Family on the Journey

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

I want to start by thanking Tim Perkins to come and lead worship with us today. Give my hand, guys. Tim received a phone call from me Thursday, Wednesday of this week, and we had had somebody from 1st Baptist Burleson lined up, and we knew that Dan, it might be... Dan, hey, it might be shaky if he could make it on time or not. And so we were trying to get somebody else. And then when they let me know, hey, we can't send anybody, I thought to myself, okay, this is it. This is the moment where we're gonna be sharing ministry, even in a way that is surprising to us. So Tim, from the bottom of my heart, I appreciate you coming and serving this morning. It's a big deal. That's a big deal, yeah. You can turn in your Bibles to Ephesians four. We're going to be in Ephesians 4, 1 through 6 today. Ephesians 4, 1 through 6.

And I want to start with a quote by a New York Times travel columnist. Normally I don't quote New York Times, I especially don't quote travel columnist, but I thought this was gold. She said, this is Susan Heller Anderson, She said, when preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money, then take half your clothes and twice the money. I thought that was pretty good. I like this quote in particular because I have never really gotten around the idea of taking something or packing something that I might need on vacation. I actually hate that idea in the core of my being, okay? If somebody says, well, you might need it, my first instinct is to say, I might not, okay? It feels like, to me, this is just me testifying here, it feels like it's extra weight for nothing. It feels frivolous. Why do I need extra clothes? Why do I need extra food? Why do I need a medical kit?

All these things are gonna be there when I get there, Why don't we go ahead and just pack up a backup generator in the kitchen sink? Okay, that's my mind on this. Okay And it might seem strange. I know this is this is weird. It might seem strange, but there are people on The opposite end of the spectrum than me Okay, there are people who love to pack There are people Right now that they are wondering right now could I pack up a backup generator for that next trip? I'm taking okay. I just gave them an idea. Okay They play out all these scenarios in their head, right? What if just in case This might happen all those things kind of run rampant in their mind Okay, and although although this is not my method of packing. This is not my method of preparation I do not like this. I become a really big fan, really big fan of these kinds of people whenever I need something and I need to go to Walmart and the nearest Walmart is 30 miles away.

I become a really big fan of these people when my plans get derailed and I need to go to Plan B. I love those people in that moment. Candace Oster, I think Candace is working in the nursery this morning, but Candace Osler is famous for just, she has, you know, like something in her purse that you need, right? Oh, like I have a, you know, a vial of insulin or whatever. She just has it. Okay. She just has it in her purse. It's ready to go. I don't know why it's there. I don't even know. I think the Holy Spirit just like just packs her purse for her every day. And she just, she just has things in there, man. It's crazy. And she's on that opposite end, man. She's thinking through the scenario that just in case, this might happen, we need to have it. And that's good. Whether it's packing your purse, or preparing to travel, or raising children, doing work, being a church, it is essential,

it is essential to understand that it takes more than you. Your journey, your life, life takes, it's going to take more than you. There's a certain humility that comes over us when if we realize that if we're going to make it on this journey with Jesus, if we're going to make spiritual headway, then that process is going to include other people. Other people that are very different than you, not a little different, not sort of different, Not we just like different football teams, but just way different. They approach life differently. They see people differently. And if we're going to make this journey, we've really got to see these other people as necessary for the journey. And this is where we've been for the past couple of weeks. We've been discussing our journey with Jesus. And what we've been doing to look at this journey with Jesus, this journey that we're

all on in salvation with Jesus, what we've done is we've looked at it from a couple of different angles. Okay, we looked at it from a couple different angles and we've used various pieces of camping equipment to talk about this journey. Okay, so I admit that's a little cheesy, but I don't care. Okay, everybody needs a little cheese every once in a while. Okay, so the first thing we talked about was a passport. Okay, you can see on our list we've checked off passport and and compass, right, so far. We've talked about a passport. When you say yes to Jesus, when you commit to following Him, we've talked about this being our passport. Jesus gives us our passport to be on the journey. We've talked about an emotional connection with Jesus, right? Where we're believing in Him with our heart, okay? Like Scripture says. So this emotional connection, this relationship that we're building with Jesus

is our passport. We've also discussed, last week we discussed a compass to describe how we make progress on this journey, it's our compass. So God puts his spirit inside us and that God's spirit leads us like a compass, like a gyroscope, right? We talked about how in Google Maps or any other maps app you might use. You can have the whole view, like the whole map, where you're just making turns and doing that number, or you can orient it to where you're always going straight. Okay, like, okay, I have to turn right. I have to turn left, okay.

