MOVE | Week 1 | Bill Bush

has got to lead to us moving. We need to move towards what Jesus died for us to have. In other words, what it's saying, this whole section gets really practical about how does faith move, where do we move towards, what does it look like in really practical ways. Some of them are very uncomfortable and

some of us don't want to do it. But what he's really saying is we weren't just saved from something. We were saved for something. And a lot of us are not getting to what we're saved for because you're really comfortable in your seat of just being saved from. And we gotta learn how to be the church. And what

I hope we experience by the end of this is an understanding that this is not an oppression that God's asking us to do. He's not trying to ruin our life. He's not trying to enslave us. This is where real freedom comes from.

And that's why we're gonna jump into Romans 15, not Romans twelve first. We're gonna Quentin Tarantino this movie here. We're gonna jump in the middle and jump because this is a section that kinda sums up in principle what he wants us to move towards.

And then we're gonna go back and look at the heart of it, and then we're gonna get in. Because some of the topics we get into are really something that if we don't understand this, you're gonna be like, nope, I'm not gonna move. I'm staring straight ahead. Especially as Americans. Some of the stuff he'd asked us to do to be at that's just not the way Americans think.

And we have to be willing to move and not just stare straight ahead. So in chapter 15, what's happening? Well, back in the day when the bible was first written, there weren't chapters and verses. We added that so we can have Awana programs. You're old if you know what that meant.

If you don't, just ask someone who laughed, they'll explain it to you. But that was for us to find stuff. So sometimes when you say 14, but there's not these hard breaks. The first part of 15 is really the end of the thought of what's being talked about in chapter 14. Which we'll go back to, but just to suffice it to say 14 is about some of the common problems that are happening in Jesus' plan for us to not just be individuals that are saved from hell, but to be a community that's saved for this kingdom mission and what he wants for our lives, and we need to do it together. And it's gonna involve Jews, Gentiles, slaves, free. This church had started to become a lot of different people, and we like to be birds of a feather flock together. We like to sync uniformity, not unity.

And uniformity means I want people to think like me, talk like me, think like, it's like. But unity is we have unity in the goal of who is God, the theology, what's the Bible say, what's God's moral law, and what's God's mission for us. We need to be united around that.

Instead we like to look for uniformity and then argue about everything. And in chapter 14 there were some arguments coming up versus what's right, what's wrong. And it wasn't really about the theology of it. It was about the practical application of it.

And because people came from a different background, you had strong Christians and weaker Christians and they're arguing that strong Christians were not showing preference. They were like, well I have freedom to do this if I want to. And it really freaked out the weaker and they had a responsibility to one another. So that's kinda, we'll get into that when we get into that.

But as he sums it up, he comes into chapter 15 and kinda gives an answer of here's what we're supposed to be about in order to know how to handle that.

So I just wanna read through these 13 verses, kinda make some comment, and then point out three things that we need to move towards. Three things that God's asked us to move. Our faith moves in this way.

And then we gotta decide, you gotta decide are you gonna make the move or you gonna sit there looking straight ahead and go, I just wanna watch this movie and go home. Or am I gonna be willing to move? So here we go. Chapter 15 starting in verse one.

We who are strong must be considerate of those who are sensitive about things like this. We must not just please ourselves. We should help others do what is right and build them up in the Lord. 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 scriptures long ago to teach us. And the scriptures give us hope and encouragement as we wait patiently for God's promises to be fulfilled.

Jesus is the living word of God and we've been given the written word of God to reveal the living word to us. We need to know the word and we need to think of others and our faith is not about just getting our own seat and experiencing our own movie. He goes, may God

who gives this patience and encouragement help you in complete harmony with each other, as is fitting for the followers of Christ Jesus. Then all of you can join together with one voice giving praise and glory to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's the one voice we need to have. Unity, not uniformity.

Therefore accept each other just as Christ has accepted you so that God will be given glory. Remember that Christ came as a servant to the Jews to show that God is true to his promises he made to their ancestors. So now he's saying is that we need to be like Christ.

And look what Christ did. He got uncomfortable and he's saying, hey, it's gonna be uncomfortable because God's plan was not just to reach people that are exactly like you, that think exactly like you, because he goes off and he says this. He came to reach the Jews. He says he also came that the Gentiles might give glory to God for His mercies to them. That is what the psalmist meant when he wrote Now he's quoting the Old Testament, to show that God always had a plan

to reach a big slice of humanity.

