of service to live is Christ if you're going to be a Christian you're going to serve that is what it means to be a Christian and not only that that is the Pinnacle of human existence you understand what the what the what the.
Most maximized human life is do you understand what the good life is the good life is one that is found in serving Christ but in a lot of different ways I think our actions and our desires reveal that we don't really celebrate that Anthem that we don't really wholly Embrace that idea and then if you're in a bit of a midlife or quarter life crisis or you're just evaluating your time and you're trying to think through what do I do with the life that I have left like Paul is.
If I get out of prison this is what I'm going to do to live is this that if we're pose the same question that says if you had more time if you had more time in this life what are you going to do what is your gut instinct say what do your actions reveal I think if we're honest might reveal a lot of things that if I get more time what I'm going to do is I'm going to maximize my time to make money that I'm going to do what I can to make money.
Because money means freedom to choose freedom to do what I want freedom for me freedom for my family it means a lot of things that I can gain in this life this life is very temporary and I need to maximize my life and the aim of my life in a way that maximizes how much money I can have in my bank account I think for others that if you had more time that you'd be really focused on I want to be able to find someone to do this life with that I want to be able to find someone that I can journey through life that I love that I want I want that person.
For others who even might be married now might be just in a marriage that you're not happy with and it's like I if I I want someone I can actually love and journey through life with to live is if I had more time I could just have this if I had more time I could have the perfect family the right amount of kids who behave the just right amount of like all the things I want them to do that they would be involved in these Sports and would be uh uh good at this aspect of school and be able to have these type of careers.
If I could just uh have more time I'll be able to establish that type of family if I had more time I would be able to establish the kind of the kind of career I want but as you're thinking ahead primary focus is what kind of career I can have and the time I can put into that and the Legacy that I can leave through that and the work that I do if I had more time I would just grow to be a person that is admired by others that people would like me and I could leave that type of Legacy.
If I had more time I could live the kind of comfortable lifestyle that I want I could ditch the car that I don't like it improved the truck that I do like I could live uh I could level up in the house that I have I could have Comforts I could have the big screen TV if I had more time I could get happy if I had more time I could get healthy I think the Instinct within us and I think the actions that we display would reveal a lot of different things that.
If we had more time it would be a focus on this but to live would be this and listen I don't I don't think that I think having a good job and a and a spouse and a sweet family and a career that you like and being liked by others and being able to afford Stakes on the weekend like I'm I think those are good things and guess what Christianity is not opposed to those things this just not a a faith that's built on aestheticism this super righteous over-the toop lifestyle that's not what this is at all.
But here's the thing those things are not the Pinnacle of what it means to be a human those AR the the that's not what it means to live the good life not for the Christian at all that's not what it means that's not that should not be the central aim of Our Lives all of those things in our lives should be in joyful submission to the central aim of our life and that life is one of serving Christ which means that the money that we make is in service to Christ that.
If you get a pay raise it's like I God has blessed me with more so that I might not use it all on myself that I might bless others I might see other people in our Church family that are in difficult situations and be able to bless them that I might be able to reformulate my budget so I can send more missionaries because ultimately my money is a means by which I get to serve Christ that if God blesses me with a spouse that means I get to be in a one flesh Union that is in service to Christ that.
If I'm currently in one I get to rethink how our marriage is centered on the Gospel so that our marriage can ultimately not serve my needs or even my spouse's needs but ultimately in service of Christ that if you choose a career or you decide to switch jobs that every one of those decisions is like how do I submit this in the service of Christ how would I be a missionary in this workplace how will choosing this uh job help me serve the kingdom better you can go on and on down the list.
If I'm going to raise a family it's going to be one that is centered on the idea and the truth that is beautiful to live is Christ which means that I'm going to spend time with my children to help them understand that is the most important thing they could possibly ever understand and believe which means that I'm going to have make decisions as a father that says maybe we don't do the travel ball team this year and maybe I'm not impressing upon them that straight AIDS is the most important thing you can do to have the career that you want that I might even stretch them past bedtime on a night at community group knowing.
Good and well when I get home at 8:30 they're going to be really tired and awful at 6:00 in the morning when I'm getting them ready and the whole next day they might be a little tyrants but it's for a purpose because ultimately I want them to understand that to live as Christ and that this is more important we make decisions all the time that should be in service to Christ and should guide ourselves our families towards the ultimate good life that whatever Comforts that whatever whatever things.
God gives us in this life is in service to the ultimate aim that is to serve Christ that we would Le we would leverage every aspect of Our Lives towards making disciples and loving Brothers and Sisters in Christ and doing just to be blunt whatever God wants you to do now sometimes when you put a big emphasis on that there's a part of us especially in our Church where it's we we preach over and over again that you're not saved by works we beat that drum all the time that you're not saved by your Works you're not saved by your Works you're not saved by your works from Grace you've been saved through faith we.
Hit that drum over and over again for a reason because we need to understand that we trust in the perfect works of Christ on our behalf and that record stands for us you don't get into the kingdom of God by doing a bunch of good so we'll hit that over and over again but not at the expense of go 2 verse uh Ephesians 2: 89 and verse 10 which says that we are his workmanship that once you're in the kingdom of.
God you're created for good works which is not for you to get into heaven it's for your neighbors and it's for the advancement of his kingdom I love how Paul puts some very similar ideas in this passage into 2 Corinthians chapter 5 when he says in verse 8 and9 yes we are of good courage and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord see that similar language there i' ra I'd rather be at home with the.
Lord because that's my heavenly home it's not here it's there i' rather be at home with the Lord verse 9 so whether we are at home or away we make it our aim to please him and I want us to miss that we don't please him to get into heaven but we should make it our chief aim as Christians to say how can I please him how can I serve him how can I do this and I think the problem for us as a as Americans I think as American Christians I think we're.
So drunk off of Earthly blessings and Earthly riches and Earthly things that when the Bible confronts us on this when it comes to us and says You must live for Christ you must please him you must obey him a part of it just goes yeah I know but if I do that I'm going to miss out on some things and I just I want to just brutally murder that idea from us ever believing that is true because it's the idea that enjoying the things of this world is somehow better than what Christ has to offer us I I just want to kill that idea.
If I took my child if I took my son and I said we're going to get ice cream and not just any ice cream like we're going to the Baked Bear in Five Points which I've been on keto for a month and today is my first day off and sometime this week I'm going there because you can get ice cream and they take gooey butter cookies and they press it together into just I mean it's amazing and yeah I'm like that's where we're going we're getting that it's like that as that's the that's the best we got in Columbia we're going there and we're walking through five points and all of a sudden he sees.
A red shiny thing in the gutter and it's a one of those strawberry candies like the outside looks like a strawberry wrapper it's bright and shiny inside tastes like lip gloss you know what I'm talking about and he darts to it and he picks it up and he's like no no no dad I found it we're good I'm going to camp out here you go do whatever you want I don't have to walk that much further because I found what is going to satisfy me I would smack it out of his hand I would say you're not enjoying this no no no I don't you don't understand I want this i' smack it out of.
His hand again and have to look around and make sure that nobody's going to call the police you leave that for the kids in Five Points coming off of USC campus that's not what we're going to enjoy we're going to the Baked Bear I know we got to walk a little further son but that's where we're going because once we get there it's going to be good and it's going to be better than that filth that I'm going to stomp into the ground no that's what I do with my son and that's what God's trying to help us.
See yeah it's a little more effort to serve Christ takes a little farther to get there but it's good it's actually where goodness is found it's unbelievably good when you read Psalm 37 in Psalm 37:3 he says trust in the Lord and do good dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness he's saying trust in God and in trusting him serve him do good but faithfulness and then you get to verse four when it says delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart which people have Twisted out of context.
For their own purpose purposes and said you had Del lighten yourself in the Lord he's going to give you whatever you want it's like no no don't miss what it's sandwiched between verse three do good verse 5 commit your way to the Lord trust in him and he will act that ultimately goodness is found in Walking With Our God and doing what he commands and trusting in our savior and then obeying him that's where goodness is found not just goodness you get to delight in.
God through that and delighting in God who is the Perfection of beauty who is wonderful is good serving Christ is not drudgery it's not it's not a boring life no matter how much it gets depicted in movies or in TV the Christians live a boring life it's not service of Christ is not drudgery that is a lie you ask anyone who has followed Christ for decades they've pursued him in word and prayer regularly they have been obedient to make disciples they have entered into the baptism Waters and they have seen people testify that Christ has change them.
Because they got to be vessels of that being used to declare the Gospel to them you listen to their stories of how they helped other Christians get out of debt of how they helped walk with other brothers and sisters in discipling them you ask them if they would wish they had spent the last few decades doing something different that they would have would you would you have rather spent your time on endless amount of hobbies pursuing meaningless sex would you rather have watched a bunch more shows and bed a bunch more series would you have rather gone to a bunch of really fancy parties and gotten sosed is that what you have rather have done.
With your time if you ask them that question they're going to look at you sideways they're going to look at you like have you have you lost your mind absolutely not not because they've experienced what it means to Delight in Christ through service they know what it means to walk with their God and out of walking with their God serving others they have experienced that and that's better as we say every Sunday morning better than everything else and they believe that yet.
When I talk to people who have spent their years spent the last decade pursuing empty Pursuits chasing after worldly things I hear I'm s I'm tired I'm depressed I'm anxious I'm burned out because those things don't actually ever satisfy because that's not where true Joy is found to live as Christ is where true Joy is found service of Christ is not drudgery it is joy and when we realize that and believe that we become the Living Sacrifice that God has called us to be.
Then we tap into a greater form of joy that is better than anything this world has to offer so when he says to live as Christ of course I'm going to keep doing this what else would I rather be doing this is it and that's why he can so freely say in the next breath to die is gain death is gain because he knows if I die it's promotion to the big leagues I'm going to Eternity and that is far better and I think the problem.
For us is that so many of us are tempted to squeeze every ounce out of this life to squeeze every ounce of Earthly pleasure out of this life that we can't even see that that's better that I think that if many of us were told that you were going to die younger than you thought it would be scary and it would be sad and Paul just doesn't have that mindset he's so freed up in believing in Christ and understanding eternity and that this life is a drop in the bucket compared to the ocean of time that spent in eternity and how much better that is he's.
So grounded in that idea he says if you kill me good I'm I'm I'm going to get where I want to go faster where I'll behold the face of God where I won't have the stain of this body and its Brokenness and its pain and its suffering or I won't be in I won't be I won't struggle with sin anymore yeah I I'll take that all day long he says yet which I shall yet which I shall choose I cannot tell I'm hardpressed between the two to Live to Die My Desire is to depart and be with Christ.
For that is far better he's not suicidal y'all that's not what's happening here he just understands Eternity for what it is and he's just being honest he's like I'm heart pressed I know that I should I got more to I got more to do but man I want that CU that's better and if you've ever heard stories you've been around Christians who've walked with the Lord for years and they have a terminal illness there's a part of them that's sad because they're going to leave a wife or a husband behind and they're going to leave kids behind and that's painful.
Because death thingss and that's painful but if you press in and you ask but but are you are you excited about being with Christ and that face just turns and it's like yeah I am I'm really looking forward to that I believe our calculations are off if we think there's less reward in serving Christ and I think our calculations are off if we fear death we should live every day to serve Christ in any way that he desires and we should.
See the joy in doing that because it is wonderful and then when God calls us to be home with him we're ready for the gain that awaits us that's what Paul's articulating here now it's when you see how he's talking around this you see he's somewhat convinced I would argue he's somewhat convinced that he's still got more work to do and the history behind this is is that there's a few historical resources outside the Bible that say that he got out of this imprisonment and he ended up in Spain which is.
When you read the book of Romans where he wanted to go and take the Gospel now we don't know that for a complete fact whether he did that or whether this really was the last imprisonment I lean towards looking at this text and realizing that I think he expects to get out and then he expects he has more work to do and you get a glimpse of that mindset when you go through verse 24 and 26 which was what we close out with.
Today he says 24 but to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account convinced of this I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus because of my coming to you again so I think from this that he he thinks he's getting out regardless of where you where you land on that his mindset is if I get out.
When I get out it is for your progress and joy in the faith that's what he says the way I get to live as Christ the way I get to serve Christ is for your progress and joy in the faith later in Chapter 2 he's going to talk about himself as a being poured out like a drink offering which is sacrificial language from the Old Testament that he's gets to be a sacrifice for their benefit he gets to be a sacrifice.
For their joy and progress in the faith that's what it means to serve Christ brothers and sisters that you leverage your life in service of Christ for the good of one another for the joy and progress of the people in this room to know and love and enjoy Christ we do that first by remembering Jesus in a sacrifice for us what he did on our behalf what he went to the cross for us we look at that sacrifice and out of that and realizing the mountain of debt that he paid.
For that our sin that put him there out of that we overflow into worship and we say and try to leverage Our Lives to say how can I serve others that I might help them have joy in Christ progress in their faith in Christ that's what it means to live as Christ and that that looks like the group leaders we have in our Church family that are laying on the line for their groups and when group gets hard and it gets messy and it gets tiresome you.
Look to Christ and you say thank you Jesus you serve me I'm going to serve others too and I'm going to I'm going to persevere in this and the joy that's found in the hardship of doing that is watching people taste and see that the Lord is good and watching Sinners be saved and watching marriages be restored and watching people understand what it means to truly serve Christ and to give themselves away this happens when a brother or sister sits down with someone who is hurting another brother and sister maybe.
For hours maybe for days maybe for weeks and just sits with them serving them because it's for not my own good it's for the good of others and it's for their joy and for their progress in the faith so yeah this is a a negative situation and it's got negativity within it but I press into that reality because it's worth them knowing and enjoying loving Christ this means leveraging your hospitality for others which is hard cuz I don't know if you bought groceries lately.
But like two bags is a 100 bucks and I we feel it and it's like man I I mean I we can we do hot dogs like I just you can by the way um it's like you're leveraging this I'm I'm going to I'm going to put this in my budget I'm put this in my mindset that I'm going to give up time and money for others to invite unbelievers into my house to invite their Christians into my house because it's good.
Because it's ultimately for their joy and progress and the faith Faith this means hear this this means sticking it out with people that are described as messy or even toxic man there's there's so much of an ideology going around right now that says if you got messy people in your life you got toxic people in your life you draw all this boundary and that's your circle and they can't get in the circle because if they get inside the circle that's a problem.
Because self care is Pinnacle at this moment you got to care for yourself so they can't be let in and what I'm not saying is is that you don't keep in mind that you don't give all of your energy and all of your time to messy people but you go the gospels and you show me a time when Jesus drew a boundary around himself and said these messy people can't get in and you ain't going to find it you know what he did do with messy people with hurting people he spent time with his heavenly.
Father and he got away from the crowds and he was filled up so that he could serve others well and I just want to again murder the mindset a lot of murder language sorry I want to destroy the mindset that says I can't serve others because I have to only care for myself it's the opposite of the Gospel to live is Christ whatever that is fill in the blank to live is serving Christ and leveraging our lives for others joy.
For others progress in the faith and we do it over and over again because we ultimately believe that Jesus is better over and over again and that in and through those labors and those efforts we get to see other people as he says In this passage have ample opportunities to glorify Christ ample cost to glorify Christ so brothers and sisters we leverage our lives for Mission we leverage Our Lives to loving one another well for the good of one anothers and we do it over and over and over again and we give ourselves away.
Because ultimately we get to help others experience joy and progress and in that labor even when it is hard we experience joy that is found in him because that level of joy is only found in the service of others so that means we need to be honest about how we'd answer that question to live is what that we should be honest about what we are basing Our Hope in this life on but what we think the good life is to live is what.
And if that answer isn't Christ then we say I submit this to you Jesus and I put it at your feet and you Chang my heart and you help me repent and you help me to live is for you for the good of others and for the progress in the faith until Christ calls us home again I'm at the halfway point with my oldest and I've only got a few years of really PR primary influence in her life before she leaves the home and I.
So want the next n plus years just to say an embody in her to live is Christ baby girl to live is Christ and to die is gain that's the Christian life because I want her to be able to go into the world and see money not as a God but as a tool and she's like I'm just so that one day she'll say this is just a tool and I won't be anxious about this I'm not going to be needing to.
For all this but I will live for the good of others and I will leverage my finances for the sake of others that if God does call her into a marriage one day and she has a husband that they will enter into a Godly marriage that is in service of others that she chooses a job that it's ultimately going to be how can I serve Christ in this job if she chooses to spend her time she says I'm going to serve Christ as.
God blesses her with children that one day she's going to raise them in service of Christ and enjoying him and God willing is going to live a long life and I'm going to beat her to Eternity and then one day at the end of her life a legacy of serving others she's just ready and she's ready to go home and she's ready to depart this world because what awaits her is eternal gain and I will get to be there and welcome her there and invite her and we celebrate.
And then for the years that follow I get to see person after person after person after person who enter into the kingdom of God because she leveraged her life to live is Christ and saw death as only gain that is the life I want for her that's the life I want for all my kids that's the life I want for myself and that's the life that I want for every person in this Church to live a life that is for Christ and doesn't cling to this world.
Because ultimately death is better because we gain him me pray heavenly father I pray that you might break within us a love for this world that we might not cling to anything that it has to offer but we might truly submit Our Lives to you to be in service to you because that is eternally better that's where Joy is found and my heart doesn't want to believe that it wants to cling to the things of this world may you break that within me.
So that I might embody what it means to live as Christ that our Church family that is struggling with loving the things of this world whatever that might be that you might break within them a heart for others that comes out of loving you and serving others may you help us be able to answer this question Faithfully that to live as Christ and to die as again and if there's anyone here that has not trusted in you that this is not the central aim of their life at all I pray that you'd help them.
See that this world is not worth it and they pursuing the things of this world is not worth it but they would go all in on you and they would live for you so that ultimately one day death may be gain in Jesus name amen the band's going to come up we're going to take prepare to take the Lord's Supper on the night that Jesus was betrayed he took bread and he broke it he said this is my body that was broken.
For you he took the cup of the New Covenant he said this is my blood that was shed for you that as often as you eat and drink this you Proclaim my death until I return and we are people that regularly come to the table of a meal that signifies death it signifies the death of Christ but also through faith in Christ death to ourselves which means that in the moments as you prepare to take the Lord's Supper as a Christian you get to.
Look at the things that we might say to live is what and we might fill that in and bring that before Christ and that we might repent joyfully H prly joyfully that we'd come to the table joyfully say thank you Jesus that you died for my own selfish ambition for my own selfish desires thank you Jesus that you died for this so that I might joyfully be able to spend what the this meal also points to Eternity the final meal that we enjoy with Christ forever that as a people between those two realities we get to live a a life that is.
For Christ expecting that one day death enters into game now if you're not a Christian if you never trusted completely in the finished work of Christ please don't come to the table this is not a meal for you what I want for you right now is to contemplate and to think that if you've banked your hope if you banked your life on anything outside of Christ if you're honest with yourself you're like I don't no I've never done that I've actually never believed My Hope Is that you would surrender to.
Jesus now because he's good and living a life for Christ is good and it's Joy filled and it's wonderful and ultimately it ends an eternal game but that can't happen unless you surrender in faith and I pray that you would now now so when you are ready come to the table with gluten free in that back corner over there if you want to know more about this if you want to know what it means to trust in Christ and surrender your life to him grab me grab another pastor we would happily walk you through the Gospel and what it means to believe and trust in him.
See that he is better heavenly father I pray that you would.
Rejoice in the Gospel (Philippians 1:15-18a)
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
Good morning my name is Spencer I'm one of the pastors here we're continuing to walk through the book of Philippians still in chapter 1 a few more verses 15 through the first part of 18 so you go ahead and flip there be on page 570 the blue Bibles you can follow along there if you don't have a Bible at home please take that we want you to have a Bible that you can uh that you can read that you have access to and the text will also be on the screen.
If you want to follow there so we I make an assumption of the room most of us probably I would say all of us do good things from time to time you serve your neighbor do the extra mile at work like we we do good things but I think if we were honest that a lot of the times those good things are done for motives that aren't always pure we just I know maybe y'all are better than me I just see I.
See with them me like there's just there's a lot of selfish motives sometimes I mean may do a good thing but it may be for the sake of advancing your career it might be to make us feel good or maybe we just simply like praise like to do good things because we like the praise that comes with it now we realize that that's socially unacceptable right for that to be seen you know we got some teenagers in the room about the teenage years is.
When you start to figure out that like I I it's not good for people to know that I just did a good thing just to be praised right like you just you start to realize that I mean into adulthood like it just that's not a that's not a thing that works well it's not going to help you in the workplace like my kids are not good at that little kids are terrible at that they're not subtle uh they're not slick they're not Savvy my youngest what she'll do sometimes she's she's not four.
Now so she's growing a little bit out of this but my youngest she'll do like a good thing or she'll pick up her toys or whatever and then she'll come to me and she'll go and oh this is what this is about like you you wanted praise you okay good job now at some point she's going to goow around and realize that's not how you make friends and secure a job like I'm just I I challenge you to do something good at work this week and go to your boss and go and it's not going to it it doesn't go.
Well for you uh and if you do please record that I want to see their face it's just we know that's not it's not really acceptable but if we're honest there's a lot of that within us doing the right things for the wrong reasons last week we went through verses 12 through 14 in chapter 1 and we got to see that Paul's imprisonment helped Advance the Gospel it also helped embolden the Believers on the ground to share the Gospel as well and what we're going to.
See this week is that there are Christians on the ground in Rome we near where he's imprisoned that are sharing the Gospel some of them are doing it for the right reasons but some of them are doing it for the wrong reasons and we're going to take a look at that and after acknowledging that reality Paul is going to help us see he's going to reveal where we should place the most value and how that applies to our lives as Christians.
So I want to read these verses and we'll pray and we'll walk through this together verse 15 some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry but others from goodwi the latter do it out of love knowing that I am put here for the defense of the Gospel the former proclaimed Christ out of selfish ambition not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment what then only that in every way whether in pretense or in truth Christ is proclaimed and in that I Rejoice let's pray heavenly.
Father I pray that you'd help us be open to hear your word this morning we as CH Just prayed are are needy sinners in need of Grace in need of instruction we need your guidance uh and and passages like this certainly reveal what is within us I pray that you would expose that and help us see the need for Faith see the need for repentance and running to you and seeing that you are better and this would ultimately result in a life of worship that glorifies you above ourselves we ask this in.
Jesus name amen all right so as we kind of introduce the book of Philippians this letter is different than the other letters that Paul wrote so God has inspired this is speaking through his servant Paul there's there's 13 letters that God used Paul to write to to help us see his wonderful truth this letter is very different than the other ones most of the time he's dealing with a problem in that Church or or or speaking to a leader who's dealing with problems within their Church and he's helping engage some of that Philippians is just different it's a joyful love you know uh uh based letter between a Church that deeply loves Paul and a.
Church that he loves and he's just kind of telling them what's happening on the ground and what's happening on the ground here is you've got some Christians who've been emboldened by Christ and out of good motives are declaring the mystery of Christ he's imprisoned in Rome and he's connected to those Roman Christians but there are other Roman Christians that he's connected to that are doing this for bad reasons we picked that up in verse 15 some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry.
Now there are people in the Church at Rome that are preaching Christ from place of envy and rivalry now this passage has confused commentators theologians who've been interacting with this text me like it just it's it's conf it's some confusing stuff here because he uses language envy and rivalry that typically when he writes in his other letters is attributed to those who don't know Christ those who don't follow Christ like envy and Roby especially paired close together that's applied to if your life is marked by this he says you don't know Christ he does this in multiple places in Galatians chapter 5 we're familiar with many of us with with the the fruit of the.
Spirit love joy peace patience kindness goodness gentl faithness self-control right before that is the works of the Flesh and in Galatians 5 it says now the works of the flesh are evident sexual immorality impurity sensuality idolatry sorcery enmity Strife jealousy fits of anger rivalries dissensions divisions Envy drunkenness orgies and things like these I warn you as I warn you before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God he is saying that if your life is marked by this.
Then then you're you probably aren't a Christian you're not going to inherit the kingdom of God now the language here stands out the same word for Strife in the Greek which is the original way this is written the same word for strife and rivalries is the same word and that is paired right next to Envy so he's got these kind of close together and that helps see this is what marks someone who doesn't believe and isn't living out the Gospel he does this again in Romans 1 says they were filled with all manner of unrighteousness evil covet malice they are full of Envy murder Strife deceit maliciousness again Envy pair close to the same Greek.
Word for rivalry that is translated here here Strife this happens again and not just describing those who don't believe the Gospel but also those who are teaching a false Gospel false teachers in 1 Timothy 6 he says if anyone teaches a different Doctrine does not agree with the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that Accords with godliness he is puffed up with conceit understands nothing he has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels About Words which produce Envy to Ascension slander evil suspicions again Envy paired up with the same Greek word that's.
For rivalry that's translated here as dissension so you see kind of how he uses these words close together throughout the letters that he's written and then you get to Philippians 1 and it's just odd because he's applying it to people who preach Christ and what he doesn't do he does not destroy their credibility he he does that in other places for those that are false teachers he doesn't do that here let's work through the rest of the passage it says somebody preach Christ from envy and rivalry.
But others from goodwi the latter do it out of love knowing that I'm put here for the defense of the Gospel he said there are some in the Roman Church that are preaching the Gospel for the right reasons for a place of love but then he shifts right back to in verse 17 the former proclaimed Christ out of selfish ambition not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment so then we get a little bit of a clearer picture of what's going on there are people in the Roman Church that from a place of envy and rivalry specifically with Paul out of their own selfish ambition and their own self-interest are preaching Christ in.
A way to hurt Paul and a way to to to Really what it seems like push his influence down in that Church and lift up their own influence within this Church that's what's happening and the confusing part is how he responds in verse 18 what then only that in every way whether in pretense that's false motives or in truth Christ is proclaimed and in that I rejoice and when you read this against his other letters it's like wait what you take envy and rivalry very seriously and yet all of a sudden you're just what.
Then these people have hurt you personally they've Afflicted you and you're just like what then at least the Gospel is being preached at least at least Jesus is being proclaimed and I want to be like have you read your other letters man this is this is a big deal I me the same person that told Timothy to keep a close life on your keep keep keep a close watch on your life and your Doctrine like you care about how the those who proclaim the Gospel live and you care about the message like what What's Happening Here is Paul speaking out of both sides of his mouth what is he getting at that's the question that.
Kind of lingers a little bit and it's the answer to that is it's it's complicated it's a complicated answer but it's worth pressing into so when Paul says some D preach Christ it is very clear that he's talking about the Gospel he is saying they're preaching the true Gospel they're not preaching a false Gospel which means they're not false teachers and the reason you can say that very credibly is because Paul in all the places he talks about false teachers has zero patience.
For them I mean he absolutely extends zero kindness to wolves and sheep's clothing I mean he dismantles and destroys them over and over and over again I'm not going to give you three quick examples they're a lot more in the book of Galatians a Church that a letter that was written to the Church in galacia a region where he had planted churches after he left some people called the judaizers came in and tried to convert Christians back into following the Jewish law and saying you need this to be saved and he in chapter one at the gate in.
Verse 6 says I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different Gospel not that there is another one but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the Gospel of Christ but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to the preach to you a Gospel contrary to the one we preach to you let him be a cursed as we have said before.
Now I say again if anyone is preaching to you a Gospel contrary to the one you received let him be a cursed that phrase let him be a cursed very literally means let him go to hell so he just said you're pre if anyone is preaching a false Gospel let him go to hell let him be a cursed he picks up in in in second Timothy he says but avoid irreverent Babel for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness and their talk will spread like Garing here false teachers he says their teachings are like an infection that are rotting out the body and will kill the body and he says among the them.
Are himas and philetus which he just called them out by name he doesn't play with false teaching and false teachers he says who have swore from the truth saying that the resurrection is already happened they are upsetting the faith of some and I'll give you one more again there's more but I'll just give you one Titus one says for there are many who are insubordinate empty talkers and deceivers especially those of the circumcision party they must be silenced these are the these trying to convert people back to the Jewish law to be saved he says they must be silenced since they are upsetting whole families by teaching.
For shameful gain what they ought not teach he says they must be silenced their talk spreads like gain green they can go straight to hell he has very very strong language for false teachers and he has no patience for false teaching at all and then you get to Philippians and you read this passage and it's like what they're marked by Envy and rivalry what what this seems like a big shift so nowadays there's a lot of uh 90s Nostalgia a lot of 90s Nostalgia I think that's good just I'm partial.
Because that's where I grew up but I think there's not enough focus on one of the best things that came out the 90s and that is '90s country music ' 9s country music was amazing it was so good I know some of y'all don't like country it's fine we can't all have good taste but '90s country music was the jam it was so good Allan Jackson Martina McBride George Straight were just killing it and then 2000's bro country came and it was awful they murdered country music it's.
So so so bad but it's making a comeback you guys cuz when Chris Stapleton took the stage at the CMAs a few years ago I mean just bringing it back it makes me so happy so so many good artists Zack Bryant I can go on for days on that but '90s country was just so good and there was one who is at the top who is killing it more than anyone else in country music can I can I get a guess that's exactly right G Brooks was killing it y'all no only one other artist has sold more physical units of music than G Brooks that's the Beatles number two is GTH Brooks that's wild he.
Was and I mean he was killing that decade and then in 1999 I walked into Walmart and I saw a display case and this display case had it just one artist all the CDs and I walked up to it and I saw a man who had an emo haircut before emo haircuts were even a thing yet and a soul patch and I saw eight of the saddest words I've ever read in the English language G Brooks in the life of Chris gains and he just became a pop artist and and I I got that I got the CD and took it home and it was trash it was awful it's like dude you were killing.
It in country and then you became this this really really bad pop artist it didn't work out for him it worked out well for Taylor Swift but not for him it was a big shift and it was like what are you doing it's so uncharacteristic of everything that you've put out and that's what I feel like when I read Paul In this passage I'm like you are are you Chris gaining us are you just like what have you lost the thread on everything that matters that you're about.
But when you press into this you see that's not it at all because one thing is abundantly clear that has not changed at all and that is that Paul deeply deeply loves the Gospel he deeply deeply values the message of the Gospel you can't mess with the message of the Gospel that's his Anthem you cannot touch that he still believes in the message of the Gospel he still believes and preaches and cares about those who preach that Christ who looked upon us in our sinful hopeless State who came and left heaven.
For us who lived a perfect life for us obeying the Old Testament law Paul still cares about the fact that Christ went to the Cross because he loves us because of his great love for us and that his blood was poured out for us for our offenses and for our sins and for our struggles so that we might stand justified through faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross that when God the Father looks upon those of us that have Place Our Hope in.
Jesus and not our own good works but put all of our hope in Christ that he would see the perfect spotless righteousness of Christ and not our own sins and that in that faith we are reborn to a living hope that we cling to until Jesus takes us home he still cares deeply about the message of the Gospel he loves it and he has no patience for a false teaching that corrupts that at all because he understands that a false Gospel leads to a false belief which ultimately leads to an eternity in hell and he takes that very seriously which.
For the record we should care about that we should absolutely not tolerate a false Gospel at all we should not tolerate wolves and sheep's clothing at all I in Paul's time it was it was people that were saying the resurrection already come it was people that were saying that you had to do good works and obey the Old Testament law to be justified and our time it's different the main false Gospel that's rampant throughout the American Church is the Prosperity Gospel it's it's just everywhere and we should absolutely take that seriously we should take seriously the false prophets and false Gospel that's preached from people like Joel ostein and Joyce Meyer and TD Jakes.
Crlo dollar each of them preaching false Gospel leads to a false belief that leads to an eternity in hell we should take that seriously you might think that's a little judgy you calling individuals out and I'd say yeah it is Paul called out himonas and phileus and Paul makes it very clear in in 1 Corinthians 5 he says are you not called to judge those inside the Church it's a direct quote are you not called to judge those inside the Church he's saying hold those accountable inside the Church those outside the Church you have no business making any bit accountability you have no business in making any judgment call on.
If anyone outside the Church no inside the Church if they claim to follow Christ absolutely you hold accountable to what they say and how they live because the message of the Gospel is of utmost importance and we catch a glimpse of God's heart through his servant Paul to help us see that false teaching is seriously we should take that very seriously and I think the problem for us is that we we don't there's so much of it it's like we we don't I think we get more upset.
When someone has a different if you have a family member or you know husband wife brother sister best friend I think we get more upset if they pick up art of the deal by Donald Trump or Obama's Memoir than we would if they took Joel olin's life your best life now book I think we' be more upset about the the political difference there I think it' be more upset if our family or friends were watching news or watching MSNBC then we would.
If they were actually watching TBN which is a horrible Channel I mean they they put some good stuff on there like Billy Graham sandwich between kod dollar and TD Jake and Joyce Meyer and all and it's just like it's awful which the iron of that channel I think it's called Trinity broadcast network and some of those cats don't even believe in Trinity it's just it we should take this seriously which means that if we have family or friends that are being immersed in this type of we we we should lovingly and winsomely compel them to turn away from that cuz this a destructive force it has ruined churches in America it has ruined churches in.
Africa and South America taking a a a false Gospel to people who barely have anything and telling them to give their money so that they can be it's we should take it seriously as serious as Paul takes in 2 Timothy chapter 4 when he says for the time is coming when people who will not endure sound teaching but have itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to truth and wander into myths.
Because we live in a time where everyone wants to hear what makes them feel good wants to he what what their ears are itching for and it will suit their own passions and it's going to lead to destruction so when he's talking about these Roman Christians they're preaching Christ they're not preaching a false Gospel here and when you understand this this and what he's doing I think there are three questions we can ask of Paul and ourselves that will help us understand and apply this better I have three questions the.
First do we love the message like Paul do we love the message like Paul so when he says 15 some of the preach Christ from envy and rivalry and it goes on to say the former Proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment I mean just understand like Paul Paul was being hurt by this like I mean if you've ever had anyone I remember the first time that I was in when I was in high school and a I found out that a friend of mine was talking smack about me behind my back and I was like I thought we were friends that hurts that had to.
Have hurt him they are afflicting him I mean the the the most comparative thing I could say what's happening with him and Roman maybe here is if we sent chck to like the Middle East to do Mission work and then he gets arrested and he's imprisoned and then I just was like all right now's the time I don't just preach half the time I preach all the time I make the rules here now I'm taking over Community groups and I'll scrub his ugly face out of the website it's just out this is my house and I just said I'm doing it this is me and y'all be like is he doing.
Okay it doesn't matter how he's doing we're moving on it's wicked it's corrupt that's what's happening he's being afflicted by people who are preaching because they they Envy his influence they're out of their own selfish ambition so it had to have hurt him certainly but Paul has an eternal view in mind he says but at least they're preaching Christ at least they're preaching the true Gospel at least they're preaching a Gospel that saves and not a false Gospel that dams so at least they're preach in Christ cuz he cares more about advancing the Gospel than being personally maligned that's clear from his writings that he doesn't like those motives he doesn't like envy and rivalry.
Probably was praying for the repentance but he rejoiced that they were preaching a true Gospel and that Sinners were being saved so it's what those Rivals and what they were doing in that Church was it Wicked yes are these rivals operating out of as they're operating out of selfish ambition are they in danger if they keep following that track if it's all about themselves and all about themselves all about themselves are they in danger of becoming likeus and phileus and becoming false teachers that's certainly possible.
