Basics | Week 5 | Message

So today I wanna share with you about John Knox. How many of you guys are familiar with John Knox? Show of hands. Okay. Here's who he was. There was a time in the fourteen, fifteen hundreds where the Catholic church had become deeply corrupt, both morally and also financially,

keeping the Bible away from people. Right? And because of this, they were even charging people to become Christians. The reformation was a movement of the gospel where leaders who were bold started standing up to power, trying to get the Bible back into the hands of everyday people.

And then of the reformers, there were two particular guys. One is a guy named John Calvin and one historian said that John Calvin was perhaps the brains of the Reformation. And if he was the brains, then John Knox was the muscle of the reformation. I kind of like that. So John Knox was known for speaking truth to power.

And he would call out kings and queens and rulers. He was willing to suffer for his faith, but he was bold for the gospel. In fact, Mary Queen of Scots who opposed him is quoted saying this, fear the prayers of John Knox more than all the assembled armies of Europe.

Come on, John Knox is one of the baddest dudes in church history. He's a gangster. And what was so special about him was his strength to speak the truth straight. And so we as American Christians can learn a lot from that. In fact, Americans, we will do almost anything but speak truth clearly,

directly and kindly. In fact, how many of guys have the experience where a Starbucks barista gets your name wrong on the coffee cup? Or it's the Starbucks that you go to all the time, but this new barista renames you. Maybe your name is Natalie, but today you're Nicole. Okay? But because it's too late, like I can't tell him now what my name is. It's been too long. And so forever,

your name is Nicole. All right? And you would rather change your identity than have ten seconds of honesty. So every time you go in there, just have a new name. Look at me, some of you guys, this is totally you. You do not like the awkwardness of honesty.

But can I just tell you today that there is a side to Christian community that requires honesty? That if we are going to develop into full orb disciples of Jesus, we have got to embrace the art of both grace and truth.

Last week, you guys heard a message from Rocky High, and did he do phenomenal or what? I listened to the message inviting us to step into life groups, inviting us to participate in real Christian community where you can be truly known and accepted.

But I wanna take us a bit farther today and say that, yes, community in the church is is a place of being known and accepted, but it doesn't end there. We also need to grow to be a community that supports

and develops one another. Supports and develops one another. And there is a beautiful power when we're willing to be honest with one another and push each other farther in Christ. In fact, there's a life changing power to it. My wife served in this

Christian camp for years as a volunteer and the leader of that camp, the director was an amazing pastor, big burly dude named Joe. And he was always calling those students higher.

He wanted them to actually live like Jesus. And so as one of the leaders, she's probably 17, 18, she was dating a non Christian at this time. And word of this came to the director, and so in love,

he sat her down and wanted to check-in on her. And literally she walks in the room and he's this big dude sitting in the chair and he's got the chair set up there for her. She's like, what's happening? He's like, just wanna check-in on you. So she's like, okay, sits down, hears about her life, asked her how she's doing and checks in, loves her really well. But then he brings up the elephant in the room. He's like, so I hear you're dating a guy.

And it gets really awkward and starts to unpack that this is not a Christian. He's like, man, how do you feel about that? Like, what does it look like to honor God's word here? So I don't know what God's word says, unpacks the scriptures with her and loves her enough to call her upward.

And listen, this changed my wife's life because if that day didn't happen, she would have never married me. Right? And so her life would be way worse right now. And so I'm just telling you that there is a life changing power when we get honest in community.

We're in this basic series and we want you to know how to grow. At this church, we say it this way, you know grow and go. And we're in the grow portion of that. In life groups, we've got to learn to get honest with one another so that we can support and develop. If you're taking notes,

the title of today's message is Real Friends Throat Punch. Come on somebody. The big idea is this, To build spiritual strength, you have got to abandon relational comfort. To build spiritual strength,

you have got to abandon spiritual comfort. You guys taking notes today? Do you have Bibles at least? Bust out your Bibles. We're gonna get in God's word. You guys love the Bible here? Ephesians that's not convincing. Do you love the Bible here at Auckland Church?

