Community on Mission
1 Peter 2:9-10
Transcript
Well, good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. I'm excited. We're getting to continue our series in 1 Peter, so we're just walking verse by verse to the book of 1 Peter. We like to take books of the Bible and just study them and try to learn as much as we possibly can from them.
So we're going to start off with a little bit of interaction, so you've got to be paying attention. I'm going to say two things that are kind of pitted against each other, and I need you to just loudly and possibly angrily vote. So Pepsi or Coke? Pepsi! Neither wasn't an option, but okay, so that sounded about even. I think if you're talking about the drinks, Pepsi or Coke, most people go with Coke, but if you're talking about like Pepsi products versus Coke products, it gets different.
Okay, Mac or PC? Mac or PC? All right. Dunkin' Donuts, Krispy Kreme? Krispy Kreme! Amen.
Thank you all so much. That means so much to me. Moe's or Chipotle? Chipotle! Android or iPhone? Android!
All right. Jordan or LeBron? Anybody care? Jordan! Jordan. Okay, thank you.
All right. Xbox or girls? Sorry. Sorry, it was too easy. When I was making that list, I couldn't help myself. Okay.
All of us have been in discussions that were surrounded around these kind of things. Like we get into these arguments. We argue about donuts. We argue about food. The few, you argue about the way phones work. I mean, you've sat in on these conversations.
A few of my favorites are, if you're ever in the Chipotle-Moes argument. Chipotle people really care about Chipotle. Moe's people are like, I like queso. And Chipotle people are like, no. You must. I've had someone look at me and go, Chet, Chipotle is objectively better than Moe's.
So if you get into these conversations, I think the argument is it's like it's organic or something, which I think means they rubbed dirt on the food. That's what it tastes like. Or like the chickens were happy before you killed them. I don't... This cow tastes like he was pleased right before they killed him and I ate him. If you're ever in that argument, though, this is always the argument I make, which just really makes Chipotle people angry.
So they're arguing about ingredients. They're arguing about organic. They're arguing about stuff. And I always go, yeah, but when I go to Chipotle, nobody greets me. Nobody says, welcome to Chipotle. And I just like people to greet me.
And it makes them so mad because that should not apply to how the food tastes. They want to argue ingredients. And I'm just like, they said hello. And I felt warm when I walked inside. But we all form communities around things that we love.
We all gather around something that we enjoy, that we appreciate, that we find beauty in, that we find satisfaction in. And then we desire to tell other people about them. We want to include more people in that. We watch a movie that we like. We tell a bunch of people. We eat at a restaurant that we like.
We tell a bunch of people. We find other people who enjoy what we like. And that's how we form friend groups. So you've got people that they all enjoy video games or they all enjoy this sport or they all enjoy watching this show and they form communities around it and then they try to convert other people to it. And what we're going to see in 1 Peter is that that's actually in a lot of ways what the church is. It's a group of people formed around Jesus that want more people to know Jesus.
Find beauty and excellence and joy and hope and life in Jesus and want to share that, want to spread that. And so because that's a natural human thing to form communities around something and to proclaim its excellencies, it's honestly one of the things that the church is designed to do. So I'm going to read first. We're all going to read 1 Peter 2, 9 and 10 together. That's where we're going to be this morning. And then we'll pray and we'll kind of break it all down, study it together.
So 1 Peter 2, 9 and 10. It's on page 657 if your Bible looks like this, if you've got one of these in the row. If you don't own a Bible, take this one with you. We want you to have a Bible. So 1 Peter 2, 9 and 10.
And Peter's writing to a group of churches in what's modern-day Turkey, talking to them about how to live inside of a culture where the church doesn't really fit, where the thought process the culture has doesn't really line up with what the church has. And as we've been studying through, he's been really hammering on, this is who Jesus is, this is who this makes you. Because of what Jesus has done, this is who you are. And now in the next couple weeks, he's going to start turning and being like, because that's true, here's what life looks like for you. So 9 and 10.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Let's pray. God, those two verses are beautiful. And they tell us a lot about what you've done for us, what you've accomplished for us through Jesus, through your cross.
And we pray, Lord, that you would help us to see that clearly today. That those who don't know you might clearly understand what you have offered them. And those who do know you might clearly understand what you have given them. And Lord, we praise you and we thank you. In Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so Peter, when he starts off in verse 9, he's going to give us a bunch of Old Testament imagery that kind of tells us what the church is now.