But is it it's clear from these writings here it's clear from what's Happening Here that their motivations though flawed their their motivations though sinful are not the same as someone who would preach that Jesus isn't really God which started in the first century but also continues in the veins of jehovas witness in Mormonism now and it's certainly not the same as someone who would preach a Prosperity Gospel saying that you come come down here and we'll pray over you give some money and we'll pray over you plant the seed of faith and we'll pray over you those aren't even in the same ballpark.
See yeah they're flawed but they're not preaching a false Gospel and there's a lot of nuance here that separates that out I think there are a misguided leaders that are hurting Paul and they've lost sight of what this is all about and I think it is possible that we don't get to see how this ends that some of those those teachers ended up straying away from the faith but they're not there yet and therefore Paul is still going to celebrate that they are preaching Christ and he's not going to treat him like a wolf I love what John Piper says about this he says Paul is more agitated.
When the Gospel itself is defective than he is when the people who preach the true Gospel are defective and I think that's a very good sum summarization of what this is now that doesn't mean we shouldn't care about leaders that doesn't mean we shouldn't care about character we announced a few weeks ago that Isaac who's been in the Elder and training process here for four years that we're going to install him as an elder after four years is a reason why we took that long we were evaluating his character we still should 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 care about the character of those who Proclaim name the Gospel we should care about that like.
If any of you move to another city and you try to find a Church I've helped different people who've left here and gone to different places I usually get on n Marks Church finder or Gospel coal uh Church finder and help them find a few churches but I tell them like you should care about their teaching so get on there read their doctrinal statements listen to a few sermons hear what they are teaching because that matters but if they show up and all of a sudden like the pastor is really into himself and like he's wearing $500 sneakers and it's just like you can tell like he's just trying to build his brand and you.
Get on social media and like it's just a lot of cringe posts about I mean you know what I'm talking about it's just like if if you see that it's like okay you should care about that you should care if there's just blatant self-interest in how they do their Ministry but you also should pray for pastors like that when you encounter them you should and you should be thankful at least they're preaching a true Gospel there's a quote that's attributed to Martin Luther that's.
God uses crooked sticks to make straight lines and it's like yeah yeah there's some crooked sticks including myself that God uses to preach Christ and we should celebrate that so when you encounter churches and pastors and authors and Ministry leaders that seem to be so self-interested should pray for them and pray for their repentance because that's a miserable existence making an idol out of yourself and your ministry is tiring and exhausting there's a quote from a Moravian Bishop Zen and dorf he said preach the Gospel die and be forgotten and it's like yeah that's it that's it preach the Gospel die two generations you everyone will forget you praise.
God because the message message outlasts the messenger even a broken one we should love the message of the Gospel we should love the message of Christ second question do we love the message more than ourselves do we love the message of the Gospel more than our own selves or to put it a different way what about our own selfish ambition what about our own Envy what about our own rivalry because what happens is that we're really quick to identify it's easy to.
See you know a slick preacher with $500 sneakers on Instagram doing all kinds of things and be like oh yeah that dude's about himself but we skipped a step because what Jesus teaches in Matthew 7 is take the plank out of your own eye so that you can see the speck in your brother's eye and we just skip that stuff and that passage gets misunderstood for lots of reasons on one side it's like oh God says you should never judge anyone and Tupac like just made that a big Anthem Only.
God can judge me and it's like no that's not what Jesus is teaching at all there he's saying take the plank out first so you can see the spec there's accountability built into that passage but the other side of it is is that we just don't like to do that we don't like to take the plank out that's hard work inspecting it's suspecting your own sin first is difficult work it's a whole lot easier just to look at everyone else so do we love the message more than ourselves are we willing to do the tough work of saying.
First okay where are my selfish Ambitions where am I envious where where am I uh creating rivalries with others and where do I need to repent of that in my own life first so I can clearly love the message over my own self so we should do that that's something I have to die to myself regularly because I I just my flesh I I want admiration and Glory I want that and I I regularly pray before I preach I say God not.
For my glory but for your own because I know deep down within me I want that Glory but we got to do that Soul work of looking within and seeing what's happening within us so that we can actually repent so what planks do we need to pull out in order to practice this well do you celebrate with others when they do well or are you quietly jealous of how their how it's going for them can you really celebrate what those you should be joyful about or are you just secretly.
So jealous that you're not getting what they've got how about this on the community group level when other community groups are just crushing it seemingly from our perspective another community group it's just it seems like it's just going so well are you happy for them are we imately envious of what's happening there which group leaders like that's a real thing right actually let me put group leaders to side for a moment let me talk to group members okay and I can say this.
Because I'm a group member now my wife and I we LED groups for 10 years and now we're just we're group members leading a group is hard leading a community group is hard it is you can talk to them you ask them hey is it hard and they'll say yes it is it's made harder when we're not being good group members when we show up once a month when the list goes out for meals and it's like I'll bring cups it's like you want to try a salad they make those in kits.
Now you just open it up you TI the bowl you just that's it like it's it's real easy it it's made more difficult when we stir up drama it made more difficult when we're complaining it's made more difficult when we say I want this to change and this change to serve my needs it's made more difficult when it's like I you got to revolve around my schedule it's made more difficult when we're not good group members so let's change let's love our group leaders y'all should bless them take them out to eat ask them how you could be a better group member all right group leaders.
If you get into a comparison game where you're just envious of other other situations that's a terrible drug and it just has no bottom cuz you'll just grow bitter and then you'll just hate groups all together you know not that I've ever experienced that ever in 10 years leading groups do you have a created rivalry in your head with another person person maybe it's at work maybe it's someone in our own Church another person and your family another person in your friend group do you have a rivalry that's like it's just in your head or maybe it's not even in your head maybe it's just like understood it's like Taylor and Kim Kardashian like they.
Just you just know it's just I think that was them right right front row yes okay it's just understood there's a rivalry between you and this other person person I sin I sin and it should be repented of and Reconciliation should happen is your work your ministry your life is it all about self and your selfish Ambitions are you making much of yourself or are we seeking to make much of Christ to his glory and not our own We Must Love The Gospel and the message of the go Gospel more than our own selves.
And when we do that we make the proclamation of Christ and him crucified the most Central aim of our lives but in order to stay on track with that aim there are things there are planks that must be REM removed there sin that must be repented of to make the Gospel primary third question do you rejoice in the message going forward do you rejoice in the message of Christ and him crucified going forward do we so deeply love this message like Paul we.
So deeply love it that we would care about that Gospel going forward and we just celebrate when it's preached there's a few different ways where we just that we fall short in this area I'm going to talk to a super Niche group of people in our Church I'm talking like probably less than five so I'm going to give this space like for a minute but if you're the kind of person that loves Theology and you also love being on YouTube and you love what's called discernment Ministries on YouTube be careful there are whole YouTube channels devoted to help you discern and heresy hunt and figure out who's the bad ones and some of those cats.
They spend they get a little too gleeful about taking shots at others and I just I I didn't throw up those names earlier I didn't throw out TD Jake and Klo dollar and Joel oin and Joyce Meyer flippantly I followed the ministry for years I had to reorient myself again this week with some of the really terrible things they say right but you better be real careful when you start throwing out names and lobing bombs that people that actually might be brothers they might be Sisters in Christ.
Because you're maligning a a Believer which first John has some pretty sharp words for you on so just caution they may listen they they may you you would never go to their Church and you would never quote them and they're just they make you cringe and like I'm tell there's a lot of goofy American Christian pastors out there a lot of great ones too a lot of great ones but a lot of goofy ones that you would never get behind but are they preaching Christ are they still preaching the Gospel.
Then you should celebrate that we should celebrate the proclamation of Christ we should Rejoice regard L of maybe our differences in opinions or even even differences in a little bit in character theological differences I whether it pretense or in truth Christ is proclaimed in that we should Rejoice I don't care if you're Anglican or if you're Baptist if you're egalitarian or you're complimentary or you know what those words are and care I don't like I just I don't I don't in the grand scheme of things I I do care like lowkey level care.
But like a grand scheme of things I don't care if you're preaching Christ then go for for it just keep doing it don't let up I want to celebrate you preaching Christ not be so just judgy on the smallest of things like I even got the point like years ago I I would see Street Street Preachers and I even confronted Street Preachers back in the day how dare you do you not know how many people you're dissuading of following Christ.
Listen there are some bad Street Preachers out there Al some crazy Street Preachers out there who are wacko but there are some Street Preachers that listen that's not my style I I'm not I'm not going on the streets with the soap box it's not my game but some of them are genuine Brothers and Sisters in Christ who were just proclaiming the Gospel and sure we don't have a street preaching Ministry but I've got to the point where I'm like you know what.
Look in the mirror bro they've shared the Gospel with more people in the last five minutes than you have in the last five months so like just calm down and if they they're preaching Christ then like it's not my style but like I'm going to pray I want to pray for that dude I want to pray for them that the Gospel would actually sink into the hearts of those who don't believe we should Rejoice with people who are proclaiming the Gospel we should check our own s to.
See if we're actually sharing the Gospel or if we just think we can friend people into the kingdom and never use words which doesn't work totally fine with friending people but you got to share words at some point and I feel that within my own self we should rejoice when those who proclaim the Gospel and that means that we should be willing to acknowledge in the times where we're not doing that we need to if listen if we're not willing to get in the fight and share the Gospel with a friend with a neighbor with a coworker it's either.
Because we don't love this Gospel nearly enough or we love ourselves in our comfort way too much we should rejoice when the Gospel is preached and we should embody the part of the Roman Church that made Paul just joyful and he said out of love knowing that I am put here for the defense of the Gospel that should be us that that the latter do I love knowing that I am put here for the defense of the Gospel may we be a people that embodied that.
But out of love for the message in Christ and of love for those who do not have ears to hear and a love for our Brothers and Sisters in Christ who will be emboldened to share the Gospel if we do it we should out of love preach Christ and then rejoice when those and rejoice in those who do let me pray heavenly father I pray that you would help us love your message so deeply that we would repent of the own sin our lives that keeps us from being Messengers and Heralds that bring you glory I pray that you would use us in spite of our sin in spite of my own folies.
God I pray that you would help us celebrate at the proclamation of your wonderful Gospel and the Eternal change that can happen because of it I pray for brothers and sisters that that may Proclaim Christ for selfish motives that you would lead them and and me into regular repentance upholding you as more glorious than our ourselves so that out of love we would stand on the Gospel and Proclaim it regularly to your glory and not our own in Jesus name amen man's going to come up and we're just going to close out in worship and singing Take a couple minutes to reflect we don't just like to hear the word.
But we like to be doers of the word but in doing the word and practicing this we must stare Within and see the sin that's within us must be repented of but that's not even possible if we don't actually believe the Gospel in the first place so first you got to love Christ and you got to love the good news of the Gospel you got to admit your own need for a savior and see that God loves us so much that he did come to rescue us and to put all of our chips on that and to make all of our Hope on that and from that belief we get to.
Look at the sin within us repent of it and then be those who proclaim the Gospel and rejoice in those who do.
Multiply or Bust
Transcript
Good morning. My name's Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. Grab your Bibles. Go to Mark chapter 4. We're in the fifth and final week of our Multiply series.
We'll be picking back up with Genesis next week. Genesis is a very long book, so we spent a good bit of time in it in the fall. We're going to spend a good bit of time in it in the spring, just studying through, going through that narrative and trying to learn what we can about God and how it displays to us Christ through what he did with creation and the patriarchs as he built the nation of Israel. But we, as we started this year, started off in a series called Multiply, where we were looking at the Great Commission and kind of understanding what we ought to be doing and how we ought to be spending our time.
And in some ways, as we began it, we said it's kind of like some New Year's resolutions for our church family, for us to kind of focus in on what matters most and say, here's what we want to be doing, here's how we ought to be spending our time. And so the first week we talked about the Great Commission, and that's kind of been the basis for this whole thing, that Jesus takes his disciples, and he, after his death and burial and resurrection, says, Go, make disciples. Go do with others what I've been doing with you. Proclaim to them the gospel that they might believe, and then baptize them. As they repented and had faith, baptize them.
And then he says, And teach them to obey everything I've commanded you. You should walk with them and train them and equip them. And as you're going to make disciples, the people that become disciples continue to help make disciples. And you guys, I hate to spoil the ending for you. They did that, and it made it all the way to us. That this train of discipleship, this equipping people and sharing the gospel and seeing people baptized is all the way to here, and we are to continue that.
And so, at first week, Spencer talked about what. Then we talked about why. Why would we do this? That people would actually believe that there is real hope in Christ, that there is a real eternity, there is a real weight to whether or not we believe, and that people will actually believe if we'll go, if we'll share. And so then we talked about how we can do that, and we said that we can share an invitation, that we can share our story, that we can share the gospel, just in a moment just tell somebody the basics of the story. And we said ultimately we'd share our lives with people and hope and pray and plead with them that they might know Christ and follow him.
And so then we talked last week about discipleship specifically, that we would commit to discipleship. And so we said that discipleship is a life of learning, that it's life on life, it's life in community, and it's life on mission. And now we're kind of finishing up the series today, and we're actually going to, as we end today, we're going to walk through this text, then we'll sing a few songs, and then I'll come back up and we'll talk about a few kind of prayers for the year for us. And that's how we'll finish our time this morning, is kind of talking through some of that. And so what would normally be our just, hey, we've got two or three announcements, is actually going to be short, short sermon number two.
It won't be that long, but it will be longer than announcements, because we're trying to end on here's where we're going, here's where we're headed. And so pick up in Mark 4, I'm going to pray, and we're going to start reading this text together. God, we pray that you would bless our time this morning, that it would be fruitful, that your word would make it to good soil. In Jesus' name, amen. So Mark 4, Jesus, we're going to look at the parable of the sower today, and so we're going to just pick up Mark 4, verse 1.
It says, again, he began to teach. So Jesus did this often, and he is the he there. He began to teach beside the sea, and a very large crowd gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea, and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. So they start getting so gathered around him that he climbs into a boat and uses that as a stage, and then he's yelling to all these people who have gathered around the edge of the sea, and he's sitting in a boat. And it says he was teaching them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them, parables are stories, they're word pictures, they're metaphors, they're analogies, but they're not explained fully.
So they're just kind of, here's what it's like, and he tells the story, and then where a lot of hours would have, and the moral is, a parable just goes, here's the story. Mic drop, walk away. Like you don't necessarily know, you have to kind of figure out, okay, what does that mean, how does that work? And so that's what he'd been doing. He said, listen, behold, a sower went out to sow. Which if you're a sower, that's a good thing to do.
So a sower went out to sow, and as he sowed, some seed fell along the path. Okay, so this isn't needle and thread sowing, this is casting seed sowing. So this guy's got a bag, he's got some seed, and he's casting seed, and we're going to hear what happens. As he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched.
And since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing, yielding 30-fold, 60-fold, and 100-fold. And he said, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. So this is the story that he tells, and you can pull the picture up, but they would have been able to picture this pretty well.
And the idea that he's saying that he's spreading grain means that grain is a cereal crop. You actually eat what you plant. So you either, when it grows up, you either eat or you replant. It's not like an apple tree where you get to eat the apple and plant the seed. This is, you're choosing. I'm going to eat this, I'm going to replant it.
So you usually would hold back some to eat, and you would store some to replant the next year. So he's casting this out. So every little seed can then grow up and become more seed. That's how it works. So that's the story he tells.
So he said, a guy goes out, he's sowing. Some of it falls on a path. It's real hard ground. People use that to walk. It just sits there. Birds see it, come eat it.
Some falls on rocky ground, and it starts to grow down, but realizes it can't go much further. So it starts to grow up. And immediately, that's the stuff you see first. It looks pretty. You're like, hey, it's growing. Then the sun pops up, it's like peekaboo, and kills it.
Because it has no way to get any kind of nutrients. It's not deep. Then some of it went among thorns, and the thorns just choke it out. So it begins to grow, but the thorns grow better, steal from it, choke it, kill it. Some lands on good soil, and it grows. And it bears fruit.
And it multiplies. Some 30-fold, some 60-fold, some 100-fold. And then he ends by saying, and if you understand that, understand that. So he's saying, who has ears to hear, let him hear. And then he's done. And his disciples, it says, verse 10, And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables.
So he ends with, if you understand that, understand that. And then his disciples get back with him. And he's like, man, I don't know what he's doing. He's like, whew, good teaching. And they're like, hey, Peter had a question. And Peter's like, yeah, we didn't understand that.
And so he, they just kind of asked him, what was that about? Why are you teaching in parables? What were you talking about? And he said to them, to you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God. But for those outside, everything is in parables.
So that they may indeed see, but not perceive. And may indeed hear, but not understand. Lest they should turn and be forgiven. And he said to them, do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? And then he tells them, he says, the sower sows the word.
So he begins to explain the parable to him. So he looks at his disciples. He's gathered the crowd and he's taught in a parable and just says, if you can understand that, you understand it. And then he leaves. And his disciples said, we don't understand that. And he says, y'all get the secret.
You're going to get to know things that nobody else does. To you has been given the secret of the kingdom. And he explains it to him. He doesn't just say, well, you're out. Sorry. He says, no, no, y'all get to be in.
And he explains it. And this is what he says. He says, the sower sows the word. Okay. So the seed that's being cast out kind of aggressively, like, you know, you think you'd plant it or whatever.
This guy's just like slinging it. It's hitting rocks and paths and thorns. And he's just like, it's going to grow somewhere. It's going to be awesome. So he says, the sower sows the word.
And the word is the gospel, this good news of the kingdom. Mark's already used that. He said that Jesus, people gathered around his house and he preached the word. This idea that he's telling you what is good and true and important in life. And ultimately, we know that the word is the gospel, is the truth of who Jesus is and what he's done and the right way to understand scripture. So he says, the word is taught and these are the ones along the path where the word is sown.
Okay. So the word's taught and people respond. And so what we're looking at is four heart level responses to the gospel for heart level responses to the proclamation of the word. And when Jesus teaches this, I want you to see this. It is factual and final. These are four heart level responses to the gospel and everybody responds one of these four ways.
That's how Jesus teaches it. That as the word is sown, this is how people respond. And the reason I say it's factual and final is that from Jesus's eternal perspective, that's how it looks. From our perspective, it doesn't look factual and final. Because at times it seems like somebody would be in one category and then later there's a twist ending and they're in another category. And hopefully it's a good twist ending.
It's like, oh, wow, like it turns out it was nice. Not like an evil twist ending where everything falls apart at the end. You're like, this is terrible. But they do go both ways and we can't see exactly where we are in the story. Don't even know personally where we are in the story at times. We're supposed to walk out our salvation and fear and trembling and to continue to walk towards the Lord in life.
So as we talk through this today, we will talk through it as both. We'll talk through it as the way Jesus sees it and how these people end up. And then we'll talk through it as how we get to walk with people when it seems like they're in these zones. Does that make sense? Because there may be somebody who seems this way and then later is something else. But we can only go with what we can see.
All right. So he begins to explain. He says, these are the ones along the path where the word is sown. When they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. So Satan is the bird that swoops in, snatches the seed.
Matthew, he says, when they hear the gospel and don't understand it, the enemy comes or the devil comes. And so what we've got to see there is that there are some people who it just doesn't, it just bounces off of them. They don't understand it. It doesn't connect. It doesn't have any amount of growth whatsoever. And that we have a real enemy who does not want people to believe the gospel.
That Satan actively works to snatch away the good proclamation of the gospel. This was actually second Corinthians four, four says it this way. It says, in their case, the God of this world, that's, that's Satan. That's the devil. God's enemy has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. That the enemy, the enemy opposes the proclamation of the gospel.
And there are those who just simply won't believe. I, when I was working at Sears in Lynchburg, I was going, I would go to my coworkers and I would say, Hey, you know, I'm in seminary and I feel called to start a church. Um, I didn't just start there. They knew that. So it made a little more sense.
And then I would say, so I, at some point I want to tell you about Jesus. When can we do that? Um, and with most of my coworkers, first of all, this catches people off guard, but with most of my coworkers, they just went, um, I, I guess now because it was like a break time. I picked it up opportunity time. They weren't like talking to a customer and I wasn't like standing behind him. Like I waited till there was like a good moment and they would say that.
And then I would share the gospel with them, um, as best I could. In the moment, some of my coworkers were like, uh, lunch break. Like they would give you a time or they would say maybe later. And I would say, when later? And like, I had one coworker that I came to him and I said, Hey, you know, I'm, uh, in seminary. I'd love to tell you about Jesus at some point.
When can we do that? And he went, um, turn to look at me. He's doing training on a computer. That's what this was. Y'all can't see that, but he wasn't left-handed. It was this hand.
He looked at me and said, how about never? Yeah, let's do that. Never. And then he just turned back to his computer work. And that was when I shared the gospel with him was never. I was ended up how it, how it worked.
I didn't have another time that it worked out. He didn't want to hear it. There are some people that you have the chance to share the gospel with them and they just reject it or they don't want to hear it. And here's the thing. There are some people in this category. You're going to share it with them and it's just, it isn't going to sink in.
It's not going to make any sense. It's not going to click. There's some people who aren't going to let you or don't want to. Now, Jesus tells his disciples that you can shake the dust out of your clothes. You can shake the dust off your shoes. You can go to another town.
So there is room for us to say, I'm not going to continue to try to share the gospel with someone who doesn't want to hear it, who's against it. But there's also, we don't know. Paul would have been a terrible person to share the gospel with until Jesus knocked him off his horse and made him blind. And then he went around sharing the gospel with everybody. So we don't know exactly where they are.
So if it's your cousin or your neighbor, keep the relationship, be gracious to him. But maybe they're not ready. But also realize that you can't sit and make somebody be good soil if they're not and feel the freedom to say, I shared, I tried, I'm moving on to somebody who wants to hear. So those are the, those along the path, rocky ground. It says, and these are the ones sown on rocky ground. That's verse 16.
The ones who, when they hear the word immediately receive it with joy and they have no root in themselves, but endure for a little while. Then when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. So there's a group of people who will immediately receive it with joy, which is how you want people to receive the gospel is this is the best news ever. Thank you. I'd love to follow Jesus now. And I know if you share the gospel enough and someone does this, it's at times can be surprising.
You're like, you're, you're all nervous. And you're like, I'm gonna tell you about Jesus. And they're like, yes, that sounds amazing. I want to follow Jesus. And you're like, okay, well, you don't have to be mad. Wait, what?
Yeah, that would be great. You should do that. Like you're almost caught off guard sometimes, but you're like, yes, let's do that. And so they immediately begin to follow Jesus. But as soon as some difficulty arises, some persecution, they're out.
Now, in other countries, this looks different than here. There are other nations where your spouse leaves you, your family disowns you, you're physically attacked. Yeah, you're no longer allowed to work. That doesn't happen here. Like you didn't go to work and say, hey, I'm following Jesus now. And they were like, leave Walmart and never come back.
They don't, they don't do that. You still get to be a greeter there. Like they don't, there's no persecution on that level. But there are times where somebody may be, maybe this is somebody you share the gospel with while you're at school and they go home for the summer and they come back and they're like, no, no, no, no, I'm not doing that anymore. Because they got around their friends and their friends made fun of them or said, really? Are you serious?
And it was the first bit of difficulty and the first bit of persecution and the first bit of somebody who wasn't, they weren't just hanging out with your group and being excited and they're just, I'm done. And this is maybe opposite. Somebody goes off to school and the first professor that says, this is stupid. They just quit. This is somebody who the first little bit of life change that has to come. They just, they call it.
And so they're excited. This is hurtful. This is sad, but they're excited. They're going to follow Jesus. And then you talk to them and they're like, yeah, I think I'm done with that. And you're like, really?
You're going to give Jesus up for this? But that's what happens. And in those moments we can correct and we can try to point them towards what's true, but we cannot love Jesus for them and you cannot make rocky ground to be good soil through any of your own effort. That's not how it works. As Jesus tells it, it's factual and it's finalized so that if someone's in that zone, they will not change. Now we don't always know who's in that zone, but we do have the freedom to say, Lord, I've tried and I'm going to spend my time with somebody who wants to hear the gospel and wants to grow.
Third, third zone, third type of soil. And the others are the ones sown among thorns. So the gospel goes among thorns and it says, these are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word and it proves unfruitful. I think the majority of the church, those who would walk with the church are in these last two zones, in these last two bits of soil, that there are those who would walk with the church for a while. See, the other ones immediately fall away. These are slowly choked.
So they would say, I'm a believer. They would begin to walk. But over time, they'd prove, prove means over time, that eventually they'd prove unfruitful. It says that the desires of the world, that the cares of the world, the desires for other things and deceitfulness of riches. I want to talk briefly through those. The cares of the world, I think probably the best way to describe that, at least in our context, would just be busyness.
Oh man, I'd love to. Just got so much going on. I just, I mean, with, with work and the kids and avoiding y'all, like there's just, sorry, that's desire for other things. The cares of the world is this genuine, like, I want this, but I just, I don't have time. This is, I just, I don't know. I just can't kind of make it from here to there.
And, and so there are some people that would hang out with your group and they'll be around some and they'll be there ish. And then they'll be gone for a while. And, and I'm not saying a season. I know that there are seasons where there's sickness or there's seasons where there's Job loss or there's seasons where there's difficulty or there's seasons where you have a child and they're the worst. And then they're beautiful and wonderful, you guys. And we're glad they're in here this morning, but there are seasons, but I'm talking over time.
It proves if you've had a seven year long season of just too busy, that's not how it works. Then he says the deceitfulness of riches. And I love that he says it that way. He doesn't just say riches. He says the deceitfulness of riches. Y'all know riches are a trick.
That they're a trick. One of the things we talk about sometimes is that men are supposed to build and conquer and grow and develop. Not to say women aren't, but men are called to these things. And that one of the problems we have culturally is video games because video games short circuit that. They make you think you're building and developing and growing. I'm the general and I'm over an entire city.
No, you're not. You are in your mom's basement. And you haven't bathed in four days. Like when you level up on a video game, you level down in real life. I don't know how else to, I mean, some amount of riches does that to everybody. It short circuits the promises of God.
It steps in and it's just such a good, tasteful, easy alternative that it lies to us and we believe it. The promises of God that he gives us hope, that he gives us life, that he gives us fullness, that he gives us joy, that there are pleasures at his right hand forevermore, that we have a future. Man, doesn't money just pull all that closer? Smaller. It doesn't last. There's a song I grew up singing in church and it's, uh, because he lives.
And it would say, because he lives, I can face tomorrow. Because he lives, all fear is gone. Because he lives, I know who holds the future and life is worth the living just because he lives. But man, doesn't money just sneak in there and work? Because I'm rich, I can face tomorrow. Come on.
Because I'm rich, all fear is gone. I can commit crimes and won't even have to go to jail. Because I know, I hold the future and life is worth the living just because I'm rich. Money tricks us. It hops in, in place of Jesus so easily and it promises things that it cannot deliver. It's, it's deceitful.
But there's a whole group of people who would say they believe, who would say they've hoped in Jesus and they have been lied to and they are pursuing riches and it's going to choke the fruitfulness of the word. I was watching a movie called Ash Lad in the Hall of the Mountain King on Amazon. It was a free Amazon movie and it, it was made in Norway. And so it was dubbed over in English. It was a children's movie, which aren't great anyway, but to have their mouths not match made it a little bit also hard to watch. But it was doing like Swedish and I'm sorry, it wasn't made in Sweden, it was made in, it was doing, I don't remember where it was made, somewhere over there in the top part of Europe.
I looked it up and now I've forgotten. And it was doing myths that, that matched that area where it was made. And these guys were going through the woods, they're traveling on this, this quest to fight a goblin and they, they're very hungry and they find golden apples in the woods as you, as you do. And, uh, they were like, well, whoever left these golden apples wouldn't mind if we have one because of course not super generous left their golden apples there. So they start eating them.
Turns out they're delicious. Uh, and so they start eating more. And then the third brother, the youngest one just kind of catching up. So he shows up kind of towards the end of this. He tastes one. He, uh, follows them in and then he finds his older brothers and they're laughing hysterically because what's happened is these three ladies come out of the woods as often happens.
And these guys think that they're the most beautiful women they've ever seen. And they kind of drag them along and they take them and they say, we're going to get married. These guys are laughing hysterically and they go around and they're having so much fun and they sit at this feast. And so the youngest brother only had a little bit of an apple. He comes around, he's sitting with him. He's like, this just feels weird.
And then eventually he begins to be able to see clearly. Turns out the golden apples were a trick. And these beautiful young ladies are not beautiful young ladies. They are old, uh, scary witches and the food that they're eating at this feast is cockroaches and bugs and rotten things. And he sees it first and he has to do everything he can to grab his brothers and to escape. And that's what riches is for us.
Seems beautiful now. Tastes good now. Promises things it can never deliver. And at the end of the line, we're just eating cockroaches. It's just falling apart. It wasn't beautiful.
It was a trick. And that's what he says. That there's a whole group of people who we would see as Christians and say, believe, and you would watch them over time. And the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke out the word so that they are unfruitful. He also says the desire for other things. And man, isn't that true?
I'm following Jesus until I can get a boyfriend. And you sit down with them and you say, you're heading in the wrong way. This is not helpful. This is not edifying. This is not life-giving. And they say, I don't know.
I prayed about it. I don't feel bad. We ain't got to pray about it. It's written down. Do you want to read it again? Like all you said was my heart's so far from Jesus.
I so much desire something else that I want it so much more that I don't feel bad. I can't, it can't even get to me at this point because I so desire this and I'm getting it so I feel great. The desires for other things. This is when people say, yeah, I just really have a hard time reading the Bible. Like, okay. But you know the entire recruiting class for your favorite sports team?
You've kept up with every mom blog on this half of the internet? Feels like you know how to read. Feels like you want other stuff. And that's what happens. And as we're walking with people like that, we get to correct them. We get to call them towards joy and hope.
But eventually, you cannot make someone be in good soil. And you have the freedom to say, I think you're wrong and I love you and I hope the Lord changes your heart. But I'm going to build with those who want to build and I'm going to walk with those who want to walk. And our group's going to move on mission with those who want to move on mission. And we can't sit because you're too busy or because you want other things. It's heartbreaking.
And the prayer is that Jesus would change them. But there are people in that category. It proves unfruitful. Verse 20. But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit 30-fold and 60-fold and 100-fold.
He's saying there's a group of people that hear the gospel, that hear the word, and it sinks into their heart and they begin to grow. Now, it doesn't say they immediately receive it with joy. It says they accept it. Okay. I think you're right. Now, they can immediately receive it with joy.
I don't think that would be wrong if they did. But I also think that it doesn't mean they start off like a bottle rocket. They may be like having to wrestle it out and having to walk it out. But eventually, tribulation comes, persecution comes, and they keep going. The cares of the world, the desire for other things come, and they keep going. And this good soil, they grow and they produce more grain.
And grain, if we're going to push the analogy a little bit, like I said, is either eaten or replanted. We've been talking about discipleship. I think that fits well. They're either sharing the gospel or they're helping others grow. That's what happens. That's what he's saying.
It bears fruit. The gospel becomes more seed that goes out for other people or it becomes eaten and people grow and are healthy from it. But there's this idea that people would grow up in the faith and they would be mature and they would help others mature and they would help others meet Jesus. That there's good soil that later will be used again for health and life and joy in the gospel to spread. Some 30-fold, some 60-fold, some 100-fold. Now, when we're walking with people like this, again, we don't always know, but they're going to be around.
They're going to repent when corrected. That's one of the things we talk about all the time is that Christians repent. The reason we correct one another in sin is because Christians repent. And the reason we have to at some point say goodbye to people is because they are not living as Christians because they are refusing to repent. So you'll go to this person, you'll correct them, and they'll say, you're right.
Maybe, maybe they'll say, you're stupid, I hate you. And then they'll call you back the next day and say, no, you're right. The Holy Spirit's at work in me and I can't, I can't keep doing this. Maybe they walk off for a season, but they come back. But eventually there's a group of people that bear fruit.
And you think about the people in your life, if you've been following Jesus for a while, who have shown up at the right time to correct you, who have walked with you for a season to coach you, to teach you how to read the Bible, or who have walked with you and helped you through something, and they're bearing fruit. Some 30-fold, some 60-fold, some 100-fold. There was somebody who grabbed you at some point and told you, you need to believe in Jesus. And they're bearing fruit. And that our prayer is that we would be those people. That if you're looking at this and you're going, okay, I've got to be one of the four.
Just so you know, you're one of the four. And you get to pick. Go with the one that's lit up right now. It's just a suggestion. But if you've got to pick, and you're going to ask the Lord to help do something in you, go with bottom right.
You want to be good soil that you might produce, that you might grow. You pray that, Lord, I want to share the gospel with you and have them believe it. Have them grow. I want to help others walk and grow. I want to help people mature. That that's the hope.
And he says there's a group there. And isn't that beautiful that there is a group there? Jesus, before he told this parable, if you look at the very back end of Matthew 3, Jesus is with his disciples. His parents think he's going crazy, or his mama does. His mama and his brothers and sisters come because they need to talk to him because it's like, you were a carpenter and now you're doing some weird things. Like you recruited some fishermen and now you're just teaching people stuff and we need to talk.
And they say, your mama's here. And Jesus says, who's my mama? They're like, the lady outside that we were just talking about. And he says, those who follow the will of my father, those who do the will of my father are my mother, my sister, and my brother. And there's this idea when he goes into the parable and Mark then takes us into this parable of the soil that what displays a Christian is ultimately fruitfulness. And that if we were to say, no, I'm a Christian.
And we bear no fruit. We do not do the will of the father. We do not share the gospel. We do not disciple others. We we do not. We actually, if you looked at our life, if you looked at our bank account, if you looked at our time, we desire other things or the cares of the world have choked this out.
That we cannot claim Christ. Jesus says, if you love me, you'll obey me. Now, here's the beautiful part of that. He doesn't say, if you obey me, I'll love you. He says, if you love me, you'll obey me. What happens is we can get to the end of this and we can go, OK, OK.
All right. I'm going to do it. I'm going to be the picture in the bottom right. I'm going to get it together. I'm going to quit letting the cares of the world. I'm going to quit letting the desires of other things.
I'm not going to hang out with my friends that tell me I'm stupid. And I'm going to do this. The problem is that's not how it works. And that's not even how Jesus says we ought to respond. All right.
So if you were paying attention at the beginning of this, Jesus said this was a secret. And then one of his disciples snarked and wrote it down and then they printed it and we got to all read it. Now, it would seem as if the person who did that did something Jesus did not want them to do. Jesus said, everybody else gets just to hear the parable. I'm going to tell you the secret. And there was one in the back going, watch this.
Wiki leaks. That may be really politically charged. I don't know enough to know if I just said something that threw everybody off. Spencer will tell me later. He'll be like, bro, I can't say that. But that's what they did.
Somebody wrote it down. But here's the thing. Jesus goes to the cross. And then Paul says, there's a beautiful mystery that just got revealed. And now it's for everybody. That Jesus goes and suffers and dies in our place.