Woo. Me too. Me too. Obviously, Ephesians chapter four, we're gonna look at verses 11 through

of church,

the purpose of maturity and the power to grow. All right, Ephesians chapter four, you guys there? Right, Ephesians chapter four, verse 11 will also be on the screen. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to what? To equip the saints

for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. This is God's word. Amen? This is a paradigm shifting, mind altering passage, and here's why. Most of us think of the church as a place that you go on Sundays, and we think of leaders as, folks who get up on a stage to give us the ministry,

to do ministry before our eyes. And we therefore are the passive participants receiving all the ministry. And that's a very American way of looking at church. And Paul here is a man who is opposing Christianity,

got radically saved by Jesus. He went from the foremost persecutor of the church to the greatest church planter who ever lived. He is writing letters to all of these churches across the Roman Empire, one of which is in Ephesus, and they are new believers.

And he just spent a bunch of time explaining the good news of Jesus, what we call the gospel. And now he was moving from how we have found hope in Jesus to how we should live as his church. And I want you to see the paradigm shift here that Paul gives us about the church.

Because far from saying that you, all of us in this room, are passive participants of leaders who are doing the ministry. Instead, it's exactly the opposite. It's exactly the opposite. Instead of the leaders, pastors, teachers, theologians, right? You listen them out. Evangelists,

shepherds. Think of pastors, like folks on staff here at the church. Instead of them doing all the ministry, their job is not to do ministry to you. Instead, it's to equip you to do the ministry. He says it in verse 12, look, he says, To equip the saints.

Now look at me for a second. This may be confusing because you think, saints are super holy people who fit in a special class of Christians that serves the poor really well and wears dope robes. Okay? And those are saints And we give them sainthood once they die if they did a really good job. And listen, that is a human invention.

According to the Bible, what a saint is, it means holy one. That's it. Somebody whose sins are forgiven by Jesus. So look at me.

You are a saint if you're a follower of Jesus or you become a follower of Jesus today. You didn't mean to achieve sainthood, but here we are. Right? Look at your neighbor and say, You're a saint. Look at your other neighbor and say, I hope you're a saint. I hope you're a saint. As we're sitting really close. So listen.

Here he says, everyone who is a saint is called to ministry. You say, well, I'm a waitress. I'm a barista. I'm a doctor. I'm a lawyer. Listen, you are called to ministry. He says, you're called into ministry, serving people that they might know Jesus, and also for building up the body of Christ.

The church Paul's gonna show us over and again is the body of Christ. So when he says this, the church is not a building that you go to on Sunday. The church is men and women who follow Jesus. It's anyone who would call the name of Jesus. So this is what he's saying here. This is the point of the church.

If you're taking notes, our first point, the point of the church is this. And I want you to write this down. Put it another way. He says, The mission of the church, you and me, is to make more and better disciples. To make more and better disciples.

Jesus, when he sent his 12 disciples into the world, he had already died on the cross for our sin, forgiving them, forgiving us. He had already risen from death and given life to his disciples, filled them with the spirit. And then he sent them out on a mission.

And he said in Matthew 28, some of you can quote it, go therefore and what make disciples all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, we're going

world. That. That.

So other we're words, we're not just to make more disciples, we are to make better disciples. Help people who know Jesus grow in Jesus. So, let's break these down for just a moment because Paul echoes that here in Ephesians four. Make make disciples. Disciples. Be

to

farthest from God. We're Somebody is. You may be saying today, that's me. Listen, God's heart beats for you. He longs that you would come to know him. In fact, this was the message that I heard as a 16 year old. I grew up in this, you know, secularism and atheism of the Pacific Northwest.

And so I was doing my own thing, trying drugs and trying to win at school and sports. I could give a rip about God or his word. And I got drugged to a student ministry and I heard about the love of Jesus and everything changed.

In this moment, I realized that God, who I had sinned against my entire life, who I couldn't give one rip about, had loved me before the foundations of the world. He died on a cross for me. And after tasting this grace, I thought to myself, man, I need every dude I know to come to know Jesus.

