Holy Spirit | Part 6

And so then I walk in and there's two chairs up on the stage and all that. What they did is they surprised my wife and I by honoring us for nineteen years at this church. And then it was also this year is my thirtieth year in ministry. And I turned

29 years old, just a month ago. No, no, 50. I turned 50, you know? So they just decided to do something fun and honor us. And one of the coolest things it is they got videos of people that are in the church that some of them said some really awesome things. But one that was really touching is they actually went and got my mentor, who is Lynn Winters. He's the pastor at Cornerstone. He was my youth pastor.

You can either thank him or blame him for this church being here, because he's the one that kind of pushed me into this whole thing. And so he said some amazing things. And so to just kind of talk about what real community is and how we can get encouraged and stuff, I wanna show you a clip of what

he said about me, so to pat myself on the back and to make us all feel good. Okay? So watch this clip. Hey, Bill, congratulations, man. Somehow you have so lowered the standard for your team about your performance that you did the bare minimums of your job, and now you're being celebrated. Dude, that is classic.

Thanks. Well, now you know where I got that from too. So, actually, was how he opened. He went on for several minutes, made me cry, my wife cry, it was powerful.

But how he opened it up, that wasn't what you expected to hear, was it? You didn't expect to have someone say, you've lowered the bar, you've done the bare minimum, and somehow you're getting honored for that. I mean, that's what Congress does, right? But what, sorry.

The whole point there was here, I'm talking about his community and really being the church and what he said there, it's kinda not what you expected. Well, today, I wanna look at in this last part of this Holy Spirit series, where we open up, who is he? And we talked about who He is, is He's

God and He's a person and all these things. And then the last few weeks we've been talking about, well, how does He work? What's the Holy Spirit's role in our life? You know, we know Jesus died for us, we believe that. How does He really transform us? How does He really because what we saw is the Holy Spirit's job is he is the initiator and the perfecter of our faith. He's the one who seeks us, sanctifies us, and then sends us to be the church. Well, how does he do that? We've been looking at the elements that he uses, the pathways he's like, He uses the Bible, He uses prayer, and we've been looking at these things. Now, you also can't turn the Holy Spirit into a formula because He's a person. So yeah, He uses these pathways, but sometimes He uses them in ways that you don't expect because it's not a formula.

And today I wanna talk about the number one thing that the Holy Spirit uses to transform our lives. And what we're gonna see is like that video I just showed, He does it in a way that you don't expect,

The standard way it's a surprise. And so today's big idea is this, the Holy Spirit's plan A is people. The Holy Spirit's plan A in our lives is people. Why do think we're called to be the body of Christ? Why do think He calls us to be a church and to be together and to not just sit in rows, but to be in circles?

Because all through scripture, there's things that says, we need to be for one another in a relational way, not just in a programmatic way, not just coming. This is an important environment to be a part of, I get it. But we have so many other ways we're supposed to be the church in each other's lives, that it's a relational way. And all through scripture, you see these, the Bible talking about these one anothers and how we build each other up. The passage we're gonna look at a minute says we're responsible for helping build each other up and looking out for one another, and we're supposed to do all these things. But if you look at this list of what it says the church is supposed to do,

it's actually the Holy Spirit's job description also. So do we replace them? No. But we people are the pathway, the conduit in which the Holy Spirit works. And His plan A is biblical community, people. But how does that work? Because the way we imagine it working, it's just like that video, sometimes the way he really

uses community ironically is the very thing most of us spend our time running away from as Christians. We don't enter into that. We fight that. Matter of fact, what we're about to see about what real community is that the Holy Spirit uses is the type of community that usually you would complain about. You'd say, if this

is what's happening and expected, I'm gonna write a letter to the pastor and say, there's a problem with this group because boom, boom, because of these four things. We'd actually avoid it. And we're gonna see that these are the things that God uses. And where we're gonna be is in Romans chapter 15,

and we're gonna be just in the first seven verses. But the thing you gotta understand about scripture, if you're new to this whole thing, is when the Holy Spirit inspired the authors to write it, they didn't sit down and write Romans chapter one verse one. Chapter and verse numbers were not in the original writing.

Those were added hundreds of years later to help us find passages, because it's a big book. So it's written in book format. So when you read a chapter, you can't ignore what's coming before, because really in the context of what's being written, the first seven verses of chapter 15

is the summary and the explanation of because of what's happening in chapter 14, this is what we need to be if we're gonna be community. If we're gonna be spiritual community, if we're gonna have real community with one another, be the body of Christ,

this is the summary of what's happening in 14. Well, what's happening in chapter 14? Well, chapter 14,

where Paul's writing this church to this book, it's called Romans because it's a church in Rome. He always wanted to go to Rome because it was the massive center of the world at the time. It was the the main city. All roads lead to Rome. Right? Well, he also knew that means all roads lead out of Rome. So he always knew if you could establish a church there, the gospel could go everywhere.