And it is the revealing of God. He is the image of God. And the proclamation of the gospel now goes to everyone. So if you look back at how it began, Jesus says this. And we'll have it on the screen, but it's in your text as well. And he said to them, verse 11, To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but to those outside, everything is in parables.
To us now, because of the gospel, has been given the secret. And Jesus is the secret. He's the mystery revealed. He dies on the cross so that we might have life in him. That's ultimately what happens. And here's what he says.
That they may indeed see, but not perceive. And may indeed hear, but not understand. Lest they should turn and be forgiven. He tells you the point of the parables. And he tells you how to respond to the parables. Turn and be forgiven.
He doesn't say turn and try harder. He doesn't say turn and work it out. He doesn't say turn and finally be good. He says turn and be forgiven. The appropriate and correct response to the gospel proclaimed and to understanding this parable today is to turn and say, Lord, forgive me. Help me.
I can't change my heart, but you can. I can't make myself good soil, but you can. I can't jump from being a path. I can't go from being rocky ground. I can't get rid of these thorns, but you can. And Jesus, I need you to help me.
So the response is not, I am now going to multiply. I'm now going to make disciples. I'm going to make grain. And I'm going to go sit and flex and try. No, the response is to run to Jesus and say, I need you to change my heart so that the desires of the world fade because I see how beautiful and glorious you are. I need to see you on the cross and have you so capture my soul.
And I need you to forgive me because I am so often tempted to believe that something else is more glorious than you. And I need you to work powerfully in me. And then we get to live, as Paul says, where he'll say, by God's grace, I worked harder than any of them. That we get to live out that it's Jesus's grace at work in us, that he works powerfully in us for us to be effective. And that's the hope. So the band's going to come back up.
We're going to sing a song. We're going to sing two songs, both of them dealing with this idea that we would give up everything else to know and love Jesus more. And in doing that, we are turning to him and we're saying, I want you above everything else and I want you to change me and I want you to matter more to me and I want to desire you above everything else so that it makes sense that I would spend my time for this, that I would spend my life for this. That it would be a joy and a delight as you work this out in my heart. And our prayer is that we would turn and ask for forgiveness and that his grace would work powerfully in us that we might bear fruit and multiply.
Let's pray. God, we thank you for your grace. And we know that as you see it, it's finalized and factual, but as we live it out, we're in the moment and we don't know. And God, we pray that we would make it to the end proving fruitful. But God, we can't change our hearts.
We can't make ourselves different through effort or work. You had to come and die so that we might be changed, so that the secret of you in us might be revealed. And so we ask that you would forgive us, that you would be in us, and that you would work this out powerfully in us for your glory. And that nobody here today would have the enemy snatch the gospel away from them. And nobody here today would face tribulation and run from you. And nobody here today would be tricked and lied to.
And at the end of days, realize they spent their life on something that mattered so little. And we ask that your grace would be prevalent and present, and that your spirit would be at work, that we might be fruitful by the power of your grace, for the glory of your name, and the good of our souls. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. So we believe the stuff we've been saying in this series.
We believe that Jesus sent us, sent his church, and we believe that there are people in our city who do not know Jesus, and will spend an eternity in hell. That we are called to make disciples, and that we ought to, any amount of time and effort and money and energy given to the cause of Christ, and his gospel and his glorious name is worth it. We don't always carry that out. Well, we have seasons where we get confused, and we do things we ought not to do, and that's the beautiful hope. While we gather every week and remind ourselves that Jesus saves sinners, this isn't awesome club. And I'm sorry if you thought that.
Hang out for a week or two. You'll figure it out. Jesus saves sinners, but we do believe that by his grace that he works in us, and that he uses us, and he makes us effective. And so we have a handful of things that we're praying for. We've been talking about them throughout the series, but I wanted to remind us of them. We'll talk about them more throughout the year, but we've got a handful of things that we're praying for, and we're just asking the Lord to accomplish.
That we actually want to do this. We actually want to see this happen. But they're not just goals, because some of us get a goal, and we think, well, all right, if we have to be unhealthy, we're still going to accomplish that goal. And that's not what we're talking about. We're not talking about just making something happen in our own strength. We're asking the Lord to do it in his strength, in his power, and then it gets to last and gets to be beautiful, and it'll be great.
So here's the first one we're praying for. We said this a while back, and we said it a specific way, and we're kind of changing the language so that it makes a little more sense for us. But we said we want to have 100 everyday missionaries this year. Like we're just praying that 100 everyday missionaries. So we said 100 preachers or 100 sharers, but I don't like having to say sharer, and preacher might confuse people.
So this is language we use often, which is that you would be active in sharing your faith. You would be active, that you would look at the world, our world, our city, your neighborhood, your job, the way a missionary would, and you'd say, I'm using this job for the purpose of mission. I'm using this home for the purpose of mission, and I want to see people meet Jesus. And so we're praying that we'd have 100 everyday missionaries. We have 80 adult committed members here. We have about 119 adults hanging out with groups.
So we said, we know some of those people hanging out with groups aren't Christians, but we also, we're just praying this year we'd have people, 100 people that have shared their faith with somebody else that have, and so we're asking the Lord to do that. And so we want you to be praying that. I want you to write that on your prayer list. I want you to talk with your group about it. I want y'all to be praying about it, but we want to have 100 people that are doing this. The second thing we're praying for is that, every group would get around the pool, that every single group this year would get to see someone baptized.
Now, that may not happen. I don't know if y'all just heard the sermon that was just preached, but we can't control the soil. We do get to indiscriminately, psychotically throw, throw seed, but we can't control the soil. And so your group could be actively on mission this entire year and not see anybody meet Jesus. And that's okay. And by God's grace, that happens.
And by God's grace, maybe some people will meet Jesus next year. But this is the thing we're asking him to do. So we're going to ask him that he'd send us to receptive people and that they would believe the gospel and that they would stick. This means we are changing some things about how we do baptism. I mean, we're still going to completely dunk people because we think that's biblical. But what we've done in the past is we've had two kind of big baptism parties a year.
We get a big like portable hot tub thing and we build it right here and we get fried chicken and we have a big celebration. But what's happened is we have said, Hey, we've got baptism coming up and we've kind of even said like, Hey, we've got baptism coming up. So if you've got some people you need to share the gospel with, you should do that. So we are sharing the gospel people for an event. And that's not what it says. We're supposed to share the gospel with people.
They're supposed to believe and be baptized. And so we're going to start baptizing more often because we want to be sharing the gospel constantly. And so when someone believes and you say, Hey, we've got some inner group who's believed in Christ and we want to, to walk with them about what baptism is. We still want to be able to do videos, but we probably won't have as big of parties. We're still going to celebrate because baptism is awesome and we're going to make it a big deal, but we're going to do it more often. So it can't be as big a deal.
And the, the item, the tub can't probably be as big. So I don't know. We just got to get them completely wet. You guys, um, that's really the only goal. I've seen some pictures of missionaries where they got like somebody ducked down in a bucket. So we might get like a 55 gallon drum and just push their head down.
We may get like the first person we baptized was in a horse trough. We may get a horse trough and glue some wheels to that bad boy. I don't know, but we're going to try to celebrate baptism more often as we are effectively, consistently sharing our faith with people. And then when they believe we want to baptize them in response to faith and not have people, uh, consider faith in response to baptism. So our hope, our prayer is that every group this year gets to gather around a pool, gets to see somebody baptized.
It's pool sounds better. Bucket didn't sound as good or 55 gallon drum, but gets to gather around, see them baptized and celebrate together as a group. And we want you to be praying that as well. Uh, the third thing we're praying for is that everyone in groups is 100% committed to discipleship. Now we don't have a way to test this.
Uh, we're working on something where it's like the little diabetes thing where you test for blood or whatever. We're working on something, but we can't do it yet. So, uh, we don't have a way to test this, but we're asking the Lord to do it through his, through his power, through the grace, uh, at work in us and through his Holy spirit. And so our prayer is that by what we mean by that is that you would be devoted to helping the people in your group grow, that you would show up to your group knowing that it is not about you. And in knowing that, that you would grow. You see, we grow as we sacrifice.
We grow as we serve. We grow as we collectively learn. And so our prayer is that we would be devoted to that, that a life of learning, life on life, life in community, life on mission, and that we would grow. What we're praying ultimately with all of these things is that God would let our church be in good soil, that we would grow and prove fruitful. The final one, and this one gets me excited because it means a whole lot of things have to happen, is we're praying that within the next year to 18 months, every single one of our groups multiplies. What that means is we have to be training leaders.
We have to be sharing the gospel. We have to be willing to get uncomfortable and intentionally identify some new mission fields and some new areas that we're going to try to launch groups into. It means that Jesus has to be at work all over the place. And so we think it's a good thing to pray for, to ask him that our groups would be able to multiply, that we'd be able to equip leaders, that we'd be able to send people out to be missionaries in our city. And ultimately, here's one of the things we've found. Our community groups can basically handle being a group and loving and being church family and serving and working together with about the amount of people you can fit in a house around a table and a handful of couches.
It's 15. 15 to 20. After that, you don't realize you're doing this, but you start thinking, I can't invite my friends because this would freak them out. There's too many people here. And so what happens is we actually, one of the ways that we continue to grow is that we multiply and we open up more room for us to invite, for us to share the gospel, for us to see people have what we have. And the beautiful thing is if you've been in groups that have multiplied, right when you went to multiply, you thought, I can never live without these people.
They're the most amazing people ever. And the first week after y'all kind of went to your different areas to be on mission together with a new group of people, it was really sad and awkward. You're like, just the eight of us, this is the worst. And then a year later, you had people in your group that knew Jesus now, that'll spend eternity with him in his kingdom, praising him. And you're like, I can't live without this person. And it gets to happen over and over and over again.
And what Jesus actually says is, unless a grain of wheat dies, it can't reproduce. And so in order for us to see fruit and growth and discipleship and health and people meeting Jesus, we have to die a little bit. And ultimately we get to live. And Jesus empowers that by his grace. And so our prayer is that these would happen. Write them down.
I wouldn't get a tattoo because this is just for like this year we're praying this. But write them down. Let's be praying this together. Let's be asking Jesus to be at work by his grace, his Holy Spirit to empower us that we might prove fruitful. Because we really, really want to see some people know Christ and have their hearts changed with the hope that's in the gospel. And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. Our prayer is that we might do that. So let's pray for these for a moment and for that, and then we'll be sent out. Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you. Jesus, all authority is yours, and you promise to go with us. By your grace, make us fruitful. Help us make disciples. Amen. Your son.
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Transcript
Good morning. My name's Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. As we get started this morning, I want to give an update on our gift project. Every year, towards the end of the year, we do a gift project where we're able to, we try to raise financial support for some sort of specific need, some sort of specific work. We've raised money for church plants before.
We've given gifts to children in local areas before. We've done some different things. This past December, we were raising support for some missionary work and for some church planting happening in Minya, Egypt. Our goal was $15,000, which, just so y'all know, the most our church has ever raised for a gift project is like $7,400, $7,400. So our goal was twice what we've ever raised.
And we were just like, let's go for it, because that's what they said they needed for a whole year to be able to buy. They took some transportation and to be able to have their budget for the whole year. And so we, during our church family, during the month of December, we were able to raise about $11,500, which was very exciting. At the same time, a local church, New Spring Church over in the Columbia area, said they were praying that they had had a surplus or that they're blessed financially and that they had heard about us and they wanted to just support us and show us that they love us. And so they wrote us a check for $3,500.
And so the pastors got together and just, we started praying, asking the Lord what he wanted us to, first of all, let me say, we got together and started talking about what we wanted to do with the money. And then we were like, maybe we should pray and ask the Lord what he wants us to do with the money. And, you know, it took us a little longer to get there than it should, but we did get there. And so I just want y'all to know, you should be very proud of us. So we prayed about it and we asked the Lord what he wanted us to do with it and felt confirmed and united in that we were supposed to give that to the work in Minya, Egypt.
We had someone in our church family say that that got us close enough that they'd pay the difference. And so we actually were able to raise $15,000 for the gift project. And super excited. The Lord knew we didn't have enough money, so he told another church to give us some so that he can go to Egypt and we're excited in how he does that and just blessed to get to be involved. Grab your Bibles, go to John chapter 1. We are in our Multiply series where we are talking through this call that the church has to make disciples.
And so we're discussing what that looks like and how we ought to respond to that, that we're called to share the gospel, to see people believe in Jesus, be baptized, and then to teach them, to train them in what it looks like to follow Jesus. And so as we've been talking through this today, we're specifically coming to how do we share the gospel? How can we go about pointing people towards Jesus? And we're going to look at several different ways this morning. We're going to look at several different kind of some methods and some different ways that we can go about pointing people towards Jesus.
So in John chapter 1, we're going to start here in verse 43. John 1 verse 43. It says, The next day, Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, Follow me. And that is primarily what being a disciple is. It's someone who follows Jesus, who learns from him, who in this time, and this very practically was, Jesus got up and went somewhere.
You walked behind him. You followed him. You saw what he was teaching, what he was doing, how he acted, how he treated people. There were times where he would stop and just explain something. And this is what has carried on from then on is that as followers of Jesus, we try to learn who he was, what he taught, what he did, how he treated people. And then we collectively walk together.
And that's a disciple, a learner from Jesus, someone who practices following Jesus and who he was and what he did and what he cared about. So he says, Follow me. Now, Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. So Andrew and Peter are already following Jesus. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, We have found him of whom Moses and the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. So Jesus finds Philip.
Philip finds Nathanael. And this is what we're talking about today, that as Christ followers, as people who Jesus has found, who are following Jesus, that we get to be a part of finding other people and bringing them to Jesus. And what does Philip say? He says, We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. He goes to Nathanael and says, You know, That stuff we've been reading in the Old Testament, the stuff we've been memorizing since forever, and that we're Jewish and we celebrate waiting for this prophet to come, this Messiah to come.
Found him. He's from Nazareth. His dad's name is Joseph. His name is Jesus. We found him. And you know how excited Philip is to be doing this?
How much prayer has been answered? How much hope and longing that this... And this is us if you're a Christian. Christian, the point of the universe, the hope of the world, the forgiveness of sins is in Jesus. And he's found us. If you're a Christian, he's redeemed you.
Your hope is in him. And all Philip's doing is going to his friend and saying, Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, have I got some good news for you. You know that stuff we've been longing for. You know that stuff we've been worried about. We found him. That's what he's doing.
And that's what we get to do. And so today we're going to specifically talk about how do we get to be like Philip in this passage and like some other people we're going to see as we jump around a little bit this morning. How do we get to go to other people and just say, Hey, you want this? Because it's so good. And Jesus is so good. And if you're a Christian, he is.
All the questions we have about, why are we here? What happens to us after we die? What's the point of this? What's the meaning behind this? Is my life going to count? Do I have hope?
How will I get through this? All of that is found in Jesus. And so we just get to go to other people and do what Philip said and said we found him. So let's pray. And then we'll talk through several methods, several different ways that we can go about bringing people to Jesus. And then we're going to talk about kind of a way of life, just how we get to live as these people.
So let's pray. God, we pray that you would bless our time this morning as we study your word and that you would send us as disciples who make disciples, as followers of yours who lead other people to follow you, that you would equip us to do that through the power of your spirit. And we love you and we thank you for how good you are. In Jesus' name, amen. So, he says, Philip found Nathanael and said to him, We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. And Nathanael said to him, Can anything good come out of Nazareth?
So you would think Nathanael would be like, That sounds great. That's not what Nathanael says. He says, No, you didn't. That's kind of his response. It's like, No, nothing good comes out of Nazareth. Now, this is taught often, this is just a shot at the fact that Nazareth was a hick town and it was.
But more than that, he knows his Old Testament and he's saying, No, I don't think so because, you know, I went to school, I've studied this and nobody comes out of Nazareth. Like, there's no prophecy. We don't sing any songs about it. There's no, nobody's excited to be from Nazareth. Nobody comes out of Nazareth. This is actually like an informed Bible question.
He just basically says, Can anything good come out of Nazareth? So Philip goes and invites him and he just says, No, I don't, I don't, like, what do you, I don't think so. That doesn't sound right. Philip said to him, Come and see. Come and see. And this is the first thing we're going to talk about is you can just share an invitation.
That's it. One of the, one of the primary ways that we can try to bring people to Jesus is just share an invitation to something where there's a good chance they'll encounter Jesus. That's all Philip says. It's like, Okay, good Bible point. You know your Old Testament. We're proud of you.
Come see. Come meet him. You'll see. You'll see what I'm talking about. And so we get to do that. Some of us are like, I don't know enough.
I don't know all the answers. And if I come and they're going to say, Well, what about this? What about that? And you just get to say, It's a good point. I don't know. There's like 12 other people in my community group.
Come and ask them. Come and see. Let's see. His hope was that they would encounter Jesus. That Nathanael would come meet Jesus. So he says, Nathanael said to him, Can anything good come out of Nazareth?
And Philip said to him, Come and see. Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, Behold, an Israelite indeed in whom there is no deceit. Nathanael said to him, How do you know me? Jesus answered him, Before Philip called you when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. And Nathanael answered him, Rabbi, you are the son of God. You are the king of Israel.
Jesus answered him, Because I said, I saw you under a fig tree. Do you believe? You will see greater things than these. And he said to him, Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending from the son of man. Now, that went really well for Nathanael and it went really well for Philip because he says, We found him. Nathanael says, No, No, I don't think so.
He says, We'll come and see. And then like two seconds into meeting Jesus, Nathanael says, You're the king of Israel. You're God. And Philip's like, Told you. That's what I was talking about. He did the same stuff to me.
I was just standing there. He said, Follow me. And something was like, Yes. And then I knew he was. And it was just, That's why I wanted you here. That doesn't always work that way.
But sometimes it does. I've invited people to things before where I'm like, Just come. Just come. They showed up and it didn't go like this. It was weird or things didn't go like I had planned. But I'm not in charge of how that works.
I'm just in charge of saying, Come see. But then there's been other times where you've invited someone to your community group and they finally show up and your group gets to talking about weird stuff or gets to talking about good stuff or talks about something. Matt Freeman was telling me one time that he invited somebody over and his group just got to confessing sin and talking about some things. And he was thinking, Oh, come on guys. This is a bit heavy for this person's first time. Like, can't we just talk a little bit, like, a little higher up, not getting everybody's basement.
And then the person at the end said, Thank y'all so much. This meant so much to me. And began to confess as well and began to talk as well. And it was like, And Matt said he leaned back and was like, I'm sorry Jesus, I forgot you're in charge of this. And that sometimes it works like this and so that we just get to make an invitation hoping that they'll encounter the Jesus that we know. We don't have all the answers.
This is one of the things I love about when we do our baptisms and we have baptism videos. We want people to have the opportunity to share their story. And so many times we've had people who have met Jesus and would not trade Jesus for anything. And in their story they say, Yeah, this person harassed me. And then I kind of ran out of excuses. So I eventually showed up to a group.
And then I saw what they were talking about. And then I met Jesus. And I'm here to tell you that I'm going to follow him with the rest of my life. And there is something to just being able to say, Hey, come see. Come see what I'm talking about. Come see what my group's like.
Come see. Come hang out on a Sunday. Come. And it doesn't have to be just your community group. It can be, Hey, we're all going to be hanging out and eating a meal. But come see what I'm talking about.
What it looks like when people who love Jesus just get together and just having an invitation. Now, some of you are like, Sweet! That's what I'll do. If that's sharing the gospel, that's what I'll do. And I'll tell you that that's part of it and it does work. And you do see a lot of people meet Jesus this way.
Jordan Surratt, who's led a community group in our church family, who serves a lot. His cousin invited him to a prayer meeting. Now, if you're thinking, What should I invite my friend to? Most people wouldn't go to a prayer meeting. Jordan went to a prayer meeting. Didn't love Jesus.
Didn't know Jesus. He said it was really weird and it wasn't what he was expecting and then he just kept coming back. And surprise, Jordan's a Christian. Loves Jesus. Follows Jesus because his cousin said, Come pray with us. This does work and this is helpful, but what you have to understand is it's specific invitation.
Philip said, Come now. Let's go. Took him to Jesus. There's, sometimes we just do the, Hey, you should come hang out with my church sometime. Hey, you should come hang out with my group sometime. Just the same way that you look at your friend that you hadn't seen in a long time and you say, Yeah, we should hang out sometime.
And how often have y'all been hanging out? None, because sometime is no time. Sometime isn't an actual time and so that when we make these invitations, they need to be specific. They actually did some research on this, Lifeway did, because they do research on all kinds of things. And they found that 80% of people who are invited to a church or to some sort of a church thing will go, will accept the invitation if the person inviting them will walk through the door with them. So we'll set up a specific time to, Hey, let's meet here, let's grab some coffee, then let's go over there.
Hey, let's meet here, I'll meet you outside, we'll meet in the parking lot, I'll meet you at this gas station, I'll meet you there, I'll come pick you up, whatever, let's go. It's a specific invitation for a specific thing with the hope of them meeting Jesus. And that is one of the things that we can do is that we can share an invitation. Move to John chapter 8, we're going to look, John chapter 9, verse 8. We're going to look at another thing that we can do. So we can share an invitation, just hoping that they'll meet Jesus, that he'll work, that they'll see what we've seen.
We don't have all the answers, we just want to get them there. John chapter 9, we can share our story. So that's what, that's what's going to happen here is we're going to see this guy who's sharing his story. He's just telling people what Jesus has done with him, how it's worked with him. So John chapter 9, verse 8, we're going to pick up with a guy who was born blind.
The disciples are actually walking along with Jesus, they see him, and they say, okay, we want to know something, we have a theological question, who was the sinner, him or his parents, that he was born blind? And Jesus says, that's not how it works. And then Jesus heals him. And so he's a grown man who's never seen, and now he has sight. This is a beautiful day. I watched recently a video of a nine or ten month old that had never heard and they got some hearing aids and stuff and they put him in and the mom starts talking and she starts cackling, laughing, just so excited to be able to hear.
This guy's a grown man, has never seen. And Jesus, who's the king of all things, heals him so that he can see. In verse 8, it says, the neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar, were saying, is this not the man who used to sit and beg? And some said, it is he. And others said, no, but he is like him. And he kept saying, I am the man.
So some of them were going, I think this is the guy who used to beg. And other people were going, no, but he looks a lot like him. And then he kept going, no, it's me for real, you guys. Except for he said it like this, I'm the man. All right.
So they said to him, then how were your eyes opened? And he answered, the man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed and received my sight. And they said to him, where is he? And he said, I do not know. I want y'all to know something is this guy shares his stories.
He tells in Christian circles, this is called a testimony a lot. This is his story of how he met Jesus and what Jesus did for him and how that's changed his life and worked in him. He's willing to say, I do not know. He doesn't have all the answers. He has his story. He has what Jesus has done with him.
And so, so often when we're thinking, I'm going to try to share the gospel with somebody, I'm going to try to tell them about Jesus. I'm going to try to, and this idea that they'll ask a question where we don't know the answer is terrifying to some people. Guess what? You can say, I do not know. So if you're talking with somebody at work and you're trying to point them towards Jesus or you're talking to them about church or how Jesus has worked in your life and they say, oh yeah, you believe all that mess.
What about evolution? What about, how could a good God let these bad things happen? What about this big social issue? You really believe and they'll pull something out that's this huge and you get to say, I do not know. Our group was actually talking about this this week. That's actually one of my favorite things to ever have happen when I'm talking to somebody about Jesus.
I like it most when it works like with Nathaniel and they're just like, wow, Jesus is God. That's the best one. But if they start just asking questions that I don't know the answer to, y'all don't know how excited I get. I'll tell you. Very. Because here's what happens.
If I don't know the answer, I just get to say, oh, I don't know. That's a really good question. That's really smart. Which makes them feel great because that was what they were going for, being really smart and making me look dumb. Usually, sometimes they're genuine questions. A lot of times, it's just, they wanted to just beat you.
And then guess what, you guys? This conversation is not over. I will be back. And the conversation will start right when I walk up because they gave me something to go study and to immediately start the conversation back up with. You see, sometimes the conversation kind of ends and it's really hard to get back into the conversation or it feels weird to get back into the conversation, but not if they stump you. You just go, that's really good.
I'll go look into it. And then you just go walking back in and go, so you were asking about dinosaurs. Well, guess what about Jesus? And you just get to jump right back into the conversation. And they have no choice. They're on lunch break.
You know they can't leave yet and you just get to talk to them. So he gets to say, I do not know, but he keeps going and here's what he leans into. He's just telling his story. It says, they brought, they brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. This is verse 13. Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.
Sabbath was a big deal to the Jewish people that you were not allowed to work. It was a very big deal to the Pharisees. This was their Mark of what made them faithful Jews, faithful to God. And Jesus runs around healing people all the time on the Sabbath. If you read the gospel accounts, it seems like he only healed people on the Sabbath. I'm assuming he did it a lot other times, but these are the ones where they got really annoyed and became a big deal.
So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight and he said to them, he put mud on my eyes and I washed and I see. Some of the Pharisees said, this man is not from God for he does not keep the Sabbath. But others said, how can a man who is a sinner do such signs? And there was division among them. So they said again to the blind man, what do you say about him since he opened your eyes?
And he said, he is a prophet. Verse 18 says, they don't believe him. They keep, they eventually call his parents. They make his mom and dad come down and they're like, is this your son? They're like, yes, that's him. Was he born blind?
Yes, he was. And then they say, who healed his eyes? And his parents are afraid to say Jesus because they're afraid of the Pharisees. So they don't answer. They just, they say, well, he's old enough. Ask him, but that definitely is our son and he did used to be blind.
Verse 24. So for the second time, they called the man who had been blind and said to him, give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner. And he answered, whether he is a sinner, I do not know. One thing I do know that though I was blind, now I see. And all he's doing is saying, I know what he did for me.
I know what he's doing. I know, I know what he did. I know I was blind. I know, now I see. And this is one of the ways that we get to share the gospel is just share our story. I don't know the answers to all that, but I know what he's doing to me.
I know that he's changed my heart. I know how I respond in anger now. I know how he's fixed my anxiety. I know how he's gone to work in me and my selfishness. I know what he's done in me. I don't know all of those answers and I'm willing to look them up and I'm willing to walk with you in it.
But I do know one thing. I was blind and now I see. And that's a beautiful way to point to Jesus. You can share an invitation. You can share your story. One of the things that happens that I want to just address here is that sometimes people think, well, I became a Christian now, but I used to be terrible.
I used to hang out with all these people and do all these things that I shouldn't have done and that I'm ashamed of now. And then they think, and I can't go back and tell them about Jesus because I look like such a hypocrite. I've heard this before. I thought this before. I just want to help you out. That's incorrect.
Does this man look like a hypocrite for seeing, even though, because he used to be blind? No. He's just saying, Jesus is great. I used to be blind and now Jesus has made me be able to see. And so if you go back and talk to all your friends about Jesus and they say, you, you, you coming to tell me about Jesus? I know how terrible you are.
And you'd be like, no, you don't. You don't know the half of it. I was way worse than what you think. I just, you only know about stuff I did with you. I did other stuff with other people that was way worse. I'm here to tell you that I'm terrible and that Jesus is great.
That I was blind, but now I see because Jesus did work. And I'm here to tell you that you can have hope in Jesus. I'm not saying come be a good person like me. I'm saying, come to Jesus. I actually know a guy who planted the church in his hometown for that very reason. It's a little podunk town.
Nobody cared much about it. It wasn't that big a deal. And people ask him, why are you planting there? And he's like, oh, because I was the worst. I'm very well known in that town for being a terrible person. So I just want to go back to that town and tell people about Jesus because no one will believe that I am a pastor and that I follow Jesus.
And if I don't do this in my own town, they just won't believe it. So I'm going back there and starting a church. And you get to do that. You get to share your story. Some of you are like, yeah, okay, well, I became a Christian when I was five, so I don't really have that kind of story. Yeah, you do.
Because even though you became a Christian when you're five, Jesus has continually been a good savior to you who is a sinner. And he's continually opened your eyes and helped you grow. And so you get to talk about how the gospel is good news right now for your soul that would run from him so fast if he didn't have a death grip on you. For you who's continually needing to grow and continually needing his hope and continually needing his light in your darkness. And you absolutely can share the gospel even if you've walked with Jesus most of your life. You can say, let me tell you what he's doing in me.
I can't answer all the questions, but I can tell you how he changes my heart. So you can share an invitation. You can share your story. And this third one is that you can share the gospel. And ultimately, the goal is that you would share the gospel in all of these, that the gospel would be clearly, explicitly said. But what we're really talking about here is that you can open your mouth and just tell them the facts about the gospel.
It doesn't have to involve you. It doesn't have to. It's just here's what Jesus has done. Go to Acts chapter 10. There's a lot of examples of this. Acts 10 is one of them.
There are plenty throughout the book of Acts, throughout the gospels. But this is where Peter was praying and God told him, hey, some people are going to come and I want you to go with them. At the same time, there was a man named Cornelius who was a Roman centurion. He had been praying and God said, hey, I'm sending some people to you. I want you to listen to them. And it's a really cool picture about how in prayer God prepares people to hear the gospel.
And so one of the things I would tell you is that in any of these, in all of these, you might be praying. I'll tell you specifically three things to be praying for. You want to pray that God would send you to receptive people. That God would prepare them beforehand. That he would work in their lives. That he would work for this moment to be the right moment for you to share the gospel.
That he would send you to receptive people. That he would make you sensitive to the spirit. Sometimes we're around receptive people but we're not sensitive to the spirit. They're sitting next to us at work and they're going, man, nothing ever works out for me in life. God's prepared them to hear the gospel and we say, yeah, tell me about it. I'm going to go to the drink machine and you want to go to the mountain too.
And we need to be leaning in and listening to the spirit that we might be prepared. And thirdly, that he would give us boldness. That he would lead us to receptive people. That he would make us sensitive to the leadership of the spirit and that he would give us boldness to speak when it's time to speak. But that's what happens here is that Peter's praying.
He's sensitive to the spirit. When the spirit tells him to go do something, he goes and does it. We're going to pick up in verse 30. Cornelius said, four days ago, about this hour, I was praying in my house at the ninth hour. And behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing and said, Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon who is called Peter.
He is lodging in the house of Simon a tanner by the sea. So I sent for you at once and you have been kind enough to come. Now therefore, we are all here in your presence, in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord. He is very prepared. An angel actually told him, I'm going to send somebody to you so you can hear this. And this is miraculous, but the truth is it's no less miraculous how he does this all the time now.
That somebody has not walked with Jesus, doesn't know Jesus, but has God's been preparing their heart to be able to hear, to be ready for this, to be able to acknowledge him through life circumstances and they're in the right spot at the right time with the right person and God opens the window and tells somebody to speak and here's what it says. So Peter opened his mouth and said, that's the third method is that we would actually just share the gospel, that we'd open our mouth and say, which means that we would know the gospel, we would know the foundational core parts of the gospel. And so let's read what he says. It says, truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.
As for the word that he sent to Israel preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ, he is Lord of all. You yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee, after the baptism that John proclaimed, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all that he did, both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people, but to those who had been chosen by God as witnesses who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.
And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness and everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. That is all true, but God has to work on somebody's heart for them to believe it. But there are times when we are led by the Spirit and ought to just tell somebody, open our mouth and say, here's what's true. Jesus Christ was good and holy and he was murdered on a cross and he died in that to save us from our sins and he rose from the grave so that we might have hope and there is forgiveness in his name and salvation in his name.
And that's good news and God prepares people to hear it. And the circumstances around it are interesting. My uncle and his friends when they were in college were riding around sharing the gospel with people and they had practiced a certain method where you have kind of certain little lead-in lines that you kind of open up with or whatever. So three of them are in a car and they're riding and they see a guy who's hitchhiking and they just go to pick him up. He hops in the backseat of the car and they're riding around sharing the gospel and so this is like, hey, God just sent like a hitchhiker here, somebody ready to hear.
So the guy sitting in the backseat with him uses the opening line they'd learned and he leans over to him in the backseat and he says, if you died tonight, do you know where your soul would go? And the guy just looked at him and he says, deep in thought. And they pull up to a stop sign and that guy opens the door and takes off running as fast as he possibly can. And they were like, oh, you know, now that I think about it, that probably wasn't the best opening line given the circumstances. Sometimes people aren't ready. I mean, I think you probably could have done that a little better, but sometimes it's not the right moment.
God hasn't prepared. It's not, we're still supposed to open our mouths. We're still supposed to share. I was in college coming out of a study hall and one of my friends I played football with said something about death. And I just asked him, I was like, man, do you think about death? And we just got to talking about what happens after you die.
And I asked him, do you know what would happen to you after you die? And he's like, no, how can you? And I was like, well, the Bible says you can. And we just started talking. I shared the gospel with him and he said, I said, do you want to follow Jesus? He said, yes.
He committed his life to Jesus, standing out under a street lamp on our way back to our dorms. I didn't follow up well with him, didn't do discipleship stuff well with him. If you're in my community group, that makes sense to you because that's how I usually do stuff. I'm very excited about people who don't know Jesus and once they believe in Jesus, I'm like, cool, figure it out, see you at the end. That's why we're working on some of these things. But I talked to him recently and he said, hey, you know, it's about two weeks away from anniversary of me committing to follow Jesus.
And I was like, dude, first of all, I didn't know when that happened and second of all, I'm so glad to know that you do. And so, sometimes God prepares people. Patrick Harden, who's a part of our church family, is a part of CEO's Campus Outreach and they go to Myrtle Beach every year and they send all these college students up and down Myrtle Beach to while people are vacationing on the beach to share the gospel with them, to go tell people about Jesus. They have different methods they try. They do start a conversation and just lead them to Jesus just to get there. They do four spiritual laws, I think, is one of them where there's like a set way that you kind of start talking about this and you move to this and you move to this.
That's kind of the thing where if you die tonight, like it's this startup conversation. They have a couple of different ways. They share their story. They have a couple of different ways. And if you were to pick the people that you think who's most likely to want to follow Jesus, I would say people vacationing at Myrtle Beach. They want you to come talk to them about Jesus.
Like if I'm sitting out on the beach enjoying the beach, I want four college students to come over and be like, hi, do you know you're a sinner? It's like, yes, I do. I'm a pastor. Keep going. Guess what? Every week, every day, regardless of the method, people commit to following Jesus.
People are ready and want to hear the gospel. And guess what? Every week, every day, regardless of the message, some people say, I don't want to hear this. But some people are prepared and there just needs to be some people who go and open their mouths. That we have good news to share and that God is at work in the lives of people to prepare them for these moments. And I think sometimes we're in the habit of making fun of someone who would just go around and tell people about Jesus and that's really cute of us to make fun of people who would go around telling people about Jesus when we haven't sat down and told anybody about Jesus in who knows how many years.
And the truth is, God is at work. The message is good. And I don't care if we share an invitation. I don't care if we share our story. I don't care if we just walk up to people and share the gospel. We've got to be active in doing what Philip did, which is trying to grab somebody and saying, come see Jesus because he's so good and all the hopes and all the prayers and everything's been answered in him.
And all your fear and all your doubt, it's in him. Some of you are here this morning because someone invited you. And I want to just tell you something. They just want you to meet Jesus. They want you to have what they have. They want you to check out what they're checking out.