He says, For this I will praise you among the Gentiles, I'll sing praises to your name. And another place is written, Rejoice with his people, you Gentiles. And yet again, praise the Lord all you Gentiles, praise him all you people of the earth. In another place Isaiah said, The heir to David's throne will come and he will rule over the Gentiles. He's talking about Jesus. They will place their hope on him. He's saying it wasn't just the Jews, was the Gentiles too. In other words, he's like, Hey, all you Republicans, Jesus wanted to reach Democrats also.

He wanted to reach Republican. He wanted to reach this. It's not about that. And what he's trying to say is in the context of what God's plan was is it's gonna be, you're gonna have awkward moments trying to be a church because we long and we approach and we try to take God's word and create uniformity instead of unity.

Unity is centered around God's glory, God's mission, God's law, God's will, God's morality.

Uniformity is like, how do I wanna play that out? How do I wanna do this? It's all of these second. But basically what he's saying is we like to take secondary issues and make them the primary issue. And he goes, that's what's creating issues.

But you gotta be like Jesus. Jesus had this plan, it's gonna be complex, it's gonna be this. Jesus always had this plan. So then he finishes, I pray that God, the source of hope. Not finding people in your life that believe exactly

the same politics as you or this or we get it voted this way. We're not gonna get Government's not gonna solve our problems.

We may be here but we're not of this world in that sense. The world doesn't answer the longings of our heart. He goes, it's God that does. And he says, the source of hope will fill you completely with joy and peace. He's the one that gives us joy and peace, and why? Because you trust in him, because you move.

Because he moved for you, your now faith can move in trust of him, and that's where joy and peace comes from, and that's where those longings of hope in your heart are actually found, not in all the other stuff. He goes, then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.

You'll stop letting the things of this world scare you all the time. And so in there is this mix of these three things that are in and out and out, these kinda backwards answering like, hey, this problem is dealt with these answers. And since I've moved you into faith, I moved for your faith, I got uncomfortable,

now through my love and my power, if you trust me, you now can move. Your faith can now move. And the three things he says here is we gotta move, I'll just say them, we'll go through them each. It's basically we gotta move towards, we gotta move in, and we gotta move out.

And what does that mean? The first thing is move towards Christ. What he's saying is, he even said, you're gonna be insulted like I'm insulted. The goal of coming, the goal of being in, the goal of being invited into this story, come into the movie,

is to become like the main character, Jesus. So the reason we show up at church, the reason we do this is we're supposed to become more like Jesus. We don't pursue a God to please him in order to get everything we want. What we want is to be like him.

That's the goal. If you're a Christian, God's goal is to make you like Jesus. It's to make you holy, not happy. Here's the funny thing. You pursue holiness, most of the time you end up with, you know Isn't peace, contentment, lack of fear, aren't those usually the ingredients that bake a pretty good happiness cake?

You pursue holiness, you pretty much typically have joy, which is which is a happiness that's despite your circumstances. You pursue happiness all the time, you're gonna miss joy, and then happiness is always controlled by your circumstances, so you're gonna be like a roller coaster.

And he goes, the way you do that is you have to say my goal is to move towards Christ.

And how do we do it? He says right there, you gotta know the word. You gotta be in the word. You gotta trust the word. Yuasa always says, we have to come together in one voice. He's talking about the gathering, like what we're doing here. So historically,

why churches? Why we do the things we do here? What we call in our mission statement, to point people to Jesus by loving them like Jesus. What does it mean to know Jesus? What does it mean to be in this engaged relationship with Jesus? Well, first thing it means is you need to know Jesus.

So to move towards Christ, we word that as to know Christ personally. To know Christ personally. And that comes from Paul's own words in

his letters when he says, hey, the goal as he serves God in his life is to become more like Christ, and he says it's to know him more. And the no is not when we say, yeah, I know Jesus. When we say we know someone, half the time is I know about them, I know of them, I know a few details. The word there in the Greek for no means intimacy.

Intimacy. It means that the goal is my relationship with Jesus should be growing closer and closer and more intimate. It goes from information to transformation, from understanding. And the two primary ways we do that is being in the word and worshiping together.

Being in the word and worshiping. So what do we need to move towards? Ask yourself, as a follower of Christ, how often are you in the word of God?

How often do you just take a time? We call it a quiet time, a devotional. It doesn't have to be like yours. You don't have to be like the most intense bible study you've ever done. Sometimes we get so intense in the bible study, we turn it into an educational exercise,

and we do all of this study of stuff. We have fantastic information we love and we just love all the details, but the reality is you miss out on the point of don't just read the word, don't just study the word. The word needs to read and study you. And that's what we call meditating.

So be in the word enough to read what it says and then let it read your life and speak to you through the power of the Holy Spirit. And then you pray about it. That's a good quiet time.