Because none of my dumb buddies knew Jesus. Okay. And so I hung out with stoners and metalheads

and jocks and athletes, and none of them cared about church or God. And I didn't know at this time as like a new believer that a lot of Christians don't even share their faith in Jesus. I just knew, man, I found grace in Jesus.

And so I went back to my high school with a vengeance, bro. I was like, I'm gonna lead all these crazy dudes to Christ. And so I'm bringing drug addicts and I'm bringing metalheads and I'm bringing,

you know, people who just don't care about Jesus to church and all of them get saved. We brought the like cultural temperature and holiness of that student ministry way, way down. I'll tell you that. And we were getting saved, we're excited. And so we we were like we we're called into ministry. Right? It says it here in Ephesians four. So we went back to my high school. Like, how are we gonna reach all these kids for Jesus? And we started a gas station bible study at the gas station down the street from my high school. Right? Where kids are like literally sitting on the oil in front of the gas station and check this out. We thought to ourselves we could bribe the underclassmen

for the $2 hot dogs and come sit and study the bible with us. And listen, just so you know, that is a dumb idea, okay? But it worked. Like it worked for us and so we would pack students who are getting saved at this bible study into my dad's

Astro van. It was so awesome you guys. And we would fit so many kids into this car jamming them in like sardines that we would actually have to take the seats out of this Astro van. Nobody had seat belts, and we would drive them illegally

to youth group. Bro, I should have been arrested. Please don't do this, by the way. This is not the way you do ministry. We didn't know the rules. All we knew is that more people need Jesus. That's what we knew.

And listen, today, we're still kinda breaking rules. We started the Garden Church out in the West Valley in Surprise. Is there an alert going on right now? It's because the preaching's so far, it's like dangerous. Watch out for this dude on stage.

He is spitting fire right now. Let's go. Glory to God in the house of the Lord. All right. All right. So we're still breaking rules. That's where I was. And sure enough, we wanna reach people far from Jesus at the Garden Church out in surprise. And so our branding, listen,

our branding's on point, but it's not very churchy. Okay. Can I show you the current series we're in at the Garden Church? Yeah. Apocalypse Now, let's go with the skull and everything. This is what it is. So some churches are trying to help you live your best life now. We're telling you the opposite. It's the Apocalypse Now. Okay. And so we've always had just kind of gnarly branding. It's kind of cowboy energy, little bit of Marlboro,

a little bit of 1920s tattoo. That's just where we're at. Lots of skulls. Not everybody loves that. And we get asked all the time, why are you doing this? And here's the deal. We're willing to be a little bit edgy because we're not trying to reach people who are churchy.

We want people who have never come to church to experience the grace of the gospel. And we offer every almost every single week for people to say yes to Jesus. And the way we do it, it's like super tech savvy. We're like text the Lord's number if you get saved.

And so the Lord's number is 3777. We say text that number and we get testimonies. And I just wanna read you one right now. One young man says, I've been in a hole that I've dug since I was 16, living my own life on my own, but knowing that I need Jesus now. I never grew up in a church house.

I just joined a men's group and I want to get baptized. I need God to lead me. And I love this part so that I can lead my family. Listen, God is so good. We have to have the heart that says more people need Jesus who are far from Jesus. You get to be part of a great rescue mission.

But we don't just leave them there. Listen, Jesus meets you right where you're at. But part of what it means to join a life group and to begin to grow is we get supported, but we also get developed. Jesus wants us to make better disciples of those who are already following Him.

And so what does it mean that we wanna make better disciples, help people grow in their faith? Well, here's what's interesting to me. Everybody in this room, like I know something about you, you wanna get better, right?

Don't you? I don't care if you're a Christian, non Christian, you want to improve. In fact, I'm a dad, I have three kids, right? 10, seven and six. Pray for me. It's amazing. It's challenging, but we're trying to raise all our kids to be musicians. We both grew up playing instruments. And so we want our kids to catch fire for the Lord and to become a little worship band. Let's go. We're growing the church the old school way, just having kids and making them a worship band. And so they all play guitar, drums, piano,

ukulele, you name it, right? And I put money where my mouth is. And so I will literally pay any, you know, good instructor to train my kids. And listen,

I'm paying these dudes. And I just want you to imagine for a second that I walk into the studio, into the room and homeboy's telling my 10 year old son, Oh, it's okay that you didn't practice your guitar. It's okay that you're not getting better. It's just about having fun.

