We Are Rock Point | Week 1 | Bill Bush | Full Service

Well that's what we're gonna talk about for the next few weeks. Is the direction that God gives us as one of his children. If we are a Christian, if we know the Lord, we know his love and his grace in our lives, he now wants to give us some directions.

We've talked a lot about it. A lot of people come to church and this thing called law where you think it's like, I'd listen to directions in order to get to his love, and then his love will get me where I really wanna go, but that's not what this is talking about.

He already loved us, just like my dad already helped. I already had, I was already a student. I already had a place to be. I already knew, and it was where I really wanted and needed to be. I just needed to listen to my father's instructions on what's the best way to get there.

How do I get there? And that's really what it means to be a Christian. As we are disciples, as it's called, that means a learner. It means a follower. It means you follow the lead. And so to be a disciple of Christ means you learn to follow where he says to go, to get where he already

declared we are to be. We're already his children. We're already his sons and daughters, but he wants to take us to this place to be more like him. That's what the bible, the seminary word that we learn is is this process of sanctification. We already

are saved. We already are made holy before God in his eyes. But our whole life on this side of heaven, on this side of eternity is we live in a broken world that's not like it should. We still have the shadow of our old self whispering in our ear, and this process is, okay, will I listen to the direction of God? Not for so he's love it, it's because he loves me. And if I listen to his directions, I'm gonna get to the better place.

That's what it means to be a disciple. And I think many of us day after day, we might get 11 out of 12 of the directions right. But there's maybe that one thing that you're just not listening to. There's that one thing of here is the turn you need to make. And you're like,

either you've just missed it or weren't thinking about it, listening to REO Speedwagon, or maybe you chose to go, I don't wanna go down that road. And you think you can find that peace, joy, contentment, happiness, everything Jesus died to give us, you think you can find it with 11 out of 12 of the directions.

And the problem is you missed the one thing and you are woefully off course. And so we're gonna talk about what does it mean to be a disciple for the next few weeks. What does it mean to be a part of a church?

Because a disciple is called to be a part of the body of Christ. And that's why we're calling this We Are Rock Point. Because we're gonna be talking about who we are. Who are we supposed to be biblically as followers of Christ? We are to be Rock Point. We are to be the church, to be followers, to be disciples.

In the first direction, the one that many of us miss, and it doesn't matter if you fall every other direction, if you miss this, the most clearest step one, it doesn't matter whatever you do after that. And that's simply today's big idea is we as Rock Point, we point people to Jesus by loving them like Jesus.

See when you first see that, like that's my first, like that sounds like a mission statement for a church, and if it is, it's because it is. It's a mission statement for this church, and a lot of us think of a mission statement, well, that's the church, and when you say the church, you think organizational,

you say that's them, but what's my mission statement in life? You realize the mission statement we wrote as a church is because this is the mission statement God gave to every believer. So everyone in this room, if you are a Christian, I'm just telling you, you can word it differently, you can say it however you want, but if you are a follower of Jesus,

this is God's intent to be the mission of your life. Now we do go about it in different ways. We have different careers. We have different places we go, where we live, and what we do. But everyone in this room that says there's a Christian, that you're a Christian, this is your mission statement.

So a lot of you like, I don't even think about that. See, you've already missed step one. And it doesn't matter how many times you're in church, how good of a person you try to be, how much bible you read, how many debates you can win, how many things you go, you're lost.

And that's why so many other things don't make sense to you because what God will do in your life is he'll keep trying to turn you and direct you, and he's gonna try to get you back on this highway. And so what does this mean? To point people to Jesus by loving them like Jesus.

Well, what I wanna do is I wanna look at a at a story of what happened in the with Jesus himself where he was asked, challenged really, to say what's the greatest commandment in the whole all the bible? Give

you know, can you give us a cliff notes of this? Basically, what's step number one? What does it mean to know God and and and follow him? What's the mission and purpose of it? And it's in it's in it's in, where is it? Matthew 21.

And but to set this up, is you understand what's going on in Matthew. Matthew knows the gospel, tells the life of Christ. The main thrust of Matthew in telling Jesus' story is to show that he is the promised king.

He came to the Jews and he was gonna be their king, he's gonna be their messiah, but he had a bigger plan than just the Jews. The old testament says right from the beginning that he was gonna use Israel to reach people from all nations.

And I think they never quite understood that. Their mission was to point people to God by loving them. But they never did. They made it about themselves. And so they made the same mistake. So then Jesus comes and that's one of the reasons they missed who Jesus was. Because they made it about themselves.

Instead of reaching Gentiles and other people, they wanted God to get rid of them in their lives, primarily the Romans.

So he comes and starts declaring, people start following, but then he starts getting more clear about who he is. People like, well, he's not the Messiah I was looking for. He's not gonna give me what I want. People stop following. Well then near the end, the whole book of Matthew, you get the sense that Jesus is marching towards his ultimate mission, which is to go to the cross.

And in chapter 21, you start that journey, the last trip to Jerusalem. And chapter 28 opens up with him going into Jerusalem, the last time he's gonna be there. That's where all the religious leaders are. That's where, you know, he's gonna be there for the Passover,

which is when they celebrate, they do the biggest sacrifice of the year that Jesus is ultimately truly gonna be the Passover lamb.