Read God's word, sit there and let it read you, and then talk to God about what you just experienced and what you're gonna do about it and what he's asking you to do. And you need to do that every day. You need do that every day.

So one of these challenges is where this gets real practical. The last few weeks have ended really rah rah. It's like more of like, we're gonna go and fight this battle. This is gonna be awesome.

This sermon is we're now in the meeting. If you're a soldier, here's the tactical planning meeting. Alright, sergeant, you're taking your men, you're gonna go up this boring in many ways, but you realize if you don't do this meeting, the rah rah means nothing.

If you do the pep rally before the football game, but you don't ever have the time where the offense is working with the offense and the defense and you have a game plan and you'll go execute plays, what's gonna happen after that pep rally?

Everyone's gonna go home very discouraged because you're gonna get beat really bad. And so this is kind of that time. That's the last part of Romans. Paul always gets practical. He's like, now that God's moved in this way,

we need to move towards this and the two primary ways is moving that. And the other thing is coming to church, gathering here. We've talked about that a lot. That's what's so important about this meeting. When I started in ministry, know, umpteen million years ago,

the last of the dinosaurs were dying out. And they said that the average Christian in The United States that says, yeah, I'm a committed Christian, went to church about three times a month. So 75% of the time. Today, that number is you go one out of three times on average. I go, that's like

one out of every third week, that's a little bit, that's like 30%,

something like Because we've worded, I'm too busy, I'm gonna do this, and we've done this balancing like, well, all I need is my time with God. I just need the Bible. I just need me. I don't need the group meeting. It's like this pendulum swung. It's like no, it's both and. It's not either or.

Because if you just do it by yourself, you're uniformed into one. There's no unity. You're not built out. You don't have the rallying point. An army of one is not that strong unless you're Chuck Norris.

And so we're met, we're called. It says do not take this moment for granted, the gathering of the brethren to rally.

But we get, you know, don't just think about it. We get into these moments that we think we're too busy to do it, and we only come and we think, well you know what, and you think like 30 to 50% of the time is, well I'm busy, I got things, that's great. That's what I can fit in my, it works great for me.

Showing up 50 say you come half the time, 50% of the time. Alright, and you think that works. Try that with your boss.

You know what? Showing up half the time is really working for me. He goes well the problem is you're not working for me anymore.

And so the way we need to move is make that a commitment. Since Jesus loved you so much he died and got you the ticket into the movie, He's inviting you into the story, but the way you can trust him is you need the word to teach you,

and the more you learn the word and then trust the word, the more you learn to trust and the more you see that God will work. And then when we come together and we worship together and we're committed to being in it, the more we learn the unity of what we're really about.

So where do you need to move in that? Do you need to look at your schedule and maybe move and go, I can't be gone all the time? Because here's the thing, the number one thing that this generation has is you're like, I so hope, testfully hope my kids will love the Lord.

What do you teach them when they're nine years old and you are going somewhere all the time? Where you put them in sports all the time and just don't go to church. What did you just teach them? You wonder why when they're 70 they don't want to go to church, because you said, well this is optional. This is something

like But then you say, well I didn't want to force it upon him. Do you do that with school? Well, if I make them go to school every day, you know, they're gonna just rebel and not like school. You know, like it's different. I force them to go there because I just don't want to be at home with them.

Someone's gotta watch them.

Move towards Christ, and what that means practically is move towards those moments where you spend time with them in the word and you spend time with the body in worship. And make it the priority. The second thing is you gotta move in community.

And that means we're called to move together. We need to be not just in rows, we need to be in circles.

And that's what he says, you gotta help build each other up. You gotta watch out. You need to accept one another. You need to All in that passage, well you can't do any of that with people that you only sit And if you treat church like a movie, you sit in a theater like this, other than the person you already know,

are you able to know what's going on in anyone else's life? Are you able to help? Are you able to encourage them? Are you able to bear their burdens? No.

And that's the weirdest thing. So many people come to a church, you sit in this church, oh it's big and I had problems. And then you're like, you know, that church didn't really care about me. Nobody knows you.

You have to choose to step into community. And that's what we're called to do. What does biblical community even look like? Well, if you turn over a few pages, in Galatians chapter six there's three verses that tells us exactly what this means.

To move in community, around here we call that grow. To grow in biblical community. In other words, grow in purposeful relationships.