So he's going to give Old Testament pictures. It's going to be found in stories in Genesis, in Exodus, in Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel. He's going to give pictures from those books that help us understand who we are as the church now. So what he's going to say is these Old Testament pictures apply to us now because of Jesus. And so he starts off with, you are a chosen race. And what picture he's pointing to is Abraham.
Abraham was just a guy. And God just picks him and says, I'm going to make you into a people. I'm going to make you into a family. I'm going to make you into a race. So he was not Jewish.
God just picked him and said, you are going to be my people. You're going to, all of your lineage will be my people. And through you, the whole world will be blessed. And so he picks Abraham and he turns him into a people, into a race, into a family. And then he says a royal priesthood. And so after the people of Israel live over in kind of Canaan area, and then they go to Egypt and are enslaved for 400 years.
And then Moses shows up and he sings that song about letting his people go. And they do sing songs, but that's not one of them. And they don't sing until later when they get out. But anyway, he shows up and they get out. They go wandering into the desert. And God basically says, now I'm going to teach you what it looks like to be my people.
And you're going to be a priesthood. You're going to be the people on earth who relate to me. And I'm going to show you what that looks like. And so Peter says, that image applies to us. And then God, once he taught them what it looked like, actually gives them a nation. He actually gives them land.
He draws their borders for them and says, go. This is the land I've given you. Go take it over. And so Peter says that those images of a chosen race, a royal priesthood, and a holy nation are now what has been given to us through Jesus. What is the church? And the church is all of those on earth who've placed their faith in Jesus, in the cross, and that he died for our sin, that he rose again, and that in him we have life.
And hope and joy and that he's the king of everything. And so what that means is we're a chosen race. The church is a family. We now have a family line that trumps all other family lines. We now have, we are made into a people. The church is.
That we will exist in eternity as brothers and sisters. That's why Christian people say, good to see you, brother. That's what they mean. That's what they're talking about is that we've been made into a family. And then he says you're a royal priesthood. And what that means is that all of us are on the same level.
We get to relate to God. And all of us are priests. Are people who get to relate directly to God through Jesus. So there isn't like a special class of Christians that get to be priests and get to relate to God. No, we all are. We're all made into a royal priesthood.
I was talking to a guy who's looking at getting baptized here in August when we have our baptism gathering. He's a recent Christian. And I was talking to him about stuff. And he said, yeah, I'm a Christian, but I'm not like Christian 2.0. I was like, dude, that doesn't exist. There is no Christian 2.0.
You're either in because of Jesus or you're not in. But all of us will stand before God and have Jesus cover us. We're all under Jesus. Some of us are under Jesus, but also we've added stuff to it. That's not how it works. And so we're all a priesthood.
We're all people who get to relate to God and show the world what it looks like to relate to God. And then he says you're a holy nation. And that image there, I've been recently reading through the book of Revelation. And people get super geeked out over the book of Revelation or they just completely avoid it. Those are the two type of people. Someone who wants to draw a chart and show you a picture of a dragon.
And someone who's like, I've never read it because it scares me. Really, the book of Revelation is just about Jesus. But there's these beautiful pictures of heaven. And there's one that I've been recently just has been imprinted in my mind. And it's that before God's throne in heaven, in eternity, it says that there were thousands upon thousands of people praising him in every tongue, from every tribe, in every language, in every nation, in every people. Do you know what's beautiful about that?
It's telling us something that's going to happen in the future. There are 6,000 people groups right now on earth that do not know about Jesus. There's nobody proclaiming the gospel in their language. Nobody. There's no Bible translated into the language. There are no current missionaries reaching these people.
6,000 People groups. And what the book of Revelation says is they're going to be there. That Christianity doesn't have a culture. It doesn't have one overriding culture. Everyone is welcome. Everyone is invited in.
And God has already set the borders and said, I'm claiming these people. These people are going to be mine. And my church is going to march forward to the borders and invite these people in. So the same way that he said, these are your borders and this is where your nation is going to be, the church gets to be a part of seeing more and more people meet Jesus that he's already said these are going to be mine. These are the borders I've already drawn. This is who's going to be invited in.