And so he never got there until he was already a prisoner, and there was already a church there. And so Romans, he wrote ahead of his time of getting there to kinda lay down the foundations of the gospel of who is Jesus and what does it mean to be a Christian

all these things. But then he also was dealing with issues they already had. And in Romans ten forty, one of the issues that points out, they were starting to have some, you know, division and some struggles and didn't know what to do because they had some very differing opinions.

And that would be natural in the in a church in Rome because Rome got started with some Jews who had converted in Jerusalem.

The first church was almost all Jews. They had the same background, the same understanding of the Old Testament, same. Well, now in Rome, you got slaves, you got free people, you got wealthy people, you got poor people, you have people from every country, every race, every tribe, every tongue, they were all coming and becoming a part of the church. The only thing they had in common was Jesus.

So because of their different religious and economic and backgrounds, they had some different views on stuff. Well, issues they were running into was one was the days of the week when should you worship. And and and the other one, the the one that's talked about the most, was they were dealing with meat.

Meat was the problem. That sounds stupid. And in this passage, the meat issue they're having with some of the more classic

Jewish Christians really felt like we need to adhere to these old testament dietary practices of not eating certain meat, not doing stuff. And so they would only eat vegetables at certain things and stuff like that. But the people that didn't grow up in, it's like, it's just hamburger, man. It's just a steak, who cares?

And they were fighting. And so Paul had to go, hey, it's causing a division. Because he'd be like, well, can't be with you if you're gonna do that, you can't do this. And

they were having arguments about the meat. Well, that's not the only time they had argument. He actually had to write about it in one Corinthians 10 also. Now their meat issue was slightly different. In Corinth, you had a lot of different There was a main Mecca for temples of other religions. And so they would have these

pagan rituals and they would sacrifice animals. And then what they do is they do so many of these sacrifices that they would sell the meat in the marketplace. And so the Christians that there was a group of Christians that freaked out saying, well, if I eat the meat that was sacrificed

to an idol, that means, you know, I'm gonna take that in, and I'm gonna have demons in me. It's gonna be the exorcist or something. It's gonna hurt me or harm me. And and and and so then people would eat it, and then the people go, you can't eat that. So they're same fight over me. Both are the same scenario.

If one person says this is harmful, one person says it's not a big deal. Get over it. That's it. Sounds dumb. Doesn't it? Aren't you glad we're we're not stupid enough to fight over a four letter word that starts with m and involves your mouth?

Sometimes you read parts of the Bible and you go, why did this even need to be in there? And then 2020 comes.

So they were having a disagreement where some people said it's fine, other people said no, and then they couldn't meet. No pun intended. Well, we have some similar issues today, wouldn't you say?

We we have some issues over this today. Well, Paul says, okay, well, here's how you need to deal with this. This is you're losing track of what it really means to be the body of Christ.

And so you can read chapter 14. He shares a lot of this. We're gonna be like Jesus. He says, don't cause your brothers to stumble. And can I just tell you something? In both scenarios, Paul literally shares his own opinion that he says, I think meat is not harmful at all. However, here's what I'm gonna ask you to do.

He owned the fact that he doesn't think it's a problem, but then he challenged the people that don't think it's a problem to do something for the sake of those who do. Just remember that as we look at this. Now this message is not about masks. That's just a good illustration.

All right. I actually developed this outline about a month or two ago after I thought we'd already settled this issue. And I just happened to be this week. Okay. So I just don't think this is some setup. If you saw my video this week and saw how some people were not too happy with what I asked us to do.

I'm just telling you it was already a Holy Spirit moment. The whole point here is how do we manage real community? And the idea that I wanna look at in these seven verses is what real community is gonna look like is not what you expect. And we have to be willing to embrace that if we really want the Holy Spirit

to grow us the most like Christ, because His plan a is

this type of stuff. Makes sense? So here we go. Romans 15. I'm just gonna go through these seven verses and point out four things. First one's in the first verse. It says, now, and we went through 14, explained what's going on and what he said. He goes, We who are strong

must be considerate of those who are sensitive about things like this. We must not just please ourselves. So the first is these are songs. Strong and weak doesn't mean a better Christian than us. He's like strong meant, I'm strong enough, I don't believe that the dietary thing, meat is not an issue, it's just hamburger.

So he goes, those who think it's not a problem need to be considerate of those who do. And and he goes, don't just think about yourself.