Because a lot of what we call community and we look for, and some of us, we're in a community, and you think I got community, but what you're doing really isn't the purposeful relationship the Bible says it should be. So I'm just gonna tell you right now as I share this, some of you are small group leaders in this church. Some of you lead men's and women's things. I'm gonna challenge you to look at how your group is and say, hey, we may gather and we say this is community,

but if you're not about the four things these three verses says, you're not actually doing community the way God says to do community.

And so here we go. He says, dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back on the right path. So that implies you know them, and that implies that you will go and be accepting of them, And then it implies that you were now gonna help them back to the right path.

It says, And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself. Share each other's burdens in the way obey the law of Christ. So what it's saying is you gotta know them. There's gotta be acceptance.

There's gotta be support. You do it humbly and gently. You're finding a way to help them. But ultimately, what are you trying to do? Develop them. Get them back onto the path. Onto the path that God's asked us. Get them back to moving in their faith the way God asked us to move. That's what it is. A lot of us, what we call communion is a bible study, where you just talk about biblical principles. You say this is what's wrong with the world. Half the time it goes to this is why we should vote this way, and this is what's wrong with them. And there's no actually

helping each other in your moment of struggle because we don't really share. We don't wanna be known because we're afraid we won't be accepted. So there's really not that much support and there's not that much development. And then a lot of us avoid this community altogether because we just think I don't have the time.

But look how he ends it. If you think I'm throat punchy, look at how this verse verse three. If you think you're too important to help someone, you're only fooling yourself. You're not that important.

You know what he just said? If you're new here, I'm sorry. You get what you get. I'm just gonna tell you. Here it comes.

Your schedule can never be an excuse for not being in community.

Because if you don't have time to do what God says you desperately need, it's not a matter of time.

It's a matter of your focus.

Now there are seasons. There's health issues, there's family. There are seasons where we have to be, we're isolated. I get it. I'm not talking about events, I'm talking about a pattern. There's events and there's patterns. Some of us, there's an event in our life that is a season, but if your whole life

is always one event after another, you have a pattern. And what he's saying is, if you think, well, I just have a schedule, I can't be part of helping, because you know what it's implying? You need community, but some people need you in community.

And if you're not willing to do that, what he's really saying is, it's not really a matter of your schedule, it's a matter of you think you're more important than you are. And you think you're good enough to not need it.

You need to be in a place where you are known, accepted, supported, developed, and you need to be a place where you know, accept, support, and develop. So what happens? Do we really go after those? I wanna ask, do you have that community? Even if you're in a group,

is that what it really focuses on? If not, I invite you. I invite leaders, get your group and go, hey, which ones are these are we good at? Are we really being known? Are people really sharing where they're really at here?

Or are they not? And if they do, are we accepting of them? Are we starting say, oh there's Captain TMI again. You know what I mean? You don't know what to do with that person. Because we don't talk about Bruno here. That's the problem. That was for you young people or

moms that have heard that song over and over and over and over again. It's like we don't do that. That's what you're supposed to do. That's the really ironic thing. Here's how it works. Let show you. Did you realize today in 1912, today's National Oreo Day. In 1912 Oreos were first introduced on this day.

Isn't that weird? And with all the preservatives, this might be an original Oreo, I don't know. They might have made them all back in 1912 and they just been slowly selling them. But when you look at an Oreo cookie, you know it's got the crunchy two sides and then the fluffy middle and I go, how do kids eat these things?

They don't want this part. This is bitter, not as sweet. They want this fluffy, creamy middle. Matter of fact, that's where your kids get double stuffed, get triple stuffed, get Oreo middles only. Isn't that just called sugar?

Why? Because that's fluffy and tasty. This is crunchy and bro, they just wanna eat. I I used to go in and see my kids, if they got into the Oreos, it looked like a civil war battle had happened. All these poor cookies with their guts blown out. You know why?

Because they love the creamy, but that all alone is like, it's real sweet. It's fluffy, it's soft. It's diabetes and tooth decay. But

as an adult, you learn that nothing is better than that crunch along with that sweet and a nice glass of milk. Hallelujah. This is what community is like for many of us. We like the fluffy middle without the crunchy sides. And what I mean is known, accepted, supported, and then the base developed,

pushed to know, grow and go, to be like Christ. You see, when you only like the fluffy middle, it's because it seems safer, it tastes sweeter. And what I mean by that is we look for community where I just want to be accepted and supported, but you don't really let yourself be known

because you're afraid and you don't really want to be developed. You want to come into community where we look alike and act like I feel comfortable with you guys and you know what, here's what I'm gonna tell you about myself and here's the help I want from you.

So I want you to accept me without knowing me and support me without trying to actually develop me. And we do that all the time. And here's the problem with the kind of community. It doesn't really even work for us. Because you know why? You know in your heart you're not truly being accepted.