And so that's the church. And so what Peter's saying is this is who you are. This is your identity. So in our culture, what you do is your identity. So I do this, therefore I am this.
I do this, so I'm this. And what Christianity says is Jesus did this and he gives you your identity. Your identity comes from Jesus and then you do things out of your identity. But your identity has already been set in Jesus. And so Peter's been saying because Jesus died, because he's made us into a people, because he rose again, because we have a certain hope, now this is who we are and therefore we. And he goes into what we do.
And so what he says is you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession that Jesus has claimed us, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light. Jesus has rescued us, has saved us, has made us into a people that we may proclaim his excellencies, that we may tell more people about how amazing he is. And we do this naturally. Some of you saw Guardians of the Galaxy. Then you saw it again.
And then you told everyone you'd ever met that it was the greatest movie you'd ever seen. Some people watched Terminator Salvation and wrongfully went and told people it was a good movie. But there are things that you appreciate and you enjoy and then you go tell people about. You go invite people in on. And what it says is that we've been turned into these people and that we might proclaim his excellencies, that we might make much of Jesus. Now, in our context, the question comes up, is that okay to do?
Is it okay to tell people about Jesus? Aren't we supposed to just kind of keep our beliefs to ourself? Isn't it annoying or even kind of rude for me to come push my views on you? That we have this belief in our culture that is, all ideas are equally good and valuable. All ideas, all beliefs are equally good and valid. And so it's wrong for you to push your ideas on someone else.
It's wrong for you to try to convert someone to what you believe. We've heard that. But all ideas are equally good, equally valid, and it's wrong for you to try to push your beliefs on somebody. So if you're a Christian, if someone asks you about what you believe, or if you build a long enough friendship with somebody you can share, but other than that, you don't really need to be trying to convert people to your belief. You don't need to, if your neighbor is a Muslim, you don't need to try to talk them into being Christians. Because all ideas, all beliefs are equally good and valid, and you don't need to push your ideas on anybody else.
Now, there's a couple of things wrong with that. One is, that sentence, that idea isn't even logically coherent. Because whoever makes that statement is saying, all ideas are equally valid except for the one that says they aren't. And you don't need to try to convert people to your ideas. You need to believe and be converted to mine. Does that make sense?
That's what that sentence is. All ideas are equally valid except for the one that says that they aren't. And you don't need to convert people to your beliefs, you need to be converted to mine, which is a very Western, pluralistic belief system, that all ideas are equally valid. Go to the Middle East, they don't believe that, so what you're saying is Western American culture and the way we hold ideas is actually better than the way other cultures hold their ideas. So immediately, it doesn't stand up in other cultures, and it doesn't even make sense logically, because the only way for that sentence to be correct is for it to be incorrect.
That's the problem. So it doesn't hold up logically, and it's not true. So let me free you up as a Christian. We don't believe that. Yesterday, and I was so happy they didn't come from South Carolina, but yesterday, Klansmen from North Carolina came to our state house to hold a rally. That's a belief system, and it is not equally good or equally valid.
They need to change. They need to believe something different. I was listening to NPR this week to interviews of women who had been captured and held by ISIS, and so they were translating for them, and one of them, this lady was talking, she was 21 years old, she was talking about her ISIS captors who were trying to force a nine-year-old girl into a bathroom with them, or this one guy was trying to force a nine-year-old girl into a bathroom with him, and so she said she fought him, and he fought back and said, I will kill you, and her response was, I'm willing to die for her. She's worth dying for.
Now, ISIS is a belief system, but it is not equally good or equally valid, and they need to change and be converted, and so as a Christian, we have freedom to not believe that idea because it's not true, and for most people, when asked, they will agree that all ideas aren't equally valid. Even though they'll say that statement, you can't get them to believe and agree that the KKK, their ideas are just as good as Mother Teresa's because they're not. Some bring life, some bring joy, and some enslave and harm, and so let me free you up. It is okay to tell people. It is okay to proclaim the excellencies of Jesus, and let me tell you one of the main reasons why.
He is excellent. This is actually good news, and so Peter, in this context, in this text, is going to show us three beautiful truths about Jesus that are real for us because of the gospel. Three beautiful things that Jesus has accomplished for us that are actually excellent, actually beautiful, actually good, actually true, and that we want to share with other people. So we'll start at verse 9 again. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.