They want you to see if you're seeing what they see in Christ. They care about you. They're really nervous because they're like, please don't say anything weird or let's not do anything weird today because it's just like, and we don't usually do anything weird, but they're just thinking maybe today would be the day we do something super weird. People get nervous when they bring people around churches. And I just want y'all to know that it's your first time here. We're so glad you're here and we don't want you to feel uncomfortable.
And I know churches do some things maybe you're not familiar with. And in a minute, when we pass by the bucket full of snakes, people think because it's their first time they have to take a snake. You don't have to take a snake. Just pass the bucket. Just kidding. We're not going to do that.
You guys, we don't ever do that. We just want you to know Jesus. And here's the thing. This is ultimately, like I said, we're going to have a couple of different methods and really just share your life is the last one. That you would so know and love Jesus that you would just share your life, that you would be a person so impacted by the gospel that you would just be around people and you would be a gospel person. So this is Mark 12, 30 says this.
This is Jesus talking and he says, this is the greatest commandment. He says that you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. That God and ultimately revealed to us in Christ would be so primary to us that every part of our life would be saturated by this gospel. And so then we just get to know people at work. We just get to know our neighbors and we're gospel people. One of the ways we talk about this is that the concept of gospel fluency, that if you're a Christian, that how you receive the world, how you understand the world is through the gospel.
Fluency is the idea that you would speak a language fluently, that you could dream in it, that when you think, you speak English fluently, most of you speak English fluently so that you're not having to translate what I'm saying right now, pink elephant. You're able to just kind of take in whatever is said. Your brain processes it without you being able to control that flying giraffe. Like you just, whatever is said, just you can't help it. You understand that you're fluent. Now, that's not the case for us if we go to another place.
I got to go on a trip one time to a mission trip to Romania and I learned some phrases in Romanesti. And honestly, I know what the phrase means, but they're just noises I memorized. I know that means, may God bless you. I don't know which part means what and what order it's in because I just memorized the sounds. So that's the way I am with, I know a little bit of Spanish, but all I'm really doing is taking the Spanish word and go into the little Spanish dictionary in my brain and trying to say, I think that word means this word in English.
I'm just really trying to get it to English. I'm not fluent. But the goal for us as Christians is that this would be true, that we would love God so much with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, with all our strength, that it's how we see and understand the world, that the gospel is how we think about everything so that you can't talk to us about marriage, you can't talk to us about money, you can't talk to us about relationships, you can't talk to us about savings, you can't talk to us about death or life or hope or the future or sadness or anything without us, the gospel just coming out. Here's the thing, some of us have this down when it comes to our groups.
One of the things we've talked about over and over again is that we would be, we'd give the good news before we give good advice. We have it down. We're gospel fluent. We have a gospel accent. It pours out of us when we're in church family. And as soon as we get around our neighbors and as soon as we get around our coworkers, we go TV newscaster on it.
My wife and I got to go, my parents won a trip to Jamaica through his job, my dad's Job. They weren't able to go and we got to go for free and I would absolutely recommend that to you. If you ever get to go on a free trip to Jamaica, you should go. It was very enjoyable. While we were there though, we were watching some TV and I don't know how they worked out this deal, but they just had channels from all over the place. And so we were watching.
Well, the funny thing was, if you watched any local news, you couldn't tell where they were from because they all had newscaster voice. They had this same little dialect that they all speak. The severed limbs were found in the elevator shaft. Good news for egg lovers, like whatever, like they just have this same tone, same voice, whatever. So we ended up realizing we were watching one that was from Miami, one that was from Canada.
They sounded the same as the people in Columbia, South Carolina, because they've all trained to just, if you're going to do the news, you just got to cut that out. And that's what we've been taught by our culture. If you're going to be a Christian, that's fine, but when you go to work, you just got to cut that out. You just can't sound Christian at work. You just got to, or you can be Christian light. You can say some things about God or whatever, but let's not talk about Jesus and let's not talk about, we just cut it out as soon as we get outside.
We put on our little newscaster voice. I'll give you an example of this. If your group, one of the questions in your community group was, what would you do if you won the Mega Millions jackpot? Most of us, if we really had to think about that in our Christian world, I got to know my answer, I'd be terrified because I think me having a billion dollars is probably not good for my soul. I really probably should keep going to work. It's nice right now that I can't own everything I would like to own.
There's something good about when God says you can't serve God and money. It's really nice that I don't have a billion dollars saying serve me. It's nice that I don't have much money and I go, you're right God, that sounds brilliant, but as soon as you gave me a billion dollars, I'd be like, well, I don't know, maybe some jet skis. The lake starts looking real good on Sundays. Like, you know, whatever. And so I'd be like, well, I think I'd probably have to give a lot of it away.
I'd probably have to get a whole bunch of people involved, maybe set up a trust, maybe spend the rest of my life just handing out money, maybe just give it to the IMB and go back to work the next day and be like, that was cool. IMB is the International Mission Board. All right. That's probably how I'd answer in our group. I'd really try to think about it. I'd talk about what was real to me and what really mattered and I'd try to fit it in the concept of eternity.
And if someone asked me at another Job or another place, hey man, what would you do if you win the Mega Millions? I'd just go newscaster on it. They don't want to hear all that stuff about how I think I'm a sinner and if I got a lot of money it would ruin my soul because that's a weird thing to say to somebody. So I'd just say, I'm going to probably own a mountain with like a castle and some sort of gun turrets because that would be amazing. We just cut it out so that when somebody's dealing with real things, you see the gospel applies to every aspect of life. This is one of the things that happens in the Old Testament.
There used to be a God of the forest and a God of the rivers and a God of the rain and a God of, in the Old Testament comes along and God says, no, I'm the God of everything. I'm the God of the rain and I'm the God of the wind and I'm the God of the mold in your kitchen. I own everything. And then Jesus comes along and he says, the gospel applies to everything, every aspect and every square inch of your life. So that if someone's talking about sadness or brokenness or depression or the Mega Millions jackpot or what they're going to do with their life or what they're hoping for their future or what they're struggling with with their kids, guess what?
The gospel applies now. It's good news now and there's hope now. That's what Peter says in, nope, sorry. It's not Peter next. It's 1 Thessalonians. Here's what it says.
It says, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves because you had become very dear to us that we would be such gospel people that when we begin to build friendships with people who don't know Jesus, not only do we share the gospel with them, we share ourselves with them and ourselves as a representation of what it looks like as the gospel goes to work on somebody. Not that you're perfect but that you're repentant. Not that you have it all together but that you trust someone who does. Not that you have all the answers but you have a lot of hope in the one who does.
1 Peter 3.15 says this, But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. Yet do it with gentleness and respect. This means that as Christians the gospel will be so real to us that it didn't matter what the objection was, what the comment was, what the... This is usually taught that you're going to be at work and someone's going to come to you and say, You are so joyous and happy. What's special about you? And for some of you maybe that happens and you ought to respond that the gospel gives you hope and that Jesus works on your soul.
That's not the context this is written in it. Most of what Peter was talking about was someone's going to come to you and say, Really? You're a Christian now so you had to break up with your boyfriend? Oh, you're a Christian now so y'all can't live together? Oh, you got this going on? Oh, and they're going to have this aggression and you're going to go, Oh, gentleness and respect.
I'm so glad you brought that up. Jesus is way better than sex. I'm so glad you brought that up. Jesus is way better than money and you have a real reason that the gospel is a hope in you and you have a real answer. That's what he's talking about. The hope would be that we would be gospel people so that whether we were sharing an invitation, sharing our story, sharing the gospel, that ultimately we'd just be sharing our lives and that's who we'd be.
That we'd be those type of people who so know and love Jesus and his word so dwells in us richly that it didn't matter what we were talking about. It didn't matter what we were doing that it just comes out of us, pours out of us and some of us need to learn how to lose our newscaster voice and go back to having our gospel accent when we're out in the world so that some people might find hope and might hear the goodness of the gospel and this sharing your life thing helps us a lot when people say, well, I can't share the gospel at work. What they mean when they tell you that at work is that you can't go around trying to proselytize everybody. You can't start handing out tracts.
You can't, but you can share your life and you can be a Christian and you can, when somebody's struggling with something and you're their friend, you can say, hey, can I tell you the hope I have? Can I tell you what I lean to in these moments? Can I tell you that there's a Bible story that talks about this? And it also means that, okay, maybe you can't share the gospel at work. Maybe you got fussed out for that. Guess what?
You can share the gospel in your backyard when you have a cookout. Get to know your coworkers. That way when you say, hey, you want to eat burgers at my house? They say, that sounds like a good idea. And then guess what? Who gets to talk about Jesus at their own house all day long?
I'm going to close with this story. I have a friend named Josh Davis. I met him across the street playing at the park with his children and our kids are about the same age and we started hanging out. We had a, pretty early on, had a conversation about the gospel, which is helpful. Just so y'all know, some of you are like, I'm developing a friendship and seven years from now, when the moment's right, I'll jump out of the bushes and say, turns out I've been a Christian the whole time. It's not super helpful.
Just own it right when you start. And then if people are like, I don't want to be friends with a Christian. Okay, that person's probably not going to be Jesus right now. They're not ready. But some people go, okay, and you get that already open.
The conversation's already there. And so I had the chance to talk with him pretty early on. And one of the things Spencer's been challenging us on is just looking at people and telling them, I want you to know Jesus. I want you to believe this. So much we make it this big conflict, but the truth is, it's us trying to love somebody and trying to help somebody find something that is so good.
And so we continued this friendship and we hung out some and I just realized the next time I saw him, I needed to just say to him again, hey, I want you to know Jesus. So we were over at the park playing and we were heading back to my house and I just stopped and said, hey, our kids were playing at the park. He and I weren't playing at the park. We're on the seesaw. It was awesome. We hold hands and run to the field.
We're walking back over to my house and they were going to be there for a minute and I just stopped and said, hey man, I just want you to know I care about you. We like your family and I want you to know Jesus. So as much as we can talk about that and as much as you have questions about that, I just, I think he's amazing and I want you to know him. And he just stopped and then he said, I think I really needed to hear that. And I was just like, yes, Jesus, that's awesome. And then we talked about Jesus for the next hour or so.
He didn't become a Christian. I'm still praying for him. I'm going to keep saying that to him. I'm going to keep building a relationship with him. I'm going to keep using all these methods. I'm going to invite him to stuff.
He's coming to hang out with our group some. He's not going to do that all the time. I'm going to keep inviting him. I'm going to keep sharing my story and how Jesus is at work in me. I'm going to keep sharing the gospel with him whenever I get the chance and hopefully at some point it'll be the right moment and he'll say, what do I need to do? How do I follow Jesus?
See, our prayer for our church family this year is that every single one of our community groups would get to see somebody baptized. See, last week we said that we'd be all preachers, that we'd be all sharing, that there'd be a hundred people out proclaiming the gospel. And this week, as we talk about ways that we can go about doing that, our hope, our prayer, and we don't know if it'll work because it doesn't always work. God doesn't always lead us to the people. We don't know how his timing on all that, but our prayer this year is that every single one of our community groups would be on mission, would be active in sharing the gospel and we get to gather around the baptismal pool and see some people who on their videos say, I got tired, I ran out of excuses, and Jesus is so good.
I was blind, now I see, and I'm so thankful that somebody grabbed me and said, you need to meet this Jesus. Band's gonna come back up. As we sing this next song, we as a church family are gonna take communion. This is where we, through the bread and the cup, that we remember that Jesus' body was broken for us, that his blood was shed for us, and that we need the gospel and that in Jesus we get the gospel. That he died for our sins, that our hope is in him, that our joy is in him, that our life is in him, and so we take a moment to pray, to repent. The repentance isn't that we have to be good before we come up there, but that if we are walking in unrepentance, we are not believing the gospel, which is that Jesus saves sinners and that there's hope and freedom in the gospel.
And so we pray, we repent, we confess sins, and then we joyously, celebratorily take communion. And I pray that as we pray this morning that you would also pray for those who need to know Jesus, who need to have what you have in Christ, that we might be led to receptive people, that we might be sensitive to the Spirit, that we might be bold in sharing our faith so that more people might have the Jesus, so that we know who loves and saves sinners. Let's pray. God, we thank you that the gospel is good news and that it is hope in our darkness and that it is a bandage for our souls and that our life and our joy are in you and nowhere else.
And we ask, Lord, that you would make us effective in sharing the gospel. And we pray right now, collectively, that every single one of our community groups this year would get to see somebody baptized, we get to know the joy of sharing the gospel and of having someone begin to follow Jesus, that we'd get to be like Philip and that you'd lead us to the right Nathaniels who are ready to hear and know the goodness of your word and hope in Christ. In Jesus' name, amen. When you're ready, take communion.
The Word of the Lord
Transcript
We're going to talk about why, and we're going to talk about this gospel proclamation. So grab your Bibles, go to Romans chapter 1. We're going to be in three different places in Romans today. We're going to Romans 1, then we'll go to Romans 5, then we'll go to Romans 10, as we talk about why, as we talk about, why would we spend our time, proclaiming the gospel, and seeing people grow up in the gospel, so that they might proclaim the gospel. That's what discipling is, that we would share the gospel, people would become Christians, they would grow to the point, that they could share the gospel, and train others to follow Jesus.
Let's pray, and then we'll begin reading in Romans 1. Father, we thank you, for how good you are, and for this time we get to spend this morning in your word, and we pray that it would be fruitful, and effective, and that your Holy Spirit would move in us, that we might commit to being people, who share the gospel, and that you might center in us, ground in us, why we can do nothing else. In Jesus' name, amen. We'll look in verse 16. This is Paul writing to the church in Rome, and he says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel. The gospel is the news of Jesus, the proclamation of the news of Jesus, what he had done on the cross for us, that he paid for our sins.
So he says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it, for this message, this news, is the power of God for salvation, to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For in it, in the gospel, in this message, in Jesus' work on our behalf, in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith, for faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. Now this is kind of his thesis statement as he carries out the rest of this book, but what he's saying is, I'm not ashamed of this news, because it's where we get salvation. It's the power of the gospel, the power of God for salvation, is in this message, that Jesus Christ died for sinners, that he rose again, and that from faith, for faith, we get righteousness, which means, that you don't bring your own righteousness to the table, you get it, by having faith in Jesus, and he gives it to those with faith, so that we have faith, it's from faith, it's for faith, that we trust him, that everybody comes forward as a Christian and says, it's all on you, Jesus, I'm trusting you, I'm not holding anything back, I'm not trusting in myself, I'm trusting you.
By having faith in Jesus, and he gives it to those with faith, so that we have faith, it's from faith, it's for faith, that we trust him, that everybody comes forward as a Christian and says, it's all on you, Jesus, I'm trusting you, I'm not holding anything back, I'm not trusting in myself, I'm trusting you. And so as I read that, and I just spent some time this week thinking about the idea of being ashamed, or being not ashamed, being unashamed, and I know that if you ask me, are you ashamed of the gospel, I would answer, no. And the reason I would answer no,
Is because, I don't think I'm ashamed of the gospel, and secondarily, I know I'm not supposed to be ashamed of the gospel, I want to be like Paul, where he says he's unashamed, and there's this idea throughout the scriptures, that we're to proclaim Jesus, we're to hold him up, we're to be not ashamed of him, and that he won't be ashamed of us, and so I think for most of us as Christians, if you asked, are you ashamed of the gospel, you'd say, no. And if you've been around the church for a while, maybe in your head, you'd start being like, no, it's the power of God, for salvation, like I'm not ashamed of the gospel. Now,
I want to change subject for just a second, to help us picture this idea of shame, I, some of y'all may not follow this section of news, as I have some unfortunate news to share with you, if you haven't been keeping up with it, something terrible happened, on Monday night, my wife and I, were on vacation, we got to go on a free trip, they said, do you want to go, it's free, I said free is my first cousin, we would love to go, but even while we were on vacation, this news reached us, the Clemson Tigers, won the national championship, in college football, now this is terrible news, some of y'all again, don't follow this,
Don't pay attention to this, but you live in Columbia, South Carolina, the home of the Gamecocks, I am a Carolina fan, and as we were going to travel, we went and got on an airplane in Columbia, where there shouldn't be Clemson fans, but they've infected the whole state, and we saw so much orange and purple, two very ugly colors, that they've mixed together for some reason, and these people were very proud, and they're on their way, to the national championship, and I remember thinking, like I was sitting near them, and I remember thinking, like I was glad, I didn't just accidentally, wear some Gamecock stuff, because I don't want to have to talk, to them about it, that's all it was,
It was like I realized, I didn't want to get in a conversation, because the truth is, as a Gamecock fan, those conversations, haven't been going well, for the last five years or so, they're not good conversations, and Carolina's not doing great, and Clemson's got continually better, they looked amazing on Monday night, it hurt my feelings to watch, and here's what happened, like I just realized, and I remember thinking about it later, and I was like, why was that, like what was that feeling, that feeling was shame, I was ashamed to have to talk, like I didn't want them to be like, oh yeah, how was y'all's bowl game, because they knew how our bowl game was,
First of all, we worked really hard, to barely make it to that bowl game, just to have our feelings hurt, and so I got to thinking about it, and the truth is, for a lot of us as Christians, we would say we're unashamed, but at the moment, we come to, maybe I should tell this person, about Jesus, is there something in us, that goes, I don't really want to talk about that, I don't really want to be that guy, I don't really want to be that girl, I don't want to, wouldn't that make things weird, I saw a comedian stand up, he said I'd love for everybody, I hope everybody's having a good night, I hope everybody's comfortable, and since I want everybody to be comfortable,
I'd love to speak with you, tonight about Jesus, everybody busts out laughing, because, they're immediately uncomfortable, like I know, that when I have to tell people, I'm a pastor, I don't even have to say Jesus, I just say ask me what I do, and I'm like here we go, this is going to get weird, you can't tell people you're a pastor, without it getting kind of weird you guys, they're either way too excited, they got a lot of questions, they got a lot of stories, or they're like oh, you can see them thinking, like it's okay, how do I leave, like it, that's just saying pastor, it's not even saying Jesus,
Is there something in us, at that moment, when we're like oh, maybe I should share, maybe I should say something, maybe they need to hear this, it goes oh, but what would that do, would that be weird, and is that in us, shame, for people who would declare, I am unashamed of the gospel, is there something, that we trip over, in our own hearts, when it comes time, to actually tell somebody, about the goodness of the gospel, and we believe it's good, you know who's not ashamed, right now, Clemson fans, and do you know why,
They're not ashamed right now, Clemson is really, really good, and do you know why, we are to be unashamed, of the gospel, because it is really, really good, far better than Clemson, the gospel is good, so grab your Bible, so if you've already, hold them, go to Romans 5, as we talk about why, why would I spend my time, sharing this, why would I go out of my way, why would I jump that hurdle, of hesitation, why would I push past, into the awkwardness, why would I do this, the first answer,
Is that the gospel, is too good, this news, is too good, and so we're going to read this, we're just going to talk about, how good it is for a second, we're going to remind ourselves, how good it is for a second, because for some reason, we get caught up in life, we get to following Jesus, and we forget, how good this is, maybe it's because we've forgotten, how lost we used to be, Romans 5 chapter 6, for while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died, for the ungodly, now that sounds like, a not very godly thing to do, Jesus,
The son of God, God the son, is coming to rescue, humanity, and who does he rescue, the ungodly, now I don't know, if y'all are familiar, with basic English, but that's the opposite, of godliness, he's godly, who does he rescue, the ungodly, now if you're ungodly, that's really good news, that he comes to rescue you, at your worst, at your ugliest, at your meanest, at your pettiest, at your most despicable, that that is who, Jesus redeems,
That is who Jesus dies for, is the ungodly, let's keep going, because this news, gets better and better, for one will scarcely die, for a righteous person, though perhaps, for a good person, one would dare, even to die, but God shows his love, for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, he shows his love for us, he says, some people would dare die, for a good person, that maybe you would, you would know of a good person, who is worth dying for,
Maybe you know, this happens with like, the secret service, or whatever, they're like, this person's life, is valuable to the country, so I'm willing to die for them, that like, we understand that concept, but he says, who dies for scoundrels, who dies for people, who are basically human garbage, someone who loves them, that's what he says, that Jesus loves the ungodly, that he dies, while we're still sinners, that while we were still weak, that he redeems us, do you know how good, that news is, you see,
We're tempted to believe, that the way that we go to salvation, in Christ, the way that we come to salvation, in Christ, is much like getting a mortgage, like he's going to check, your credit history, and you need to show, some credit worthiness, that you know, he's got the money, he's, I know Jesus saves, I know Jesus saves, he's the one with the money, I realize, I got to go to him, do the interview, fill out the paperwork, I get that, I can't save myself, I don't have the net worth, but he does,
I understand that, and so this is how people, think about it, like yeah, I can go get salvation, from Jesus, but, you know, he's going to check my credit, I got to show credit worthiness, or if I don't have, any credit worthiness, I'm not really going to bring that up, I'm going to bring pay stubs, super good Jesus, like I, don't look at that, look at future me, maybe it's a little bit of both, you also, maybe you kind of think, there's like an interest rate thing, where like, well he was pretty good,
Jesus saved him, but like he didn't have as much to pay back, I was super bad, Jesus saves me, I got a higher interest rate, I got more to do, that's not what it says, he doesn't take people with good credit, he takes people to get that 39% APR, that they don't even tell you about, that's who he gets, he's the buy here, pay here, people like you, you go like he, you don't have to have credit, no credit, no money down, no nothing, you just show up and say, hey, I really don't deserve anything, and he says, this is my team,
Do you know how good that is, because the truth is, even you, who believe you have good credit, have zero before God, that's what Paul spends his time doing, in the first four chapters of this, he says, those people are terrible, they're the worst, they've rebelled against God, that's all Romans 1, they've sinned, they've replaced God with idols, and he gets everybody going, yeah, those people, and then in chapter 2, he goes, so you have no excuse, those who judge, and you're like, why did you, why we were talking about them,
Why did you bring me into this, and he spends the rest of the time, saying that good works, and good morals, aren't going to save you, and then he comes here, and he says, he died for sinners, he died to save the ungodly, and if you know you're a sinner, and you know you're ungodly, that's good news, it's also good news, for all your sinner friends, and your sinner relatives, that he loves us, we're going to put verse 9, and through 11 up here, and we're going to talk through this, so this is, he saves, he dies for the ungodly, he dies to rescue those, who don't deserve it,
Who have no credit history, no future pay stubs, who only bring debt, all I have is debt, I have nothing else, I just bring debt, he pays that off, he dies for us, to redeem us, to buy us back, since therefore, we have now been justified, by his blood, much more shall we be saved, by him from the wrath of God, for while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God, by the death of his son, first thing I want to show us there, is it says, we have now been justified, by his blood, that if you are in Christ, you are justified,
By his blood, justified is a legal term, which means that if you went to court, you would be declared, not guilty, that if you are in Christ, his blood has covered you, so that you have no record of debt, you have no record of sin, that we think sometimes, when we go to judgment, he is going to pull up, every bad thing we have ever done, not if you are in Christ, we are declared not guilty, more than that, that is all that our legal system, will declare you, is not guilty, God is going to declare us innocent, because we are blameless, and above reproach in Christ, that if you are in Jesus, you are justified,
By his blood, you have been made right, you walk out scot free, in a legal sense, but it says, it didn't stop there, he says that we are saved by him, from the wrath of God, so that we are not just justified, but that we are saved, this idea that we are saved, from the wrath of God, or that Jesus absorbs, the wrath of God, so if you have the word justification, which is a big Bible word, this is the word propitiation, for those of you who care, about those sort of things, I will say it again, and for those of you, don't ignore the next second, propitiation, that he absorbs wrath,
On our behalf, so that it's not just, that we are made holy, before him, it's not just that we are justified, that we get to walk out, in a legal sense, but that actually, he absorbs the wrath, that we deserve, because Romans 1 says, that wrath is coming, towards the ungodly, and then it says, that he saves the ungodly, but then he keeps going, for while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God, by the death of his son, much more now, that we are reconciled, shall we be saved, by his life, more than that,
We also rejoice in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom, we have now received, reconciliation, reconciliation, means that we are, brought back in, we're made right with God, and we are brought to neutral, and he's like, alright, not guilty, but I better not, see you back in here, he's like, alright, not guilty, you wanna go grab a hot dog, like he, he invites us in, he brings us in, we're reconciled, our relationship is good,
I have a three year old son, so I am learning, how to parent, consistently, every day, he is challenging, he's great, but he's also challenging, and I really love, being a daddy, and the opportunities I get, but I, my wife and I are always like, I just, you know, parenting, you don't get to think, you just, you just have to go, and then you get to think, so like I've entered into situations, and I'm like, well I finished the situation, but goodness,
That shouldn't go that way next time, so I'm always like, you know, I go into parenting, and Anna and I, like she coaches me up, we talk about it, or whatever, it doesn't go well, when she tries in the middle of everything, to coach me up, but it goes better, if we get to discuss it later, because as soon as she shows up, he's like, my advocate's here, excuse me, if you'll just speak with my legal counsel, from now on, thank you, so it goes better, when in the situation, I get to handle things, we talk about it later,
But the other day, I was doing stuff with him, and when he's getting more amped up, I get more amped up, and I don't get loud, I've never been a loud person, I don't shout, I just get intense, and so I do this, I say, boy, let me tell you something right now, and I was talking to him, and he was getting louder, so I was being more intense, or whatever, and I came out, and the situation didn't go super well, you know, I parented through it, it's fine, but it wasn't my best work, I came out, and Anna said,
You're talking to him too intensely, like it's too much for a three year old, she said, I honestly think the way you're talking, you might, could make some grown men cry, and I was like, baby, you really think I can make a grown man cry? You know, just the sort of thing to say to me, she felt like I focused on the wrong part, so, but one of the things I've had to learn with him, is that like, it's not just that, like I, kids have parents for a reason, they don't, they don't have good sense, they need adults around them, there's a reason why they're not like, you know, I watched a TV show about iguanas,
And those things like, born and they can run off, and go do their own thing, your child can't, because it needs you there, making decisions for it, for a very long time, but one of the things I've realized, is as I correct him, and as I discipline him, one of the things I've started doing, is I just afterwards, I hug him, I tell him I love him, I get down on my knee, you know, the other day, he had gotten in trouble for something, and he got popped, and I said, you can go play, and he said, wait daddy, you forgot the part where you hug me,
And I was like, yeah, dude, come here, it's a good point, I'm glad you know the system, he wouldn't, I don't think he'd be like, what about the part where I get spanked, he probably wouldn't do that, but the hug, he remembers, and that's what that says, that we're reconciled, that he doesn't just say, okay, I've made some people even with me now, you're not guilty, it says, no, that he brings us in, that he loves us, that you're right with God, that when he thinks of you,
He thinks fondly of you, that he enjoys you, that you're reconciled, that your relationship with him is good, because of Jesus, do you know how good that is, he goes on, this is what we're covering in this section, but he also talks about in Romans 8, that we're adopted, that it's not just our relationships, right, but that he brings us into the family, other places talk about, that he does expiation, which means that he takes everything, that's ever happened to us, everything that would be on our record, he removes it, everything that's ever, all the sin that's been committed against us, all our shame, he cleans us, this news is too good,
For us to have even a twinge of shame, when it comes to telling somebody about it, it's too good, it's too eternally good, and too eternally urgent, it's too soul satisfying, that we would even trip, or have a hint of a, this propels us forward, and here's the thing, it's not just that it's too good, the stakes are too high, because if you don't have Christ, everything we just talked about, is flipped on its head, that when you stand before him, he does have a record of your guilt, you are not justified, you will not be declared not guilty, you will not leave that courtroom, that when you meet him, it will not be a moment of reconciliation, you will not get the hug, you do not get welcomed in,
You are not adopted, that you will stand before your judge, and your maker, on your own account, and it will not go well, and that rightfully, and justly, you will bear the wrath of God, because Jesus did not bear it for you, on the cross, and that is true, infinitely, eternally true, for everyone outside of Christ, now he died for the ungodly, which means that everybody is welcomed in, who will follow him, this news is too good, and the stakes are too high, for us to not spend our time, sharing it, for us to keep this to ourselves, you think about your life with Jesus, if you are in Christ,
And how you handle your life, when you are faced with anxiety, when you are overwhelmed, you see when you are talking to people at work, or you are talking to your neighbors, or you are just enjoying a friendship, with somebody who doesn't know Christ, they are going to talk to you about their life, and life is messy, and life is sinful, and life is hurtful, and life is fearful, and they are going to talk about, their fears for the future, and their fears for their children, and how difficult they are having, time in their marriage, and how anxious they are over money, or over how this job may not work out, or they have got a new boss, and they are not sure, if the new boss likes them, and they are going to talk about, all these things in life,
And the truth is, if you were walking through this, with yourself, or with someone in your community group, what would you be saying, I am dealing with anxiety, I am going to remind myself, that there is a God, who rules over the universe, that he is sovereign, that he tells me, that if I am fearful and anxious, I actually have no ability, to accomplish anything, but that he is good, and I can cast my cares on him, but I am worried about the future, if I really, you want to know, if I really get worried, about the future, you know you can pick up your Bible, and jump to the back end of Revelation, and see how it is going to shake out,
There is a part in there, where it says, everybody who loves Jesus, is gathered around the throne, in a place where there are no tears, and there is no suffering, and there is no night anymore, and there is no pain anymore, and that he welcomes them in, and that we get to spend eternity there, and sometimes, when you are fearful about the future, just go to the back end of Revelation, and say the future is going to be fine, for those who are in Christ, when you are worried about, being able to pay bills, don't you remind yourself, that Jesus looked at some people, and said, consider the ravens, they don't toil, they don't have barns, but they eat every day,
Look at the lilies, they don't sow, they don't spin, but they look better than Solomon ever did, you remind yourself, that you are going to be cared for, that he loves you, when you feel down, and shameful, and dirty, and all the enemy has been doing, is bringing up everything wrong, you've ever done, do you remind yourself, that one day, you'll be clothed in righteousness, that Jesus will stand in your place, that you will be justified, that you're holy, and blameless, and loved, and welcomed, and that he adores you, because he adores Christ,
And that Christ has swapped places with you, and then we have a co-worker, talking to us about their anxiety, and we have the shameful audacity, to say yeah, sounds awful, and to hold our hope, and not share it, when they talk about their fear, for their children, and their fear for their future, and we have the audacity, to say yeah, I deal with that too, but without telling them the cure, that there's a God, who works, and who redeems, who they can know, who loves them, who loves them, and they can know him, and he can work in them, and for them,
Because he's good, and we just say yeah, doctors are scary, this news is too good, and the stakes are too high, for us to not learn how to respond, and for us to not be active in this, turn to Romans 10, we're going to pick up in verse 8, Paul's talking about the gospel, he's referring to some Old Testament passages, and that's why he says, but what does it say, quote in Old Testament passage, the word is near you, in your mouth, and in your heart, that is, the word of faith, that we proclaim, so he's talking about the gospel there, this word is near you, it's in your mouth, and in your heart,
This gospel, this truth about Jesus, and who he is, he says, because if you confess with your mouth, that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart, that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved, for with the heart one believes, and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses, and is saved, for the scripture says, everyone who believes in him, will not be put to shame, there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is the Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord, will be saved, there is not a person in the history of the world, who has cried out to God, and said,
I need you, I need your help, I can't do this on my own, that was put to shame, that that turned out to be a mistake, there is not a person in the history of the world, that has claimed, Jesus I love you, I need you, I need your help, I know I am a sinner, I know all I bring is debt, but I need you to redeem me, that was not, and will not be saved, by Christ, everyone, so this news is too good, and the stakes are too high, and everyone who believes, will be saved, everyone, think of the worst person you know, that person,
Will be saved, if they believe, and if it's you, if the only person you can think of, that you think is terrible is you, you will be saved, if you trust Jesus, he loves you enough to die for you, while you were a sinner, not waiting for you to clean yourself up, let's keep going, 14, how will they call on him, in whom they have not believed, so he says, all who call on the name of the Lord, will be saved, but he says, how are they going to call on him, if they don't believe in him, because if they don't know what he does, and how good he is, and what he's accomplished, they're not going to,
Nobody's going to call on him, you understand the logic there, and how are they to believe in him, and whom they have never heard, and how are they to hear, without someone preaching, now most of the time, when you think about preaching, you think about what's going on right now, what I'm doing this very moment, this is preaching, I don't know why you laughed, it is, but what he means there, is preaching is a broader term, than just what happens on a Sunday, in a church, church, it means to proclaim the gospel, to tell of the gospel, to tell the good news, of the gospel, and so it also happens at gas stations, and in dorm rooms,
That the gospel can be shared, and proclaimed anywhere, so he says, how will they call on him, if they haven't believed, and how are they going to believe, if they haven't heard, and how are they going to hear, without somebody preaching, and how are they going to preach, unless they are sent, those last two ones, are the ones that we get involved in, we preach, and we send, as Christians, that's what we're supposed to do, that's discipleship, that's teaching them to obey everything, is sending, is that we're proclaiming, we're training somebody up, and we're sending them out, to go proclaim this gospel,
And having them, having people be baptized, in the name of the son, is us proclaiming the gospel, so that we proclaim it, we preach it, we tell people about it, we see people baptized, we train them up, we send them out, this is why we always talk about, multiplying our groups, because we want to multiply our groups, because we want to see more people, in more areas, in more times, during the week, with more room at a table, to see people proclaiming the gospel, we want to see, a group in Irmo, and a group in Gaston, we want to see, this continue to move,
And more people be welcomed in, and more people invited in, because there's more people, in this city proclaiming the gospel, we got, right around 80, members, in our church family, people committed to membership, we've got around 100 adults, in groups, and our goal, our prayer, is that that would be 100 preachers, it'd be 80 preachers, people that are going around, and so unashamed, of this gospel, they're telling people about it, how are they to preach, unless they're sent, as it is written, how beautiful, are the feet,
Of those who preach, the good news, so that's, that's this, this idea, that as you travel, you know, your feet would get, dusty or dirty, or grosser, as you travel, as you go around, but he's saying, it's the opposite, that there's beautiful feet, that those who carry good news, those who bring you good news, have beautiful feet, say that to someone, next time they tell you good news, they tell you good news, and you just say, wow, those are some good looking feet,
But that's what he's saying, that we get to be that, that we get to carry good news, he says, but they have not all obeyed, the gospel, for Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed, what he's heard from us, so faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ, so some people would say, well not everybody's going to believe, right, but some will, some will believe this news, you did, and how many people, after you believed the gospel, and Jesus began to change you, were like, wait, who?