He's saying right there, he's giving a principle. See, now here's the thing, mass and meat aren't the same. This is not the exact same scenario, but the principles are what we wanna look for to be applied. And so what he's saying here is that real community, spiritual community, the type of community that the Holy Spirit's gonna use,

is first and foremost not designed to be convenient. It's not designed for convenience. And see, as I go through these points, what I'm realizing, a lot of us never really can grow to be all that we're supposed to be, and really be the body of Christ,

because we have our view of what we think community is supposed to be, And the Holy Spirit goes, no. This is what it's supposed to be, and the very thing he wants it to be is what we run from and complain about. And the first step is to be considerate and not just think of yourself, means it's not gonna be convenient.

It's not convenient to bear with other people's opinions that disagree with you. It's not convenient to bear with other people's actual failings and sin either, is it?

But you know what happens in this scenario? It's funny how they're this the this the the meat issue, and I believe the same thing is applied to masks. This is called a disputable issue in scripture. Disputable means there's more than one opinion, and it's not a doctrinal issue.

There's not a clear doctrine. Like a a doctrinal issue that you that is not disputable is Jesus is the only way to heaven. The Bible is the inspired word of God. The word of God is our authority. You know, these these these doctrinal things, disputable

things are like, should we wear a mask? Is it good or is it bad? How should I vote? What should I look? Those are disputable issues. And the problem happens when we take disputable issues and try to turn them into doctrinal issues. Or another way to say it is we take ideology and try to turn it into theology.

That's where we run into a mistake. And that's kinda happens a lot in our culture because we we like a lot of our ideology. We like we have an American ideology that we often confuse with biblical theology. And so a lot of our versions of what we think the church is supposed to be is Americanized. Plain and simple.

So when it comes to disputable matters, there are different opinions, and we should have a consideration and not judge one another and not fight with one another. So even though this is talking about meat, the principle can be applied to the mask issue. We shouldn't be fighting. We shouldn't be judging.

And honestly, I think what Paul is saying, he would apply the same principle here. He would say, You know what? Even though I don't think this COVID thing is as dangerous as people think it is, I'm gonna wear a mask, and I'm gonna ask all of you that agree with me to wear a mask too. That's what it's saying.

It's saying that real community means sometimes I give up my rights and my freedom for the sake of my brother or sister.

He's saying the real community means we can't just find the most convenient place to go, and I think that's what keeps us out of community. That keeps us in the rows and not in the circles. I think it's also what keeps us bouncing around church to church because the second we're inconvenienced,

we think, well, is a problem, I'm out of here. If you're gonna tell me that, then I'm not gonna be here. No, it's like, we don't wanna listen to the Word of God. We don't wanna be inconvenienced.

We wanna find the most Now when we do community around here, it also isn't saying let's try to make it as inconvenient as possible also. Don't hear what I'm not saying. I was like, we're gonna purposely make it really really difficult

just to be that way. No, that's not what it's saying. It's just saying that you have these moments that it can be hard to be inconvenienced. And when it's hard, we wanna run from it. And here's the thing that I think why it's making us so argue y right now in our culture over everything,

is because we are built for real community, and we've been disconnected for so long. And when you get disconnected, you get angrier. And then when the world's not working the way you want it to work, we get frustrated. In other words, I think part of the issue we have with our church today

is, think of it this way, it's like when you go on a family road trip. Have you ever been on like the road trip from hell? It sounded so good in your head until you took your kids,

and you had the baby and the little one and the medium sized one, you got these three kids and they're in the back and you realize my car is not big enough to keep them arms distance away. You can't safely distance

your kids when you're on this trip. And so then it's terrible, they're fighting the whole time. Then the trip doesn't work out as well, the car breaks down and you're doing all that, and then and then this what I feel like we're at right now, why everyone's getting so testy is like, we're in that last hour before you're actually getting home.

And the AC is not working,

the baby's screaming, the kids have been fighting, nothing's worked right, you thought this would be a relaxing time, instead of improving your family and your marriage, you, the husband and wife, you guys are thinking you're probably gonna know go see a counselor when you get back, and you're fighting, you're fighting by not talking, they're fighting by not shutting up, And you're just so frustrated and you're thinking, man, we just have an hour left.

I feel like domestic, we're getting so close to to to to moving on, and we're gonna make it through this together. And now we're all just yelling at each other. And the reason I feel it so much is most people that like to yell the most like to yell at me. So I know.

And so what he's saying is let's let's be considerate, because see, you realize, Matt, this is not a doctrinal issue. This is a disputable thing. And I believe what it's saying here is for the sake of those that are marginalized, for the sake of you, because here's what I do know. Paul said the hamburger has no power. Zero.