So this is who you are, this is who you've been made by Jesus, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Now, the first beautiful truth about Jesus for Christians is that he's called us out of darkness. That, ultimately, we know, the Bible teaches this, that God created the world and it was good and it existed in a beautiful relationship with himself, and then humans rebelled. They ran from him in pride, and that Satan, who is a real being, helped lead people astray, and ultimately, everyone is a part of one kingdom.
You're either submitted to and following Jesus in the kingdom of light where there's joy and peace and hope and fulfillment and satisfaction, or you ultimately are following Satan who's doomed to be destroyed by Jesus, that hell is designed for Satan and those who follow him. And most people don't believe they're following Satan. That's not how that works. But either we're in the kingdom of light that follows after Jesus that have been rescued by Jesus or we're in the dark. And for many of us, we were called out of darkness. We were called out of darkness.
We didn't have hope. Didn't have joy. We were chasing after things that would never fulfill us, never make us whole, never bring us satisfaction, that constantly forced us to be enslaved to them in order for us to have any sense of life. They didn't do what Jesus did, which is Jesus does this, so this is who you are. They said, you do this, you work, you slave, you prove yourself, and then you get to. Then you get to achieve.
Then you get to be good enough. Then you get to have done it. He's called us out of darkness. And that's beautiful. And for Christians, you kind of understand what that means. You know what it means to be called out of darkness.
And for non-Christians, for people who don't believe, I'm sorry, I think that point probably was super confusing and sounds weird. The other two are going to be a little more, make a little more sense. But for Christians, you understand what it was like to be in the dark, to be without hope, to be without joy, and then to actually be freed up and to walk in light, to be invited into all that Jesus has offered. The second beautiful truth, the second beautiful, captivating thing about Jesus that he's done for us is in verse 10. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. And by a people, it means you weren't a family, you weren't a race, you weren't connected.
So some of us, before we became Christians, you had a family. And they were good. They were nice. They believed in you. They loved you. They accepted you.
Some of you, before you became Christians, you had friends, real friends that were beyond surface level conversations at work, that you actually could be around and enjoy being around and you could be open with who you were. You could be real about who you were and you were still loved and accepted. But for many of us, that's not true. It wasn't true for us before we became Christians. Our family, at best, was neutral. They didn't actively harm us.
For some of us, they did. The people who were supposed to love you, guard you, protect you, accept you, defend you, build you up, actually tore you down, assaulted you, harmed you. Your family had a very negative effect on you. For some of us, we had zero friends or just some friends we had in high school that we talked to a couple of times, maybe on Facebook, said happy birthday to each other. Some people we talked to at work, but we didn't have real friends. Honestly, and some of you may be in this position now, you believe your options are be real about who I am, be open and honest about what's going on in my heart and how messed up I am in a lot of ways and have zero friends, or be fake and have some friends.
But they aren't really my friends. They don't really know me. They just know the personified version, the fake shell I've made up. And what it says is that because of Jesus, we're a people. We're a family. And here's how this works.
All of us have our identity wrapped up in Jesus, which means that it can never be taken from us by any of our actions. All of us have our identity set in Jesus and therefore it can never be taken from us. It can never be removed from us because it's set in Him. So all other communities accept some sins, some failures, some brokenness, and not others. So you can be in a biker gang.
And there's some brokenness that bikers will accept. Like stabbing people. And maybe stealing or burning things down. There's like brokenness that biker gangs are cool with. But cowardice, disloyalty, you're not welcome anymore.
You can be a part of a group of people that gets their identity from being tolerant. And as long as you're tolerant, you're tolerated. But anybody who's close-minded or narrow-minded or bigoted, they're not at welcome because it's tolerance that makes us good. If you're a group of people that are friends because you're smart, I was never a part of this group, but if you were a part of a group of people that got your identity from your intellect, then you have to look down on people who are dumber than you. You have to because your identity comes from being smart. And the truth is, as Christians, our identity comes from Jesus, which means that all we need is brokenness.
All we need is need. All we need to do is admit that we need Jesus and then we're in. All of us. All forms of brokenness are welcome and we get to be honest about it because our identity comes from Jesus, not from ourselves. Do you see how beautiful that is? If you're in a community group, they're stuck with you.