And and and and as he's going, he comes into town, and the first thing he does when he shows up is he goes into the temple and he clears it out. Remember he gets mad, he flips some tables and stuff. You're like, so anger is not always wrong because he didn't sit and he actually makes a whip. How intentional do you have to be that you're so mad that you're like.

It's like your mom going out on the tree, which one is gonna hurt the worst?

And he clears the temple, and there's a reason he does it. We're gonna come back to that. And that happens right after when he's walking. Goes up to a fig tree because he wants to get a piece of fruit to eat. He walks up to it, there's no fruit on it. So he curses the tree.

Clears the temple, the disciples, they come back by the same fig tree the next day and the tree's dead.

Think about what the disciples are thinking. What is Jesus trying to do here? That's one of the strangest things. Read that in the bible, like what is happening? Isn't Jesus love? Isn't he all nice? Isn't he kind of that vegan guy that walks around and we just love everybody? And

they're like, he's like cursing trees and they're dying. He's flipping tables over and whipping people out of the thing. What's got him so riled up? What did it mean? And what he's trying to say is he's declaring a judgment like Jerusalem, Israel. You missed the first direction. You turned the wrong way. And now even

though you're all showing up at the temple, you're doing all the rituals, you're doing all the things, you've got it all wrong because you missed the most key thing. That fig tree represented them and how they're not producing the fruit because they didn't listen to the right directions.

And so now he teaches every day in the temple and he starts to get challenged because since they missed that one direction, they're in a different place. So now he's getting challenged. So in coming into chapter 21 here, or 22, I mean now into chapter 22,

he's just had a few interactions. And it's almost like they keep challenging him. A Pharisee comes up, challenges him on something. They think, we're gonna get you in this. We're looking for the loopholes. And he says boom.

And then he answers, I'm like, strike one. Then a Sadducees come up. Sadducees was another branch of their faith that you know how we have different you know, there's different versions of Christianity. There we all you know, believe in Jesus and all that, but you have slightly different traditions. Well the Sadducees,

they didn't believe in resurrection. And that's why they're called Sadducees. If there's no resurrection then you're sad, you see?

This whole sermon was centered around getting to that one joke. It's all downhill from here now guys. And he shoots that down. And then they said strike two, the last guy. He's our last strike. They send up a teacher of the law. It means he's an expert on the old testament.

And and they're gonna try to trap him. Even though they should be following him, they've gotten so lost by missing the one direction that now they're fighting God instead of following him. And here's what happens. Chapter 22

verse 34. It says this, but then the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply. They met together to question him again. One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with his questions. They're trying to trap him. What's weird is when you hear the question, go, how is this a trap?

But it doesn't sound like a trap, but he's trying. He says this, teacher, which is the most important commandment in law of Moses? So of all the directions, what's the most important one? How is that a trap?

You gotta understand what they thought about the directions of the Old Testament. What I told you, they had this legalistic approach. You see the law, there's a lot of commands in the Old Testament. There's some rituals, there's these commands.

Now the moral commands of God still stand. It's who he is. But a lot of these individual commands were set up purposely to show that we would fail. That you can't be self righteous.

But they devised and read through it and made a list and devised it in a way that says if you keep this list you can be. So they really felt like they were righteous before God and that's why they thought they're better than everyone else because they're doing it and you're not.

And so when a teacher of law, an expert in law, he would have known all these laws and commands. So what they did with God's directions in the old testament was really to show point us to the fact that we needed a savior, you needed Jesus.

They made it into a system, and they had basically a to don't list and a to do list. And of all the commands, there was three sixty five to don'ts, and on the to dos, there was two forty eight to dos. So they had 365 things they go, we don't do that. And there was 248

things that says, we do this. And when we don't do that, and we do this, we now are righteous before God. We've earned his love. And that's why they could feel better than everyone else, and look down on people, and be judgmental.

They never had to say we own our sin, and we're sinners far from God, and we can never be made right without his love. It was all about their to don't and to do list. And when they asked what's the most important one, they said, of all the to don'ts, which is the to don't that we should to don't the most?

And all the to dos, which is the to do to do that we should do do the most? And Jesus is like, the whole list is do do. You missed the first direction, which makes all those other things, you're woefully lost when it comes to what those things were meant to be. And then he answers, and here's what he says.

Jesus replied, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important, love your neighbor as yourself. The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commands.

So he basically, he quotes two different old testament scriptures when he says these two things, which actually in a minute you're gonna see, they're linked. They can't be separated.

He first command he he quotes what's called the Shema, the the most every Jew would have prayed this over and over. They said this all the time. They had all the facts and none of the truth. They had all the facts, but none of the truth of it. They

they they they had the words of the Lord, but they didn't have the meaning and the depth and commitment to it. Because the Shema says, you know, the Lord the Lord God is one, and you are to love the Lord, like he said in here, with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.

The funny thing is that Lord mind was the thing that he changed, because in the Shema in in in Deuteronomy, it says, with with all of your it says, all of your soul,

all your heart, soul, and the the Hebrew word is might, all your strength. Might and mind are fairly related words, but it's still, he's subtly saying something different. It's interesting. The old testament under the law, you are to use all of your strength. And now he uses mind.