I guarantee you coronavirus is more deadly than a hamburger patty. And he's still asking those who are strong to be inconvenienced for those who are struggling with it. Does that make sense? Really to those of you that just refuse to wear a mask, does that make sense?

Here let me here's how Paul says it in in first Corinthians. It makes a lot of sense. In first Corinthians chapter 10 starting in verse 23, I'm just gonna read these 10 verses. When I say about what he's asking us to do is sometimes we need to restrict our freedom for the sake of our brothers.

We need to not demand our right for the sake of someone else. He says this, you say I'm allowed to do anything. Paul's the master at bringing up the question he knows they're asking. You say I'm allowed to do anything. Meaning I have freedom in this, that's my right,

but not everything is good for you. You say I'm allowed to do anything, but not everything is beneficial. Don't be concerned for your own good, but for the good of others.

So you may eat any meat that is sold in the marketplace without raising questions of conscience, for the earth is the Lord's everything. So basically, if you apply to it, like if you're on your own, you're out there, fine. Go ahead. Do what you wanna do.

But he says, but if someone who isn't a believer asks you in their home. Now he's taking it's not just about the church, he's talking about our testimony and our witness to people that don't even know Jesus.

He says, if someone who isn't a believer asks you home for dinner, accept the invitation if you want to, eat whatever is offered to you without raising questions of conscience. Meaning, don't go, is this locally sourced, grass fed, and not hormone free? You know, it's like, don't ask questions about it. Just eat what they give you. But suppose someone tells you this meat was offered to an idol. Don't eat it out of consideration for the conscious of the one who told you. It might not be a matter of conscious for you, but it is for the other person. For why should my freedom be limited by what someone else thinks? Once again, that's what I've heard from people in our own church. Why should my freedom be limited by their fear?

He's saying it right here. He's answering the question. So if you don't wanna listen to me, listen to the God.

If I can thank God for the food and the enjoyment, why should I be condemned for eating it? That's the other question. Why should I be condemned for doing something that I think is not a problem? But then verse 31, so whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, you should be doing it all for the glory of God,

not for yourself. Don't give off and then he says, don't give offense to the Jews or the Gentiles or the Church of God. So don't give offense to your own church or to your community that doesn't know Christ. Don't let your demanding of your freedom push someone away from Jesus, is what he's saying.

I too, and now here's what he said, because I'm not being defensive here. So if you were someone that's mad at me, said this is not about you, I'm just trying to say, this is what I've heard. Same thing here. I had a friend who was here yesterday, he's a head of an

association, he's a coach, church planting coach and stuff. And he just wrote an article for Outreach Magazine called Cowards and Killers. What's it like to be a pastor during a pandemic? Because he says every pastor has, no matter what they do, their congregation is either call them a coward, you're preaching fear,

or a killer because you just don't care about people.

And they say you gotta and then they say preach the gospel, preach the truth. What do you think the gospel is? It's the good news. The truth of the gospel we're supposed to be is not our ideology

truth. It's not every truth. It's not the truth we believe. When the Bible says the truth and the gospel, it means that Jesus inconveniences himself and died for us while we were sinners, and we're all broken sinners before God. And the good news is that we can be made right with God only through Jesus.

That's the gospel. That's the truth. And he says right here, I too try to please everyone in everything I do.

What does he mean? Does he mean he gives in to doctrine? No. He's talking about disputable matters. He's not talking about doctrine. He's not talking about the gospel. He's not talking about the real truth. He's talking about these other truths that we believe that are disputable,

our ideologies, our ideas. He goes, I try not to bring offense to anyone. I try not to let my opinion push someone away from Christ.

I do what is best for others so that many may be saved. And you should imitate me just as I imitate Christ. In other words, what he's saying is, and the question I'll ask you is that we should ask ourselves is, is my freedom worth someone's salvation? If

you really wanna preach the truth and get down to it, clear out every other piece of garbage, I don't need to know the science of whether mass actually work. I don't need to know the truth of how bad it is or how good it is. I don't need to know which political party is exaggerating

their side to make a point. You don't need any of that to know the biblical principle that Paul just said here.

You put aside a freedom and a right for the sake of the gospel. That's the truth. And that's not fearful. That's me being bold because I'm willing to make everyone mad. Because you know why? Because everyone in here that wants wear a mask and is getting so mad at the people not wearing a mask, don't judge them.

Your attitude is I'm more spiritual. No. We just disagree on a disputable matter.

Now one thing I didn't say yesterday, there are a certain percentage of people that can't wear a mask. You know who you are, and you also know who you're not. I know what you do at Walmart and and at Home Depot. You just say, I can't wear a mask, and you know that HIPAA laws are not allowed to ask you why.