Do you know how beautiful that is? The church is stuck with me. I was in my group the other day a couple weeks back and we were just talking about stuff and I had to confess to them that I'd realized that in my relationship with Jesus, I wasn't really pursuing holiness. I wasn't really pursuing Jesus as much as I was just trying. Like I felt like I was okay if I could just kind of surface level feel like I was doing better than them. So I told my group that I really wasn't pursuing Jesus as much as I was just trying to kind of measure myself against them and as long as I felt like I was doing better than them, I felt okay.
Do you know how petty and weird that is? You know how awkward that is to say? That's messed up. I didn't want to tell anybody. I was kind of annoyed when I figured that out. When the Holy Spirit was like, you realize that you're not pursuing me, you're just measuring yourself up against other people.
I had actually removed my identity from in Jesus. I had forgotten what was true and was trying to operate in something else and so I got to confess that because my identity identity is in Jesus, not in any of that. And that's beautiful that because of Jesus we've been made into a family. We get to get past conflict. Some of you have friendships, relationships, even family relationships where the first bit of conflict, you just don't talk to each other for weeks, months. Because of Jesus, we've been made into a people and we get to forgive and we get to be in relationships and we get to work past.
It's beautiful. We've been made into a family. The third beautiful truth that is real for us who are Christians, real for us because of Jesus, once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. mercy, everyone on earth will either pay for their sin or have Jesus pay for their sin. Mercy just means that we have something coming to us. We've earned something.
Something's coming our way and then God relented. He was merciful. We didn't get what we deserved. And for Christians, that is true and that is beautiful because all of us are in trouble outside of Jesus. All of us have been prideful. All of us have run from God.
All of us have trusted ourselves more. All of us have chased after things other than Him. All of us have promised ourselves that we would be fulfilled, that we would have joy, that we would have hope in all kinds of things other than God. We've messed around with such small, trivial things like just being comfortable and having a good life, just having a nice retirement. We've chased after sex and addictions and personal freedom and all of this stuff that ultimately is a rebellion against the Holy God and we all stand condemned. And for Christians, once you had not received mercy, but now you have.
Now you have received mercy because of Jesus. because of what He's done. Do you know how much hope and life and freedom that gives? You ever almost gotten a speeding ticket? Like you deserved it, but you didn't get it? Do you know how much joy that brought to your heart? I'm for real.
Go home today. If you just drive home and don't get pulled over by a cop, that was nice. If you drive home, get pulled over by a cop, deserve to get a ticket, and don't, that was somehow better. Like your day was made better by not getting a ticket that you deserved. You call people on the phone. I can't tell you when Ann and I were dating how many times I got a phone call after she had left my house in the evening and she'd call me up and say, guess who got another warning?
Which was a bunch of mess because I would on that same road get tickets because no one thinks I'm cute or nice or innocent. She called me one time and said the cop got sad when he saw me. She said I could tell he wanted to write a ticket and got to the window and thought I was like 12 and probably shouldn't even be driving but was like... There's something about almost getting a ticket that frees us up that gives us joy and the truth is for Christians we once had not received mercy and now we have because of Jesus. And there is freedom and joy and hope and life and it's excellent. Jesus is excellent and we proclaim his excellencies.
We share this with anybody we possibly can because the truth is everyone we know is either going to have Jesus pay for their sin or they are going to pay for their sin. Everyone in this room will either stand condemned under the weight of your own sin or you will stand free because Jesus stood condemned under the weight of your own sin. Here's what this means when it says we were called out of darkness we were made into a people and we've received mercy it means that because Jesus took what we deserve we can have what Jesus deserves. So we were in darkness and he was in light but he took on darkness so that we could have light.
He had eternal family acceptance between him and God between him and the Holy Spirit and on the cross God sends darkness over the earth and turns his back on Jesus and that relationship between Jesus and the Father is broken. Jesus was separated from his Father so that we could have eternal family. And Jesus stood condemned in our place so that we can receive what he received. He took no mercy so that we could have mercy. He took punishment and guilt and pain and shame and destruction and was crushed so that we could be free. So that we could have life so that we could have joy.
Jesus stood in our place guilty and condemned so that we could have mercy. Either Jesus pays for your sin or you pay for your sin. And all of those in Christ know that we were in the darkness and now we've been called into light. We used to not be a people. We used to not have real relationships. We used to have ones that were consistently there was this tension of we had to hold it together and now we've been given a family because of Jesus.