Nah, do we need to go back, to your high school reunion, I'll go with you, so this person follows Jesus now, look at people's faces, some of you, you were the most unlikely candidate, but people will believe, this news is good, what Jesus does, and who he is, and what he's accomplished for us, there's a couple of things, that I think crop up, as soon as we start talking about, that we would go around, sharing the gospel, first there's this idea, that it would make us weird, I think it's worth being weird for, honestly, if the culture doesn't like, talking about Jesus,
They're confused about who he is, and as soon as they know him, they think it's a good idea, so okay, let's be okay with that one, let's roll past that, that little bit of shame, where it's like, I think people will think, I'm like a Jesus person, and I think that's a good way, to be defined, I think sometimes we go, okay, but I'm too busy, I have to make special time, for this, I'd have to try to figure out, like what, I got to start going to five points, and just yelling at people, you can, probably won't be the most effective, but people do believe that way sometimes,
Most of us, that's not that true though, you have a 40 hour week Job, or you go to school, or you live in a dorm, and you are surrounded by people, who need to know this news, some of you have children, or multiple children, and they don't know the gospel yet, and you ought to be active, in proclaiming the gospel to them, another thing that happens, is people think, well I have to be perfect, if I'm going to start telling people, Jesus, I got to get my act together, well first of all, it's not a bad idea, for you to start repenting of sin, and getting your act together, so I'm not against that idea, but the concept,
Of I have to be perfect, to share the gospel, is not a biblical concept, it's actually nonsense, because if the gospel, is that you're a really, well behaved person, you don't understand the gospel, the gospel is that you're ungodly, and that Jesus saves sinners, so that when I do something, really terrible, I had somebody say, well I can't share the gospel at work, because I get mad and cuss, like bro, the gospel is that Jesus saves sinners, not well behaved, perfect people, there are times that I do things, and people are like, man you do that, aren't you a preacher, I'm like yeah,
Jesus saves sinners, people who act like a complete fool, you saw me at Walmart with my son, yeah, sinners, people who don't do right, that's who he saves, that he works to redeem, those who are broken, so if you say, well if I do this, and it's not good or whatever, then I've messed it up, it's like no you haven't, the gospel is that Jesus is good, not that you are, that he saves people like you, do you know how refreshing, and hopeful that is to people, now continually change, and repent, and ask for forgiveness, certainly, the other thing is,
That we'll think, well I have to know everything, no you don't, I have to know everything, I have to have every answer, what if they ask me this, what if they ask me that, what if I say this, and they're like, alright, I believe in Jesus, tell me about dinosaurs, first of all, dinosaurs is not the route to Jesus, so they won't, that's not how that works, secondly, they may have some questions, and you can say, I don't know, let's talk about it, but you know enough, if you follow Jesus, you know enough,
You know he saved sinners, you know he saved you, we're going to talk more about that next week, specifically how to share, this news is too good, the stakes are too high, everyone who believes, will be saved, not everyone will believe, but some will, the news is too good, the stakes are too high, not everyone, everyone who believes, will be saved, not everyone, will believe, but some will, so I want to ask you this, if you become active, in sharing your faith, this becomes a normal part, of your life, that you're praying,
To the Lord, and saying, give me opportunities, lead me to people, who are receptive, help me to have windows, where I can share, how I would think about anxiety, how I think about the future, how I think about parenting, help me have windows, where I can tell people, how good Jesus is, let me ask you a question, how many times, could you tell people, about Jesus this next year, if you became active in this, if you committed to, this is too good, and I'm going to share it, because that's what we want to do first, we want to commit to why, we want to commit to,
Yes I'm going to do this, I want to have beautiful feet, they ain't so pretty right now, but I want them to be beautiful, by the end of next year, what's that look like, how many people can you share the gospel with, and I'm not saying, it's like a challenge to, to like we all got to pick a number, but what I'm saying is like, if you think about it, and you can share the gospel, with five people this next year, five people that you know, that you care about, that you're around, let me ask you a question, what if one believes, what if their eternity is changed, what if you end up being able, to share the gospel once a month, what if all 100 of our preachers do, and 1200 more people,
Get to hear how good Jesus is, isn't that a good year, isn't that 1200 people, who are blessed, with some really helpful information, sometimes we say, well they know I'm a Christian, so they'll ask, they don't think they need Jesus, because they don't know what he does, they don't know how good he is, Bianca's going to come back up, she's going to play the piano for a minute, we're going to take communion here in a second, but here's, I want us to consider for a second, I want you to sit and think for a second, that if you are a Christian, I want you to ask the Lord, am I ashamed of the gospel, where is that, what's causing that, and I want us to repent, I want us to ask him to help us,
And I want us to grow, to be active, in telling people about him, we're going to talk about how next week, but that we ought to, that why matters, now some of us, it's enough for you to know, that Jesus told us to, you didn't need today, you're like Jesus told me to, I'm going to, and that's a good reason, but it's such good news, and the stakes are too high, for us to not be active in this, so our prayers, we've been kind of setting some, goals for ourselves, and we'll talk about this, at the end of every sermon this year, at the end of every sermon this series, as we've set some goals for ourselves, our prayer,
Is that our church family, our community groups, that each of us would be active, in sharing our faith, because I want to guarantee you something, if you spend the rest of your days, telling people about Jesus, that some will believe, and everyone who believes, will be saved, nobody who calls on the name of the Lord, will be put to shame, it's worth it, that there are going to be days, without end, where we are with the Lord, and that means that everything, in this life is going to pale, in comparison, it's going to fade, except for Christ, who will shine in eternal glory, so I want us to ask, am I ashamed,
And I want us to pray, that we wouldn't be, and I want us to commit, I want you to take the time, to genuinely commit yourself, to the Lord today, and say I'm, no I'm going to, I'm going to share the gospel, I'm going to begin doing this, I'm going to figure out how, so that some, might believe, you don't have to be perfect, you're not going to have to do it excellently, that puts all the weight on you, that's not the gospel, it's Jesus who saves, but I'm going to do this, and we're going to figure out how together, and if you're in this room this morning, and you, have not, called on Jesus,
You've not run to him, with your debt, you still are trying, to get your resume together, your credit history, your pay stubs for a future, whatever you're going to do, that's nonsense, Jesus saves the ungodly, and I would ask you, to run to him, to him who loves, sinners, and redeems them, and welcomes them, and adopts them, justifies them, reconciles them to God, brings them into the family, and glorifies them, and his glory for eternity, all because he's great, and those who run to him, won't be put to shame,
So take a moment to pray, as she plays, she's going to play for a little while, and then when you're ready, we'll take communion, communion is a physical representation, of what Jesus has accomplished, for us on the cross, that he literally died, that he was buried, that he rose again, that his body was broken, his blood was shed, and that we as the church, remind ourselves, how much we need the gospel, and how good it is, so if you are a Christian, we would invite you, to take communion, if you are not a Christian, we would invite you, to trust in Jesus, but if you have not yet done that,
We would not invite you, to take communion, so we're going to pray, she's going to play, and in a moment, when you're ready, we'll take communion, Father, we ask that your Holy Spirit, would be active, right now, to lead us, that we might, genuinely commit ourselves, to you, to be, preachers, where we work, and where we live, and where we, play, that we might, share this good news, that we would not,
Keep it to ourselves, in those moments, that you would help us, to be unashamed, and we ask Lord, that some might, hear, believe, and call on you today, in Jesus name,
You're talking to him too intensely, like it's too much for a three year old, she said, I honestly think the way you're talking, you might, could make some grown men cry, and I was like, baby, you really think I can make a grown man cry? You know, just the sort of thing to say to me, she felt like I focused on the wrong part, so, but one of the things I've had to learn with him, is that like, it's not just that, like I, kids have parents for a reason, they don't, they don't have good sense, they need adults around them, there's a reason why they're not like, you know, I watched a TV show about iguanas,
And those things like, born and they can run off, and go do their own thing, your child can't, because it needs you there, making decisions for it, for a very long time, but one of the things I've realized, is as I correct him, and as I discipline him, one of the things I've started doing, is I just afterwards, I hug him, I tell him I love him, I get down on my knee, you know, the other day, he had gotten in trouble for something, and he got popped, and I said, you can go play, and he said, wait daddy, you forgot the part where you hug me,
And I was like, yeah, dude, come here, it's a good point, I'm glad you know the system, he wouldn't, I don't think he'd be like, what about the part where I get spanked, he probably wouldn't do that, but the hug, he remembers, and that's what that says, that we're reconciled, that he doesn't just say, okay, I've made some people even with me now, you're not guilty, it says, no, that he brings us in, that he loves us, that you're right with God, that when he thinks of you,
He thinks fondly of you, that he enjoys you, that you're reconciled, that your relationship with him is good, because of Jesus, do you know how good that is, he goes on, this is what we're covering in this section, but he also talks about in Romans 8, that we're adopted, that it's not just our relationships, right, but that he brings us into the family, other places talk about, that he does expiation, which means that he takes everything, that's ever happened to us, everything that would be on our record, he removes it, everything that's ever, all the sin that's been committed against us, all our shame, he cleans us, this news is too good,
For us to have even a twinge of shame, when it comes to telling somebody about it, it's too good, it's too eternally good, and too eternally urgent, it's too soul satisfying, that we would even trip, or have a hint of a, this propels us forward, and here's the thing, it's not just that it's too good, the stakes are too high, because if you don't have Christ, everything we just talked about, is flipped on its head, that when you stand before him, he does have a record of your guilt, you are not justified, you will not be declared not guilty, you will not leave that courtroom, that when you meet him, it will not be a moment of reconciliation, you will not get the hug, you do not get welcomed in,
You are not adopted, that you will stand before your judge, and your maker, on your own account, and it will not go well, and that rightfully, and justly, you will bear the wrath of God, because Jesus did not bear it for you, on the cross, and that is true, infinitely, eternally true, for everyone outside of Christ, now he died for the ungodly, which means that everybody is welcomed in, who will follow him, this news is too good, and the stakes are too high, for us to not spend our time, sharing it, for us to keep this to ourselves, you think about your life with Jesus, if you are in Christ,
And how you handle your life, when you are faced with anxiety, when you are overwhelmed, you see when you are talking to people at work, or you are talking to your neighbors, or you are just enjoying a friendship, with somebody who doesn't know Christ, they are going to talk to you about their life, and life is messy, and life is sinful, and life is hurtful, and life is fearful, and they are going to talk about, their fears for the future, and their fears for their children, and how difficult they are having, time in their marriage, and how anxious they are over money, or over how this job may not work out, or they have got a new boss, and they are not sure, if the new boss likes them, and they are going to talk about, all these things in life,
And the truth is, if you were walking through this, with yourself, or with someone in your community group, what would you be saying, I am dealing with anxiety, I am going to remind myself, that there is a God, who rules over the universe, that he is sovereign, that he tells me, that if I am fearful and anxious, I actually have no ability, to accomplish anything, but that he is good, and I can cast my cares on him, but I am worried about the future, if I really, you want to know, if I really get worried, about the future, you know you can pick up your Bible, and jump to the back end of Revelation, and see how it is going to shake out,
There is a part in there, where it says, everybody who loves Jesus, is gathered around the throne, in a place where there are no tears, and there is no suffering, and there is no night anymore, and there is no pain anymore, and that he welcomes them in, and that we get to spend eternity there, and sometimes, when you are fearful about the future, just go to the back end of Revelation, and say the future is going to be fine, for those who are in Christ, when you are worried about, being able to pay bills, don't you remind yourself, that Jesus looked at some people, and said, consider the ravens, they don't toil, they don't have barns, but they eat every day,
Look at the lilies, they don't sow, they don't spin, but they look better than Solomon ever did, you remind yourself, that you are going to be cared for, that he loves you, when you feel down, and shameful, and dirty, and all the enemy has been doing, is bringing up everything wrong, you've ever done, do you remind yourself, that one day, you'll be clothed in righteousness, that Jesus will stand in your place, that you will be justified, that you're holy, and blameless, and loved, and welcomed, and that he adores you, because he adores Christ,
And that Christ has swapped places with you, and then we have a co-worker, talking to us about their anxiety, and we have the shameful audacity, to say yeah, sounds awful, and to hold our hope, and not share it, when they talk about their fear, for their children, and their fear for their future, and we have the audacity, to say yeah, I deal with that too, but without telling them the cure, that there's a God, who works, and who redeems, who they can know, who loves them, who loves them, and they can know him, and he can work in them, and for them,
Because he's good, and we just say yeah, doctors are scary, this news is too good, and the stakes are too high, for us to not learn how to respond, and for us to not be active in this, turn to Romans 10, we're going to pick up in verse 8, Paul's talking about the gospel, he's referring to some Old Testament passages, and that's why he says, but what does it say, quote in Old Testament passage, the word is near you, in your mouth, and in your heart, that is, the word of faith, that we proclaim, so he's talking about the gospel there, this word is near you, it's in your mouth, and in your heart,
This gospel, this truth about Jesus, and who he is, he says, because if you confess with your mouth, that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart, that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved, for with the heart one believes, and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses, and is saved, for the scripture says, everyone who believes in him, will not be put to shame, there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is the Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord, will be saved, there is not a person in the history of the world, who has cried out to God, and said,
I need you, I need your help, I can't do this on my own, that was put to shame, that that turned out to be a mistake, there is not a person in the history of the world, that has claimed, Jesus I love you, I need you, I need your help, I know I am a sinner, I know all I bring is debt, but I need you to redeem me, that was not, and will not be saved, by Christ, everyone, so this news is too good, and the stakes are too high, and everyone who believes, will be saved, everyone, think of the worst person you know, that person,
Will be saved, if they believe, and if it's you, if the only person you can think of, that you think is terrible is you, you will be saved, if you trust Jesus, he loves you enough to die for you, while you were a sinner, not waiting for you to clean yourself up, let's keep going, 14, how will they call on him, in whom they have not believed, so he says, all who call on the name of the Lord, will be saved, but he says, how are they going to call on him, if they don't believe in him, because if they don't know what he does, and how good he is, and what he's accomplished, they're not going to,
Nobody's going to call on him, you understand the logic there, and how are they to believe in him, and whom they have never heard, and how are they to hear, without someone preaching, now most of the time, when you think about preaching, you think about what's going on right now, what I'm doing this very moment, this is preaching, I don't know why you laughed, it is, but what he means there, is preaching is a broader term, than just what happens on a Sunday, in a church, church, it means to proclaim the gospel, to tell of the gospel, to tell the good news, of the gospel, and so it also happens at gas stations, and in dorm rooms,
That the gospel can be shared, and proclaimed anywhere, so he says, how will they call on him, if they haven't believed, and how are they going to believe, if they haven't heard, and how are they going to hear, without somebody preaching, and how are they going to preach, unless they are sent, those last two ones, are the ones that we get involved in, we preach, and we send, as Christians, that's what we're supposed to do, that's discipleship, that's teaching them to obey everything, is sending, is that we're proclaiming, we're training somebody up, and we're sending them out, to go proclaim this gospel,
And having them, having people be baptized, in the name of the son, is us proclaiming the gospel, so that we proclaim it, we preach it, we tell people about it, we see people baptized, we train them up, we send them out, this is why we always talk about, multiplying our groups, because we want to multiply our groups, because we want to see more people, in more areas, in more times, during the week, with more room at a table, to see people proclaiming the gospel, we want to see, a group in Irmo, and a group in Gaston, we want to see, this continue to move,
And more people be welcomed in, and more people invited in, because there's more people, in this city proclaiming the gospel, we got, right around 80, members, in our church family, people committed to membership, we've got around 100 adults, in groups, and our goal, our prayer, is that that would be 100 preachers, it'd be 80 preachers, people that are going around, and so unashamed, of this gospel, they're telling people about it, how are they to preach, unless they're sent, as it is written, how beautiful, are the feet,
Of those who preach, the good news, so that's, that's this, this idea, that as you travel, you know, your feet would get, dusty or dirty, or grosser, as you travel, as you go around, but he's saying, it's the opposite, that there's beautiful feet, that those who carry good news, those who bring you good news, have beautiful feet, say that to someone, next time they tell you good news, they tell you good news, and you just say, wow, those are some good looking feet,
But that's what he's saying, that we get to be that, that we get to carry good news, he says, but they have not all obeyed, the gospel, for Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed, what he's heard from us, so faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ, so some people would say, well not everybody's going to believe, right, but some will, some will believe this news, you did, and how many people, after you believed the gospel, and Jesus began to change you, were like, wait, who?
Nah, do we need to go back, to your high school reunion, I'll go with you, so this person follows Jesus now, look at people's faces, some of you, you were the most unlikely candidate, but people will believe, this news is good, what Jesus does, and who he is, and what he's accomplished for us, there's a couple of things, that I think crop up, as soon as we start talking about, that we would go around, sharing the gospel, first there's this idea, that it would make us weird, I think it's worth being weird for, honestly, if the culture doesn't like, talking about Jesus,
They're confused about who he is, and as soon as they know him, they think it's a good idea, so okay, let's be okay with that one, let's roll past that, that little bit of shame, where it's like, I think people will think, I'm like a Jesus person, and I think that's a good way, to be defined, I think sometimes we go, okay, but I'm too busy, I have to make special time, for this, I'd have to try to figure out, like what, I got to start going to five points, and just yelling at people, you can, probably won't be the most effective, but people do believe that way sometimes,
Most of us, that's not that true though, you have a 40 hour week Job, or you go to school, or you live in a dorm, and you are surrounded by people, who need to know this news, some of you have children, or multiple children, and they don't know the gospel yet, and you ought to be active, in proclaiming the gospel to them, another thing that happens, is people think, well I have to be perfect, if I'm going to start telling people, Jesus, I got to get my act together, well first of all, it's not a bad idea, for you to start repenting of sin, and getting your act together, so I'm not against that idea, but the concept,
Of I have to be perfect, to share the gospel, is not a biblical concept, it's actually nonsense, because if the gospel, is that you're a really, well behaved person, you don't understand the gospel, the gospel is that you're ungodly, and that Jesus saves sinners, so that when I do something, really terrible, I had somebody say, well I can't share the gospel at work, because I get mad and cuss, like bro, the gospel is that Jesus saves sinners, not well behaved, perfect people, there are times that I do things, and people are like, man you do that, aren't you a preacher, I'm like yeah,
Jesus saves sinners, people who act like a complete fool, you saw me at Walmart with my son, yeah, sinners, people who don't do right, that's who he saves, that he works to redeem, those who are broken, so if you say, well if I do this, and it's not good or whatever, then I've messed it up, it's like no you haven't, the gospel is that Jesus is good, not that you are, that he saves people like you, do you know how refreshing, and hopeful that is to people, now continually change, and repent, and ask for forgiveness, certainly, the other thing is,
That we'll think, well I have to know everything, no you don't, I have to know everything, I have to have every answer, what if they ask me this, what if they ask me that, what if I say this, and they're like, alright, I believe in Jesus, tell me about dinosaurs, first of all, dinosaurs is not the route to Jesus, so they won't, that's not how that works, secondly, they may have some questions, and you can say, I don't know, let's talk about it, but you know enough, if you follow Jesus, you know enough,
You know he saved sinners, you know he saved you, we're going to talk more about that next week, specifically how to share, this news is too good, the stakes are too high, everyone who believes, will be saved, not everyone will believe, but some will, the news is too good, the stakes are too high, not everyone, everyone who believes, will be saved, not everyone, will believe, but some will, so I want to ask you this, if you become active, in sharing your faith, this becomes a normal part, of your life, that you're praying,
To the Lord, and saying, give me opportunities, lead me to people, who are receptive, help me to have windows, where I can share, how I would think about anxiety, how I think about the future, how I think about parenting, help me have windows, where I can tell people, how good Jesus is, let me ask you a question, how many times, could you tell people, about Jesus this next year, if you became active in this, if you committed to, this is too good, and I'm going to share it, because that's what we want to do first, we want to commit to why, we want to commit to,
Yes I'm going to do this, I want to have beautiful feet, they ain't so pretty right now, but I want them to be beautiful, by the end of next year, what's that look like, how many people can you share the gospel with, and I'm not saying, it's like a challenge to, to like we all got to pick a number, but what I'm saying is like, if you think about it, and you can share the gospel, with five people this next year, five people that you know, that you care about, that you're around, let me ask you a question, what if one believes, what if their eternity is changed, what if you end up being able, to share the gospel once a month, what if all 100 of our preachers do, and 1200 more people,
Get to hear how good Jesus is, isn't that a good year, isn't that 1200 people, who are blessed, with some really helpful information, sometimes we say, well they know I'm a Christian, so they'll ask, they don't think they need Jesus, because they don't know what he does, they don't know how good he is, Bianca's going to come back up, she's going to play the piano for a minute, we're going to take communion here in a second, but here's, I want us to consider for a second, I want you to sit and think for a second, that if you are a Christian, I want you to ask the Lord, am I ashamed of the gospel, where is that, what's causing that, and I want us to repent, I want us to ask him to help us,
And I want us to grow, to be active, in telling people about him, we're going to talk about how next week, but that we ought to, that why matters, now some of us, it's enough for you to know, that Jesus told us to, you didn't need today, you're like Jesus told me to, I'm going to, and that's a good reason, but it's such good news, and the stakes are too high, for us to not be active in this, so our prayers, we've been kind of setting some, goals for ourselves, and we'll talk about this, at the end of every sermon this year, at the end of every sermon this series, as we've set some goals for ourselves, our prayer,
Is that our church family, our community groups, that each of us would be active, in sharing our faith, because I want to guarantee you something, if you spend the rest of your days, telling people about Jesus, that some will believe, and everyone who believes, will be saved, nobody who calls on the name of the Lord, will be put to shame, it's worth it, that there are going to be days, without end, where we are with the Lord, and that means that everything, in this life is going to pale, in comparison, it's going to fade, except for Christ, who will shine in eternal glory, so I want us to ask, am I ashamed,
And I want us to pray, that we wouldn't be, and I want us to commit, I want you to take the time, to genuinely commit yourself, to the Lord today, and say I'm, no I'm going to, I'm going to share the gospel, I'm going to begin doing this, I'm going to figure out how, so that some, might believe, you don't have to be perfect, you're not going to have to do it excellently, that puts all the weight on you, that's not the gospel, it's Jesus who saves, but I'm going to do this, and we're going to figure out how together, and if you're in this room this morning, and you, have not, called on Jesus,
You've not run to him, with your debt, you still are trying, to get your resume together, your credit history, your pay stubs for a future, whatever you're going to do, that's nonsense, Jesus saves the ungodly, and I would ask you, to run to him, to him who loves, sinners, and redeems them, and welcomes them, and adopts them, justifies them, reconciles them to God, brings them into the family, and glorifies them, and his glory for eternity, all because he's great, and those who run to him, won't be put to shame,
So take a moment to pray, as she plays, she's going to play for a little while, and then when you're ready, we'll take communion, communion is a physical representation, of what Jesus has accomplished, for us on the cross, that he literally died, that he was buried, that he rose again, that his body was broken, his blood was shed, and that we as the church, remind ourselves, how much we need the gospel, and how good it is, so if you are a Christian, we would invite you, to take communion, if you are not a Christian, we would invite you, to trust in Jesus, but if you have not yet done that,
We would not invite you, to take communion, so we're going to pray, she's going to play, and in a moment, when you're ready, we'll take communion, Father, we ask that your Holy Spirit, would be active, right now, to lead us, that we might, genuinely commit ourselves, to you, to be, preachers, where we work, and where we live, and where we, play, that we might, share this good news, that we would not,
Keep it to ourselves, in those moments, that you would help us, to be unashamed, and we ask Lord, that some might, hear, believe, and call on you today, in Jesus name,
Everyday Mission
Transcript
G'day everyone, my name is Raz. This morning we're turning to our last chapter of Anchor Series. If you've been with us for the last little while, you'll know that we're talking about what it is that anchors us as a church. What it is that we turn to, what it is that makes us foundationally a church, and what we believe and how we believe the church functions as we're out in the world. And if you've ever seen anything that we've ever printed, t-shirts, cards, giant banners, you'll see that we use the phrase, a gospel-centered community on mission all the time. For the first five weeks of this series, we've talked about what it means to be gospel-centered.
The first three weeks, we've talked about gospel-centered. The next two weeks, we've talked about what it means to be community. And today we're kind of turning to what it means to be on mission. But immediately we've run into this problem when it comes to the word mission. And that's that lots of different people use a different definition of the word mission, particularly when it comes to the church. This is kind of common in English language in general, and particularly for me, miscommunication based on wording.
I'm from Australia, and I live in America, and so I say things different, and I get in trouble all the time. For example, if I learn something for the first time, or something makes sense for the first time, I might accidentally, this would be wrong, but I might accidentally say, ah, I just joined the dots in my head. Everyone knows you don't join dots in America. You connect dots in America. And for someone to suggest that joining is the same as connecting in this country is craziness. Similar confusions can also get you in trouble sometimes.
In America, you have a kind of footwear that is commonly referred to as the flip-flop. In Australia and other areas of the country, other areas of this country and other areas of the world, it's not called a flip-flop, it's called a thong. This can get you in trouble at times if you're not careful. Hypothetically speaking, and I'm not saying that this happened to me, but it might have, you might be away on a youth camp with a bunch of teenagers, explain a card game to them in which one of the rules is that when something happens, you remove your thong and slap the person next to you with it, and suggest that you are going to do that repeatedly to a 15-year-old.
It could happen to anyone. I'm not saying it happened to me. It was obviously a friend of mine. But the main problem that we have with this word mission is that different people use the same word to mean a bunch of different things. There's some people who think that mission means overseas. You've got to be out of here.
You can't be in America because that's not mission. You've got to go to China. You've got to go to Russia. You've got to go to Belarus, wherever that is. You can't do it here. You've got to be somewhere else.
And some people say that's trash. That's not the truth. What you've got to do is cross a cultural barrier. That would be talking to Chinese people who are here in America or talking to people who don't speak English. If you speak Spanish and you speak in Hispanic neighborhoods about the gospel, that would be mission. But other people say, no, that's trash as well.
Every time you leave your house and talk about Jesus, you're on mission. Some people say there's like this umbrella category of mission and evangelism is under that. But some people say, no, that's trash. There's an umbrella category of evangelism and mission is under that. And some people say missions and some people say mission and they get confused between the two of them because they're two separate things. And so you could be on a mission trip, but refer to it as a missions trip and people think you're weird.
And you're just like, I don't know if it's missions or mission. The problem is there's too many different people in the world who use the word to mean different things. There's too many definitions. So this morning, we're going to be looking pretty specifically at what Jesus said about it, what Jesus said about mission. And we're going to look at the great commission that he sent his church to accomplish. Ultimately, though, God himself has his own mission.
And that is to bless all of humanity, all of creation, to bless all nations and bring them back, reconcile them, bring them back to himself. And he does that through his son, Jesus Christ, who he sent to pay the penalty for our sins, to reconcile us to him. And then Jesus himself invites us into that work and sends us out into the world to continue it. And we're going to look at Jesus' words today on that topic and how that applies to us here in Columbia, South Carolina. Let's pray.
Father God, we praise you and we thank you for the work that you've done in Jesus Christ on our behalf. And we thank you that you've given us a mission. We thank you that you've trusted us with that mission. And we pray that we can do it to your glory for the rest of our lives. In Jesus' name, amen. Now, if you've got a Bible, go ahead and open to Matthew 28.
If you've got one of these blue ones, it is on page 542. It's right at the end of the book of Matthew. If you get to Mark, you've gone too far. This is the very last little paragraph in the Gospel of Matthew. At this point in time, Jesus has come to the earth. He's been born as a baby in Bethlehem.
He's lived the first 30 years of his life. Then he was sent out and he preached the word for three years. He gathered disciples to him, preached. Then he died and he resurrected three days later, proving that he was God. And then we're going to step into the story in that period of time between when he was risen from the dead and before he ascended back into heaven. This is right in that period of time.
This is from chapter 28, verse 16. Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, this is the Great Commission, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.
Jesus, he comes out swinging. He makes his point hard and fast. He says, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. I'm the boss man. And so when you're at work and the boss man comes out and says, I'm your boss. I have the authority here.
You know he's about to say something that you have to do. And he's allowed to do that because he's got authority and you don't. Jesus comes out swinging. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. It means that whatever comes next is pretty important and he expects us to do it. But it's also really encouraging because he says, I'm Jesus.
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. You are my disciples. Go out and make disciples. Let's read. The Great Commission. It says, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. It doesn't really leave a whole lot of room. His command is, make disciples. Make disciples of everyone. It says, make disciples of all nations. It's a translation from a Greek word, ethne, which really means ethnicities, all people groups.
It's not just saying all nations that we've given names to and have territories. It's not saying China, Russia, England, France. It's saying all people, all people groups. Everyone. Make disciples of everyone. And that's really it.
When it comes down to it, that's the basis for what we're talking about when we use the word mission. The mission is to make disciples. Make disciples of everyone. And the cool thing for the guys that Jesus is talking to is that they were his disciples. He's gathered his disciples together and said, go and make disciples. He's perfectly modeled to them for the last three years what it looks like to make disciples.
And then he sends them out and says, go and do for other people what I've been doing for you. Now, when we make disciples, what we're really doing is making followers of Jesus. That's what a disciple is. It's a follower of Jesus. It's taking someone who doesn't know Jesus and introducing them. But it's also taking people who do know Jesus and giving them next steps towards Jesus as well.
So they might already know him, but not be very good at knowing him. And we just need to teach them some more things about him and how that's involved in life as well. And we push people baby steps towards Jesus. And that's what it means to make disciples. Now, it might not seem super logical to us in the English translation. It is logical.
It's really logical once you understand the basis of how this works. In Greek, and if you want to geek out with me, I love this kind of junk later. So we can talk about this. In Greek, there is main verbs and supporting verbs. It doesn't work the same in English. We usually rely on sentence structure and word order.
But in Greek, there's main verbs and supporting verbs. And so in this sentence, the main verb is make disciples. And then all the supporting verbs tell you how to do that. So we're commanded, make disciples, and then told what it is you could do in order to make disciples. And we're told the other three verbs, the supporting verbs, are go, baptize, and teach. That's how you make disciples.
As you go, you baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. And you teach to obey all that Jesus has commanded. Let's look at go. What does it mean to go? Here's what it looks like. As we make disciples, we go.
It's not saying pick up your bags and leave. Go. Get out of here. It's saying as you go, as you go about life, as you go about daily life, as you go about your rhythms, as you go to work, as you go to school, make disciples of everyone. It's inherently movement-oriented. It doesn't imply that you can stay and do nothing.
You are supposed to go. But some people have twisted this word go. It's what causes most of the confusion with the Great Commission and what it means to be in missions in general. Some people say when it says go and make disciples of all nations, that's why you've got to get out of here. That's why, because he says go all nations. It's like, it makes a lot of sense to leave and go to another country.
But actually he's saying as you go about your daily business, be making disciples wherever you are. This is when definitions become important. And this is where I want to help us out a little bit by clarifying all the different types of missions. And I think all it usually needs is a helping word. Because people say the word mission and think of a bunch of different things, when if they had have just clarified, it would have made a whole lot more sense from the beginning. So let's clarify.
Let's talk when it means to go and make disciples of all nations, and you're thinking of get out of this country, go to another country, be a missionary, which is a perfectly legitimate life, a perfectly legitimate way to be in obedience to Jesus, to get out of this country, to go to China and make disciples over there. That's perfectly legitimate. Let's call that overseas mission. Let's call that overseas mission. And it immediately cuts the confusion. Overseas mission is when you leave your country to go to another country and make disciples there.
It's perfectly legitimate. But the thing is, the Great Commission is bigger than overseas mission. The Great Commission is bigger than that. Then there's another group of people that say, when it says go and make disciples of all nations, that's quite easy in the U.S. because all the nations have come here. Australia has come here. Chinese students have come here.
Indians have come here. Lots of Hispanic-speaking, Spanish-speaking, Hispanic countries, people have come here. It's easy to make disciples of all nations right here. And what they're talking about is what we're going to clarify as cross-cultural ministry. Taking the word to people from another area so that you can empower them to reach people from their area and the gospel spreads cross-culturally. Let's call that cross-cultural mission.
But the Great Commission is bigger than that as well. It's perfectly legitimate. Take the gospel. Go, all nations. Perfectly legitimate. But it's not the end.
It's not the end. Let's call what the majority of us aim for. What is also perfectly legitimate within the Great Commission. Let's call what we do everyday mission. That's what we're aiming to do. Everyday mission.
And the thing is, not everyone is called to overseas mission. Not everyone is called to cross-cultural mission. But everyone, if you call yourself a believer, is called to everyday mission. It's without exclusion. If you're a Christian, if you're a disciple, if you call yourself a Christ follower, you're constantly hanging on the word of God for truth, for life, for sustenance, for direction in life. Your job now is to make disciples of all nations.
And you can do that just here. It's to make disciples of everyone in daily life, in the normal goings about of what you do in your daily life. Make disciples. So this includes everything. The only thing that it really excludes, and exclusions are annoying, but the only thing it really excludes is laziness and apathy. So that would be 14 hours of binge Netflix by yourself, home alone, secluded from the world.
Video games until 4 a.m. by yourself. Maybe talking to people on a headset, but that's not the same. Beating people is not fun like that. The only thing that's excluded in going to all people is not going to anybody. So what does this really mean?
What are we supposed to do? What's the structure? How do we do the next thing? Well, the next instruction is baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Interesting you should mention that. Shameless plug.
We are having a baptism party in a couple of weeks. A baptism is what happens, what we do when a person who doesn't believe in Jesus becomes a believer in Jesus and publicly declares to friends and family and anyone who's there, I am now a person who completely trusts in Jesus Christ as my Savior and my Lord. And then we grab them by the face and power dunk them in water and lift them up again and we cheer because Christians are fun. And grabbing people by the face and almost drowning them is fun. Don't almost drown them. You get to hold your breath.
It symbolizes the death to the old life, the cleansing by Jesus, and then the raising to new life. And we do that as a representation of the work that Jesus has done, but also a public declaration of faith so that everyone in our family and our friends and in our lives know that we believe in Jesus. And we're commanded to do that. That's the second step in what it means to make disciples. It's beautiful. The last instruction says, teach them to observe everything that I've commanded.
This one, this one's a process. This is not like on the checklist of how do I make a disciple. Tick, done, tick, done, baptized, good, taught everything about Jesus. Tick, done. It's not like that. It can't be done so simply.
This is pretty much what we've been talking about for the last five weeks. It is teaching each other all that Jesus commanded is gospel fluency. It's speaking Jesus into every life situation whenever it comes up. It's repenting from our idolatry. It's understanding that we need to live in the context of relationships with other people. It's beating the gospel into our head repeatedly.
It's grabbing other people's heads and beating the gospel into their heads repeatedly. It's repenting and growing in community and teaching each other all that Jesus has commanded us to obey. It's a lifelong process that we do in the context of a gospel-centered community. And that's exactly what we've been talking about for the last five weeks. And so that's it. That's the mission.
That's what we're called to do. Make disciples. Make followers of Jesus out of everybody. As you go, we make disciples of everyone. We baptize them. And we walk with them in the context of community to teach them everything that Jesus has commanded.
That's the Great Commission. That's our mission. That's what it means to be a gospel-centered community on mission. And it seems like a heavy burden. Like a giant task. Make disciples of all nations.
It seems out of reach. It seems so intangible. Like you can't just touch it and feel it and do it. It's out of our reach. But notice how Jesus bookends the Great Commission.
If you look down, he says, He begins with, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Jesus has unlimited power to do as he pleases. Then he gives us the Great Commission. He says, Make disciples of all people. And then he says, And I am with you until the end of the age. We're not alone in this.
Especially if we do things in the context of community. We have teammates around us. You're sitting next to your teammates now. But also, Jesus is in us, in our teammates, in our communities, working his miracle magic to allow us to transform lives. You're not alone in this. And so, the burden is not so big.