If you can't absolutely wear a mask and you're willing to come in here, we're okay with that.

But your conscience knows if you're lying. I'm asking us to do it. And not out of fear, out of love. See in these type of moments of despital matter, you take the relational track. The relational track. And we don't want our freedom

to cost someone else's salvation. Because you know what happens when we just get argue y over our ideology? This happens in marriages too, so a little marriage point here if you've had a hard time during this pandemic, is when I get really fixated and angry over my little pet peeve or my

freedom, my right, which happens in a lot of relationships, you're pushing into my right. We turn into these people, especially as Christians that say, Mercy for me, justice for you. Mercy for me, justice for you.

Meaning when I do something, have a reason. Well, there's this and this is, but you, you better answer for what you did. That's not real community. Real community is we embrace inconvenience. So that's what I'm asking us to do as a church. Embrace inconvenience. Verse two. Man, look at that. We only got through one verse,

and I'm already throat punching everywhere. Verse two. We should help others to do what is right and build them up in the Lord.

So he's now he's saying, so the first thing is it's not designed to be convenient. But then secondly, what is the real goal? Spiritual community's goal is development not comfort. See most of us want convenient and comfort when it comes to community.

We're looking for what's the most convenient and most comfortable way to do this. If it gets uncomfortable, I'm not happy. Well, helping people to become like the Lord, growing people, developing them is hard because it takes transparency and grit.

It takes transfer grit means transparency means you can be real. You need to say, hey, I'm just as broken too. I but I wanna help you. I wanna do this. That's why I said about the mask.

I don't really share my opinions much, but you found out much. I think it's overplayed. I really do. Sorry. All you were in there, I think it's overplayed. Do I think it's more dangerous than a hammer? Yes. Do I think it's more dangerous than a flu? Yes. When you look at the numbers, yes. But is it as bad as some people think? No. I don't think it is.

But I'm still gonna wear one of these. And I admitted in the video that I let my opinion, the two weeks I didn't preach, sat out there, had this on. And then when Pat started preaching, just did this.

And then I saw people leaving. And then I got letters from people that were brand new to the church that were very nice, they weren't mean, they were sad, and it convicted my heart. And I realized I just wanted to be comfortable.

So I was transparent, but it also takes grit, and that's what I'm doing right now. Transparency and grit is how we help people grow. It's truth in love. So we gotta be willing to be uncomfortable for the sake of others. We gotta be willing to be inconvenienced.

But we also gotta be grit. And when you say grit, isn't that what's on sandpaper? Yes. But what's sandpaper supposed to do? It smooths things out. And so the grit is what we call a throat punch around here.

But you know what we mean by that? It doesn't mean mean. It doesn't mean when we define one of our core values in this church is throat punch, and I think it's what Paul's doing right here. He does it so well. That's where I got it from. Jesus, Paul, excellent throat punchers. Is what it is is a throat punch is this,

the tough truth at the right time. And here's the one we all in the right way. A tough truth at the right time in the right way. The reason we're screaming at each other is we wanna talk about our opinions, which is okay to have your opinions, okay to have your way you should vote. It's okay to stand up for them.

But when you demand that the church has to be exactly that or what, and and then when we fight and we talk about what we think is a tough truth, when it's really probably a disputable matter, we pick the wrong time, and most of us pick the wrong way.

And when you pick the wrong way, it's why everyone just yells at each other. So when you do it on social media, when you do it on this way, it's like dispute talking, disagreeing is meant to be done in the context of community. So you can learn from one another. But we have to be willing to be uncomfortable because it is

uncomfortable to be in community where you're all agreeing, we're gonna help be the sandpaper to one another. And that's not comfortable. It's hard. But not only is it not designed to be convenient, its goal is development, not comfort. Verse three and four says this, for even Christ didn't live to please himself.

As the scriptures say, the insults of those who insult you, oh God, have fallen on me. Such things were written in the scriptures long ago to teach us and the scriptures give us hope and encouragement. This is the part I wanna see. As we wait patiently for God's promises to be fulfilled. So he says, you know what? When this happens, it's gonna be hard and people are gonna be mad at you and people is gonna be There's gonna be some struggle and there's gonna be this. And then what gives me a lot of encouragement as a pastor is Jesus was saying, then that happened to Jesus, and he was the perfect leader.

So I guess that's just happening. But I at the end he says, but here's why this is a struggle. He said, Christ didn't live to please himself and that caused problems. And he was insulted for it. But he says at the end, but and we get hope and encouragement as we wait patiently

for God's promises to be filled. We need to be patient with what we need to do ask. As we wait for God's promises to be fulfilled, what he's talking about there is the reason this is hard is we live in the in between time.