We've been given an identity a new name a new hope because of Jesus and ultimately we were guilty but now we've received mercy because Jesus took no mercy. And that we are Jesus took what we deserve so that when we stand before the king we get what Jesus deserved which was honor acceptance love freedom hope mercy family and light. and that is good news because it's not about us. We didn't earn it we didn't achieve it it wasn't our morals that got us there it wasn't our ability to be intelligent it wasn't our ability to work it out it wasn't our culture it wasn't our rule following it was Jesus and that is good news that is beautiful news. Last week my cousin Bumi was in town and he was he was down helping us run a firework store because my family runs firework stores and so every 4th of July and New Year's I have to go run a firework store which is kind of annoying but also kind of a redneck so I really like fireworks changing the world one explosion at a time and he was down and he loves to eat at like local places and stuff and so last week he was about to leave and I told him I said okay when we got done you know doing load loading everything back up and putting everything back I told him alright we can go either to Egg Roll Station or La Rivera and it's La Rivera is a Mexican restaurant but it's like very Mexican they don't speak English it's La Rivera La Tienda something something Mexican something like I don't speak Spanish I don't know what it says but it's La Rivera it's right down here on 378 and we said you need to have Egg Roll or La Rivera sketchiness isn't an option but both of the food is delicious they might get shut down any day more Egg Roll than La Rivera La Rivera is a little bit cleaner and nicer but anyway he chose La Rivera and so we went there and he it's a small place and so we were all at different tables and I'm eating with the guys in my community group and Logan and Boomer are at the same table and they're eating Logan's my brother so they're cousins they're eating together and they're just I mean they're pumped they're looking at the menu and getting excited and they're pointing and being like oh they got Mexican cheeseburgers I didn't know those existed they put eggs and sausage and bacon and beef like what is this place like they were so excited and they kept like showing me stuff and then I actually ordered while we were eating I ordered a thing called horchata which is like rice milk which I don't know who looked at rice and was like I wonder how to milk these things but they made rice milk and it's like creamy and good and they put cinnamon in it it's really cold it's kind of like drinking what's left in the bowl after cinnamon toast crunch it is amazing and so I'm drinking that and it's kind of like a dessert drink and while I was drinking that I was just talking enjoying eating my meal which was great and this guy comes walking up with a pitcher and he looks at me and goes do you want more horchata and I like was just stunned I can still see him in my mind and he glows a little bit I didn't in my wildest dreams think I could get a free refill on this drink like I just assumed it would be like if you were at when you get done eating at Chick-fil-A not today because it's Sunday but when you get done eating at Chick-fil-A walk up there with your milkshake and say I'd like a refill and see how they look at you they will not say my pleasure they will say give me money but at La Rivera they have a pitcher and a guy who floats and he comes by and says do you want some more so I was like I look probably like a 13 year old when a girl talks to him like I just was like yes like he laughed at me because of how excited I seemed and I drank way more of rice milk than I should have it's kind of heavy I did not feel good the rest of the day but it was worth it but while we're eating there I look over and Logan and Boomy are reading the menu and they slowly just start looking more concerned and then kind of frustrated and I don't know what they're talking about but they're pointing back at each other and they're cutting their eyes at me and I'm like I don't know so eventually I looked over and I was like what?