You know they really don't accept you because you've never actually let them truly know the darkest part of you. And you know that you don't want them to help you get past it. You just know I need this to survive today, so I just wanna tell you this and get this from you.

And then we all act that way in community, and then we leave a church. They were not not there for me, they didn't love me. And you just blame the church or the small group when yeah, people were doing that to you, but so were you. You did it to yourself.

We need the whole cookie with a nice tall glass of Holy Spirit.

That's what we need to be about. So the question here, the move here is I just wanna say, ask yourself this question. Do I actually have that kind of community with a couple other people? I don't care if it's not an officially sanctioned group, but do I have a couple other people in my life that really know me?

And no matter where I'm at, they'll accept me, but they won't leave me there. They'll bear my burdens, they'll support me, but they will push me to do what God asked us to do in those moments.

Do you have it? If not, you need to find it. And guys, step up. The bible calls us leaders, But the Bible defines leadership different than we do. Most of us men have taken leadership in a very misogynistic way, in a very control be the boss way, in toxic kind of way. Leader means go first.

Leader means I will throw myself on the barbed wire for the sake of those behind me.

Why do we have three times as many women involved in community in this church as men? Why with my next point, 70% of the people that serve are women, not men?

Because you probably think you're too important and you don't have the time. Because you don't really have the community. Lead the way. Find community. That's the best way to be a man, that's the best way to be a husband. Just go. Go for it.

If you're looking for it, one way you can do it right now is like Tuesday nights we have a men's study. You don't even have to sign up, just show up. We know what guys are like. Just get in your car and come.

And they're starting right now, study, they're gonna start in Romans 12. For six weeks, they're gonna really go dive into Romans 12, which is the heart of this whole section. We're gonna be talking about it in church next week. But if you got nowhere else to go, go there. Start somewhere.

Because real community like this is a little bit artwork. It takes a while to find some people to connect with in that way. Just go for it. We need that because we need to sit in circles, not just rows. In this type of community, a lot of us sit in a circle.

But the known accepted sport that developed is not only you're sitting in a circle, you're locking arms. Because now you got that if someone goes down, you're holding them up.

No one can get past. You're protective of each other. But this last point says the one mistake we do make, you might get to that level, I'll get in a circle, I got community. We're locked arms, we're in a circle, but there's one last problem. Is your circle facing in or out?

Because that's the one last mistake we make. We were like, alright, I'll move towards Christ. I'll get to know Jesus. I'll move into community. I'll grow in these purposeful relationships. The problem is we've done it looking in. And

the problem is we are called When Jesus starts talking about the Gentiles and all these other people, all of what his plan was, his part of the problem was you were never supposed to be in community locking arms looking in. We were always supposed to be locking arms looking out.

Meaning are there lost people? Are there other people? We have a mission to go and actually include more people and get uncomfortable in that. So we need to move towards Christ. We need to move in community, but we need to move out intentionally.

We need to move out on purpose. I mean, you look at it, when you say the gospel, we've been given the gospel, the good news. We're supposed to share the gospel, the good news of who Jesus is. Jesus' last words to his disciples was go. And

then think about it, gospel good news, both of those words. What are the first two letters? G O. Gospel go. Good news go. Jesus' final words, I'm leaving you with the Holy Spirit. Remember, go. And I get this question all the time when people come to the churches, we're growing and

asking people to move. And like for example, one of the things I need to be really literal about you guys about moving if we wanna reach people is stop coming to the service. We're averaging like 50 families a week and most of them come in here. We are already at 90% full. Most people feel uncomfortable at 70%.

Especially new people. And we need to reach other people. We need to be willing. And so if you are a believer that's mature and stuff, I am asking you to not come to this service. I'm short of telling you Jesus doesn't love you if you keep doing that, but that would be more from the bitterness in my heart than no.

Because think about it. Why are you coming now here's here's two things I'll let you off the hook. Because you know the people are gonna freak out? All of you that serve at 9AM

because you guys are bless your hearts. You're like, guess I can figure out no. I'm not talking to you. If you serve at nine, you get into the service. So you know what, if you wanna keep coming to the service, sign up to serve at nine, because we need help there too. So there's your get out of jail free card.

But the rest of us, there are a percentage of you that the way work is, this is the only time you really can come, but I guarantee that is not most of us. Most of us, this is the most convenient time for you to come, and we have to move out intentionally, and what it means to move out and go intentionally,

what Jesus was saying why this is hard is you have to move out of your comfort zone. You have to get uncomfortable for the cause of Christ.