Listen, you might think I'm a psychopath, but I walk up in there like, wait a second, bro. I could not pay you for him to have fun. I'm trying to get him better at guitar. Right? And how many of guys are with me on that? Like, I'm not paying for nothing. Listen, some of you guys are A type driven like me. Want everything to get better. Others of you guys are like, pray for this man's kids. This man's poor kids are under a lot of pressure. And listen, this is what's going on in our culture right now. You have two dudes that are insanely influential,

and I like them too. Guys like Jocko Willink and David Goggins. You guys know these guys? Some of guys are like, I'm not gonna admit talking about David Goggins in church because you're a Christian. That's all right. You can keep your secrets.

But listen, these guys are famous even among non Christians and here's why. Here's why they're so huge. Because I believe people in our culture today, especially young people, especially young men are sick of soft messages and zero progress. And they are ready for raw truth so that they can improve.

And listen, this is what God wants for you too. God wants you to grow in your faith. He wants you to become not a spiritual infant, but in the context of life groups in community, speaking truth and love, He wants you to grow into maturity. In fact, that's our second point, the purpose of maturity.

Question for you, what does it look like to be spiritually mature? Who gets to define that? Well, let's look at verses thirteen and fourteen where Paul does. He says, Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the son of God, to what? Mature manhood.

To the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ so that we may no longer be what? Children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes.

Listen, God's goal for you is to transform you. The metaphor here is that just like your kids or you have a human body that is growing up into maturity, we too, as followers of Jesus grow in spiritual maturity, not staying as stagnant infants in the Lord, but growing up into full manhood.

And so here he defines it, the preaching's still fire, just so you know. Here he defines it, and he says three things in the text. Look at number one. What does it mean to be spiritually mature? It's unity with other believers. How many of you guys know a Christian who is kind of a jerk for Jesus? You know that guy?

Here's one of the problems. As people get spiritually mature, a lot of times they get more divisive. I could get famous on YouTube literally tonight, and all I'd have to do is get on YouTube and start judging other churches and pastors.

The algorithm favors it, but for some reason, also in our Christian culture, we love putting down Christians who we think are lesser. Can I just tell you something today? Paul defines maturity as unity. Being more gracious, more unified with other believers.

In the life group, caring for those who are behind us. And if your definition of spiritual maturity, listen, I love you. If your definition of spiritual maturity is divisive, then you have an unbiblical definition of maturity.

And instead, we should grow closer and more caring towards other believers. This is what he says. Attain to the unity of the faith. Number two, maturity looks like there's a growing knowledge of Jesus.

Do you study the Bible to get to know Jesus better? That that's what I'm asking you today. Do you have a growing knowledge of Jesus? Listen. God has written us a book so that we could get to know him more. As a young man, 20 years old, I met this

really gorgeous, stunning girl named Lindsay. Alright. She became my wife, so chill. And, when we were first getting to know one another, I was I was head over heels. I was like, oh my gosh, who is this babe? Right? And the unfortunate thing was I was going to bible school in like a week from then. And so we,

started talking kind of long distance. I moved halfway across the country. And if you're a young person in here, I do not recommend long distance relationships. It's the worst. Not a good idea. I think it's dumb. I mean, you want to, good luck. Terrible. But what it did for us is we ended up sending each other letters.

Could someone say, oh. Right? Like, we're sending each other letters, and we even sent each other mix tapes, right, on CDs. That's how old I am. Let's go. You guys remember those? Some of you. All right. And here's what happened is we got to know each other at a deeper level.

Right? She wasn't close in proximity to me at this time physically. And so she wasn't super distracted by my insanely good looks. And so we got to know each other, and listen, God in the same way has written love letters to us in his word.