I don't know so eventually I looked over and I was like what? My cousin Boomy lays his menu down and he looks over at me and he says how long have you known about this place? Immediately I knew I was in trouble and I was like four months but somebody was there who keeps up with time better than me and had eaten with me before and they said no we ain't here like I said four weeks
And they said no we ain't here like six or eight weeks ago and I was like shut up and I was like six, eight weeks and he looked at me and Logan looked at me and they said four weeks was too long because I had known about something excellent I had known about something beautiful and I hadn't told them hadn't invited them in on it and the truth is if we as Christians have been called out of darkness have been given a family that is eternal
And we have been given hope and freedom and received mercy and we tell no one we don't form communities with the sole purpose of proclaiming the excellencies of Jesus what are we doing? it's real and it's beautiful and it's life giving and it matters we want to tell everyone that's honestly as a church that's what we're about that's why we're groups on mission that's why we stand up every Sunday and say we want you to join a group and here's why
Because we've been made into a family we've been given the identity of a family and we are designed to tell more people about him to go out of our way to proclaim the excellencies of Jesus because of the hope and the life and the freedom and the joy and the eternity that he's given us that's why we talk about groups so much that's why my group is about to multiply and it's really sad we're going to go
From one group to be in two groups and it's always sad because you have these really good relationships but our group is a family but we exist to proclaim the excellencies of Jesus and so if we have the opportunity to see more people welcomed in if we have the opportunity to see more people invited in if we have the opportunity to be in more places so that we can share the gospel with more people as we can see
More people come to know that this is true it's worth it I want us to see something when we started planting the church we drew a map we didn't draw the map we drew a circle on a map and it doesn't include the circle just is kind of around this area so West Columbia is kind of the forgotten middle of our city you got Columbia and nice things go there nobody's putting a dueling piano bar in West Columbia and then you got
Lexington and nice things go there and we felt called to West Columbia and I know we've got a lot of people in our church family that are in different areas but when we got started we drew a little circle that was cut off at the river and cut off at I-20 and we just said we wanted to start praying about what it would look like to plant a church here and how many people were there and there's about 60,000 people in a four square mile
Or four mile radius from just a dot that kind of covers up so it's where we meet and it's just kind of that area 60,000 people that live there and if you've ever been on Augusta Road or Sunset around five you probably believe that 60,000 people and the best estimates we've seen is that about 20% are involved in churches evangelical Protestant churches where they're proclaiming Jesus 20% so that means about 48,000 people most likely
In our city in that little circle that doesn't even include where some of our groups meet don't know Jesus 48,000 people in darkness without family who have not received mercy that will stand before the king of the universe and get what's coming to them that will accept their punishment for their sin and we know that there's hope and freedom offered through Jesus I know that when I stand
Before God I will not receive what I deserve but I'll receive what Jesus deserved because he took what I deserve it's 48,000 people so there's a person lives near you older lady and she's just in the dark she's a nice lady but she just doesn't know about this and ultimately she's living her life for just some comfort for some enjoyment she feels like if she can just
Retire early and be comfortable then that'll be good she'll have been successful she can just have a nice family she doesn't know Jesus and she's in the dark somebody works with you goes to school with you and they are desperately lonely they don't have family they don't have the freedom to be real about their brokenness they don't know Jesus and every person that you work with go to school with live in the same neighborhood with 48,000 of them
Don't know Jesus haven't received mercy don't have life don't have freedom don't have hope don't have all of the three things offered to us by Jesus 48,000 of them 48,000 people in our city don't know what Jesus has accomplished for us the hope and the life that we have because of him 48,000 people and we exist as a church to proclaim the excellencies
Of Jesus because of them because we have the hope and the freedom that he's given us one of the reasons we don't do a lot of ministries is because these 48,000 people are in your neighborhood shop at the same place you shop or a part of the same rec league sports as you are we don't want to take up all your time in the week we want you to be around them we want your group to spend some significant time in relationships
With each other getting to know these people because there's 48,000 in a little circle if we had done a five mile circle around the state house we would have to have poured out double that and we have excellent beautiful glorious news that brings life and joy and freedom and hope and so we as a church are communities on mission
Communities with the purpose of seeing more people and more people and more people have what we have which we didn't earn we didn't achieve which we haven't accomplished which we don't keep but was freely given to us by Jesus who took what we deserve so that we can have what he deserved that's the church a chosen race a royal priesthood a holy nation a people
For his own possession that we might proclaim the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness and into his glorious light into his marvelous light father we thank you for your goodness and your grace we thank you for your freedom we thank you Lord that for those of us in christ
We have been called out of darkness for those of us in christ we have received mercy we have been given a family we have hope and joy and life and we pray Lord that you would rescue and redeem and capture and save and pay the punishment for 48,000 people in our city that are right
Around us Lord we pray that our groups would get to to be intentional about building relationships with real people who have no hope no family no life and ultimately will not receive mercy which is offered freely through your cross and through your son we pray Lord that we would get to be a part of seeing more and more and more people
Rescued by the beautiful and excellent news of the death the brutal painful death of your son where no mercy was shown so that we might have mercy where the relationship between y'all was broken so that we might have family and where darkness was cast so that we might be welcomed into light God help us
To proclaim this message Jesus you are excellent amen for the remembering so we were even more and so we were going to Euh