And you can't just sit, this is my chair. I picked this time. I'm gonna come. I am pleading with you, and I'm gonna tell you one of the best ways you can do to reach people for Christ if you do nothing else is literally move your butt off of this time. Preferably Saturday because the 09:00

now, so many people have showing up, it's not much behind this. You can still move towards Christ on Saturdays.

And if you won't do it, just for your convenience,

I'll just look at your ears and I question that you actually do give her about the love of Christ. I question that you really do care. Because how hard is it to do that?

How hard is it? And now the follow-up to that is why some people are like, well see that's the problem. I came to this church, I like it, but all you guys care about is outreach. You don't really care about discipleship.

I'm getting old and weird because the last few weeks I've shared, there's a few questions. I gotta apologize, I don't understand the question. Because when Jesus showed up on the shore of the Sea Of Galilee and he called his first disciples, what did he tell them the end product was?

What did he tell them the goal was? What did he tell them the job description was? What he says, I'm gonna call you to come together and form a community that you dig into scriptural truth at a really, really deep level so you can complain about the world and complain about politics and judge people that show up and look on the outside and complain that if the pastor tells you to move, get off your seat. We're supposed to be about discipleship.

Is that what Jesus said? What did he say? Follow me and I will make you fishers of my own convenience.

Well, if you say are we about discipleship or evangelism is a stupid question. Discipleship is evangelism. It is. That's the mission. That'd be like, is this army are you gonna be about the quality of training or are we gonna always be going out and fighting?

You train to go win the fight. I go, guys, that's the bull. Gospel means go. We're supposed to get uncomfortable. We're supposed to move. If you don't care about moving and making room for people and seeing people come to Christ, you're not a disciple.

I'll be flat out honest with you. You ain't a disciple. I don't know what it is. You wanna be in a book club. You wanna be in a book club that that says, this book is so great. I love all the principles and I'm mad at everybody that's not doing it. As you sit there and ignore the actual big idea of the whole book

is point people to Jesus by loving them like Jesus. Because think about it, everything God's asked us to do, this side of heaven, we will keep doing on the other side of heaven. Except what? Reach people for Jesus. That's the one part of our mission that has a shelf life.

The people on the Titanic, once they got off the Titanic, went back and most of their life they still lived. The only thing they couldn't do anymore is get more people off the Titanic.

If you don't see it, I don't know what you're following. I don't know why you're in church. I don't know what Jesus is to you.

We are called to holiness not happiness. We are called to be uncomfortable. We are called when he said you're gonna get the insults like I got this, we are called to a life that gives us a mission to go. And we gotta get uncomfortable. What do we need to go with? We need to honor God with what he's given us.

I have to go intentionally. I have to go purposefully with four things. My time, my talents, my treasure, and my testimony. God has given us all time, and he's also given, if you're a Christian, you've been given supernatural empowered spiritual gifts.

Every Christian has a gift, and it says we're gonna get to it. We're gonna get to this, and he talks about it. You're part of a body and you need to use your gift in the body. So also to say, I think of myself as a pretty mature Christian but I don't serve is another oxymoron. Everyone's supposed to serve.

We've been given finance. Everyone's supposed to give. And these are our blessings because when we learn, it's basically the old adage my dad used to say, if you're not rowing the boat, you're probably rocking the boat.

And I think that's what we do. We don't do what God's asked us to do, so we just start arguing about stupid stuff. Because we're not doing what God's asked us to do and then he's given us an opportunity. This isn't a beat down guys. This is an opportunity. You're missing out.

You're missing out on the story God has for you. The blessing God has for you. You know the only way to not fret about being overly busy and always stressing about your schedule and your money? You know the only way to really get peace in that? Is to do what God said to do.

But you're afraid to do guts, he's like, well I don't have enough time and I don't have enough money. That's the problem. Trust God. And then God uses that. He takes what

we would do with dumb stuff and he makes it amazing, but yet we sit in a church and then people complain, it's like, well, that kid's mystery wasn't as really good, or this was that, because you know, in most churches 20% of the followers do 80% or they do all the work. They do all the giving.

They do all of that. That's the problem. We're better than most churches. We're like 45 to 50% when it comes to giving and serving. That's amazing. We're double the typical church. But when you go up to your professor, alright, the class

averaged 20% on the test, I got 50%. Does that mean I passed? Nope, you still failed too. So here's my question. To those of you in this room, the half of y'all that says I love Jesus, but you don't serve, you don't give, you don't care about outreach.

What the hell man? I don't get it. And I'm not saying to men like oh, we're all struggling because you're missing out.