And have you opened it up? I believe one of the greatest challenges for the church today is overcoming biblical illiteracy. Not knowing what it looks like to follow Jesus because we never grow in our understanding of God's word. We have more access to information than any generation prior,

and yet we have less biblical literacy than ever. And so one of the things my wife and I are doing is we're not really morning people right now because our kids stay up late, but we're trying to get up at like five, six in the morning. And we're going outside

in front of the fire pit, no fire needed because it's already one hundred and five degrees outside in the morning. Is this normal in the valley in October? I'm from Portland, Oregon. This is terrible. What's wrong with you? Why do we move here? Anyways, one hundred and five, and we open up our Bible and

we're teaching our kids this phrase, it's Bible before breakfast. We need to feed our souls more than we even need to feed our bodies. So are you growing in God's word? Are you growing in community? In your life group,

are you pushing one another, challenging each other, encouraging each other with God's word? Number three, Paul defines it as unflinching convictional backbone. Come on somebody. Unflinching. Why do I say that? He says here that we no longer wanna be tossed to and fro by every wave of doctrine.

What I think he's saying here is that we need to be grounded in God's word and unflinching in our confidence.

Listen, more than ever people hate Christians today. You understand this? And I believe whatever you think of the situation that maybe the greatest takeaway we can have from the death of Charlie Kirk is this, that the world is very happy now to kill Christians. Anyone who would hold any Christian convictions.

And not only that, they will celebrate your death online. That's where the world is going. It is no longer popular to follow Jesus, but we're entering in a whole new season where I think casual Christianity

is dead. And now you have to be the real thing. Those who are gonna fill churches are those who are deeply convicted because it's no longer popular to be a Christian. And so the weeks following this, our church was full of people looking for hope. Non Christian people saying like, oh my gosh, death is so close.

And I remember connecting with people, and literally I was wanting to call these people like, Come follow Jesus. Now it's a crazy pitch because you're going like, Hey, come follow Jesus. Because honestly, and this is what I said, your baptism may now be a death sentence. And

I'm like preaching the gospel like this is in a, this is not a popular thing to do. But I had baptism sign ups to get, right? And I have a baptism coming up. So I, this is literally my pitch. I'm like, I know somebody just got killed who's a Christian. You should become a Christian and come die with us.

Like it's like, I literally said that. And then I put a QR code on the screen to get registrations. Listen to me, I actually think this is a good pitch. We live in a world today, if you're non Christian, we live in a world today that is pushing you to affirm lies that you know are not true.

Come follow a Jesus who presents to us a truth so unshakable it's worth dying for. That's what's on offer. Come follow that Jesus. I am convinced that a lot of people, I'm convinced that a lot of people have not become Christians. Not because they're not looking for

God or they're not looking for truth, but because they haven't seen the reality of Christianity in his existing followers. Who wants to follow people who say, I believe in Jesus, kind of. Who wants to follow a church of the half convinced? We need to grow and become more like Jesus in our life groups,

life on life, challenging one another. Here's some warning signs I just want to warn us today. Warning signs that maybe, just maybe, we have settled for a stagnant faith. Here they are. Number one is following Jesus doesn't cost you anything. Does it cost you anything?

When it gets difficult, do you press in or do you back off? What about all your stories about God are from years ago? Someone asked what God's doing in your life in the Life Group. And you're like always talking about what happened when you were 16 or what happened when you were eight or 20,

but you have no connection with God now and your faith is stagnant. This, servants about money or serving offends you.

The pastors get up, teach on these things that actually call us into deeper faith in Jesus. And you're like, see, there it is. This is a mega church. They're all about the money. They're all about you being in the system and serving. And listen, I hate to say it, but the truth is this. You're not offended by the church. You're offended by the call of Jesus.

And today is the day to say, no, actually, God isn't trying to get anything from me. He's trying to set me free from the love of money. He is trying to set me free from a life of non service and inviting me in to be more like Christ. Or how about this one? Nobody rolls their eyes at your faith.

No one's like, Oh man, you're the Christian guy. Because the next one is this, no one even knows that you're a Christian. Are you a closet Christian? Today is the day you can tell them your pastor said this to come out of the closet. Come out of the closet for Jesus.