We live in the in between time where God's already the gospel is here. The kingdom has been made present. We can be Christians as it says in the book of John. Are in this world, but not of this world. So we live in this world, but we're not really of this world. So we're in this in between time where

all the promises haven't been fulfilled. We're not perfect yet. It's the church isn't perfect, we're not perfect. The people we do communion with is not perfect. And so we need to be patient and understand that we'll live like Jesus did in this in between time.

In other words, the third thing about real community that the Holy Spirit uses in our life is we need to remember it's imperfect and it's woefully messy. It's imperfect. This is what scares people away. Like I went to a home group, and man those people were messed up.

We like I don't want it to be uncomfortable. I don't want to be inconvenient.

I wanna find a group of people that I you know, there's free childcare or this, it works perfect with that. It doesn't interfere with my kids' sports. It doesn't interfere with the 900,000 things I'm doing. It's it's comfortable. We all kind of are think alike. We don't challenge each other too much. We pull out the verse of the day. We all say our opinion that we want. We all tend to agree. And you know what? We're all pretty much not that messy.

That's what we think we need. And that's not true. Real community is imperfect and woefully messy because we're in the in between. And I think sometimes we get really frustrated with that because what he's saying is we live in a time where we long for the perfect. So we don't have any patience for the present.

We long for the perfect church, so we have no patience for the present church. And that makes us be impatient with one another, and dare I say, with me.

Because we have this. If we're gonna have real community, we're gonna have to be willing to wade into mess. Plain and simple.

But a lot of us, that struggle is we come to church, you believe in Jesus, you worship him, you're devout in that, but in your heart you don't wanna be inconvenienced, you don't wanna be uncomfortable, and you run scared from imperfect and messy. And you know what's crazy is even if you found the perfect church,

you should probably leave.

There, somebody got it.

If there really was a perfect church, you should probably leave because we'll ruin it. Because none of us are perfect. Verse five, may God who gives this patience

and encouragement help you live in complete harmony with each other as is fitting for the followers of Christ Jesus.

Then all of you can together look what he says. So in living in harmony, word there is unity. So what I wanna say is before I read the rest of the verses, that means that real biblical community is about unity, not uniformity. There's a difference between unity and uniformity. Uniformity is sameness.

Sameness of ideology says itly. Unity means we are gonna embrace the very biblical doctrinal things that we need to embrace. These are the non negotiable. We'll embrace these. Other than that, we'll embrace diversity. We don't have to agree because look what he says. He goes,

then you can all join together with one voice, giving praise for the Republican Party because only if we elect Trump will we be able to protect our freedoms, and then the church will be able to survive. Amen.

You could reverse that too and say only if we elect Joe Biden and the Democratic party, otherwise the anti Christ Trump's gonna destroy our nation. And then where will the church be?

No. You know what he says? Then we can join together with one voice giving praise and glory to God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. See, that's where unity is. Uniformity is sameness.

If you're looking for a church that everyone believes the exact same thing as you, you're looking for a country club. You're not looking for a church. You're looking for for

you've made America your version of a church. I wanna come in where I can live in the suburb. I want the neighborhood I want. I want it to look like me, feel like me, think like me. And then since I give to it or I serve at it, I wanna be able to tell the leader what he should or shouldn't say or do.

That ain't the church, folks. That's a country or a country club.

That isn't what we're called to be. We're called to be united around the gospel. That is the truth. And when anyone says I preach fear because I ask us to wear a mask or I preach fear because I won't get political, I preach fear. You know what? I think the political ideology we let seep into our faith, that's where the fear is. That's fearful.

To say that yeah. To to say that we have to have this person be president, or if we start wearing this, and somebody say, oh, I'm not making it political. It's a spiritual thing. If we wear a mask, this is government overreach, and it's it's the testing ground for the antichrist because then they can control us and they can do that. So what? What's gonna happen? You think that if we fight this, you're gonna stop the end times from happening?

Did it say in the Bible, be on the lookout for the signs so when you spot it, you can make it not happen?

That's it says it's gonna happen. It says, lay on the lookout so you can be ready to keep doing what you're supposed to do. In other in other words, the Titanic's gonna sink. Our job isn't to look for the eye hey. Look. He's steering towards the iceberg. Let's not hit the iceberg. You know what we're supposed to be doing instead of freaking out about that? Building more lifeboats

and getting people in the lifeboat. That is what we're supposed to be doing. I'm not mad. I realize when I get passionate I get I sound mad. It's locker room bill. Did I say not have an ideology politics? Did I say not have an opinion how you vote? I have strong opinions about how I vote. But our church and our faith is not

our politics or our country. They're two different things. And if you're afraid

You know when we do that? The real fear is when you let the ideology seep into the theology. That's the fear because we're acting like Peter did in the Garden Of Gethsemane. Remember he lopped off a guy's ear? I'll protect you Jesus. They're not gonna take you to the cross.