Because then we look at the church and go, look at all these problems in the world. Hawaii's all this stuff, all these things. If we only had the money, you know what, we do have the money. God has given us enough time and enough resource to do what he's asked us to do. The problem is over half of us are keeping it to themselves.

And you are missing out.

And you're never gonna get it straight. The reason you're mad at me is because you're afraid. Because you need your time and you need your money to feel like you can survive life. That means you've got this foot in the world and you're not just trusting God. And God wants to take that and use you in the story

in an amazing way. I mean, about the positive side. Like I'm wearing our outreach shirt. We did Compassion Queen Creek, which a guy develops it all, comes to our church,

we realize, you know, we pray there's resources all over the world, but the problem is we have people that are struggling right in our backyard, even with all of our wealth.

And so we do this every year, and one of the things we take on as a Rockaway is we took on those food bags. And we ask you, go take a little time, grab a bag, go spend some money, fill it with these materials, and bring it in. And yeah, took a little bit of time, a little bit of money, a little bit of inconvenience,

and then what we did is we hand them out. And what we were hoping to get is to have each family have at least one bag, because that bag was probably so many, we fed them for well more than a week or more, which would give them some temporary reprieve and hope. We hope to get at least one per family. Well, we did it.

Families left like three and four bags because of your guys' response.

And what was a minor inconvenience for us was a major miracle for those families.

And all of you that did that, what I heard reports back from people that have always done it because you've seen the response, but I've served you, I've never done it before, I grabbed the bag, I thought okay, just gonna do it. Act like I just gotta make myself do this because I know it's the right thing, but then every one of them, you're probably one them, they got to the store and you started putting the stuff and you started getting excited.

And you started to have joy. And then the really smart ones of you, especially smart dads, you took your kids and you became a leader.

And you said we're gonna spend our money and our time to help people without. And they go really? And half I had stories, half of your kid, can I give some of my money? Because kids will go where you take them. And then you wonder why they're selfish 17 year olds. Guess where they learned it?

But for those of you that did it, you know what I'm talking about. If you're not doing this, I'm not trying to say get with the program you loser. I'm trying to say you're missing out on a great story. You're missing out on what God is doing. But the reason we don't like to move out intentionally

is because we buy into that circle the wagons mentality and we even say this phrase. We say this phrase that says, I'm in this world but not of it. Jesus never said that.

He said a phrase that does say we are in this world, and he said a phrase that says and we're not of this world. But when you say in this world, not of it, that implies we're stuck here, circle the wagons till Jesus gets us out.

Here's what he actually said. I gotta speed up here. In John 17 he said this. This is a prayer, by the way, before he died, that he prayed over his disciples. And at the end of the prayer he says, and I'm not just praying for these guys. I'm praying for everyone who's gonna come to know me that never got to see me physically.

Meaning before Jesus went to the cross, he prayed for you and me. And he said, here's what he said about us to the father. I'm not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one. They do not belong to this world any more than I do.

Make them holy by your truth. Teach them the word which is truth. Just as you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world.

And I give myself as a holy sacrifice for them so they can be made holy through your truth. I died so they can do this. We it's not I'm not of this world. I'm in this world, but not of it. It's I'm not of this world, but I've been sent into it. And

that's what we need to remember. That's what we need to have unity on. That's what we need to put. We need to invest. We need to move intentionally with our time, talent, treasures, and testimony. And we need to start being serious about it. Because that's the job he gave us and we get to be a part of what he's doing.

In other words, let me show you a picture here and then we'll wrap this up. Here's how we explain it in our church. Those three things we say it's no, grow, go. And this is a Venn diagram, which you know a Venn diagram means where do you really wanna be on the Venn diagram?

Right in the middle where they all overlap. That's the bullseye.

So a lot of us, well I know, I'll come to church like this, but you know what, I'm not really in community, or I'm this, I'm in community, but I'm not really serving, our community's just circled around. I'm not really honoring God with my money. It's what he wants us to move towards is the middle.

That's fully engaged. I'm activating in a way that God says, here's what I've asked you to move towards with your life. Trust me, this is what life is about. And here's why I show you this. Because you think of, oh, that's just a system, that's just a target, that's great, maybe. But

isn't it the number one thing I get questions from people all the time is, how do I know God's will? And every time you ask about God's will, it's usually like, do I marry this person or not? Do I go to the school or not? Do I take this job or not? Do I shoot that kid or do I refrain? You know, do

I do this, do I not? Do I do it's all these individual moments that you're really like, what does God really want me to do? Was and you know what? You think that that God wants to bring us freedom. You see this, you're like, well, that doesn't seem like freedom. No. This is freedom. This creates massive freedom.