Why did he change it? Because in all of our might we can't. But mind, that's the same word he uses in Romans that's used to say hey, how are we transformed to be like Christ? We are transformed by the renewing of our mind.

And what does he mean? Just think happy thoughts, look in the mirror, I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darn it, Jesus loves me? No. That word for mind means point of view.

So we need to look biblically at our lives. Accurately at our lives. And ultimately what he's saying is with everything within us, we need to choose to embrace God's point of view even if we don't like it, even if we don't understand it, and even if it feels like everything in us was meant to go the other way.

We have to change our point of view to his point of view. So the first thing is you need to love God with all of that, with your heart, your soul, all of who you are, with all of your commitment, and by choosing to take his point of view.

In other words, he's almost slapped these guys, quit looking for loopholes and fighting with me on all this stuff. Surrender.

And then he says the second equally important is love your neighbor as yourself. That's out of Leviticus. Everyone says, never read Leviticus. It's boring. There's nothing in there. That's in there.

And he says the entire law and the demands of the prophets are based on it. What he's saying is, you missed everything else. Your three sixty five to don'ts, your two forty eight to dos, every one of those had to do with how to love God and how to love others.

And you turned it into how to make yourself lovable and seem righteous and get what you want, when the reality is you need to learn how to love me and to love others. And when he says the other is equally important in the Greek, what he's saying is, it's not just this is second on the list and it's really critical. It's they're connected. Almost like

the heads and a tail of a quarter. You can't say, you gotta have the head. Tail would be, it's really critical and okay, you can get that later. You don't get just the top part of a quarter. When you get the quarter, you get the quarter.

In other words, what he's saying there is to love God is to love others. If you love God, you will love others. In other words, and he says it more bluntly other places in the bible where it says, if you do not love others, you don't love God. They're connected because truly loving God automatically

produces love for others. And so we that's it's a good analysis. And here's the thing, so alright, well if I wanna say I love God, I better force myself to love others in order to love God. No, because it all starts in in the book of first John. He says we can love because he first loved us. You have to embrace

the love of Christ. You have to understand how much he loves you. That's number one direction in missing loving God and loving others. So if you do not love God back and you don't love others, rather than force it, you need to get alone and say what is it that I don't understand about how God loves me?

Because if you're not gonna listen, that means you don't trust him.

Something wrong with you and understand there's love for him. And it's either you're listening to a lie, you're giving into a fear, or you're just flat out being ornery. You're being rebellious. You just want to do it your way.

There's pride. That's why the bible says pride comes before the fall. I trust what will make me happy more than what God says will make me happy. So

what does it mean then to love God? What does that even kinda start to look like? Well, first of all, let me say, what is what does that look like? Well, I'm gonna look at second John verse five and six. Second John is only 13 verses. So you get does John get credit for writing a whole book for 13 verses?

That's true. I can write thousands of books. He says this, I'm writing to remind you, dear friends, that we should love one another. This is not a new commandment,

but one we've had from the beginning. Just like what Jesus said in the in the passage there. He's like, you don't understand. The whole testament, the whole bible has always said the goal is love God, love others. And he says, so verse six, love means doing whatever you want. Oh wait, no it doesn't. Love means

doing what God has commanded us. And he has commanded us to love one another just as you heard from the beginning. So in other words, what he's saying is to love God means to do what he says. To follow his instructions about how life is gonna work. To trust him. And one of those commands is to love others.

And if Jesus is the only way, we're gonna see next week, he gave us a command to go make disciples, to go and reach. Then most of the He says it's all about how the church spread and how it goes. It's like our number one command

in loving others is to go point them to Jesus, cause we need Jesus. We're hopeless without him. So the number one point of loving others is to bring them to Jesus. Hence, why our mission statement is we point people to Jesus by loving them like Jesus. The implied part is the we is we know Jesus now.

We've been pointed to Jesus. We are in a relationship with Jesus. And if we are, then we are gonna live out a mission of life to live my life in order to point others to that.

That's the goal. That's the mission. That's what we're called to do. If we're gonna love God, we're gonna love others, and that's what we're gonna be

And we're gonna guide our life towards that. Now in the next few weeks, we're gonna be talking about what that looks like to be pointed. What does it mean to be in a fully engaged relationship with Jesus? What does he really want us? What are the instructions

he really wants us to grab ahold of? And we're gonna see, if you've been in this church very long, we use three words right here. No, grow, and go. We're gonna talk about what that means scripturally. And what's interesting is when you look at those three words and what they mean as how to be a disciple,

the actions I should take,

they kind of blend. You can't separate the love of God from the love of others. All three of them can opponent of this teaches me the love of God. This enables me to love him back. But also in knowing, growing, growing, I'm also choosing in there the actions I'm taking is also to express love for others in different ways.

So even what he's called us to the whole new testament to be the church, to be a follower, the steps I take to grow as a disciple is gonna cause me to love God more and love others. Be closer to him and draw and point other people to him.

So once again, if you're a Christian, you come to church all the time, and you've never even thought about that. You're on the wrong highway. You're jamming your REO speed wagon with your peach t shirt on. And you might be having fun, but at some point you're going to realize, where the hell am I?