What does this mean for us? What does it mean for us in Columbia, South Carolina? How do we make disciples? Well, you probably don't feel like a massive world changer. The normal structure of a day is wake up, make breakfast, shower, go to work, eight hours there, boring, go home, maybe stop at the grocery store to pick up some groceries, maybe work out if you're anyone but me. You might make dinner, eat dinner, watch some TV for a little bit, and go back to bed.
There's next day, same thing again. There's not a whole lot of time within that structure for world changing, for disciple making, for all the nations and all that jazz. So, what is it that we can do in the context of that? Well, it seems like making disciples is the job of someone else. Full-time pastors, full-time missionaries, people who get paid to do that kind of thing. Not necessarily true, or at least not as far as Jesus is concerned in the Great Commission.
Here's what's different about you, and here's what's different about your life. If you're a part of the church, if you're part of this church, if you're part of any church, then you're part of Jesus' plan. And if you're part of Jesus' plan, then he has empowered you with his mission to go and make disciples of all nations. And if you're sitting here today, you're surrounded by teammates on all sides. If you're sitting here today, you're surrounded by teammates. If you're in a community group, you're surrounded by teammates who all want the same things as you do, which is to make disciples of all nations.
And you have Jesus' promise that he will be with you till the end of the age. And he's there with you, and there with your community group, and that he has entrusted you with the message of the gospel, and there is nothing insignificant about that or your life. There's nothing insignificant about that. When you drive around Columbia, and I assume if you're here, most of you have driven around Columbia a good bit. If you drive around Columbia, do you see a city that is completely and utterly wrecked and transformed by the saving power of Jesus and his grace? I know when I drive around, that's not exactly what I think about.
When I moved here about two and a half years ago, I was coming here to go to CIU, a school just here in Columbia, and there was some vague statistics about the city on the website. They say that there's between 600,000 and 700,000 people, which I assume now that I'm here kind of includes the surrounding areas, and that there's 800 churches within that area. And my mind was blown. I'm from Sydney. There's like 800 churches in Sydney and 15 times that population. And so I was like, man, that's awesome.
This city is going to be amazing. It's going to be like the evangelical Vatican. There's going to be amazing angels singing on every corner. And then I got here, and I didn't have a car for a while, but when I got a car, I started driving around. And I was like, man, what are all these 800 churches doing? What's going on in this place?
And I stayed here for a bit, and not too long after I was here, the city tried to make homelessness illegal. What? This is a city with 800 churches, and they're trying to make poverty a crime? What? What? And then you learn a little bit more about the culture.
I didn't go out a whole lot, but you know that there's areas that you're not supposed to go at night. Everyone knows this. You don't go over there at night because, you know, guns. And I'm like, what? This is a city with 800 churches. That's like a church for every 900 people.
What's going on? And then I learned the most shocking statistic of all, and that's that there's seven Moes in this city and only three Chipotles. How on earth is anyone supposed to live in hope when Moes more than double a Chipotle in any given city? Crippling statistics. But seriously, what would it look like?
What would it look like in Colombia if every street, if every street had a gospel-centered community on it? It doesn't have to be a Mill City-sponsored community group. It can be any church. It can be any group of believers. What would it look like if this city had a gospel-centered community on every street or in every office building or a factory or school, if they had a gospel-centered community on every sports team? The city would be rocked and it would change everything.
What would it look like if people everywhere you turned, when you went to Walmart, when you went to get groceries, when you go to the downtown Soda City markets, what would it look like if everywhere you looked was people empowered by the Spirit to love, forgive, repent, and show mercy like Jesus did? We would be living in a very different-looking city. Here's our plan. If you're a note-taker, this is a good time to start taking notes. Here's our plan. Step number one.
Start by being you with all your interests, with all your desires, with all the things that you like. Start by being you, as a Christian, in love with Jesus. Start by being you, as a Christian, in love with Jesus. That's what we call being gospel-centered. Step number two is get in a community group. A community group is a group of people who are doing step number one.
A community group is a group of people who are being themselves, as a Christian, in love with Jesus. And they do it together. That's called being a gospel-centered community. Step number three. Go out into your life and invite people who don't know Jesus to do things with your community group. That's called being a gospel-centered community on mission.
Step number four, and this is the easiest one, it should go without saying, let Jesus do his thing. Jesus in the Great Commission says, and surely I will be with you until the end of the age. He's going to be there. He's going to be helping. Let Jesus fulfill his promise. You do what you've been called to do and let Jesus do what he said he's going to do.
And that's, he's going to change people. He's going to transform people. If you think it's your job to do that, you're wrong. Your job is to show them the gospel. As we go about our daily lives, we invite those we encounter to hang out with our community group and take next steps towards Jesus. That's what it means to make disciples of everyone.
But what does that look like for the church in general? What does it look like for churches out in the world? There's two main kind of categories, two main strategies that exist for churches and how they operate. The first one is what we're going to call a come and see mentality. Come and see the church. This is any church that typically has like, their main mode of operation is the Sunday service, the Sunday gathering.
Come and see what we have to show you. You've got to come to our event, our thing, our building. Come to us and we'll show you how to live, whatever that looks like. American culture has taken this to the extreme. They've kind of exploded it. You can watch it on TV.
You can watch it on the internet. You could go to an actual church building and still watch it on TV. You could hang out with laser beams and fog machines and like professional musicians and it's this big thing of come and see. Come and see what we've got to show you. That's one mode of operation. The second mode of operation is what we're going to call go and be the church.
So it's no longer come and see the church, it's go and be the church. Now if you haven't guessed, our primary mode is not come and see the church. And if you're here today and that's what you were thinking, then this is it. It's not the best thing in the world. It's okay. But we believe that we're primarily called to go and be the church.
And if you haven't experienced that before, it's actually, for us at least, a lot better than this. If you're here today and you're just coming to see the church, then you're actually missing out. And we're called to go and be the church. And to go and be the church, it means leaving here today and not thinking the church is over. Because church isn't just Sunday morning, church is Monday night. It's Tuesday at lunchtime.
It's Thursday when you hang out with your group. It's Friday when you walk the dog with friends from your community group. It's Saturday when you go and play with your Frisbee disc golf club or whatever you do on Saturday morning, Saturday night. Family doesn't cease to be family when they leave your house after dinner. And for some reason, we think that church does when we leave here. That's not true.
Church family exists all the time. We're called to go and be the church. Well, what do we do with this then? Who is the target audience, for lack of a better word? Who's this mission for? Who do I take it to?
Well, my question is, who are you already around? Who are you already around? Let's think specifically and practically about this. I think, I think there's two main categories, two main categories of people in our lives that this would include. There's friends without hope and there's strangers without hope. Let's talk first about friends without hope.
This is people you already know. This is not necessarily friends, but colleagues, workmates, family members, people who you're on a first name basis with have had conversations with before. This is friends without hope. It's not strangers without hope. What do we do with our friends that we already know who don't have hope? Well, it's actually pretty simple.
After all, you're a pretty normal person. Your friends are pretty normal. Hanging out with you wouldn't be torture, I don't think. It could be. You don't have to be weird and creepy about your faith. You don't have to slam Bible verses down people's throats all the time.
You get to be you in love with Jesus. Granted, you're in love with Jesus. You get to be you and do normal things anyway. And in the context of friendship, you can show other people what it means to be a Christian. Here's an example. You might work Monday to Friday.
You've got a nine-to-five Job. You work Monday to Friday. You don't know everyone there, but you know most of the people there. Actually, there's this one lady there who annoys you quite a bit. She's pretty annoying. And the annoying thing about annoying people is how annoying they are, which can be frustrating.
And frustration springs from annoyingness. And I'm a master of being annoying, but I hate being annoyed. And she's an annoying person, which is annoying. Annoying. Annoying. Annoying.
Am I being annoying? That's the goal. Never mind. There's this annoying person at work. You don't know a lot about her. You don't want to know a whole lot about her.
You kind of just wish she would leave you alone, but you're stuck with her for eight hours a day. You do know one thing about her. She loves her dog. She doesn't have photos of kids and family up and around her desk. She's got photos of her dog. You know this lady is crazy about that dog.
And so you think, huh, how am I going to reach this lady? You go to your community group. You hate dogs, obviously, because you're an intelligent person. But you know there's some unintelligent people in your community group who like dogs as well. So you go to your community group and you say, community group, does anyone like dogs?
Does anyone want to start like a Saturday morning dog walking thing? And they say, yeah, sure, why not? And boom, perfect. You've got this avenue to invite this annoying lady from work to hang out with Christians. And the best thing about it is that once she gets involved, assuming she does, once she probably does, she likes her dog, once she gets involved, you get to put her in a group with your friends who get to do all the heavy lifting for you. You no longer have to deal with her.
Your friends do because they can bond over the dog thing. She'll probably rock up with her dog in like one of those tote bags for the walk. It might be weird, but you can get over that. People are weird. The heavy lifting is done by others. All you've really done is orchestrated a situation where someone that you know, a friend without hope, is hanging around with Christians doing things that they like doing.
Here's another example. You have a friend, he's a guy, he's been not around Jesus for a while. He's grown up in church, thinks he knows some stuff, but at some point in time, you don't really know what happened. He got burned by the church, doesn't really trust Christians, doesn't really trust the church anymore, doesn't hang around with anyone. You've invited him a few times, you've said, hey, come hang out with us on Sundays, and he's just not biting on that. He doesn't like that idea.
The thought of being around Christians, being judged, he's got some things that he's ashamed of, he doesn't really want to buy into anything like that, and you think, dang, hitting a wall. And then, one of the guys in your community group says, hey, let's all get together and shoot guns at a range, and you think, bing, perfect, he's a guy, guys like shooting guns, at least around here they do. And you think, this is perfect. I'm going to invite him to come and shoot guns. And he bites. You say, hey, do you want to come and hang out with some of my friends and shoot guns all morning?
And he says, yes, obviously. And all you've done is orchestrated a situation where a friend without hope gets to hang out with friends who know Jesus, and he gets to see that they're not that weird after all. He gets to see that they're just normal people who love Jesus and go about their lives in light of the fact that they love Jesus. It's not, you don't have to be a weird guy who dresses up in a suit and puts his bow tie on and carries a clipboard and a huge Bible and knocks on people's doors and says, would you like to know Jesus today? I mean, you could. There's no way to make friends.
Instead, orchestrate situations with your current friends your community group mainly where you can invite other friends easily to that and they're going to say yes because who doesn't want to shoot guns and walk dogs? One of the biggest hurdles for people becoming Christians is that they don't know what Christians look like. They think that you're weird Bible-thumping, praying, sitting in a circle, holding hands, singing Kumbaya. You could do that. That's weird. You're just you being in love with Jesus, doing it in the context of your community group.
And you get to do that and do fun things and invite people in. That's called being a gospel-centered community on mission. Dog walking, fishing, crafts, coffee, breakfast, football, soccer, which is actually football, frisbee, Pinterest parties, painting each other's nails, jams. Yeah. I know you ladies know what jams are and if you're a married man you probably know what jams are as well. I know you ladies love that stuff.
Invite your friends to that. It's fun. Jams, everyone. When you and your community group have this great commission outlook, every day is full of disciple-making moments. When you and your community group have this great commission outlook, every day is full of disciple-making moments. We meet people where they're at and we allow them to see Jesus through us and our community groups.
Now let's turn to that second group, the group called Strangers Without Hope. This is the category of people that you don't know. This is someone who when you saw them on the street you would not know their name or anything about them. Strangers Without Hope. I think, and I think I'm right in this because I think it, I think that the most underutilized, most overlooked, most underthought, most duh kind of people group that would fit this category in our lives is our neighbors. And it's interesting to me because I remember this guy called Jesus who said, the greatest command is to love God and love your neighbors.
But I know you guys, I know you're Bible scholars and academics and when he says that, he's not saying you're actual neighbors, he's saying love everyone, which is great because for some reason that means we get to ignore our actual neighbors. Despite the fact that he said the words love your neighbors. It cannot not mean neighbors when he says love your neighbors, even if he means love everyone. I've been reading this book recently, it's called The Art of Neighboring. My wife and I are planning to move into apartment community soon and we're just reading a bunch of things that's involved in that and how to make friends with your neighbors.
I've been reading this book called The Art of Neighboring and they have this diagnosis test in the book. It looks like this, it's a three by three grid, the middle square represents your house and so you put your name in your house. There's eight other squares around that and they represent the houses of the eight geographically closest houses to your house. So it's not Bob who lives down the street and three houses down around the corner, it's the eight closest people to your current house. The diagnosis test is this, step one, write the names of your eight closest neighbors. Write all their names in the boxes, each one represents another house.
Step number two, in the middle of the box, write some basic thing about those people. It can't be an observation that you could see from the street, it can't be that he drives a red car or that he gets up at seven in the morning to go to work, it has to be he's a carpenter, he likes fishing, something that you would only really know from a conversation, a basic level conversation, hey how are you going, picking up your mail, what do you like, that kind of thing. The third diagnosis, which you would write at the bottom, is some deeper level issue that's happening with that person at the time. Can't find a job, family member in hospital, that kind of thing, some deeper level something that's not just a basic conversation starter.
Now according to the book, and I think that these statistics are inflated, 10% of people can fill out the names of their closest eight neighbors. So in a room this size, it's probably seven or eight of us. And I think that's inflated. Maybe, I don't know. The second step, only 3% of people can fill out a basic something about those eight people. So in a room this size, that's maybe one or two.
Less than 1% can fill out an important something underlying life issue of all eight of their closest neighbors. Less than 1%. So in this room, it's probably zero. It might be, might not be, but it's probably zero. Now I'm not saying this to make you feel like a bad neighbor because I'm a bad neighbor as well.
I filled out three boxes and then guessed the name of the fourth box because I wasn't really sure. My point in this isn't that I'm good and that I know how to do this and you don't. My point is that none of us are really good at this anymore. And when it comes to this category of strangers without hope, our neighbors are an incredibly obvious one that we just don't put a whole lot of effort into. But what would it look like if Christians made a habit of getting to know their neighbors and caring for them, looking after their kids, helping them in times of need or even knowing when times of need exist.
Here's a crazy thought. Get your community group together. Throw a block party. They don't really exist anymore, but you can do it. Throw a block party. Invite ten of your closest neighbors.
How hard could it be? Set up a grill. Get some hamburgers grilling. Smoke up the area so that everyone can smell it down the street. Set up cornhole, can jam, frisbee, whatever you've got. Set it all out on the street.
Invite ten of your closest neighbors to come and hang out. And even if only three of them turn up, get to know them. Have the people in your community group. Get to know them and invite them to some stuff. Have a plan for what you're going to do the week after. Hey, we're all going fishing next week.
You want to come? Great. You know that field at the end of your street? Why not start a weekly soccer game there? Or t-ball game there? Or kickball game there?
Get all the kids from your neighborhood. If you don't have kids, don't do this. But if you've got kids, start up a regular game and you get to hang out with all these people from your neighborhood and it gets to be this regular rhythm that everyone gets to enjoy in the neighborhood. Why not start at work and get coffee with one person from work every Monday? Get to know them a little bit. Find out what they like doing.
Do something like that with them. Help the old lady next door taking her groceries. Take a buddy from work out to get wings. Get your group together and go to the markets. Either the nice ones downtown or the sketchy ones out on Augusta Road. Everyday mission is not as scary as it seems.
Making disciples of all nations doesn't have to be this heavy burden that we feel all of the time. It's not only for paid missionaries. It's not only for paid pastors. It's for us in the context of our community groups, our gospel centered communities who are out on mission. We can fulfill the great commission when we're intentional with the time that we already spend. It's not about freeing up time to make time to do this in excess.
We're already spending time anyway. Let's be intentional with the time that we already spend. We do it in the context of our gospel centered community. community, we have teammates who are there, surrounded by Jesus, who are able to help us out. So here's what we're going to do. Let me just explain everything and we're going to do it after I'm done explaining. Everyone should have a Mill City blue card.
If you don't have a blank one near you, you can get a blank one because there's some empty chairs. There's also some more at the back. Take out a blank card and take out a pen. We're going to write down the names of anyone who's come to mind throughout this entire time. Anyone who we know exists, who's a friend without hope. Write down anyone you work with who you want to reach with the gospel, who you want to invite to something.
Write down your neighbors. If you've got that annoying person at work, write that annoying person down. If there's a person that you don't like being around at work, write their name down. Then you're going to write down something that you know about that person next to it. It doesn't have to be important. It can be they like dogs.
It doesn't have to be super important. Write down whatever you can think of when it comes to that person. If the only thing you can think of is that they really annoy me, write that. Then we're going to spend some time praying for those people. We're going to play some house music and spend some time praying for those people. You can move around.
You can get people from your community group together. You don't have to stay where you are. And we're going to pray for those people. See if we can think up some kind of way to present to our community group that we can reach those people. Then on Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday, whenever you meet with your group, bring this list along.
This list is gold to your group. And in your group times, you get to talk about those people that you want to reach. You get to talk about things that you can do together, that you can make rhythms, fields that you can play soccer at, places you can walk your dog. Rangers where you can go shoot guns. You get to bring that list to your community group and brainstorm different ways that you as a group together can be a gospel-centered community on mission. So I'm going to pray.
We're going to play some music. Take some time to write some names down. Feel free to move around. And then after a few minutes have gone by, a chat's going to come up. This is it for us. We're going to spend time praying.
There's no more songs. Ted's going to come up later and close up with announcements and stuff, but this is what we're doing today. We're thinking about people that can be reached, people that we already know, things that they like doing, and we're going to pray for them. So I'm going to pray for us and then that's what we're going to do. Father God, we praise you and we thank you. We know that you can do immeasurably more than we expect, and we pray that you do that as a result of today.
And we know that you have the power to transform this city, and we pray that you use us to help do that. God, be showing us people in our lives that we can reach. Be showing us people in our lives who need hope. Teach us how to reach them and empower us with your mission. Pray that we can reach Columbia, that we can reach our friends, that we can reach our neighbors, and pray that you be with us until the end of the age as we do it. It's in your name we pray.
Amen.
Repentance and Growth
Transcript
My name is Chet. I'm excited to be here with you all this morning and for us to continue our Anchor Series. What we've been doing in our Anchor Series is looking at what is foundational for us as a church family, what we kind of anchor ourselves in so that what guides us and what leads us. And so that's going to be scripture, but it's going to be specifically how we understand that and how that plays out. And so what we've done so far is we've talked about kind of the gospel-centered portion of who we are. So we're all about Jesus.
We understand that it's about him changing us. It's not about our behavior. And so when we have sin struggles, we know that those are a symptom but not necessarily the root of the problem. And so we consistently apply the gospel to each other, point each other towards Jesus as it's him who changes us through his Holy Spirit. And then what we've moved into over the past two weeks is kind of the community section. So what we mean when we say we're a gospel-centered community on mission, what we mean by community.
And so last week Matt talked to us about church being a family, that we relate to one another that way. And so he went Galatians 4 where it talks about that we've been adopted. So Galatians is going to say that. Ephesians is going to say that. Romans is going to say that. Romans says that Jesus is the firstborn among many brothers.
And so we've actually been brought into God's family. John chapter 1 is going to say that we've been, through Jesus, given the opportunity to be children of God. And so then Matt was just talking about what that looks like and how that plays out and how we exist in relationship with each other. We looked at Acts chapter 2, which just talked about the early church and how they existed in relationship with one another. And so that's us. That's what we're shooting for.
That's why we do community groups, because we believe that the Christian faith has to happen in the context of relationships, that growth has to happen in the context of relationships. And so one of the things we say is that the content is always the gospel and the context is always community. So even when you're reading through the New Testament, most of the use in there are actually would be y'alls to us or use guys for like a handful of people that are part of our church family. But but it's y'all. It's written to a group of people. And so what we do as Americans is we immediately turn everything into rugged individualism.
And so we'll read even in the New Testament and we take it as this personal. This is what I have to do. And we do that to the exclusion. So we ought to respond personally, but we do that to the exclusion of relationships. We do that to the exclusion of this have having to happen in the context of real relationships with people. So we even see Jesus came to earth and spent most of his time with 12 guys.
Most of his time was spent with the 12 disciples and even more than that, a handful of three guys that he that he spent significant time pouring into and walking in life with. And so we often think that the spirituality and growth in spirituality is like a solo operation. Like it's like me on top of a mountain. Looking at a flower and weeping like we kind of feel like there's this we got to get away from everybody. And that's where that's where we'll grow the closest to God. So like when you're reading in Scripture, Jesus did that.
He went off by himself to pray. He went away by himself at times. But most of the time he was in relationship so that even when he goes and the transfiguration happens, which is where it's like this absolute mountaintop experience where Elijah and Moses show up and talk to God, which just just so you know, I don't know how legit your your quiet times are by yourself. But Moses and Elijah have never shown up and they don't show up and then talk to you. You may have read about them, but they don't show up. So Jesus does this has this absolute mountaintop experience.
And when he does, he's got three other guys with him. Because things happen and growth happens and life happens and discipleship happens in the context of community. So the next time you're talking to someone and they're like, man, I just need to spend some time, just me and Jesus, just some alone time. Just invite yourself. Be like, that sounds great. I'll come.
I'm just going to go to my cabin in the woods and just spend some time praying. Sweet. I love cabins. That'll be great. When are we going? Just invite yourself.
It's OK. It is OK to have some alone time, to spend some time absolutely fasting, praying, spending time alone. But I think too often we treat Christianity like it is a slow, solo operation and the Bible does not. And so what we're going to be reading here in Ephesians chapter three, as we get into this today, is Paul's going to be talking and he's just going to assume that the church is a family. He's just going to assume that we exist in relationships with each other. So every time it says you, it is it is the plural form of you.
It's it's written to y'all. He's writing to a church and he just assumes they have real relationships. And we'll see that as we go through. I'm going to pray and then we'll be in Ephesians chapter three. God, we just thank you for this opportunity. Thank you for who you are and what you've accomplished on our behalf.
And we ask, Lord, that your Holy Spirit would continually guide us to be church family. Help us walk through all the difficulties that come along with that. And that through that we would grow in a very real understanding of the gospel. In Jesus name. Amen. Before we get into this, I just want to highlight a few of the things I'd like for us to see as we spend time walking through Ephesians chapter four.
I want us to see that that it is understood that we would exist in relationships. I may have said Ephesians chapter three a couple of times, but I mean, I meant Ephesians chapter four. So. There you go. Ephesians three is good, but we're not going to be looking at it today. Ephesians chapter four.
As we walk through, I want us to see that for us as Christians, growth and discipleship happens in the context of community. That it has to we have to be around people and that in that we actually get to understand the gospel to a greater, greater depth. And so that's kind of what I want us to be able to see as we walk through this, as Paul walks through this entire section where he's writing to him. And so we'll see a few different things that he explains and points out to him. And we're going to be kind of moving kind of fast because we're looking at a whole chapter because we're ambitious this morning.
All right. Chapter four, verse one. I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord. So this is Paul writing and he's in jail. So he's like an actual prisoner.
He's not speaking metaphorically. He's in jail. I, prisoner. I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. And so what he's talking about there when he says walk, he just means your life. I urge you to have your life be worthy of the calling to which you have been called.
The calling that they've been called and the calling we've been called is to be Christians. It's a calling into Christ, into salvation. And so he's saying live as if the gospel is true. Walk in a way that makes sense in light of the gospel. Verse two. With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.
Do you see what he automatically assumed as he told us to walk in life as Christians? He automatically assumes that we're in relationships with other people. And he automatically assumes we're in the type of relationships with other Christians that we're familiar with. Which is that we're a big, hot mess of sinners who love Jesus. Because what does he say we need? Humility.
Gentleness. Patience. You only need patience if you're around people for an extended period of time. And if they're annoying qualities, don't stop. Do you all understand that, right? That's what patience is.
So when you pray for more patience, what you are praying for is God, help this problem not stop. I don't pray for patience. I don't want it. I want the problem to stop. But that's what patience is.
It means that the problem continues. The frustration part continues. Here's what he says. With all humility, gentleness, and with patience. And Paul adds this in the list a good bit when he's writing these, and it's my favorite. Bear with one another.
He says put up with each other. That is so beautiful and freeing. Because what Paul doesn't write is, Dear church, as you become Christians, everything will be laughy and happy and rainbows and sunshine. And I don't know why he'd be like a weird English lady, but that's just how I assume if that's what he was saying. But that's not what he says.
What he says is be church family, and here's what you're going to need. Patience. And put up with each other, because it's going to be frustrating. And I can get on board with that. I'm like, oh man, he's been a part of my group. He's hung out with people like me.
I see Paul knows what he's talking about here. That's beautiful. He says humility, which is just if we all pull ourselves down a notch, if we all just assume other people are more important than us, that'll work out well. Gentleness just means graciousness to one another. And then patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Which means that we understand that we've all been called into the same church family, and we fight for unity.
So we don't put up with drama. We don't put up with awkwardness. We don't let situations just be like, ah, yeah, we kind of had a falling out. No, we don't accept that because we're eager to maintain unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Verse 4. There is one body, and as he talks about this, body means church family.
There's one body. We've been made a body in Christ. And so Corinthians is going to say that. Romans is going to say that. Ephesians is going to say that. That means that we exist with one another, the same relationship that your hand has with your foot.
You're on the same team. Something bad happens to your foot. That affects your hand. Something bad happens to your hand. You now have to pick things up with your foot. And it's a problem.
Like we exist in a body with one another. There's one body, church family, one spirit. That's the Holy Spirit that's come into our hearts as we've trusted in Jesus and been saved. Just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, that one hope is an inheritance that we have in Christ. It's an inheritance we have that we know that we've been saved by Jesus to spend eternity with him. That's our hope.
Our hope is an inheritance, in a calling to heaven through Jesus and through Jesus' work, not our own. Just as you were called to the one hope which belongs to your call, one Lord, that's Jesus, one faith, that's faith in Jesus, one baptism. That's baptism. That's pretty straightforward. One God and Father of all. So he's God and he's Father.
We are a church family who is over all and through all and in all. So we exist unified in the faith. Verse 7. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men. In saying he ascended, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth?
He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things. Okay, so he quotes an Old Testament passage and then he explains it and his explanation is kind of confusing. But all he's saying is this passage is talking about Jesus. Because it assumes that he ascended. It's talking about him who came to earth for us. And so what it says is that when Jesus left, he led a host of captives.
And as we read in other places in Scripture, those captives are twofold. It's the people he set free and the enemies he's taken captive. And that's the way kings would work. When they went and conquered, when they would return, they would lead a triumphal procession of those that they had freed and those that they had enslaved. And so it's both his enemies and those who've been freed. And he gave gifts to men.
So he gifts his church, says by grace that he gifts his church to serve. And we're going to understand why here in a second. 11. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and the teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ. Okay, so we're not going to spend much time, any time, in apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, teacher talking about what that is and how that plays out. That's going to be another sermon for another time.
But what we want to see as we look at this is two things. One is Paul says he's gifted us, which means that the church has been gifted. If you are a Christian, you have been gifted by God through the Holy Spirit to serve and that leadership and our giftings. So leadership in the church and our giftings have one purpose. 12. To equip the saints for the work of ministry.
And saints just means believers, those who are made right by God through Jesus. To equip the saints for work of ministry for building up the body of Christ. Leadership in the church and giftings in the church exist for one purpose. That the saints that the church might serve might do the works of ministry and in that the church would be built up. So that's affected how we exist as a church family.
So if you're a part of a church, if there's a church and only the leaders, only the pastors, only the people, the deacons or whoever they set it up, they're the only ones who can make decisions. They're the only ones who can come up with good ideas. They're the only ones who can lead any kind of ministry or service. They're the only ones. They've missed it. Because the role of leadership in the church is to equip saints to do ministry.
So when people talk about the person's a minister and they mean that they're the one who does all the ministry, I actually kind of missed the point. Because the role of leadership in the church is to equip church family to do ministry. And the role of giftings in the church is to serve church family so that everybody grows up. So just so you all know, if here is a part of our church family, if anytime somebody gets sick or has a problem or needs some counseling, and Matt has to be the one that comes and talks, has to be the one that comes and visits, which let's just be honest. If you're sick and having problems, you probably don't want me.
We want Matt. Like we want Matt to come hug us. We want Matt to come be nice to us. Like if I'm sick, I want Matt. I want Matt to come hug me and tell me it's going to be okay. But if that happens, we've actually missed the point.
Now, leadership in the church should do ministry because they are Christians. But the role of leadership in the church is actually to equip others and equip church family to do ministry. To all the things that the church is supposed to do. Serve and give and love and impact the city and pursue people with the gospel and help everybody grow. And actually when that happens, then the body grows. So one of the ways that we respond to this and one of the ways that we seek to apply this is in our community groups.
That that's where primary relationships happen. That's where pastoral care takes place. That's where people grow together and use their gifts to serve one another. It's in our community groups. That's why if somebody says, hey, I want to do this thing or the Lord's really been pressing on my heart that we need to go do a backpack ministry for BC Grammar. Awesome.
How can we help you? Like a lot of times we've we've outsourced ministry to the church and we try to run everything through church leadership so that someone feels called to do something. And they're going to go to church leadership and say, how can we do this? When the church leadership needs to respond with how can we help you do that? So just so you know, if you if you love the children at BC Grammar and you want to do a backpack ministry and you come tell me the Lord's been waking you up at night and calling saying we need to do that.
My response is going to be sweet. How can we help you do that? You say, well, our whole church needs to do that. No, our whole church is going to do a few things, which is community groups. We're going to gather on Sundays. And then our whole church has the freedom to do everything else as we serve and work together.
And if the Lord's been pressing something on your heart, it's because he specifically gifted you and calling you into that. And that's what gets to be beautiful as we all get to serve and work together. Does that make sense? You see how that's good? We'll get to see how that continues to play out. So to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.
So as as the saints are equipped, the church grows, the bodies built up until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the son of God. As we all serve, as we all use our gifts, as we've all been specifically gifted to serve in the church, as that happens, we all grow. We all grow in unity and we all grow in our knowledge of the son of God. It's through serving that we better understand who Jesus is and what he's done. And it's through serving one another. You have been gifted by God to serve others.
See, I even think a lot of times in our talk of gifting in the in the American church, we think about it as a personal thing. So like, what are you gifted in? Where do you find your role? And it becomes about you. You're gifted by God for the for the benefit of everyone else. To build up the church.
Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of fullness of Christ. Mature manhood in the Greek just means full grown man, which I love that because every once in a while you meet somebody and you're like, that's a full grown man. Like there are men and they're like adult men and then there are full grown men. And so as Christians, we all want to serve and we all want to work so that we can be Christians with like big man hand, like man paws and beards and back hair. You know, spiritually. Like we want to grow to be full grown men in the church is what it what he says to the measure of the fullness of the stature of Christ that as we all serve, as we all work, as we all toil together, we all grow to be more like Jesus.
And that's beautiful. See, what happens is the more people serve, the more people use their gifts, the less it is about people and the more it gets to be about Jesus. The more it gets to be about all the ways that he blesses and works and gives his grace and his giftings to his church family so that the church builds itself up. And the more that that happens, the more it gets to be about Jesus. So that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
You know, it's beautiful about all of the church pulling together and striving together. It's not easily led astray. One person who can say things in a very articulate way can't stand up and lead a large group of the church off into nonsense because the whole church has been serving and working and growing together. It doesn't happen. So it's beautiful about our groups.
I get to show up to my group and say, I was reading this and I was thinking I was thinking it was saying this. And my group gets to say, there's no way it was saying that because Roman says this. And I get to say, you're right. What I thought was stupid. It's very helpful. Thank you.
We don't get easily led astray as we all grow together. 15. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ. We use that speaking the truth in love. A lot of times I think people use it as like, I'm going to say something mean to you. I'm going to speak the truth in love to you, brother.
You ought not sing in front of people. It's like, well, OK, we should say true things to one another and we should say it in a gracious, loving way. But really, the truth is the gospel. And so we speak in love. We speak the gospel to each other. We point each other back to Jesus.
And as that happens, as we all serve and we all work and we all use our gifting, as that happens, we grow up into Jesus. And it gets to be about him, not about us. Verse 16. from whom, from Jesus, from Christ, from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow. That's Jesus makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. When all of us pull together, when all of us use our giftings, the whole church grows. We grow into Jesus and Jesus helps us grow and we build each other up.
That's why community groups are important for us because we look at scripture and we don't see how we're going to do some of the things that it calls us to do unless we're in real relationships with each other. And in our community groups, we're designed to serve one another. So you've got somebody in your group that just relationally has way more friends than anybody should ever have. Like there's probably someone in your group that just, they can keep up with everybody. They know everybody. They're constantly introducing you to people they genuinely have friendships with.
Like it annoys you how many friends they have. Like you don't think they should have that many friends. Like no one person should have that many friends, but they're gifted that way. And so we get to grow together. Some of you hadn't made a friend since middle school. Not very gifted there.
God hasn't gifted you in the ability to just make a friend. Like you start a conversation, it gets awkward and you bail. Like you consistently are like, hey, this is a nice conversation. You run it into the ground and then you go, all right, this is good, good talking. You're not designed to do it, but in your group, you have something you're gifted to do. Maybe you are amazing in a kitchen.
Maybe you are amazing when it comes to service. You love not having to talk and having to be at the front of things, but you're going to make sure everything's clean. You're going to make sure everybody has what they need because God's gifted you to serve and to help. And the person who relationally connects to everybody maybe can't have a real deep conversation with anyone. It goes beyond ha ha ha ha and they're over their head. And there's just one person in your group that immediately can turn conversations and handle spiritual things and go towards the gospel.
Some of you, when someone's hurting, the best you've got is like, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there. Like that's what you got. But you can, you can show up and help them work. You can show up and help serve. You're going to take care of logistic things for them while they're dealing with problems. You're going to make sure that people bring food to their house, but someone else is going to be the person sitting on the couch crying with them.
You've been gifted by the Holy Spirit for your church family. And if we are not consistently figuring out how we've been designed to, to, to serve each other, we actually hurt the body because we're designed to use our gifts so that the body builds itself up. So we actually get to begin to pray about and ask God, how am I supposed to serve my community group? How am I supposed to serve my church family? What have you gifted me to do? And we're going to get to see how this helps us grow.
We already see how it helps the rest of our church family grow, but we'll get to see as we look through the rest of this, how it helps us grow. So, um, Paul in this next section, we're going to kind of read through it pretty quickly. What he's going to say basically is this, you used to not be a Christian. Now you are, you have a new identity in Christ, not you did these things and it made you a Christian. He's going to say, no, Jesus made you a Christian through what he's done. Now live like it.
So we, we can't get that backwards. You can't get it as you do stuff and get to become a Christian. And then you get to live that way to keep it together. No, it's Jesus did stuff. He saved us through his work, not ours. That's the gospel.
We became Christians and then we get to live like it as we have a new identity. Okay. And then he's going to explain kind of how that looks as we read through the rest of this chapter. So now this, I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles. And in this particular situation, it just means those who don't know Jesus in the futility of their minds. And they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart.
They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But this is not the way you learned Christ, assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds and to put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. And so Jesus makes us new. He creates us in righteousness and holiness. And then we get to walk in that.