Because here's the problem. You're looking at God's will in an individual thing that you don't even need to ask that way. Because God already told us his will. You know the bull's eye of God's will? You wanna be in the center of God's will? Right there. That's what he's asked us to do. That's his will.

It's not optional. His will for you as a follower is to move into knowing Christ better, is to move into community that grows, and is to move

move out in going intentionally with what God has given you to serve the mission. That is his will for every single one of you in this room that knows Christ. That's what he wants you to do.

And here's the deal. Here's where there's the freedom, where God loves us so much. When you're trying to make a tough decision, you lay it down next to that bull's eye and say, does either one of these options prevent me from doing this? And if it does, guess what you do with that option? It's off the list. You have your answer. But here's the cool thing. What if neither decision

prevents you? You know what you do? Do the one you want.

See, some of you guys look at God's will, you just instinctively think, well God doesn't want me to really be happy, and when you're trying to figure it out you're like, I really wanna do this one, but since you haven't looked at it compared to this, you're just guessing, so then you kind of feel guilty like, well I bet God wants me to do that one.

And sometimes the one you pick that you think God would want you to do actually prevents you from doing this. And the one you denied actually doesn't. The one you wanted to do. That's how God's will works. So the reality is the reason we worry about all those other things is because we're sitting in our seat

and God's trying to tell us our will, his will. We're like, no, no, no. I wanna sit here. Hit the bull's eye.

Move towards, move in, move out. No, girl, go. That's what it means. In other words, I was sitting there and this guy wouldn't move. Some of you are wondering what happened to that story.

I didn't do what my heart wanted to do, But I also wasn't gonna do nothing. So as he sat there and wouldn't look at me, wouldn't move, said okay. I told my friend to go sit by the wife and I sat next to him. And then I continued to act like there was no two people between me and my friend. Passed our popcorn,

a preview came on, hey dude, you wanna see that movie? I told her it's good, hey you know we should go, it comes out. You know what we should do? We should go blah blah blah. And we just kept talking back and forth.

Wife was like hitting her husband like I told you you should move, why didn't you do this to us? And I just kept going. I kept going, and you know what, I'm not gonna stop talking. He has two options. He's either gonna move or he's gonna leave.

But because eventually he's gonna get sick of this. He's gonna move to, I'm gonna put you between me and my friend and I'm gonna keep having that conversation. Guys, if you're doing this church, this is what you're gonna get from me. I'm gonna continue to talk about God's word and put you right in between what God said and what I'm saying, and I'm gonna say it back and forth. And you could sit there and stare ahead and not look me straight in the eye all you want, but you're gonna eventually make two choices. You're gonna walk out of this church and just walk away forever, or you're gonna get up and move, which is what he did.

He finally said, fine.

His wife moved over, she's like and she looked at us, she started talking. We shared our popcorn with her. I felt like I had a grandma with me there. After the movie she ate and said, wasn't that movie amazing? Wasn't that we talk? That guy, he moved. But here's the deal,

he looked even more upset the whole movie. I don't think he enjoyed that movie at all. He sat there ticked off the entire time because his butt moved, but his heart didn't go with him.

He moved his butt because he got sick of hearing it, but he did not enjoy the movie at all. He missed the entire story in front of him because he couldn't deal with the storm inside of him. He refused to deal with the storm inside of him. He missed the story in front of him. And that's what I don't want for any of us in this room because some of y'all are sitting here. Some of you are like that classic story. Your wife wants you to move and you don't wanna do it. You're actually mad she brought you to this particular movie today.

And now you feel guilty and you're gonna maybe move, fine I'll do it. But if you just move the butt without the heart, you don't actually get to the blessing side. You don't get to see the other side. It just becomes a burden to you. That's why next week we're gonna go back into chapter 12. You see,

where the heart really goes the but will follow.

But not usually the other way around. Like man, he said a lot of weird words today in church. Sorry. Don't miss it. In other words, what's your next move? Father God I thank you Lord. I thank you for this time. Lord I thank you for the throat punch in my own life.

Father, as I studied through this, Lord, I was convicted of I Man, I've been a little comfortable in my seat too. So Lord, I pray that every one of us would just look to you. Look to your love. Look to the fact that you bought us the ticket, you brought us in. Where do you want us to move? How do you want us to move towards

How do you want us to move into community? What's my next step in moving out intentionally?

Because we love you. So just thank you, Lord, and I just pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Thanks for joining us online this weekend. Let us know if we can help you in any way. Make sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on rockpoint.io for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.