And hell's gonna be the answer. You've gotten so far away from the point that God had for you. And the weird thing is we as humans when we end up far off, we usually blame God for that. I was always in church. Did I listen to the instructions?

Love God. Love others. Okay. So what does that love look like then? As we take these steps, what is God's love like? I just wanna take one moment to describe this in one key ingredient of what his love looks like. One one thing, because I think it drives all the others. And it's funny you have to define love.

But what I've seen in our culture, it's been happening for thousands of years, but it seems to be very strong in our culture now, is to take words and slightly change what they mean.

And that's why I end up in arguments with people that say they're Christians and come to church all the time, and start to say, well God would never say that. I go, it says it right here in scripture. Well God is love, man. And anyway, anyway, why are you So you think God contradicts himself. Yeah, God is love, but then it says something. Why do you think that's not loving? Because you've redefined what love is, and love now means one of two things. It means one, it's what it's classically always meant. We say we love when we just have a strong affection for. Love is a feeling,

but love is more than a feeling according to a band that I used to like to listen to. It's more than a feeling. And and it's actually it comes with some feelings, but it's not a feeling. Love's a verb. It's an action. It's a choice. Just like like versus love,

you think love is something that you have no control over. You go but and you either like someone, but you can't love them. Actually, you cannot like someone and still love them. You can't help who you like. Like is an opinion. Love's a choice.

So we make it into this affection thing, and then if I have that affection thing, then we say love is you be you, and I will back you no matter what. That's a dangerous combination. So now in the name of love,

we don't give anybody truth. We don't get anybody. And you know, I used to use this example to say, listen, some of the stuff we talk about theologically for adults to live by according to God's word,

we say but it's love, just let them be. Why can't you just be a Christian and walk in this way? I go would you do that with your kids? Would you let your kids wake up in the morning and say I identify as a candy eater, I will only eat candy? If you want them to have no teeth and diabetes?

And I used to say you wouldn't do that, but now we're in a culture that yes, people are doing that now. If you love your kid, you let them decide everything that's right. That's not love.

Jesus said speak the truth in love. If that's love, then you can never actually speak truth. Because if you speak truth, then you're not loving. And that's where I get flacked out because I have committed to stand up here and love everyone in this room enough to say, God says this is the way life works.

And I love you enough to make you mad at me by saying this way is never going to get you where you want to go. And you can get mad at me and say I'm a bigoted, mean, you know, whatever. Or maybe I'm the person that has loved you more than anyone else. Cause I will have the guts to say it to you. So

when we apply the wrong version of love, why do you think so many of us sit in church as disciples and we don't actually follow the directions? Because we think we're doing well because we come here good mess, we learn more information, and we get moved emotionally, and we say, I have a strong affection for God.

But do I actually love the way God loves? Because we're supposed to become like him, that's a disciple. And then we're supposed to love other people the way he loves. So what's this one key ingredient that I think is mainly missing when we talk about love?

I'm gonna read the most famous verse about how God loves in all of scripture. There's some guy in a football game always holding up a sign for this passage. What verse am I talking about? John three sixteen. Let's look at it.

For this is how God loved, this is how God loved the world. He gave his one and only son that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. So we're like wow, Jesus died for me, that's love. But you know what, let me just point out two words, bam. Like I did that magic. Magic. You're a wizard, Bill.

Loved. Gave. You know the best way to know if someone loves you? Do they give. Love gives. If you say you love something and you don't give, you don't love something. And I'm not talking just about money. In a few minutes I'm gonna talk about money. I'm just being honest. But we give our hearts, our soul, our commitment, our time,

our words, truth. Like I just said about love, I will love you enough to give you truth. Love gives truth. Not in an arrogant way just to be right, it's because if you do it in love, you're like, I know this truth is gonna change you and you need it. Love gives.

Love doesn't avoid. Love doesn't run away. Love doesn't be quiet. Love doesn't say anything goes. Love doesn't say do you. Love says love will give. It will give. So if you say I love God, you will love others. And if you say you really do love God and love others, you will give of yourself to that cause. And if you don't,

here comes the throw punch of truth. You don't love God. You just don't. The bible's really clear on that.

Don't fool yourself. That's what these teachers love. That's what the Pharisees are arguing. That's what their problem was. They thought they loved God. They thought they could prove it. They had the rules. They went to church more. They weren't like those idiots out there that didn't know how to vote and didn't know how to live their lives.

They had it right, but they wouldn't give.

And they missed it. They missed it because love gives. Best way, little side note, even though I go long every time I say this, If you're dating, all y'all that are young enough to dating are dating again,

quit falling for the the definition of love that is just a real strong emotional affection for or a physical attraction to. Because some of y'all keep getting in these relationships where the person says they love you, they might even tear up, but they never give to the relationship. They only take. They don't love you.

Put a boundary up, get out of the relationship. Don't take them back when they come to your doorstep and cry. They do one moment. One moment if they take you out to something nice. One moment they manipulate. Love gives and it gives consistently. And you can trust it. And you can take it to the bank.

So end of little mini sermon. But love will give. I heard this statement, I don't remember where I got it from or who said it, so I'm gonna say I said it, so I'm a genius. You can give without loving, but you can't love without giving.