Don't take that out of context. I'm gonna get canceled. All right. Or lastly, you're always the hero or the victim of every story. It's always, they did this to me and it's their problem and why the church did this. And listen, our greatest problem is us.

It's humility in the context of your life group saying, Man, I need help. GK Chesterton was a brilliant intellectual Christian in the early twentieth century, and he was a writer. And so the London Times, a secular newspaper, it is said, Put out a prompt for writers to write articles. And the prompt was this,

what is wrong with the world today? GK Chesterton, and it said, sent in an article containing only four words. What's wrong with the world today? Dear sirs, I am. Listen, this is the Christian heart, man. I'm my own biggest problem, and I need a community to help set me free and to develop me.

And we together get to develop and push one another to become better disciples of Jesus. So last question for you. Maybe this is you and you're like, how do I grow then? Does he give us any instruction for how I can grow in maturity in the context of community?

I love the Bible because he does. Here's our third point, the power to grow.

The power to grow. Here it is. We're gonna look at fifteen and sixteen and close. He says, Rather, here's how you grow, speaking the truth in love. Truth in love. We are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into 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 so that it builds itself up in love. Here's how you grow. Here's how you become spiritually mature. Three things. Notice that he says, Speak truth in love.

Speak truth in In your life group, do you guys speak truth to one another? You willing to be honest and push one another towards Jesus? Are you willing to do that with love and with compassion? These are two opposite things oftentimes, and many of us are really good at one or the other.

How many you guys know somebody who's really good at love, but not that good at truth?

Right? This is the dude who makes you feel really good. He's like, yo, bro, your fit is fire today. You're like, really? And he's like, yeah, you're looking swole. Like, dang, I do look jacked today, right? You're feeling good. Then you go to the bathroom and you see in the mirror, have this big green thing in your teeth. Like what the heck? Why didn't you tell me? He's really good at love, but not that good at truth.

You also know people who are really good at truth, but not that good at love. Right? And they don't have any friends because they're always saying mean things with no connection. And listen, truth without love is bullying. Love without truth is flattering. And neither of those are helpful and both are unbiblical.

Instead, we gotta marry these things together.

A dude tells you in your small group or a gal, Hey, I'm texting with somebody that's not my spouse at work. Mean, I think it's getting a little too far. What do you do in that moment? Do you say, oh, man, I've been there too. I've done things I should have done. So it's no big deal.

Or do you press in and say, man, hey, man, I've made mistakes too. And I remember a dark time in my life. And can I just encourage you to actually open up to your spouse? This is gonna destroy your life and it doesn't look a thing like Jesus. And I want you to experience life. It's truth and it's love married together. Proverbs 20 seven:six says, Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Profuse are the kisses

of an enemy. Or I love the Bill Bush translation. Faithful is the throat punch of a friend. Come on, somebody. Profuse are the kisses of an enemy. I love Bill because he gives the I like to call it the velvet throat punch. He speaks some truth, but he meets you in love. Listen,

this is the second thing Paul says. He says, Make Christ the standard. Make Christ the standard. Oftentimes when we compare ourselves to holiness,

we're comparing ourselves to other people. Like I'm a pretty holy person. I have nothing to confess, right? Because I'm comparing myself to a loser over there, right? Moral loser. And you're like, I'm doing good because John over there sucks.

And you're like, so I must be great. Compare yourself not to John, but to Jesus. We ought to make Christ the standard. You say, what do I need to confess? Where do I need to grow? Give yourself the stress test. Have you ever taken the stress test? We're all really holy until we're hungry, tired or late.

Right? Can I get an amen? I was talking to a guy at our church who was doing tear down or build out is what we call it. It was we're serving together. And he's kicking it, you know, the tires and just say, Hey man, people in the valley are terrible drivers. I was like, I know. They'd be killing you out on the 10, right?

Terrible drivers in the valley. It's true. You guys agree with this? I'm making fun of you. But terrible drivers in the valley. And I'm literally going, Yeah, they're the worst. I come from Portland, right? We will burn the city down, but at least we drive the speed limit, right?

He says, You know what's worse is Californians. I was like, Dude, don't even get me started. He said, The other day I was driving back from Cali with my trailer. So you know, I'm trying to make it up this hill. I'm like, yeah, dude. And this guy is being impatient.