And so here's how he explains how we get to do that. And again, we'll see that it's all relational. It has to do with being in real relationships. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil.
Let the thief work with his own hands so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come from out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. Okay.
So here's what Paul says. Walk in the new life you've been given. And then he tells us what that looks like. And it's all relational. Don't lie to each other. Don't be fake.
That's an invitation. That's not a command. It is kind of a command, but it's an invitation. Just so you know, if you're in a community group, you have a couple of options. You can be a fake version of yourself, a pretend version of yourself, and people can like the pretend version of you, but that is tiring and very difficult to keep up. And it's not real.
What he says is be honest, be open, be real. And then you actually get to find that you get to be a messed up sinner that a bunch of people love anyway. You get to be the real, uh, non-fake, non-cleaned up version of yourself and get to see how freeing that is as a group of people rally around. I always, I always think it's funny when something happens in our groups and somebody like something comes out and it turns out that they're worse than everybody thought. Um, and they're usually like, I just don't want people to think, um, you know, and it's like, what a sinner? Braswell brought us together.
We knew you were a sinner. You've been having it together for too long. We all assumed you were faking. We're glad this came out. Now we get to actually begin to grow.
We get to actually walk this out like it's good and healthy. Our goodness didn't bring us together. Our sin did. So when we find out that we're broken, all it does is point to how good Jesus is. So he says, be honest, be real with each other.
Then he says this, be angry, but don't sin. Don't let the sun go down on your anger. You know what he assumes as you exist in relationships with each other? You're going to get mad. Isn't that nice? And he says, be angry, just work it out.
Like don't, don't linger on that. Don't let that hang out. Don't, don't go, don't let the sun go down on that. So he says, work out problems, relational problems quickly. Don't hold onto them. He says, uh, change the former man of your life.
So if you used to steal, don't steal anymore. Like he goes through this whole list and then he ends it with this, forgive each other. So he says, do this, do this, do this, do this, live like this. And then he gets to the end and he goes, okay, guys. All right, team, you're going to mess that up.
So forgive each other. Let me tell you something that is true about our church family. If you hang out long enough, one of two things will happen. And if you keep hanging out, both will. If you hang out long enough, one of two things will happen. If you keep hanging out, both will either someone in our church family will hurt you, will offend you, will fail you, will sin against you, or you will hurt somebody, offend them, fail them, or sin against them.
Either you will be sinned against or you will sin against someone if you hang out long enough in real relationships. And here's what's beautiful. We get to forgive each other. Through the cross, we've been forgiven. So we actually get to forgive as we live in real relationships.
And here's the thing. If you don't live in real relationships, you won't have to have patience. You won't have to bear with anyone. You won't have to forgive anyone. And you'll actually have a shallow understanding of God's grace towards you. Because it's only when I have to forgive someone that I realize how costly forgiveness is.
And I appreciate all the more the cross. And it's only the people that we exist in real relationships with that we have to have patience for. My wife, Anna, has to have the most patience for me than anyone else in the world. Because she's around me all the time. She has to bear with me than more than anyone else in the world. And the truth is, is we walk in real relationships in our community groups.
We get to have patience with each other. We get to bear with one another. And we get to repent. And we get to forgive. Hang out long enough and you'll be on both ends of that. You'll have to go to someone and say, I failed.
I sinned against you. I've been angry with you. And I hadn't talked to you about it. I allowed this awkward situation to get in between us. And we never worked it out. And I was wrong.
And I'm sinful. And I need you to forgive me. And then they actually get to apply the gospel, which is that Jesus forgave them. So they get to forgive you. And it's a process. And if you hang out long enough, you'll be on both ends of it.
And the truth is, in both sides of that, we get to remember the gospel and we get to grow in it. I want us to see one thing as we look in, as how he moves into this next section. Of course, the chapters and verses were added later. So I feel like this is the same kind of thought process. But therefore, this is chapter five.
Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children. So remember, we're a family. And walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God. So here's what he says. Be imitators of God as children of God. Love one another.
Walk in love and realize that that Jesus gave himself up as an offering and a sacrifice for us as he loved us that much. Tim Keller, who's really smart. He's a pastor in New York, and he writes really smart things. He's kind of like C.S. Lewis, but he's alive. He says this when it talks about loving people.
And I just thought this was helpful. It's this whole section on how loving people is difficult, but he starts it off this way. He says, think about it. If you love a person whose life is all put together and has no major needs, it costs you nothing. It's delightful. There are probably four or five people like that where you live.
You ought to love. You ought to find them and become their friend. That's nice. He says, think about it. If you love someone who's got their life all put together, it costs you nothing. And it's nice.
It's delightful. Find those people and be their friend. And then he says, but the rest of love doesn't look like that. And he goes to this whole section and explains that all of love is sacrifice. And that's what we see in this chapter, this verse where it says, walk in love, just as Jesus loved us and was a sacrifice for us. Here's how this works.
My wife and I are about to have a baby in a couple of weeks. It's supposed to be like 30 days from now, but Anna's hoping that he comes early because she's getting really tired of him kicking her. I'm hoping he doesn't come super early because I'm enjoying like being able to sleep at night and stuff because he doesn't kick me. He doesn't keep me up. But here's what I understand.
We don't have any kids, but here's what I understand about children. Uh, cause I've been doing some research online and talking to people. Um, here's what I understand about children. Uh, they don't really pull their own weight for like some years. Like they're pretty useless when it comes to like chores and accomplishing things and like making money. I think it's like upwards of like seven years before you can like get them in the workforce and they start really, really pulling their weight around the house.
Uh, here's what we understand when it comes to love. It takes sacrifice to love somebody. It just does. Real love is going to involve sacrifice. It's going to involve sacrificing time. It's going to involve.
So as we raise our son, we're going to have to sacrifice. He's going to take up our time. He's going to, he's going to monopolize our time in a lot of ways. He's going to, I'm going to be involved in less than interesting conversations. Like he's going to be, I'm going to be like, bro, you're babbling nonsense. I don't even understand half of what you're saying.
And that show is dumb. I don't want to talk about it. Like, wait till you get something interesting to say, we'll talk. No, I can't do that. I have to be like, really? Wow.
You did what? Even if I can't understand what he's saying, like, I've got to do that. So he'll grow. I have to sacrifice so that he'll grow. I have to sacrifice time and energy and money and effort. And that's what love looks like.
And if I didn't do that, I wouldn't love him. Like if you saw parents that weren't willing to sacrifice for their children, you'd be like, there's something wrong in this situation because all love involves sacrifice. And we know that. Let's say you're in high school and there's a girl that's considered a geeky. And some people don't really hang out with her, but you notice this. And so you, you want to be your friend.
Like you want to go out of your way to be nice to her because life seems rough. So you do, you start hanging out with her, you start talking to her and I don't know, maybe a week into this, your friends come over and say, why are you talking to her? Why are you hanging out with her? What's happened? Her geekiness has rubbed off on you. You, you can't love her without taking on some of her qualities, without taking on some of what makes her unlovable by other people.
You have to pour out some of your coolness and take on some of her geekiness. But that's how love works. If you're in a community group and there's someone in your group that's just needy, they're hurting, life hasn't been good for them right now, they're just emotionally down, they're depressed. If you spend time with them, the only way for them to be undepressed, for them to be, come out of being down is for you to pour out your joy, for you to actually let them drain you. It's the only way to love them. It's through sacrifice.
It's through taking your time and your energy and your joy and pouring it out on their behalf to be a substitutionary sacrifice for them, which is what Jesus was for us. All love is sacrifice. We can't bear each other's burdens unless we carry some of the weight. The problem with the Christian church in America so often is that I'm going to bear your burden unless some of the burden gets on me, which doesn't make any sense. Like that's my favorite way to move things. Like in my community group, we have to move people all the time because they never stop moving for some reason.
The best is when they're moving far away because then you don't have to do it once. You just pack them up and you're like, peace. Just kidding, guys. These crosstown moves are killing me though. So I was talking to Logan the other day.
He's moving and he was explaining who was helping him. He goes, yeah, and we've got your truck. And I was like, bro, I haven't even told you how to help you yet. Like, I don't know why you're just assuming my truck. I'm like, are you going to drive it? I didn't say that.
I thought it. That's why he was laughing hard back there because I didn't. This is just things I think, guys. Here's the thing. If somebody's moving something and I'm going to help, I actually have to shoulder some of the weight. I can't just stick my hands under.
That's my favorite. It's like, just follow somebody and be like, I'm spotting you. You pull your back. I'll catch you. Like, no, you actually have to carry some of the weight. And as we walk in life together, we actually have to give up some of our energy, some of our joy, some of our, we have to bear some of our burdens.
We have to actually, to be generous, have to open our wallets to help someone else out. That's how that works. And if we don't do that, we miss out on the opportunity to grow because we miss out on an opportunity to align ourselves with Jesus and understand the depth of his generosity, the depth of his love and the depth of his sacrifice and how difficult it is to forgive. If we never walk in relationships, we miss all of that. Not only does our church family not get served as we pour ourselves out for them, but we actually miss out on understanding the reality and the weight of the gospel. See, too often we approach our groups and we approach churches by, what am I getting out of this?
And we miss the point. If you show up to your group and think, oh, you know, people talk to you and say, yeah, I just wasn't getting fed there. I just wasn't getting anything out of that. Or it just wasn't, it wasn't meeting my needs. They've missed the point because they were gifted specifically to pour themselves out. And real love is going to involve sacrifice.
And so when everybody in your community group starts showing up and saying, how can I serve? I exist for these other people. My gifts are here for these other people. I'm going to pour out for these other people. That actually gets to be a beautiful group. Everybody gets to grow and it gets to be about Jesus.
And it's beautiful. When we were about to plant a church, I was up in Lynchburg. I was going to school and I was talking to a pastor who's solid guy, has done a lot of stuff, was a pastor of a big church and his dad's like a brain genius. And, um, he was talking to me and he said, his dad had been a professor forever, actually like started a school. And he said to me, he said, um, he said, okay, you're going to do groups and that's cool to help people grow as disciples and stuff. Cause I was, you know, I had my plan for what we were going to do.
And, uh, he said, uh, but my dad's 80. He's been in the church forever. He knows the Bible backward and forward. He doesn't need to be in one of your groups. What does he need to do? Like, what would you have for him?
And so I, that was a legitimate, like I was thinking about it. I was like, okay. Um, and I was like, I don't know. So I spent more time praying about it. And then I realized that the whole understanding, the approach to that was just off. First of all, he's gifted for the benefit of others.
So actually he might think he doesn't need a group, but the group needs him to share wisdom, to point them out to where they're off in the gospel, where they're not understanding the Bible clearly. It needs him to teach and to lead and shepherd. And here's the other thing. He doesn't get to grow. If he's not in relationships, he won't get to forgive unless I get to take him off. He won't get to bear with someone unless he consistently is around me so that I can annoy him.
Like that's how that works. He actually gets to grow, even though we would look at him in our, in our culture and say, Oh, he knows everything. Yeah. But he doesn't get to apply it unless he's having to forgive, unless he's having to bear with people, unless he's having to have patience, unless he consistently has me sit down across from him and completely misunderstand what he taught me the week before. Then he needs patience.
Then he needs to bear with somebody. You see, we all get to grow as we have real relationships. And when Paul's walking through this and saying, we're gifted to serve one another, he's saying that you were designed to be in relationships with each other. This is just how it works. So don't miss that.
If you're not in a community group and you say, I'm a Christian, get in a group because it's how we grow. It's how we get to be around each other in normal life so that we can see how we ought to apply the gospel to one another, how we ought to walk through life together. If you're in a group, pour yourself out. Realize that all love is sacrifice and that we're empowered by the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross to actually love one another, to actually forgive. And that as we have to do that, we'll grow. We'll all grow as we pour ourselves out, as we go beyond how far we thought we could bear, as we deal with people that are frustrating, as we have to repent and as we have to forgive.
We'll come to love the gospel in a way that we never thought we could. And we'll become a part of a real family. And there's a lot of joy there. So we'll be messy. Yes, we'll be difficult. We'll be hard.
We'll be frustrating. Will you be absolutely worn out at times? Yes. But will it be beautiful and good? And will it make much of Jesus? Yes.
And as we do it, we'll all get to grow. So don't miss out. Josh and Bianca and Raz are going to come back up and we're going to sing as a church family together. And that's all I would say is to realize that you've been gifted by God to serve others, that you exist for the benefit of your group, not the other way around, that we're designed to pull together, to serve together, to grow together in all the ways that God's gifted us to do that. And if you're not, you're missing out. You're missing out on the beauty that comes from being in real relationships with real sinners who have a real savior.
So don't miss out. Let's pray. God, we thank you that through your sacrifice and through your forgiveness and through your love that we can have real relationships, that you have made us into a family and that it's our brokenness and our messiness that brings us together because it's your righteousness and holiness that saves us. So God, I pray that we wouldn't settle for surface level, that we wouldn't settle for fake, but that we'd be real because none of us through our good behavior saved ourselves. And as we're real, God, and as we're open and as we're broken and as we're frustrating to one another, I pray that you would empower us through the gospel to forgive and to sacrifice and to love in a real way.
We ask God that your Holy Spirit would move, begin to show us how we ought to serve, where you have gifted us, for those of us who don't know. That you'd help us to point out in each other where there's growth and where there's gifting. God, we just ask that as we all serve and as we all pull together and as we all do ministry, that you would build your church and that it would get to be all about you and that you would get all the glory from it as your entire family serves and works and uses the gifts that you gave them. We ask you to work in and among us and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.
Y'all stand, let's sing.
Church as Family
Transcript
It's good to see you guys this morning. My name is Matt. I'm one of the pastors here with Mill City Church. And it is an honor and a privilege to continue on with you guys in our Anchor Series. So we're in about the middle of it.
And the question that we've been seeking to answer is, what does the Bible say about the church? And then from that, how do we live that out as Mill City Church, as a local church body, as a gospel-centered community on mission? And so we've kind of taken it in those chunks. For three weeks, we looked at what is this idea, what does it mean to be centered around the gospel, the good news that Jesus saves? So we took one Sunday and just looked at the gospel message as we see it from the book of Romans.
We looked at Romans 1 through 6. And we see that we were created to worship God, but we choose to worship other things instead. We saw that we all fall short, and there's no amount of work that can fix this. But Jesus died to pay our debt and to make us right with God, so we're saved by His work and not ours. That's the gospel message that we're saved by Jesus' work and not ours. And coming out of that, it's the message, but it's also more than that.
It's how does that impact our lives on a day-in and day-out basis. So two weeks ago, we looked at the idea of gospel fluency. Since the gospel is the story that changes everything for us, it impacts everything. It impacts the way we think. It impacts the way we speak. It impacts the way we view the world and live in a relationship with other people.
And then last week, we just took that a step forward. Since the gospel applies to all of life, it actually applies to my individual life. And we talked about what it looks like to apply the gospel to our hearts, because our hearts are prone to wander and to drift. And when we speak that gospel truth back into it, it brings us back into right understanding of living in relationship with God. So today, we're switching gears just a little bit.
We're moving from this idea of gospel-centered to talking about what it means to be a community. And what we're going to see throughout the entire New Testament is that the way that believers grew in their understanding of the gospel, grew in their understanding of how to follow Jesus, was in the context of community, of living in real relationship with other people. And I think part of the reason that is, is that the society in that day, the culture in that day, was very communal. Like people had to live in a relationship with each other, which is actually very different than the culture that we live in.
We live in a very individualistic society, where most people are just kind of looking out for number one. So the money that they make from their job, or how they spend their time, or with their hobbies, is we live in an individual society where most people will say, you take care of you, you take care of your family, and then whatever else you have left, whether that be time, or money, or resources, whatever, you can use that to, to be in relationship with other people, or to bless other people. And so we see that. That's one way to think about it. I heard someone say that it seems like in America, the goal is for you to work a good nine to five Job, to get a good paycheck, to be able to go home, and not have to talk to anybody, watch TV for four hours, and then go to bed.
Like that's the individualistic American dream. And I don't think, I don't think it's because we don't want to be in relationship with other people. I really don't think that's it. I think we just don't feel like we need to be in relationship with other people. That people aren't a necessity. That relationships aren't important.
Don't enhance life. Don't make it better. And the culture of Jesus' day didn't see it that way. They needed each other. And as we look at places in scripture today, what we're going to see is that this idea of community, or relationships, it's expressly taught, some, but it's way more just implied in the relationships that people shared as believers, as they lived out this community together. That's what the culture was like at the time.
And Jesus shows up on the scene, and begins to preach a gospel to everyone, that salvation is for everyone. He's preaching to the Jews. So the Jews were God's chosen people that lived in relationship with him, that he said that he was going to love, and to bless, and to multiply. And Jesus comes preaching a salvation for everybody. And through his death and resurrection, he opens up access to God for everyone. And the entire New Testament is this beautiful story of all these different kinds of people coming together and figuring out what it looks like to follow Jesus in relationship with each other.
And the Bible is going to describe those relationships as a family. That's the word that's going to be used. So today, that's absolutely what we're talking about, is the idea of church as a family. And I just want to say this, before we dive into the scripture, I realize that family is not the easiest thing for everyone to talk about. So we all come into this room from different backgrounds, different experiences.
And in fact, when I said the word family, some of you went ahead and checked out, because you don't want to talk about it. The pain, the emotions, the feelings that you have, whether it be from a divorce, or some type of abuse, or just a bad home life that you grew up in, or are a part of now, you don't want to talk about family. And so what I want to ask you this morning is regardless of your background, regardless of how you walked into this room, I just want you to open up your mind and open up your heart to this idea of family that the Bible is going to talk about. Because I believe if you do, it will change everything.
Just like it did for Josh and Nadine, it will change everything for you. And I'm going to pray that God would help us to do that. So you guys pray with me. God, we ask that you would help us grasp this idea that you have made us into a family. God, it wouldn't just be something that we know or something that we recognize, but it would change us. God, it would change the way we live, the way we speak, it would change the way we lived in relationship with other people.
God, I pray for everyone in the room, regardless of the family background that we've walked into this room with, I pray that you would redeem that idea and you would give us a beautiful picture of what your word says you have invited us into. I pray that you would do that through your Holy Spirit. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, so if you got a Bible, go ahead and grab that. And if you didn't bring one with you, look to your right or to your left, because this scripture isn't going to be on the screen. So just grab one of those Bibles that we have sitting on the seats.
We're going to be in Galatians chapter four. Galatians is in the New Testament. If you got the blue and white Bible, it's going to be page 623. And if you don't have a Bible, we want you to take that one with you when you leave. We have lots of these and we want everyone to have a Bible. So please take one of these with you when you go.
Okay, the book of Galatians is a letter that Paul is writing to a church that's in the Southern province in the Roman Empire. Okay, and what we know from the book of Acts about Paul is that Paul becomes a Christian. He becomes a believer and he starts going on these different missionary journeys. Yes. Well, and you know what? I'm a little dyslexic, guys.
I told them it was. So if you go to 623, I don't know where you're going to be, but if you'd like to join us in 632, sorry about that. But anyway, so this is a letter that Paul's writing to the church in Galatia. So when Paul became a Christian, he began to go out on these missionary journeys and one of the areas he ends up is in Galatia. Paul shares the gospel. People become Christians.
They begin to follow Jesus. He begins to teach them what it means to be a disciple and they start a church there. And then Paul moves on from that place. And we know that by this time, there are many churches in this area. And what Paul, the purpose of Paul writing this letter is to continue instructing them in how to follow Jesus in normal, everyday life as a church family. And that's important for us.
That's important for us to remember that Paul is speaking to a church family because I want us to listen to this as a church family. I want to hear this as a collective. So chapter 4, verse 4 on page 632, if your Bible looks like this, let's read it together. Verse 4, But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law. Okay, let's stop there. All right, this is what we've been talking about for the last couple of weeks.
This is the gospel message. What it said here is that God sent Jesus, born of a woman, conceived of by the Holy Spirit, which meant that Jesus was fully God and fully man. So Jesus was God in human form. And it says that he sent Jesus to be under the law. The law, God gave the law to his people to tell them how to live in relationship with him and with each other. So it says that he sent him to be under the law.
But here's the catch. Nobody could live up to the law. That's what we talked about in our first week, is that no amount of work could fix this. Nobody could live up to it. And so it says that he sent him to be under the law to redeem those who were under the law, which is this beautiful picture that Jesus comes and he lives a perfect, sinless life. He perfectly obeys God's law, perfectly lives in relationship with God, and then he dies to pay for the fact that we never could have lived perfectly in relationship with God.
And in doing so, he paid for our sin. That's the gospel message, and that's important because Paul, before he goes into how this plays out, he just sets the stage again. He said, here's the gospel that Jesus came to redeem us, and then it begins to give us the practical outworking of what that means. It continues on. We'll read verse 5 again and keep going. to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. To redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.
And that's beautiful. That the reason that Jesus came wasn't just to save us, but it was to adopt us as sons. That Jesus, in doing this, was creating a new family that was made possible for those who placed faith in him. And I want you to think about this idea of adoption for a second. I want you to think about adopted parents versus biological parents. And this idea of adoption.
How many of you know someone who's gone through the adoption process? Okay, so kind of all across the room. It's insane what you have to go through to adopt a child. So you have to fill out a ton of paperwork. You have to have all these different background checks. You have to go through interviews.
They come to your house and look through how your house is set up. They not only interview you, but they interview your family. They interview your friends. And then when you add into that the cost, oh man, it costs a ton of money. Thousands upon thousands of dollars. And especially if you're adopting somebody from overseas, you have to pay for the adoption and pay for the plane ticket to go over there.
And a lot of times ending up in another country, you're just paying to fly out there for another interview. And then you've got to fly back and then they let you know and then you get to fly back over and you get to pay for another ticket as you bring your adopted child home. Adoption is very costly. And it's absolutely the same thing for God. It costs Jesus his life to adopt us into his family. And in an adopted family, and think about an earthly family for a second.
Biological children and adopted children have the same rights and same status within a family. But how much more grateful is the adopted child because they were chosen? The parents could have could have left them, not provided for them, not protected them, not cared them, just left them out on their own. But how much more grateful is the adopted child because they were chosen? And it costs a lot. And that's absolutely what's true for us.
That God was willing to allow his son to be murdered to bring us in to adopt us into his family. It gets better. It gets better. Keep reading with me. Go back to verse 6. And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father.
So you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God. I'm going to read that one more time. And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son.
And if a son, then an heir. So for those that have placed faith in Jesus to redeem them, it says that God sends his spirit into them to cry, Abba, Father. Just this beautiful picture of family. And we can kind of gloss over that and not catch it because Abba is actually the Aramaic word that means Father. but it's way more relational than Father is for us. It's much more akin to the word Daddy. How awesome is that?
I want you to think about that. The creator of the universe is allowing us to be brought into a family where the relational tie is where he's our Daddy. That's absolutely beautiful that we've been, as verse 7 says, that we're no longer slaves. We're not slaves to sin. We've been made sons. And God is our Daddy and not only sons but an heir.
The inheritance that we have as sons is salvation, is God himself. It's his presence. And the reason that it says sons and not sons and daughters, it's not trying to be exclusive. So it isn't just saying only the males. No, no, no. What God is showing us is actually the nature and the value of the adoption that Jesus' redemption brings us.
You see, in this culture, the way that inheritance was passed down was from male descendant to male descendant. It was passed from father to sons. And the way that females were blessed in this culture or taken care of was through the finances that were provided by the males. And what Paul is saying here is that men, women, and children alike are given the new standing as sons in this new family. Which means that all of us are heirs. And here's another thing.
Don't miss this. Not only are we given Jesus' right standing with God, we're also given his relational standing. not only does Jesus take care of our sin, but we're seen as sons. We're given his relational standing as well and it changes everything. What we're looking at is the theology behind this idea that we've been made into a family, that we've been changed forever, that our identity is no longer in ourselves, but it's in Jesus and in this family that he's invited us into. That's what we mean when we say that Mill City Church is a gospel-centered community on mission. That's what we mean.
It's a family and we're not just talking about it in means of the relationships that we're aiming to grow. No, no, no. This is a declaration of what God has made us into. We've been made into a new family for those that have placed faith in Jesus to redeem them. That's why the New Testament letters are written to brothers. It's a shout-out to this family of people that come from all different walks of life, all different backgrounds.
I want you to look around the room for a second. Not for real. Y'all still looking at me. Look around the room for a second. Okay. For those that have placed faith in Jesus, you have been made into a new family.
Just as much family as your flesh and blood family. real family. That's what Jesus has made us into. All right. So we're tracking. We're getting this idea. We're understanding.
Like we can see it very clearly from Scripture. This isn't just something that we talk about. It's absolutely true. It's what Jesus has done. He's made us into a family. So the question then becomes, okay, I'm on your team.
That's true. How does that play out in life? What does that actually mean? How does that affect me on a day in and day out basis? And what we're going to do is we're going to take a zoomed overview. We're going to zoom kind of through the New Testament here.
We're going to look at a little bit of Jesus' interactions with people. We're going to look at how the early church lived in relationship with each other as we see it in Acts. And we're going to kind of talk about the New Testament so that we can begin to see this idea of church as family. What does it look like? Because here's the deal. This wasn't so much commanded as it was assumed because of their culture.
You're not going to see Jesus sit down. You're not going to see two chapters in the gospel where it says Jesus sat down and told them how to be family. It doesn't say that. It just shows how they followed him in relationship with each other. It's way more fish than water. Y'all get that illustration, right?
No. That's why I'm going to explain it. Okay. If I was going to, so if I was going fishing and I was telling you about the bass that I was trying to catch, all right, you tracking with me? I'm going to tell you about that bass. At no point do I have to tell you that that bass is in water.
No point do I have to do that unless I'm talking to the part where I hooked him, battered him, fried him, and then we ate him together, which is the intended purpose of the fish's life. But if I'm telling you about the fish, if I'm telling you about what the fish ate, how it moves, how it breathes, at no point do I have to remind you that the fish is in water. And that's very much the way the Bible treats this idea of living in family. It's not, it's expressly taught some, but it's way more understood in the relationships that we're going to see. So again, if you're a note taker, you may just want to jot down some of the references rather than try to flip back and forth in your Bible because we're going to kind of go all over the place.
The first place I want to go is Matthew 12, 46 through 50. Matthew 12, 46 through 50. We're going to have it up here on the screen. It says this, while he, and this is talking about Jesus, while he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brother stood outside asking to speak to him. But he replied to the man who told him, who is my mother and who are my brothers?
And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, here are my mother and my brothers for whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother. Okay. So Jesus is hanging out with people and it says that his mom and his brother show up and someone says, hey, your mom and your brother are outside. And he said, who are my mom and brothers? It's not like Jesus forgot. He didn't just have a moment there because he then points to his disciples and he says, here are my mom and brothers.
Whoever obeys my father's will is my mother or, I'm sorry, I said father or mother, mother or brothers. Okay. Here's another one. This is another interaction of Jesus with people and this is going to come from John 19. Okay. This is at the end of Jesus' life.
He's giving his life. He's on the cross. It says this, but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, woman, behold your son. Then he said to the disciple, behold your mother.
And from that hour the disciple took her to his own house. Okay. So Jesus is on the cross and it says the disciple whom he loved, which is John, which is my favorite. Like John calls himself that. This is John writing the gospel. You know, it's a little cocky, John.
Take it easy. But it's true. He did. He did love John. And as he's dying, he gives the care of his mother to his disciple. And it's not that Jesus didn't have other brothers.
We just saw that in the passage before and we know that from other passages in scripture. But there's some amount of, but they didn't believe in him yet. We know that from, we know later that they become Christians and they follow him. But he hands care over of his mother to his disciple. So Jesus begins, is beginning to change this dynamic.
He's beginning to shift our understanding of earthly family and this new faith family that he's creating. And then Jesus rises from the dead and then he ascends into heaven. And so these believers, these disciples and others that he had spent time with, they just go into action. They begin living like the words, the things that Jesus had taught them, the things that Jesus had showed them. And we get a very clear picture of that in Acts chapter 2. We get to see this, this new family playing out.
Acts chapter 2, starting in verse 42. You might be familiar with this. 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, I'm sorry, 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. It says that they shared all of their possessions, that they spent time together, that they prayed together. What you see there is a picture of a new family, that their understanding of family had been radically changed.
They realized that the only way that they could follow Jesus was in the context of these family relationships with other believers. And that makes perfect sense when you tie together with what we've already seen that Paul says to the church in Galatian, the Galatian church, they've been made into a new family and so they're absolutely going to live that way in their relationships with other people. But here's the problem with that. That messes with our Western minds, right? When I say that you should be living in relationship with other people and sharing your faith with them and that's actually how you grow, don't, don't, some of us just kind of go, really, I think I can handle it on my own.
In fact, the thought of Jesus ignoring his mom and his brothers when they came to visit makes most of us cringe. Right? Just a little bit. What about honoring our mothers and fathers? Isn't that one of the commandments is Jesus saying that I shouldn't obey that commandment? No, he's not saying that.
I mean, we see very much that Jesus has a deep love and compassion for his mother. He entrusts her to one of his dearest friends and his disciples. But what all of these passages are emphasizing is this idea that the new family is going to play as significant a role in our lives just as much as our earthly family. So is Jesus saying that we shouldn't spend time with our spouses or with our kids? No. But is Jesus saying that this new faith family is to be viewed the same way?
Same amount of love? Same amount of care? Same amount of compassion? Energy? Absolutely. Now, before mothers start to take off their shoes and hurl them at the stage at the thought of not being able to spend time with their children, it's not to the exclusion of our families.
It's an extension of it. Think about the entire New Testament for a second. Again, this is the zoomed out version. Jesus spent the three years of his ministry with twelve dudes. Some of them were fishermen. Some of them were tax collectors.
One of them was a zealot. And here's why that's funny. A tax collector basically worked for the Roman Empire getting money for them. A zealot was someone who absolutely wanted to overthrow the Roman Empire. So next time you're in a conversation in your community group, realize that the tax collector and the zealot probably wouldn't have had a whole lot in common too.
But, they learned to follow Jesus in relationship with each other. It was in relationships that Jesus poured into them and they learned to follow Jesus in relationship with each other. And then Jesus ascends and we see the early church doing the same thing. And now the barrier has been broken down. Salvation isn't just for the Jews, it's now for the Jews and the Gentiles which means it's for everyone. And this early church is learning how to live in relationship with each other because they've been separated for so long the door has been thrown wide open.
As you read the letter to the church at Rome, at Colossae, at Philippi, at Thessalonica, you're going to read through it. And what those letters are going to be is it's going to put the gospel on display and then it's going to talk about how do you live that in relationship with other people. In fact, more often than not when you're reading those letters, when you see the pronoun you, it's usually not singular. More often than not it's going to be plural. The idea that the letter is being written to y'all. It's not written in there like that but it is to y'all and it's to be understood and lived out in the context of community.
In fact, if you just read through the New Testament you're going to see a whole bunch of these things called one another's. Okay? Fill in the blank, one another. The greatest example of that is love one another. It doesn't say love yourself. It implies the fact that to grow in our understanding of love means that it needs to be between two people or a group of people.
Love one another. That's how we grow in our understanding of how Jesus loved us is with other people. And that's just one of them. And I just tried to brainstorm all the ones that I could think about and just kind of create a list. Listen to this. Love one another.
Pray for one another. Serve one another. Bear with one another. Encourage one another. Teach. Be at peace.
Be devoted to. Give preference to. Same mind toward. Edify. Admonish. Accept.
Greet one another. Have patience with. Speak the truth in love to one another. Be kind. Be subject to. And on and on and on.
This idea of relationship. And they got that. That the way they grew in their understanding of the gospel and how to follow Jesus was in the context of relationships. You see what the New Testament is pointing us to? Family. Real family.
And it's not to the exclusion of your earthly or your biological family. Instead of thinking of them as distinct and different, the goal is to begin viewing them as the same. Same amount of love. Same amount of compassion. Not that your children aren't going to get your time, but you're actually throwing open the doors of your family so that your children receive more love, more care. Now let me be clear.
I understand that not everybody grew up as a part of this idealistic, earthly family that I've been describing. Maybe you grew up in a home where your parents split up, in a home where there was abuse. I get that. And in fact, you're kind of cynical towards this whole idea of church family like I'm talking about right now. But all of us know what a good family should look like.
Every single one of us. Whether you have that, have that or not, we all know what it should look like. And all of us have this intrinsic desire within us to belong, to be accepted, to be a part of that. All of us want a father that instead of raising his fists, open his arms in love. All of us want a father that will speak words of love and care and not tear us down with abuse. And what I'm telling you is, what the New Testament is screaming to us is that you've been invited into that family.
Regardless of our backgrounds, regardless of whatever baggage we come in with, the New Testament is going to say is that Jesus redeems people into this family, which is really good news. You know why? It means that no person in that family is going to be perfect. That the entrance exam to that family is not, you've got your mess together. No, no, no. The entrance exam is, I don't.
That the reason we get to come and be a part of that family is because Jesus redeems us and brings us into relationship. And so, yeah, it's a messed up, jacked up family, just maybe like the one that you grew up in, maybe the one that you know, but here's the difference. The gospel changes us. Jesus works and he changes us and he brings us into real relationship with each other. And as we open up our homes and open up time with each other, it over time, as the Holy Spirit works in that, helps us grow closer to him. And there's a lot of love and there's a lot of joy.
And so that's what we mean. When we say that we're a gospel-centered community on mission, that we're a people redeemed by Jesus to look like and to live like family, and so we just act like it. That's how we express ourselves. That's how we grow in our faith is with other people. And so the question then becomes, okay, I'm with you, Matt. I'm tracking.
I understand that this is what the Bible says is what Jesus has done. That I see that this is how that plays out. How does that impact my life now? How do I begin living like that is true with the people that are in this room, the people that are in my community group? And so we're going to talk. I'm going to give you just a few practical, tangible handles for how this plays out.
But our community groups are going to talk about that this week too. And so I want you to be thinking about what would it look like for us to live in a relationship with each other. And the first way is this. The first way to begin thinking about how do I exist in family with other people is to ask the question, how do I exist as family with my earthly family? Seems pretty simple, right? Try to answer that question.
Okay, how do I relate to my family, my earthly family already? And so for me, the way that I'm going to answer that question is I'm going to think about Katie. I'm going to think about the way I relate to Katie. So Katie and I spend time together. We share meals together. We go to the grocery store together.
We read the Bible together. On Friday nights, we go to the grocery store and we buy cookies and we go home and we bake them and then we shamelessly eat all 24 within 24 hours. We go on walks together and it's the same way that you relate with your family. You fight and you forgive and you reconcile. You defend each other. You help each other.
You laugh together. You do Pinterest projects together. Yeah, I said Pinterest projects. You do it. You know, it's true. You pay for things for each other.
You give gifts to each other. You see how beautiful that is? It's not to the exclusion of the family you already have. You're just opening that up for other people. You begin to ask that question. It sets the stage for how we live in relationship with each other.
And I'm going to be really honest with you guys. This is absolutely from my heart. Katie and I moved to Columbia two years ago to be a part of helping start Mill City Church. And the only people we knew in the city were Chet and Anna and they had moved here three months before. We spent time praying and planning and asking God, what do you want this church to look like? What is this going to look like?