You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving. It's just a truth statement. And so when it comes to our culture, if we say okay, I'm gonna love God, and I'm gonna love others, because I know the love of Christ. If I say that's what I'm gonna live out, I'm gonna go for it.

Then I gotta ask you a question. I I I'll prove I'm a wizard if any you want me to take you up on it. I will meet with any of you. I will ask you to let me see two things, and that's the only thing I will say. You don't have to say anything, I don't have to say anything, and I will tell you what you love.

Can you tell me what those two things are I wanna look at? Bank account and your calendar. You guys are smart.

You let me see your bank account, your checking, like what you spend your money on, and how you spend your time. We don't even have to have a conversation. You can tell me I'm passionate about, I love God so much, and I care about what he cares about. If I see that you don't serve, and you don't give,

and you don't care about other people coming to Christ, remember I love you right? I don't care if you're in here every week. I don't care if you laugh at my dumb jokes. I don't care if you cry. I don't care if your hands are raised when we're worshiping.

If you think you love God and love others, and your bank account doesn't show that you give to your church, and your calendar doesn't show that you serve in your area of giftedness, you don't love God. You don't. It is an automatic byproduct of what real love is.

So the question is, get your act together and start doing it or I'm gonna come and punch you in the throat. No. The question is, I got because here's real love. Why wouldn't you?

What disconnect is there from you understanding how much God loves you? He loves so much, what did he give? He gave his life. Jesus died. He took our sin. And if that's genuine and real, what is your reason for not trusting him with your time and your money? When he already said, this is the directions

to get to the place to be the person to have the life I already bought and paid for it. You already have a room. You already have the spot. You're already my follower. I already love you. You're my child. Just listen to the way I told you it'll work. Because when we give

it changes us. You're all worried about just what it takes. It doesn't just take the money and the time away. It gives you stuff back that you never would have if you didn't do it. You know, also takes some other things. It takes a trailer

full of stuff you never knew that you never, you wanna get rid of but you don't know how. You realize by sacrificially giving of ourselves, of our time and our money, probably because that's the two things that we have to give, our resources and our time. It takes in that trailer that pulls away is fear.

Well it says don't wanna give because you're afraid. You start to learn that wait, money isn't what makes me. Now you don't worry about it. When you don't worry about it, guess what? How many say the reason I can't give is my wife and I are always fighting about it? Well if you both agree to do what God says, fight over.

It takes away the frustration. It takes away the fear. It also says that by giving, it's the only way you're gonna control materialism. The desire to think stuff,

what I get, I need, I need, I need to really be happy and content. When you give it takes away that you finally That's not afraid. That doesn't become a thing anymore. You find freedom when you let that stuff go.

And then God in his infinite wisdom said he could have done this all on his own, but he says, I want you to be a part of what I'm doing. And there's a huge blessing in knowing that what I did, what I gave, God used it to change eternity. Eternity.

And yet many of you that has come here week after week and say you're a Christian or you're you're gonna have a reason to not do still. Because you're not understanding love of God. We we don't get it. And that was the problem. That was the problem that the the these Jews that are attacking Jesus had.

They didn't get it. They didn't get what it really meant to love God. They didn't really get what it meant to be loved by God. So they obviously didn't care about loving others, so they didn't give.

Let me let me prove like, remember I said Jesus, the first thing he did was clear the temple out? Let me show you a a a Well, before I show the picture, let me ask you a question. Any of you bible scholars, why did Jesus get mad? What was happening at the temple that made him mad?

Money changers and they were selling sacrificial animals, right? How many of have heard a message or maybe you thought that he was mad that they were just selling animals and exchanging money at the temple? How many thought it was the act of money changing in temple? You heard that? That's not true.

What they were doing was necessary. There was nothing wrong with selling sacrificial animals, and there was nothing wrong with the money changing. Those two things had to happen because people came from far to do their annual,

you know, the the sacrifice on the Passover, and it had to be a certain animal. If you brought the lamb, it needed to be unblemished. Well, if you come from far away, you don't bring an unblemished lamb, because that journey is hard, and there's most likelihood that lamb's not unblemished by the time it gets there.

And so you would buy them when you got there. It was necessary. The other thing is they knew they didn't wanna exchange money that had like Caesar on it, like the main coin, because they felt like he's a false god. He claimed to be god. So they wanted to use

money exchange that doesn't exchange that. So you would just exchange what you had to get what you needed to buy. It was very necessary. The priests run. There was nothing wrong with that system.

Jesus wasn't mad at the what, he was mad at the why and really the where. The the why, you know, yes, the money changers, a lot of them had greed. It becomes such a system that they found out they could the money changers could charge exorbitant amounts, I you know, you give me a dollar, I give you 50¢ back. So they were getting wealthy. He thought that was ripping off the poor.

So that was a little bit of his anger, but when he says he clears it out, he flipped tables over. He got angry and said this is supposed to be a house of prayer. It the real thing that made him angry was the where they were doing it. And it wasn't even the what, it was where.

Because it shows their heart. Let me show you. I wanna show you a picture of the Herod's temple at this time. And God's the one that told them how to lay this out, which is interesting.

So if you look at that, I've been up here on the Temple Mount. None of the buildings are left. They all got knocked down by the Romans in seventy AD. But this whole Temple Mount is huge.