He gets on the right and passes me on the right. I'm like, dude, I hate people like that. He's like, know. He's like, it's funny. There was a garden church sticker on the back of the car. I was like, our people, bro. He said, yeah, and your name on the license plate. I was like, oh man,

because here's the deal. When I'm very holy until I'm stressed, hungry or late. And then the sin comes out, do the stress tests and look for opportunities to confess to one another.

Lastly is find connection joints. Paul uses the metaphor again of the body. And he says that the body is connected at the joints. Look at me. This is like life groups. This is coming on Sundays.

This is serving on a team. We must be connected with one another. You think about this. If you walked in the parking lot today after church and you go out there and just see a foot on the ground, nobody.

You would never say, Oh man, this foot must just have an alternative way of being connected to the head. Connected to the body in its own way. Right? Like this foot must watch the head online on Sundays.

Right? That's how it's connected to body. It's just a different vibe, this foot. No, you would say if you saw a foot on the ground, you'd like, something terrible has happened, right? This is the way Paul would feel about those of us who are not connected in community, life groups and teams and the like in this church.

And listen, we've got to stay connected because there's a life changing power when we get involved in community with honesty, with truth, with difficulty, yes.

But together in unity of the body. Are you part of a life group? I wanna encourage you, there's QR codes on the back. You can get connected at the church. This is what regular Christianity, powerful Christianity looks like. It's life changing. Close with this. At 16,

I was not a Christian and I kind of got Jesus juked to go to like a kind of Christian event. I didn't know it was Christians, but I got invited to a pizza place and I was super down for pizza.

And I remember, I'm extroverted, so I'm hanging out with these guys that are Christians. I don't know they're Christians. And I'm getting to know these guys, they're sitting in the pizza place. And one guy is a believer says to another believer, he says, Hey man, how's your heart?

I never heard that phrase before. And so I'm like, man, he is gonna get heart surgery. This is so sad. Here's a guy like so young, man.

And the guy, to my surprise, doesn't talk about medical condition. He starts talking about where his soul is at. He starts sharing and unpacking what he's dealing with with his family. And the other guy's leaning in and challenging and encouraging him.

And I was just blown away because all of my dumb buddies up until this point, none of us talked about stuff like this. We were always like making fun of each other, sarcastic and committing crimes together.

And so I'm like, what is this category of people have this kind of I realized in this moment that these guys have a love for one another that I had never tasted. It was weeks later that I ended up coming with those guys to a student ministry and giving my life to Jesus. The community that rejects the

ease and comfort of living alone for the difficulty of this uncomfortable relationship is the one that makes the difference. Father, we thank you for today. We thank you for what you're doing in this church. And God, we wanna pray right now for those who have never put their faith in Jesus. And God,

would you reveal to them, Jesus, the beauty of the Jesus who leads an alternative counter cultural community? God, would you open eyes and change hearts? Maybe they put their faith in you today. Father, I want to pray for those who are right now living in community, but they haven't embraced honesty.

Maybe they've got that addiction they've never talked about. Maybe they don't they're not sure who to open up to. And God, I want to pray that there would be all week long, all throughout our life groups, folks who say yes,

and folks who step into the difficulty and open up, folks who challenge one another and encourage one another so that more and more Rock Point Church might look like Jesus. And all God's people said, amen. Amen. Can you guys thank Nolan for being here? Yeah.

I've known Nolan for a couple years now and his wife, Lindsay. They're such a great people and such a great message on biblical community. Here at Rock Point, we say biblical community is defined when we are known, accepted, supported, and developed. And such a powerful message about being supported

and developed in our community. Church, we love you. We hope this was very helpful for you. If you do need prayer, we have a prayer room to my right, your left.

Otherwise, we'll see you later. If you are not in a LifeGroup and you're interested, you can scan the QR code in front of you. We have a team who would love to reach out to you, get you connected. Otherwise, we'll see you next weekend.

Thank you so much for joining us online this weekend, and stay connected with us all week long on our app and on social media.