You think, wow he's so bold. No, that's an act of a scared. A cornered animal lashes out. A scared animal fights, and he was afraid.

If he dies, then where am I? I'm gonna die too. I'm gonna be uncomfortable. I'm gonna be inconvenienced, and and and I can't trust Jesus to take care of his own plan. I can't trust. So if I say we gotta protect our freedoms or the churches, you know, you are saying that God can't take care of his own church? We're supposed to protect? That sounds like a fortress mentality. That sounds like we're behind the gates and we're trying to protect our church from the outside world. The Bible says that that on upon this rock, meaning Jesus, I will build my church and the gates of hell

will not stand. The hell has the gates. We're the gate crashers. We're not the guard gate guarders. We're the ones that are supposed to be out there with the gospel. It doesn't matter what government does. Now, be involved. We live in a country we're called to be good citizens. Let your faith inform your voting.

If we can vote in ways that protect our freedoms, great. But that's not the truth. That's not the gospel. That's not our job as the church.

The thing I'm the most proud of about this church, which also this message come back and hits me, I have to be patient and gentle and kind because the Holy Spirit's growing me too. Because I realize the reason we argue and when I do one thing it's sixtyforty all the time, fiftyforty, is because

I'm so proud that Rock Point Church is like the church in Rome. We have everything under the sun here. We have every race. We have Republicans. We have Democrats. We have Libertarians who waste their votes. We we have we have people that like cats. We have people that love dogs.

We have horse people. We have people that don't like animals. We have cardinals fans and people that don't like football. You know, we we have we have everything, every socioeconomic level, every opinion under the sun in this church, and that is what Jesus wants it to be.

So when we do community, let's do it in a way that we're considerate enough that how can we get everybody in here?

And are you willing to not just sit in a row, but get into a circle that's like this?

And instead of fighting when you're in a community like, I didn't like that small group. Those people had different political opinions than me. Great. Great.

Because it's interesting when you look at these four things. Because what's the goal of the Holy Spirit? Make us like Jesus. How does he use people effectively? He puts us in scenarios where we are inconvenienced and have to choose to be considerate.

Puts us in scenarios where we're uncomfortable and we have to choose to grow. He puts us in scenarios where it's imperfect and woefully messy and you have to deal with messy people. And he puts us in stars where our uniformity is challenged, but we have to choose unity. Guess what?

That's exactly what Jesus did when he left heaven and came for us. That's exactly what Jesus did for us. And that's the goal. So the bottom line is simply this. This only works if the spirit's the one that created it, and then we have to choose to enter it.

That's our part. We have to choose to enter it. We have to choose to embrace it. We have to choose to do it. And here's the thing, when it comes to some of these scenarios we sometimes wanna react say I don't know if I can handle that. That's an oppression to me. That's

a If I'm gonna be considerate of others, if I'm gonna do something like this, you're asking me to do something that goes against my freedom and my rights and my this. Yeah. You can either see it as an oppression or an opportunity to grow, have the Holy Spirit grow you and impact people around you.

I wanna close with this before we're gonna take communion here. I wanna show you a video that kinda sums up what I'm trying to say. Probably better than what I just how I just said it. And it's a a guy had his little camera that looks at his garage, know, his driveway.

And he noticed that every day this family was from his on his street was coming by and they just let their kid ride around in his driveway. They'd do it on the way out, the way back. Didn't even care. They didn't stop him. And he's like, wow. Something's gotta be done about this. And I want you to watch what he did.

So I actually used the rear stand from the eight forty eight. I took all of y'all's advice, I thought you'd appreciate this. I was able to get like a nice little course. Also taking some of Keith's advice, I used up more of the driveway. We have the back straight, assuming that the three year old can read, and slow.

Then we turn and then eyes up because you know he's not looking. Another little rumble and then for the win. Ching ching. Winner winner chicken dinner. So yeah. I don't know who's having more fun with this, him or me.

If you didn't understand anything else I said, I hope that video made it make sense. That's what I'm asking us to be as the church. I love how instead of you know, when people would be like, hey, you kid, get off of my lawn.

You know, why does he keep doing this? Parents or just sat in judgment, not said anything, but just silently judged them all the time and was angry all the time. But instead, he saw it as an opportunity to embrace something.

And it not only changed the kid. I love how he said he got better. The family started waving. And I love at the end, did you see like his whole neighborhood started going on his racetracks?