And it's divided, the way they went to worship, and you can even go in to pray. When he says come to pray, you can come to pray on your own to come closer to God. You could talk and have discussion, teaching times and stuff would happen in these courts, and there was different areas you would go. There was the outer court, the court of the gentiles, that's all the non Jews.

The Jews could go into the inner court. And there was a court of the women, was that? And then the court of the men, and then you got the holy of holies, God's little house. And only the high priest could go into that holy of holies one time a year.

So so they could go in and teach and all that. So no, only Jews could get into the into this part, but the outer part was for people that weren't Jews, the outsiders. The court of Gentiles wasn't just this whole area,

it was also the part in front, and it was this whole area. It was both of these areas. That's all the court of the Gentiles. Which part is much larger than the other courts? By obvious. Look at how huge the space is for the court of the gentiles. You know how much acreage that is? 35 acres.

You know how much acreage we have on our whole campus? We go all the way to clouds, we still have some desert over here, and we go all the way back to the walls for the houses. Our entire campus here is on 36 acres.

So in this temple, the court of the gentiles, this is like some of y'all probably have a house that's as big as this. That's why you don't give.

I'm sorry. So God told him from when he said to love others, to reach others, from the beginning that was a command. The old testament said that God was gonna use Israel to reach all nations. And when we told them to lay this out, the area for outsiders, the room for them is gigantic.

Well, they weren't reaching outsiders. They didn't care. They wanted to have their thing. So doing it, they were doing it in the court Of The gentiles. That's where they set up shop. The place where gentiles were supposed to come and worship.

And so they said it's easier. And you know what? Practically speaking, is. It made it more convenient for them. It made it more convenient,

a cleaner system. There was more room. The question is they basically didn't care about reaching other people. They didn't care about it. And the reason they did it is because they weren't reaching anyone because they didn't care. They were more about themselves. They were more about, as I've heard it say in today's age, people come to church, I don't like a bigger church, I want quality not quantity.

That is the wimpiest, saddest excuse I've ever seen for someone to not wanna do the mission. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. When Jesus came, he said I'm sending you to now go make disciples to go reach people in all the world. He said, and remember this, the harvest is plentiful, the workers are few.

We in small churches act like I wanted to be small because it was meant to be small. Really? On the day of Pentecost there was 120 believers. Peter gets up fifty days after denying Christ, we're gonna see that in a few weeks, and he preaches a sermon, and 3,000 more people joined the church. That church became a church that took us eighteen years to get to that size in

one moment. They say by the time Paul was writing and leaving that Jerusalem had a population of about 300,000. The church was about a 100,000. So when you read the old the new testament, think they were small churches, you're so wrong. The gospel was spreading. They were reaching people.

We like small because they go, I want it to be convenient for me. I wanna be able to get in and get my thing, and go when I wanna go, and do what I wanna do. They wouldn't make room for the mission.

So Jesus flipped table. That's the one thing he expressed anger. He didn't sin, but he got mad. That's the one thing in his whole life experience as a man walking this earth that he got angry enough to turn over tables, yell at everyone, and whip them out of the room, and cleared the temple. You know why? Because they used to pray. They were waiting for a messiah that would cleanse the temple of the gentiles, primarily the Romans.

Jesus came and he cleansed the temple for the gentiles, Which was pretty much all of us in this room. If if the disciples didn't listen to Jesus, we wouldn't be sitting here. The problem is how many of us have now become the people that are attacking Jesus. I won't give because I don't really love God and love others.

I love my spot. I love what I got. And I've turned faith into me. Me and my little tribe. That's not what it was ever meant to be.

We're supposed to make room always. Always. Because that's the mission. And the reason I share this is because we need to understand that if we're gonna be true disciples, and especially at this church, we are Rock Point, we are a people that make room. That's what we do. That's what we've been doing for twenty years.

And guess what? We're out of room again. Moved in this building, already out of room. We need to make more room. We do because we keep reaching people.

I mean, some of yeah. Isn't that awesome? Let me just show you a couple stats. We're only in August. Right? We've baptized over 500 people already. And we got another one coming up next week. Probably get over a 100 again.

So we're not just attracting people from other churches that didn't like that their pastor says something they didn't like. I tend to be the church that sends those people to other churches actually.

Someone once told me as wise wisdom says, you don't choose who you keep, you choose who you lose. Choose wisely. So 500 baptisms. This year, we've had like almost 2,500 new people show up,

and that basically comes out to about nine sixty families. This is like two months, a month and a half old stat. We're up over a thousand families and well over 2,500 people. Yeah, isn't that crazy?

In a minute, I'm gonna show you a video and they talk about how since we moved into this building, we've grown 50%. We just filmed that like seven weeks ago. It's closer to 80% now. Yeah. Last week, we had double the amount of people that attended this church from when we moved into the building.

And and that's what this two years of COVID. And we're not doing it just because we wanna be a big church. We wanna give that. It creates problems. It creates a need for us to sacrifice. It's hard. It's inconvenient.

The line for coffee is long. It's hard to get a seat. The pastor keeps telling you if you love God, you'll stop coming to this service and you'll go to Saturday night. I'm gonna say it that nice and leave it. Next service is getting much more of a throw punch on it.