And then we started with our first community group meeting in a home and right off the bat I knew that something was different. It was real. There were real relationships. We spent time together. We shared meals together. We played spike ball together.
I began to love and care for the people that I was in a group with and they shared that same love and care for me. And then it went from one group to two groups, two groups to five groups and as we continue to grow as a church, that's our understanding. That's how we view ourselves in living in relationship together is in this idea of family. And Katie and I have this conversation every now and then. It's like, how did we ever exist without this? I never want to go back.
I never want to miss out. Life is so much better, has much more, I don't know, it's just better. I just love being in relationship with other people and it has changed my life. It has changed my walk with Jesus. It's improved. Like Katie and I have grown closer in our marriage.
It's changed everything. And so when you start to ask that question, how do I view my earthly family? It begins to answer the question, how do we relate to each other as church family? Let me give you a couple of scenarios. Think through this. Okay, if we really are family together, think through these scenarios with me.
You get a call in the middle of the night from somebody in your community group. It's not look at the phone and move it to the side. No, they're family, right? So it means I'm going to answer the phone and I'm going to run to help, whether it's something that's happened or their car's broken down or if they just need to talk, they're family. I'm going to answer the phone. Short on bills?
Can't pay their mortgage? Don't have enough money to buy groceries? Absolutely. I'm reaching for my wallet. Because they're family. I'm going to help.
There's relational drama in your group because of a fight. You're family. You're not running away from each other. You're going to stay and you're going to talk about it. You're going to be open. You're going to be honest.
You're going to forgive. You're going to reconcile. We've got college students who live with us, who live in this city with us but have family that live other places. What if you had a college student that didn't have money to travel home to see their family? What then? You're going to put them in the minivan and you're going to grandma's house and they're going to have to choke down the same terrible stuffing that you do.
Just part of it. When you start answering those questions, it begins to show us how we should relate to each other as church family. And I've got some examples of this. Tati and I have been putting hardwood laminate in our house. We're expecting our first child in May and wanting to do some house improvements. And so I told someone in my community group that I was going to be doing that and they said, I want to help.
Okay, we were going to be working on it on Friday. Well, that Thursday that person got sick. That Thursday night their child had to go to the hospital and it had to get stitches. And the next day he couldn't even go to work because he was so sick. But you know who showed up at my house that afternoon?
Drove an hour to my house to help me even though he didn't feel good. Stayed till nine o'clock on a Friday night and whose wife and children completely understood because we were family. We get that. He was willing to sacrifice. That's a beautiful picture of family. I have heard countless stories of people having trouble with their car.
I've heard stories of people riding with each other to go check out a new car that was an hour away. Of people stopping work in the middle of the day and going and taking care of somebody's vehicle. Of coming together to help people get a vehicle. Not only vehicles but like AC units. Like if there was something going on like an HVACalypse. People running to your rescue.
Absolutely. I almost died that week guys. I'm for real. But because I'm in church family came to my rescue. Helped me in my need. I've heard of stories of people trying to organize birthday parties and kids going I want church family there.
The people they're rattling off aren't their classmates. They're rattling off church family. Adults that they want to be there. People sharing in life experience together. Stories of people who have had to go to the hospital or had a family member that had to go to the hospital dropping everything in the middle of the day and just taking off. Because it's family.
It's real church family. Just as much family as our earthly family. See how beautiful that is? And that is absolutely the picture of the gospel. That Jesus opened up the door so that all of us could be welcomed in through his redemption. That we were offered forgiveness and grace and we've been made sons and heirs.
And so that's the way we live that out is as a church family. And I want to point out just a couple of groups of people where this is especially beautiful. The church has family for new Christians. For some of you when you placed faith in Jesus your old friends your family wanted nothing more to do with you. You might have had to leave old habits and old patterns behind. And what's beautiful about this is that the church steps in and helps and loves and serves.
That it's real family. It's real relationships. And so what you left pales in comparison to what you now have. The church is family for people who are single. Our culture says that the goal is to get married and have 2.5 kids and have a house with a white picket fence. Yeah, is the Bible going to say that marriage is a blessing?
Absolutely. Is the Bible going to say that singleness is a blessing too? Yes. But unless the church opens her arms unless we're opening our homes unless we're opening our tables to people what we're asking single people is to be alone. That's not the case when you have real church family that you're throwing open the doors and inviting and welcoming people in. And it's especially beautiful for people who come from broken homes.
If you come from a home where you didn't have a dad who was there or you had a parent who was abusive or you didn't have real loving relationships with people the church's family redeems that for you. Jesus invites you into a family where the entrance exam is Him. It's Him. He welcomes you in. He's the one who redeems you in. And the most beautiful and captivating part of this idea of church's family is this.
Is this last scripture that we're going to look at from Revelation. And I want us to read it together. And they sang a new song saying, Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals for you are slain and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God and they shall reign on earth. The striving that we put forth now together as a family is just practice for what we've been invited into. That one day all those that have placed faith in Jesus from every tribe nation language and tongue are going to sit at the table with Jesus our Savior and Lord and we're going to share a meal together and we're going to be together as a family for eternity.
You see, Katie won't always be my wife but she'll always be my sister so that when Katie and I open up our homes to people when we go out of our way to make time for people in our church family we're just getting a little bit of practice in for what eternity is going to look like as we share in relationship with Jesus forever because we know that our citizenship is in heaven just like Philippians says and so that when we open up our homes open up our time it helps us grow in our understanding of who Jesus is and it's just practice for the eternity that's waiting for us. Bianca's going to come back up and we're going to continue to sing this is going to be hard this is it's going to be messy we're going to have to fight everything inside of us our natural tendencies and the things that we think we're going to have to we're going to have to learn how to grow and how to sacrifice time and as we do so Jesus works in that and he brings us closer to him and he brings us closer to each other and he gives us real family and I say this all the time and it's absolutely true here it's messy it's beautiful and it's worth it and so we're going to stand and sing in a second and there are three ways that you can respond to this the first one is this you can become a Christian and you can be a part of this family so if you've been you've been listening the whole time like I want that I want that to be true for me but I know it's not it says that to be a part of this family is for those who place faith in Jesus that Jesus redeems them and saves us and brings us into this family so right where you are as we sing this next song just cry out to him place your faith in him for the forgiveness of your sin ask him to change you from the inside out and then tell somebody don't leave here without telling somebody that news the second thing is this join a group if you've been hanging out with us on a Sunday and you've been hearing us talk about this idea of community groups join a group that is absolutely where we grow and what this looks like on a day in and day out basis you can't become family with people in an hour and a half on a Sunday you just can't do it it's not possible and you don't want to miss out on that and the third thing is this if you're already a part of a group don't settle for anything less than the beauty of what we've talked about this morning let me pray for us God I pray that you would teach us what it looks like and what it means to be family that you've opened up the way for us to live in a relationship with you and in doing so you have invited us into a family God I pray that you would teach us what that looks like that we would grow in our understanding of you as you work through the relationships in our church in Jesus name Amen
Gospel Culture
Colossians 3:12-17
Transcript
One of the things we've been looking at as we've gone through Colossians is in the first two chapters is very much a vertical look that Paul's giving us. So he's saying, here's who Jesus is, here's who God is, here's what he's done for you, and so this is how that affects you. He's the creator of the world. He's the creator of the universe. He's accomplished everything on your behalf. He's reconciled you back to God.
He's paid your debt. He's covered your sins. He's made you new. So he's going to say all of this in Colossians, and then in chapters 3 and 4, he's going to turn from a vertical look of what it looks like between God and us to how that applies to us in normal life. So he's going to turn from a vertical look to a horizontal.
So if that's true, if that's who Jesus is, if that's what he's done, if that's who he's made you, here's what it's going to look like now as you walk in normal life with other people. And so one of the things we've looked at as we've looked at that is that the book of Colossians was written to y'all. So if there was a y'all version of the Bible, every you you see in the book of Colossians except for maybe one at the end of chapter 4 where he's addressing a specific person would be the plural Greek word y'all. And so that's what we're looking at is who are we as a church? How do we interact with one another?
So if this is true about who Jesus is, and that's true for us because he's accomplished that for us, then what does it look like as we interact with other people? And usually we get that backwards. So we think, okay, if I'm good to other people, if I'm generous, if I'm gracious, if I'm moral, and it's always this outside action, then I'll have a right relationship with God. Then God and I will be okay. But what Paul is going to say is that it's no.
Here's who Jesus is. Here's what he's done. And that's going to apply to who you are and how you live. So I'm going to pray, and we're going to hop in and look at a really beautiful section of Scripture that I'm super excited that we get to talk about tonight. God, we pray that you would just teach this to us tonight, that you would show it to us as we study your word, that your Holy Spirit would move and reveal to us the beauty of what this gets to look like as your people, who we get to be. So, God, we praise you.
We thank you. And we ask that we'd be able to make much of your name tonight. We love you. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, Colossians chapter 3, we're going to be in verse, we'll start in verse 11.
So we read verse 11 last week, finished with it, and we're going to pick back up there today. So he says, here, and here means among you, among the church. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all. So all the categories we're used to have been thrown out the window. Jesus is all. He's what's important.
He's where hope comes from, value comes from, worth comes from, and he's in all. So we have hope, value, and worth because of Jesus. And so categories thrown out the window. We have worth and value because of Jesus. And then he says this, put on then. And so what we looked at last week was stuff he said that he said, if this is true, if Jesus has rescued you, if he's paid your debt, get rid of this.
Put this away. And now he's saying, put this on. This is what we get to look like because of who Jesus is. Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved. I want to help us see how we ought to think about it as we walk through the rest of this passage. So first of all, what Paul's saying is, as God's chosen ones, as the ones Jesus has already rescued.
So this is written to the church, those who place their faith in Jesus, holy and beloved, holy and loved. So what we said as we read the word holy earlier in the book of Colossians is that that's a really horrible descriptive word for everyone in the room. None of us are holy. Earlier in Colossians it said we're holy, blameless, and above reproach. That's incorrect outside of Jesus. But in Jesus he's made us holy, which means we have a right standing with God.
So he says, because of who you are, because of what Jesus has done, because you're chosen, holy, and loved. And then he's going to say, this is what you get to look like. And here's what I want us to see. I want to tell us this to help us frame up how we're going to read through the rest of this. My wife, her name's Anna. She loves to play a game.
She says it's a game. She'll say, the game is basically pretend vacation game, if I could describe it. She gets on the internet and she'll say, all right, let's play a game. And she'll look at me and go, okay, Groupon or Living Social? Which apparently are two things on the internet that help you choose vacations and stuff. And so I'm supposed to pick one and I'll be like, Living Social.
She'll go, okay. She'll open it up and be like, all right, the mountains, the Caribbean, or tropical paradise. And I'll be like, mountains. And she'll be like, tropical paradise. And I'm like, I don't know the rules of this game. Like, I don't know how I'm supposed to be playing this.
And so then as we go through tropical paradise, she'll be like, okay, Mexico, the Bahamas, or Bermuda. And I'll be like, the Bahamas. And she'll go, you're not really good at this. I'll be like, I don't know. You said it's a game. I feel like I'm losing and I don't know the rules.
And then she'll pick Mexico. And she looks through and shows me pictures. Okay, this is what our vacation would have been. And I'm like, I don't even know why I need to be here for this. She thoroughly enjoys looking at these pictures of places that we most likely will never go. I'd rather she poked me in the eye and let me go away.
Like, I have no desire to look at pictures of somewhere I'm never going to go. And the truth is, as we read through scripture, as we read through this section, we're going to see that it's beautiful. That it's beautiful who Paul's going to say the church gets to be. And I want us to look at it not as people who say, yeah, that's really pretty, but we're never going to get there. I want us to look at it as people who realize this gets to be true for us. So when I actually get to go on vacation, oh, I love looking at pictures of that stuff.
If I know I'm going to be there soon, I'll get on TripAdvisor and figure out where I'm going to eat. I'll be looking at pictures of, like, biscuits. This place says I've got really good biscuits. Like, I don't know. I'm, like, weighing out restaurants and that kind of thing. And the truth is, we get to look at it that way.
So don't look at this beautiful picture of where the church gets to be and go, yeah, that'd be nice. Look at it and realize, no, we're going to get to go there. We're going to get to stick our feet in the sand. We're going to get to smell the salt air. We're going to get the sunburn from being at this place. So as we talk through this, realize this is who we get to be because of Jesus.
So don't just look at it and say, yeah, that's nice. Yeah, that's beautiful. And walk out of here. Realize that we get to have this because of what Jesus has already accomplished. Because we are holy and beloved. Because we're chosen.
Because he's already done this for us. That Jesus on the cross has already done all the work necessary for this to happen for us. And we just get to put this on and walk this out as this church. So here's what we get to be. So he said, put on them as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.
So Paul says that the church gets to have compassionate hearts. That when we gather together in our community groups, we actually get to care about each other. Not only just do we have compassion, but our hearts are compassionate hearts. Which means just our general posture of the people in the church is we care about each other. We want good things for each other. And not just compassion, but compassion that drives us to action.
So that when the church gets together, we listen to each other. We pray for one another. We serve one another. We help pay bills for each other. We have compassion. It says kindness.
Compassionate hearts, kindness. Just genuinely enjoyable people to be around. The church gets to be fun, pleasant, gracious, generous. Humility. Man, our society says that you need pride. It says that you need to have your own self-worth.
It says that you need to assert yourself. And what Paul says is no. Jesus didn't assert himself, but he came and he died for us. And so that the church gets to have humility and meekness. Which means that we genuinely, as we get together, we want others to go first. We want to hear other people out.
We don't want to assert our opinion all the time. We want to listen. We just get to gather together as Jesus' people changed by the cross. And have a flavorful, rich community of people. Then he says this.
So we get to have compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness. And then I love this next section. And you'll see why in a minute. It's one of my favorite passages in Scripture. And patience, bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other.
As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Quickly, let me tell you a story about, let me explain patience to you. Raz was talking. He's one of our community group leaders. And he was talking about when he used to lead a group in Australia. That he had a guy in his community group that just drove him crazy.
Raz, and he didn't say this, but I know Raz well enough to know he was really close to choking him. And so Raz said that this guy just drove him crazy. And he was talking to his group's coach. And he was saying, how do I? He said, I've been praying for patience. And I don't know how to handle this anymore.
And his coach looked at him and said, you know what patience is, right? He's like, patience doesn't mean the problem goes away. It means the problem stays. That's how you grow in patience. I love that patience is in this list. What Paul's saying is, he says, patience bearing with one another.
What he's saying is, if you're going to walk in relationships with each other as the family that Jesus has made us, you're going to get on each other's nerves. It's going to happen. You're going to be annoyed. You're going to be frustrated. Let me tell you something. We talk all the time about our community groups.
I can guarantee you something. We want you to be a part of a community group. And we want you to go ahead and be prepared to be hurt, to be frustrated, to be annoyed. When I went to get married, I did not think, okay, my wife and I are going to get married. And now we'll have happy, glitter, rainbow bliss for the rest of forever. I had better sense than that.
I knew that one sinner plus another sinner doesn't equal Rainbow Skittle's unicorn ride. Like, that's not what happens. I know that marriage is, I'm going to argue with someone for the rest of my life. I just made a cognitive decision to have it be Anna. She knew someone was going to get on her nerves for the rest of her life. She knew she was going to have to deal with someone's sin and someone else was going to have to deal with her sin for the rest of her life.
And she just chose to let that be me. And the truth is, when you take the church, which is just a group of people who were the first to raise their hand and say, I'm messed up. I need Jesus. I'm broken. I'm off. I'm not going to straighten this out.
I'm not going to fix this. But Jesus will. When you take that group of people and you say, we're going to walk through life together, that's not happy, rainbow, glitter bliss. That's not how that works. We're going to have frustration. We're going to have problems.
And so Paul says, put on patience. Bearing with one another. That we get to have grace for each other because it's not always going to go swimmingly. It's not always going to work out perfectly. The truth is, you are going to annoy people for the rest of your life. We're just inviting you to annoy us.
I'm going to annoy and sin against people for the rest of my life. And I couldn't think of a better group of people to do that to. That's all church family is. That's what it is. That's what it gets to be. So he says, have patience.
Put it on. Bear with one another because you're going to have problems and frustrations. And here's the thing. This is so beautiful. So when I'm by myself and I sin, I'm the only one who has to deal with it.
When I'm in community, everyone has to deal with my sin. And I have to deal with everyone else's. And so you'd say, isn't that worse? Yes. Yes. Yes, it is.
Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. But it's so much better. It's so much better because we actually get to grow in it. We actually get to walk through it.
And here's what Paul says. And this is why I love this section. He says, patience, bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord. That's Jesus has forgiven you. So you also must forgive.
So Jesus came and died for our sin. He took our brokenness, our sin upon himself. And he died for it and forgave us of everything. And so we get to forgive each other the same way that he forgave us. We get to walk in forgiveness the same way that Jesus has forgiven us. And so what's really cool about this is that the church is a group of people that you know have to forgive you.
You know it's a group of people that you get to walk through life together and you're going to forgive each other. You're going to walk in forgiveness for one another. And so the basic process here is that we bear with one another. First step in this process is bear with one another. So Paul says that the way we're going to walk through this is to bear with one another.
And what that means is the Bible uses the word forbearance, which just means we overlook sin. So that would be like if my wife over and over again told me to clean my dishes in the sink, put my dishes in the sink, clean them off, and then stick them in the dishwasher. I thought I said washing machine, which would have been weird, but it didn't. But then I brought it up anyway, so there you go. Take my dishes and put them in the dishwasher. And then she finds them sitting on the table in front of the television.
Forbearance is her picking it up, cleaning it off, putting it in the dishwasher, and choosing to forgive me even though I don't deserve it. That's what forbearance is. And so when it says bear with one another, what that means is that in your community groups you actually say, well, that was annoying and that was frustrating. But I'm going to forgive you, and we're not ever going to have to talk about it. I'm just going to choose to forgive as Christ has forgiven me, and we won't ever have to bring it up. When you cease to bear with one another is when those issues have piled up so much that you can no longer relate to the person the same way.
So bearing with one another is, yeah, some people in my community group have borrowed my DVDs, and I haven't seen them back yet. And I don't know if I'm going to get these back. And bearing with them is me choosing to forgive and let it go. And when I cease to be able to bear with them is when I need to say, hey, man, we need to talk about this DVD situation because it's starting to bother me that this is going on. It's not me not addressing the issue. And so what Paul says is you bear with one another, and then if one has a complaint against another, you talk about it.
This destroys southerness. I'm sorry. Destroys it. What that means is this. Like I'm hanging out with somebody, and you're talking to them, and you're all having a conversation. Someone else walks up, and they'll be like, hey, buddy, how you doing?
How's your mom and them? Yeah, everything good? All right, cool. And then they talk for a little bit, and they'll walk off. And you go, who's that? And he goes, that's right.
I hate that guy. I don't personally know a whole lot about hate, but I think you're doing it wrong because you, like, asked about his mom, and y'all talked a lot, and it was like a bro hug at the end of it. The truth is we do that. We think as southerners that bringing up an issue causes more problems, and what Paul says is no, because of the gospel, we have a way to resolve them, so we have to bring them up. So we forbear.
So we forbear, and then when we can no longer forbear, when we're no longer actually forgiving, we're just allowing something to bother us, we talk to the person. We don't talk about the person. We talk to the person. Which means that just so you know, as our church family, this is our response, and I want y'all to pay attention. When someone comes to you to talk about a third party and tell you something they did that got on their nerves or bothered them, your response is what they say when you told them. That is your response.
That is how we respond as church family, because biblically, the Bible says if we have a problem with someone or someone has a problem with us, it's on us to talk to them. And so if they don't repent, if you can't work it out, then you bring more church family into it. So if you're talking to me about an issue you have with someone else, I'm just assuming we're on step two, which is you already talked to them and y'all couldn't work it out. So church family, do that. Just assume we're on step two if someone's talking to you about someone else. The response is, well, what did they say when you talked to them?
And I've said that to people, and they looked at me like a lobster just fell out of my mouth. What did you say when you talked to them? I don't know. The best part is they didn't go, oh, you didn't talk to them? They're right over here. Let's go talk to them.
People would be behind you going, no, I just, I didn't have a, and you just walk right over and say, hey, y'all, there's an issue here. Let's talk about it. And it's the most awkward thing, and you just get to be a part of it. It's the best. It's the worst when someone does it to you, but it's really good when you do it to someone else. The truth is, one of two things will happen there.
You will help work that situation out, and that will be good. Or in the least, that person will never complain to you about anyone else ever. And you'll at least have fixed the issue when it comes to you and them. You won't have helped it continue. So what Paul says is, bear with one another, which is just choose to forgive and don't let an issue arise.
Once an issue has arisen, once there's something in between you two and you can no longer operate normally, you talk about it. And here's why we talk about it. Bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other. As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. When we won't talk about issues inside of the church, when we allowed weirdness to develop, when we allowed little petty things grow up in between us, what we are saying is that we assume the gospel isn't true. When I won't talk to you about some sort of a conflict between us, I'm assuming that we have no way to fix it.
And what Paul is saying is, no, we're going to talk about conflict because we have the way to fix it. I'm sinful. You're sinful. Jesus paid for our sin. We can work this out. I've been reconciled to God.
I can certainly be reconciled to you. I've been forgiven of everything. I can certainly forgive you of this. And you can forgive me. So we actually walk functionally in the truth of the gospel when we talk to each other about conflict.
We just assume we're going to work it out because Jesus has worked out everything on our behalf, and we are Jesus' people. So we get to work it out. And let me tell you what that means. You're going to have to have some conversations with people. First of all, you're going to have to forgive people of things that you shouldn't be mad about. You just get to forgive them.
Second of all, you're going to have to have some conversations with people about some stuff that seems petty, and y'all get to talk about it. I know this is weird. It really bothers me when you do this. Let's figure this out. It means that you have to get yourself prepared for someone to come tell you something. Go ahead and get mentally prepared for someone to have a problem with you about something.
People come tell me stuff all the time. You know this is annoying. You know that was offensive. Why did you say that? This hurt my feelings. I've just gotten used to the fact that I'm sinful.
I know what's coming. I never enjoy those conversations, but I'm ready for it. Someone tells me I did something wrong. I'm like, all right, probably did. Explain it to me. Let's talk it out.
So we get to, and we get to apply the gospel because it is true. We get to forgive one another. Then he says this, Above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. So that the church actually gets to be a group of people who forgive, who walk in flavorful community, and who have a love for one another. Above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.
And be thankful that we just get to be people who have peace because of Jesus. We get to have rest. We get to have peace ruling in our hearts as we relate to one another. Don't just look at this and think, yeah, that'd be nice. Realize that this is who we get to be because of what Jesus has already accomplished for us. That we get to walk this out.
Here's a, Charles Spurgeon has a quote when it comes to the church. He says this. He says, give yourself to the church. You that are members of the church have not found it perfect. And I hope that you feel almost glad that you have not. If I had never joined a church till I had found one that was perfect, I would never have joined one at all.
And the moment I did join it, if I had found one, I should have spoiled it. For it would not have been perfect church after I had become a member of it. Still imperfect as it is, it is the dearest place on earth to us. That we get to, because of Jesus, have genuine, long-lasting, real relationships. Because sin breaks relationships down and Jesus has already conquered sin. We get to forgive.
We get to walk in life. We get to have peace ruling our hearts. And so here's what happens. We look at this and we start saying, okay, well, how do we do that? Functionally, how are we going to walk that way? How are we going to actually live that out, play that out?
And here's what Paul says. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. That you is y'all. Let the word of Christ dwell in y'all richly. For this to happen, we have to be Bible people. We have to have the gospel penetrating who we are.
We have to have it sinking down into how we view the world. That's why we're going to study the Bible. That's why every time we get together, we're going to open the Bible together. That's why in our community groups, we're going to study the Bible together on a regular basis. Because we want the word of Christ dwelling in us richly. So that we can actually have everything that Jesus has already given us.
See, relationships like this don't happen outside of the gospel. They break down. And so we have to be gospel people. We have to have our culture as us as a church be affected by the gospel. And so we talk a lot about community groups. And we talk a lot about walking in church family and being in life with each other.
And so there's a lot of times you hang out for a while and you're like, okay, I get it. Community groups. That's how we be church. I get it. You've said that enough. Thanks.
And the truth is we've been made into church family by Jesus. We've been rescued and redeemed and made into a community. We have a way to walk this out. But I want to tell you something else that's a really one of the major reasons that we love community. You get to grow in the gospel in the context of community in a way that you never would by yourself. You get to grow in the gospel and how it applies and how you understand it and its depth and richness in your soul in relationship with other people that you never would by yourself.
See, when I'm by myself, I'm super easy to get along with. I'm really smart. All my ideas are good. My jokes are hilarious. Like I'm really generous. Like I'll think, man, I really like some chicken right about now.
And then I'll be like, you know what, man? I'll get you some chicken. I'll be like, thank you, man. You are so generous. Like when you're by yourself, when I get really angry by myself, there's not a whole lot of collateral damage unless I just start tearing up stuff. But for the most part, I'm just angry by myself.
I don't offend other people. I don't hurt other people. The truth is when I'm by myself, it's easy for me to believe that forgiveness is cheap, that forgiveness is easy, and that it's simple, that sin's not that big a deal. When I'm in the context of community, when I actually have to forgive somebody else, I realize that forgiveness is costly, and it's not easy, and it's not simple. And it's only inside the context of community that the weight of what Jesus did for me on the cross can be applied in a real way when I actually have to forgive someone else, when I have to dig deep into what Jesus has done for me, when I have to remind myself that the gospel is true, that I was forgiven of everything so that I can actually forgive someone else.
In the context of community, when I have to confess sin to somebody, I have to dig deep into the truth of the gospel, which is my worth doesn't come from my ability to behave. My worth doesn't come from my right moral action or what people think of me and how well I'm viewed. It comes from Jesus. My relationship with him is based off of the fact that I'm a sinner. And so when I have to confess sin to you, I've got to walk in the gospel to do that. When I'm going to be generous, when you're at my house, when my community group meets in my house and we have white carpet, we didn't choose the color of the carpet, our carpet looks terrible.
It looks like people just rolled in dirt and then rolled around on our carpet. Like, it gets new colors every week. So it's white now. A couple years, it'll be like technicolored. I'll be like, yeah, that's Kool-Aid. That's Dr.
Pepper. That looks like half a watermelon. Like, I have to grow in generosity when my community group is over at my house. I have to remind myself of what's important and what's valuable. And I have to walk in the light of the gospel as people are at my house breaking things, hiding things from me because they think it's funny. Like, I have to grow in forbearance and the truth of the gospel in a way in a community that I never would get to outside of it.
You see, the way we do our community groups is we have infants to grandparents in the same community group. That's odd. Y'all know that's odd, right? Like, a lot of churches don't do that. There's a couple of reasons why we do that. Two are biblical and one's just really practical.
The practical one is we're pretty small. So if we broke it up by age group, some of you would be by yourself. We'd just be like, if you start getting on your nerves, talk to us. We'll help you walk it out. If we broke it up by age group and gender, some of y'all just, your community group would be you. You'd probably get along well with yourself, I reckon.
The two practical ones are, biblically, the Bible says that we're supposed to let the older generations coach up the younger generations. So that those who've walked with the Lord for a while, those who've walked through life for a while, actually need to pour into those that are younger than them. And we just don't see how we'd do that well if we didn't have them actually being around each other, getting to coach up and say, Hey, man, I see the way you talk to your wife. This isn't healthy or helpful. I used to talk to my wife that way. This is going to be a problem for y'all.
We can't walk through life together if we're not around each other. The third reason is this. And we read it at verse 11. I just want to point it out. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all. If we break up constantly by age group and gender, by affinity, which is we all like the same stuff, we'll begin to believe that that's what holds us together and that's what makes us a family.
We'll begin to believe that that's the bond we have with each other. We all like the same stuff. When we pile in barbarians, Scythians, Greeks, Jews, circumcised, uncircumcised, when that's what the community group looks like, age group across the board, income across the board, life stage across the board. You have to, what you like and don't like, the type of music you listen to, the type of food you like. We've got some people that are vegetarians and some people that only eat meat. We got, I mean, we pretty much, we're across the board when it comes to how we relate and interact.
We have to realize that Christ is all and he's in all and Jesus is what bonds us together because we have nothing else in common. Like I've had super awkward conversations with people before in my community group just because we have nothing in common. A couple of my favorites were, I was like, so you watch football? You don't watch football? Okay, what kind of hobbies you got? Tea?
Like sweet tea? Oh, hot tea? You like coffee? Mm-hmm. You like Jesus? Like that was, we just broke down.
You just hear conversations just like derail. We had a conversation about heavy metal music in my community group. I know nothing about it. I just got to watch people just shoot and miss all over the place. Like this? No, not like that.
Like this? No, not at all. Like this? And I would just throw in unhelpful things for fun. Like it's great because we had nothing in common outside of we're a group of people that have been rescued by Jesus. And when we walk through life across the board in non-affinity based, non-age group based, what we remind ourselves functionally is that it's Jesus that makes us family.
And it's Jesus that makes us work out. And it's Jesus, only Jesus, always Jesus. And if we're going to grow and if we're going to learn, if we're going to forbear and we're going to forgive and if we're going to have this type of relationship, we're going to need Jesus. And we're going to have to be gospel people. So something weird has happened in the American church where we can say with an amount of credibility, I just don't fit in there.
I'm the only one who's not married. I'm the only one in that group who's got little kids. I'm the only one there who likes this or we just don't have the same interests, we don't have the same hobbies. And we act like that's an okay excuse for something. And the truth is every time we say statements like that, not every time, most of the time, what we're actually declaring is that this is my best opportunity for growth. When we make statements like that, what we're saying is this is my best opportunity for growth because this is where I'm going to have to apply the gospel.
This is where I'm going to have to walk with Jesus. This is where I'm going to have to remember what's important for this to even work out. This is where I'm going to have to allow the gospel to dwell in me richly because we don't get along. And I'm going to have to forbear. And we're going to have to talk out issues. And we're going to have to forgive.
And we're going to have to be kind and humble and meek. I'm going to have to show up not wanting my will to be done but wanting to allow other people to get to the front. I remember having a conversation with – so we have to have the gospel apply. We have to have the gospel working in us for this to work out. We have to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly. I remember having a conversation with a pastor when I was up at Liberty.
I was in seminary there talking about planning a church and talking about how we were going to do community groups and we wanted to just be in life with each other. And he told me, he said, he's a godly man, love Jesus, super smart. And I would talk with him several times just about different things. And he told me, he said, my dad, his dad was a professor who was older, had his own school of the Bible, really sharp guy. He said, my dad has been a Christian for a very long time. He said he's been a professor of theology for a very long time.
And he said he would not need to be a part of one of your community groups. Like if that's where discipleship is going to happen, if that's where people are going to grow closer to Jesus, he wouldn't need to be a part of one. So what would he do? How would he plug into your church? So I remember thinking, okay, that's a good point.
Let me think about that. And then I realized, no, that's contrary to the yallness of who we get to be in the New Testament. And it's contrary. If he is walking with Jesus that much, he may not need a community group, but his community needs him. His community group needs him to be training him up, to be pointing him towards Jesus, to be helping him understand how the Bible applies. Here's what it says.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom. Wisdom is the application of knowledge. So you can know things and have no clue how it applies. Wisdom is knowing things and how it applies. And so as we walk in relationships with each other, we get to teach and admonish one another. We get to call each other out and point each other towards the gospel and how the gospel applies in relationships.
And here's another thing I can guarantee you about him. If he came down here and joined one of our community groups, he'd get to grow in patience, forbearance, and forgiveness. Guaranteed. And that's actually one of the ways that we grow in understanding the gospel. So as he gathered with some people who had just become believers and didn't really even understand how it applied.
I have conversations with people in our church family, and I love it because we've got a lot of young Christians and a lot of people who have just become believers and a lot of people who are tractor-beamed by Jesus and will be believers soon. It's one of my favorite group of people to talk with that just don't even understand. You'll talk to them about stuff from the Bible, and they're like, I didn't even realize that was like a thing that I wasn't supposed to be doing. I didn't understand that this even applied. And it's like, yeah. And so they've been offending people, and they've been hurting people's feelings, and they've been walking in sin because they didn't even realize that that was in here, that this is how they should walk with Jesus.
And so we get to, as we grow together, teach and admonish one another because the gospel dwells in us richly, because the word of Christ is in and among us. Community forces us to walk in the gospel in a way that we would never get to, and it allows us to have a richness and a fullness to life with Jesus that we never get to have outside of the relationships we get to have with one another. The joy that we get to celebrate together, the life that we get to walk through together, we'll miss out on if there isn't a y'all to us walking with Jesus. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. When we gather together on Sundays, this is not an event. It's a gathering of the church. And we sing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs is one of the ways that we teach and admonish one another. When you're singing, yes, you're singing to Jesus, you're also singing to every other person in this room who can hear your voice. You're teaching and admonishing and helping everyone else realize that this is true.
This is who Jesus is. This is what he's done for us. This is what's happened for us in the gospel. So we gather our groups together to sing, to teach, to be thankful. And then we walk through life in the mess and joy of life together as we get to be Jesus's people. Realize that we don't just get to look at that and say, man, I'd love to be a part of a group of people who had compassion and kindness and humility and meekness.
Don't look and say, man, I'd love to be a part of a group of people that I knew had to forgive me. I'm going to cause problems for the rest of my life. I want to be around people who have to forgive me. Realize that gets to be us. We get to sit on that beach. We get to feel that breeze.
We get to inhale that salt air because of what Jesus has already done for us. Because for those of us in Christ, Jesus took our sin and he nailed it to a cross. And he paid our debt and he set us free. And we have the way to interact with one another because Jesus shows us what humility looks like when he stepped out of heaven. The king of the world, creator of all things, stepped out of heaven and took on our sin so that we could be free. He didn't assert his way.
He didn't destroy his enemies. He died for them. So we understand what meekness looks like. He forgave all of us of everything of those of us who placed our faith in Jesus. And he offers that to everyone to place your faith in Jesus and be forgiven. So we understand what forgiveness looks like.
And we know with the cross that it's costly, but it's possible. And so we allow the gospel to dwell among us richly as we study scripture and see what Jesus did for us. And then we walk through life together. Normal, everyday life. If you don't have people in our church family getting on your nerves, I will tell you something. You probably don't have, you haven't plugged in enough.
You haven't hopped in enough. That's how relationships with sinful people works. That's what we get to be with each other. We get to have genuine love, real love, and real life and relationships because of Jesus. So here's what we're going to do.
We're going to stand up and we're going to sing. We only sang one song when we came in here because we're going to sing a lot now. We're going to be thankful. We're going to praise Jesus for what he's done, for who we get to be. We're going to sing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in our hearts towards God because of what Jesus has done for us in the gospel. I'm going to pray.
We're going to sing. God, I thank you that this gets to be true for us. That we get to actually have these kind of relationships. That you've invited us into your family and your family is beautiful. That, God, we get to be a group of messed up people rescued and redeemed by Jesus and that your church gets to be the dearest place on earth to us. We thank you.
We praise you. In Jesus' name, amen.