And guess what? He would change it when it rained. He got more advanced. He put more and more time. He got more and more inconvenienced. That's not always comfortable. It's work. But he said, I don't know who's having more fun. Him or me. That's what real community does. He made a racetrack in what could have been a fight.

He made a path. The reason I think God wants to embrace this is because that's when we become like Jesus. Because that's what Jesus did when we sinned. We brought this whole world is broken. Every one of us is far from God.

And instead of God sitting in his throne and saying, Hey, you've sinned, you violated the rights that I have set up and the rules. Instead of just condemning us, guess what he did? He made a path for us. Little cross track

so we can become more like him. And I think that's why he asked us to do this together. Communion, if you're new to it, you get this thing out, you can peel this top off and you can get the little Styrofoam bread wafer packing popcorn. But

before he died, the night before he died, he instituted something he wanted us to do regularly as a church.

And he took bread and he broke it. So this is my body broken for you. Take and eat. He then took the cup and said, this is my blood. Spill free for the forgiveness of your sins. Take and drink. And he says, do this in remembrance of me. Whenever you gather frequently, do this in remembrance of me. Of all the things you wanna remember, he wanted us to remember the racetrack.

He wanted us to remember the path he he made. He wants to remember that we were the ones trying to get on his lawn and and go against his rights and and violate his laws in order. He is the creator, the Lord God almighty, and he's the one that inconvenienced himself. He became uncomfortable.

He came into this messy world, and he brought us unity, not uniformity. And that's why I think he reminds us to do this. Because I think this is a relational reset button every time we take this. I think it's a moment for us to remember, guys, where am I at in my relationship to Jesus?

And where am I at in relationship to Jesus' body? Because you realize he gave sacrificed his body so that we can be his body. So what I'm gonna do is give us about forty five seconds to reflect over this message. Let the Holy Spirit do his job, talk to you about whatever he needs to talk to you about.

And then we'll take this together and be done. So let the Holy Spirit speak to you now.

He took the bread and he broke it. Said, this is my body broken for you. Take and eat.

He then took the cup and said, this is my blood spilled for the forgiveness of sins. Take and drink.

Father God, thank you. Thank you that Jesus came into our messy world and sacrificed his body so we can be his body. So what I pray for myself and everyone in this room that your spirit would continue to speak to us. That you would continue to create this kind of community for us

and that I myself and everyone in this room would choose to enter into it and embrace it instead of running from it. I just pray that everyone in here heard your words, not mine. Your heart, not my opinions. The theology, the study of Theos, who you are, not some ideology, but you. I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

Hey, guys. Before you go, just say, remember, I love you. And I know that some of the things I said here could have potentially caused someone to misunderstand and get upset with me. Can I just say one thing though in all truth? The person in this room that's probably the most likely to be mad at me,

when it comes to ideology and politics, I probably agree with you the most. Think about that before you get mad at me. I'm asking you to imitate me as I imitate Christ. That's it. Because I'm just trying to lead the way God's called me to lead.

And hey, if you need to pray with someone, pray over your anger with me. The prayer room is open. If you're online, you can actually go to the rockpoint.io and and click on the I need to talk tab and someone can pray with you.

And speaking of community, there's a couple ways to get involved in community. If you wanna get out of a row and into a circle, you can go to rockpoint.io. We have classes. We have groups. Go find one, and the messier the better. But

another way to start to connect in community, maybe the way you're wired, is through serving. A service team is another way to connect. And we need more people to serve. It seems like more people are coming back

than are serving right now. I mean, one thing, last final thing is in my video I shared where people got upset about asking people to go to Saturday or wear masks. I think they buried the lead. Whole point of that video was to celebrate that

most churches that have come back from this pandemic are running anywhere from 20% to forty percent of their previous attendance. We are already at 86%. And one the reasons is because

during our time where we were online, which is weird, I didn't want to go online. People said cowardly for doing it, but God used it in a way we reached 700 new people. I'm not talking new people that watched. We had

thousands upon tens of thousands of people watched that never watched before. But 700 new people connected, filled out a card, said, I'm interested. I'm thinking I wanna be part of this church. And in the last two weeks alone, over 57 of those families, which is a several 100 people, have showed up.

So we're pointing people to Jesus by loving them like Jesus. And that's why I'm asking us to move days. That's why I'm asking us to wear a mask. That's why I'm asking us to get uncomfortable for the cause of Christ. I hope that makes sense.

And I hope you didn't feel an arrogant throat punch that's I want to throw a punch, not not beat you with a baseball bat. Okay? So I love you guys. Have a great weekend. God bless you.