But this one's running out of room because a lot of you came from that service to this service. Well slide on over to Saturday night. You realize in the last month we have moved almost 600 people to Saturday nights, and guess what our attendance on Sunday is? The same as it was.

You really wanna point someone to Jesus by loving them like Jesus, and you're not outgoing and you're kinda shy? Stop coming on Sunday and you'll reach someone for Jesus. Because almost every new family comes. We get about 40 families a week and most of them come Sunday mornings.

So you could reach someone by just inconveniencing yourself and going on Saturday. I'm telling you, I've said this for twenty years now. Every time we've ran out of room, if you stop filling that seat, someone will get saved because they will fill it.

Because I assume Jesus was telling the truth when he said the harvest is plentiful. If you do what I say to do and share the gospel, you will see people come to Christ. Instead of fighting about telling everyone how they're doing stuff wrong, show them Jesus

And and it'll happen. We need to make room. We can't be like the Jews. We can't be like who Jesus is talking. We need to love God and love others with all our heart, our soul, and our mind. And love gives. We need to be willing to do those things. And so we gotta move,

but we have some other things planned. We're gonna start a third service on Sundays starting in January. So the other thing I need to give is I need people that don't serve to start serving because we're gonna need to staff that with children's workers, and security people, and guest services,

and we need to step up to keep reaching people. So now's the time. Now's the time. If you're sitting on the sidelines, now's the time to get in the game. Because you have a chance to let God use you to transform eternity for other lives. For eternity. So matter of fact, what our big plan is, what we're gonna do

that but it's gonna take a while. We gotta start now is we need to add some room around here. So watch this quick video.

Over the last twenty years, Rock Point has been blessed to be the home church for so many families across the East Valley. We have always prayerfully asked that God's hand be in everything that we do as we pursue our mission to point people to Jesus by loving them like Jesus.

And in this time, we've seen miraculous growth as a church. Since we first moved into our first facility in 2013, we have grown more than 500% in weekend attendance. And since the completion of our newest building in 2020, we have grown by another 50% at our weekend services.

But we know as a church that if we don't focus on the next generation during this season of tremendous growth, all the work that we are doing for the kingdom, it won't have the lasting impact in our community that God has put on our hearts. That is why we are launching the We Are Rock Point campaign.

The We Are Rock Point campaign includes three initiatives that will allow us to pour into the next generation while expanding our current capacity so more people can hear the word of God and grow in biblical community every weekend.

The first is a 20,000 square foot dedicated children's building. This building will be an amazing space dedicated to our kids ministry and focused on creating the best environments possible for our youngest to learn about the love of Jesus and guide them into a deep relationship with God.

This space will be connected to our current children's space, and it will serve kids from preschool up to preteen. Our next initiative will be the renovation and expansion of our student building as well as creating a larger, dedicated area for our special needs ministry.

We have been blown away by the success and impact of our special needs ministry, and our heart is to create environments where everyone can come and worship God in comfort and in safety. Lastly, we will be expanding our current worship center by 40% so that we can serve more adult attendees on the weekend

and make sure that we can keep space at the most accessible service times for new guests so that no one who needs to hear the word of God ever gets turned away.

We are so excited about this campaign and what it means for our ability to spread the gospel to more people around the valley. We are asking that you prayerfully consider what you are able to give to this initiative. For more information about what we are doing or to get involved, head to wearerockpoint.com.

Thank you for your faithfulness and being willing to point people to Jesus by loving them like Jesus, by investing in future generations here at Rock Point.

So here's the deal with that. When you leave, you're gonna get handed a brochure. It has a little commitment card. You can do it old school, but there's a website. You can go. And what we're asking to do is over the next few weeks as we do this series for four weeks is to start praying about, hey, what can I sacrificially give? And what I'm gonna ask you to do is go to what you think you can do reasonably,

and just take one step further. Just get a little scared, and see what God does.

And that's over a two year period. I'd ask you to pray about what you can do to do upfront like a first fruits. What can you just give right away? Because that's what's gonna help us instead of just little squares with blue. We can start designing the buildings and stuff like that because that costs some money. So we wanna do that. And so we're gonna we're gonna get that going over two years, what you can do. The project's gonna cost 15 to $16,000,000

to do all of the renovations. And and and and but and here's what we're aiming for. Our initial target is for us to raise half of that, 8,000,000. I'm pretty sure we can do that because when we built this facility,

I said we've had a thousand families show up already this year. We built this facility with only 900 families in the whole church. And we raised 6 and a half million dollars over two years. I believe if we all choose to be Rock Point, if you say this is my church and we all do it, I think we could raise all $16,000,000.

Because the truth is we already have all the money. We do. It's just still in your bank accounts.

We just need it here. But just to encourage you a little bit, I met with just staff, elders, and some key leaders. The total amount of them totaled about a half a percent of our attendance. So a half of 1% of our attendance. I said, would you make your commitment upfront?

And so that half a percent, we already have $1,100,000 of this project with a half a percent. If we stay at that pace, we'll raise like $60,000,000. Alright. So so the the the truth is, just pray about it, see how you can commit, but here's the thing.

Keep coming. If you think this those whole series is gonna be hammering this, this is just our number one illustration. If we really are rock point, this is what we need to do next. But we're gonna be talking about what does it mean to be a disciple. So if you're new to church, you're new to this faith thing, keep coming.

And I don't want you to worry about giving till you figure out the love of God. But for the rest of us, start thinking about what would hold you back. What are you afraid of? I wanna read a list here before we shut down because I

think a lot of us are in this moment. Our executive pastor Dave Sutherland, who helps design all this stuff. I talk about it, he makes it happen.

He couldn't sleep the other night, so he sent this list and he goes, I'm just praying over people, and I just think there's If God really loves us that we engage, and he says we love God back, we'll do these things. We'll give, love gives, but what would hold us back?

And maybe this is on your list. Maybe this is your reason. What's holding you back? What's your fear? Is it I won't have enough to pay my bills? I won't have enough to pay for college? I won't have enough when I retire? I don't trust the church will use it properly? I don't trust the Lord will give me what I need.

I'm out of work. I don't think the bible means this for me. I don't think the bible actually says I need to do this. It's my money, I earned it, and I worked hard. I don't think you're talking to me. This isn't my church. Well, it can be. I don't think we should be building the kids building.

He wrote that one, was like, is it, the Grinch? I mean This should be one of the easiest projects you get. It's for the children. It's for the next generation. That's what mainly all this is. Yeah, gives us more room in here, but we're trying to pour into that next generation. I give somewhere else, well then

go somewhere else.

It's true. I've given in the past and it didn't go well. It makes me mad.

Some of you are just mad when you hear this. It's mainly guys because you already had plans for what you're gonna do with your money, and now another guy is telling you don't do that, if you love God you'll do this, and you just or you're mad about that. I understand.

All the church cares about is money. No. All we care about is money. That's why we have to do these things. If everyone that attended this church actually honored God with our money, we wouldn't need a campaign. We'd just pay cash for it.

If everyone did what God said to do with our money, we wouldn't need to ask, we would need to do this. You realize 25% of what Jesus talked about in the gospels was money? If I did the same thing, once a month would be a money talk.

And we have the problem with it. My wife and I are fighting about our finances right now. Well, decide to do what God wants and I think the fight will stop. I'm not committed to Christ yet. Like I already said, I don't expect you to commit to this then. Come and listen.

I don't want you to give till you know what Jesus has given to you. It should come from love. And the last one is, I just don't want to. If you just don't want to, you need to ask yourself, are you committed to Christ? Do you know his love? And if any of these fears are too much for you, they're holding you back,

here's what I want you to do. Rather than make a commitment right away over the next four weeks, would you take that card out and write whatever your fear is on that card? Set it somewhere where you see it every day and just spend a moment reflecting and just talk to God about that for the next three weeks.

Because I think a lot of reasons why we do this, this isn't just about fundraising and it's not just about outreach to the making room for others. Whatever is holding you back here is an issue in your life and trusting God. This is also faith raising. This is an opportunity to be challenged when it comes to money,

to just step towards God and watch how he takes care of you. Because I get the fears, I get how we can step back. When I came to start Rock Point, I mean, cashed out what little retirement I had. I sold everything. I had no income. And I just moved out here with my family.

And I just started going to the pool where we moved every day because that's the only thing I could do. I didn't do any of the building or anything. I just wanted to meet people. I would bring my kids so I could meet people. I used them, yes,

and I talked to people. I learned that from when I was in college, if you brought a puppy to the beach, you met girls. And same principle, only I used my kids as puppies.

And we finally started a bible study where we invited people, but we had no idea. We had five families that moved with us, but we said is anyone else gonna come? And you know, we recently found a picture from that first bible study when I was like, did I just sell the farm? Is this all those fears? How am I gonna help? How am gonna support my family? How am gonna pay bills? How am gonna do this? How is that gonna happen? And and this is me. See how I've aged horribly in the service of you all? And then this guy over here, that's Randy Deal who helped plant the dirt. We just set up in the clubhouse at Power Ranch for our bible study. And we were sitting there waiting to see this is the moment of truth. Is anyone gonna come?

And I gave into the fear. I was really kind of freaking out now. And I looked, this picture was taken. I just looked at Randy. And I just said these words, what no one comes? What if no one comes? You know what Randy said back to me? He didn't even blink an eye. It came out immediately.

He just looked right back at me, smiled, he goes, what if we don't have enough chairs? That was his answer, what if we don't have enough chairs? And guess what has been our problem for the last twenty years? We don't have enough chairs. Randy

really embodied who we are as Rock Point and he reminded me who I'm supposed to be as a leader, and it reminds me of who we're supposed to be as believers. If we trust God, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few, and we have an opportunity to step out against our fears, and see God provide in a way that says he took care of me, and now we're out of room again.

What if we all just did that? Because bottom line is this, when we point people to Jesus by loving them like Jesus, we are rock point. Amen?

Father God, I just thank you Lord. I thank you for all the words you gave me, even the extra seven minutes of them. But God, I pray that you just speak to all of us. And may you just primarily whisper to us an absolute understanding of your love. And then allow us to respond to that.

Give us the power to love you back and love others. And lead us in the act of trust that we need to be a person that love gives. I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Alright. God bless you guys. Love you guys.

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.