That's hard, okay, right from left. Where you have to, where you have the map is helping you understand what the next turn is, what the next few hundred feet look like, what the next exit is on your interstate, okay. This, what this feels like, we talked about what it feels like and what it looks like. What it feels like is real joy, real conviction, true love for other people. It looks like your desires actually beginning to change. In your journey with Jesus, if anybody tries to help you understand your journey with Jesus by just changing your behavior, I believe that person is short sighted or the advice you're getting is misguided. In your journey with Jesus, your behavior does change, but your behavior changes because your heart changes, right? The affections of your heart, the things that you are really going for, those things change. And when those things change, your behavior does change. But if you just

tell somebody, if what you believe about Christianity is just that you act like a good person now, that's not Christianity, that's moralism, that's just being a good person in your own power and strength, right? And some people are gonna be better at it than others, some people are gonna fit in that, some people not. That's not what we're talking about. The gospel of Jesus Christ is that He puts His Spirit inside us that changes our desires, which then changes our behavior. Our desires change. So we talked about a passport, we talked about a Today we're talking about a third piece of equipment, the rope. We're talking about the rope today. Now, you know, the thing about a rope is not everybody thinks about packing a rope. You know, if you're going on a hike, someone's like, hey, did you bring the rope? No, why did I bring the rope? Not everybody thinks you need to pack it, but you don't really need a rope until you

need a rope. Then you really need a rope. If you're in a position where you don't have a rope and you need a rope, that's a really bad position to be in. So we're going to talk a little bit more about kind of what this rope is, and we're going to look at Ephesians 4 to do that. So you've already got to open Ephesians 4. Ephesians is a letter written by the apostle Paul to the Ephesian church. It's a church in Ephesus, hence the name of the letter. And so Ephesians is a letter written to a church, a lot like us, right? If you're like, what was the Ephesian church like? They were a lot like us. In fact, most of the churches in the New Testament, when you think, I wonder what they were like, it's a safe bet that they were a lot like us. That they were a spiritual family that was struggling to kind of come together and make progress on the journey and had a lot of setbacks, but saw God move

and were excited about that. That's the church in Ephesus. That's most churches in the New Testament. And in the Ephesian letter, in chapter four, the subject of unity comes up. And we're going to take it in chunks and we're going to start with verses one through three, but I'm going to leave out a big part of verse one. We're going to come back to that, I promise. But we're going to just read Ephesians 4 verses one through three with a big chunk of one missing. And you can follow with me on your screen, on the screen up here. It says, I urge you, so we're skipping a lot there, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called. Listen to the way it describes this walking. With all humility and gentleness with patience, bearing with one another in love, all four of those, humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love,

all those are relational terms, right? They're all how you relate to other people. In other words, you can feel like you're going to be gentle, but you will be gentle when you are gentle with another person, okay? You might think that you're patient until you're with another person and then you have to actually show patience. You actually have to bear up under what somebody else is doing and still love them. Okay. You, these things are relational and they need other people to be completed. Verse three, also that you are eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. That's a really interesting phrase.

Eager to maintain the unity of the spirit. So the first thing that we are going to see about our rope is that it exists. Okay. In other words, that everybody that is on this journey with us is already united. Because it says in verse three, it says that you need to be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace. Not that you should be united, not that you need to build the unity, no, but that you need to maintain the unity. In other words, the unity is already there. The unity is ingrained. If you are on this journey with Jesus, there is a rope that connects you to everyone else.

It's around you, it's tied around you, you can't really take it off. It's just, they're all connected. We're all united, whether we like it or not. We're united with the crazy uncles. We're united with the people that we think need a little bit more excitement in their life, or a little less. We're united with all of them. There's this idea in the Bible, and it's repeated throughout, that there is an ingrained unity all over Scripture. Ingrained unity. It's built in, it's there. And I want to prove it just from a couple other places in the New Testament. So Galatians 3, 27 through 28 says, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there's neither slave nor free, there's neither male nor female, you're all one in Christ Jesus. So it doesn't say you have to work toward something. It doesn't say it declares this to be true.

You are united. You might think there's this huge division between male, female, between slave, free, between Jew, Greek. not, you're actually united. Even if you don't feel like it, even if you can't see it, even if all you can see is the differences, you're still united. Whether you like it or not, whether you appreciate the differences or not, doesn't matter. You're united. You're stuck with them. Romans 12 5 also says, it talks about how we are one body in Christ and it says, it goes a little further, it says that we are individually members of one another. That's Romans 12:5. We are members of one another. We're great whenever we hear about how we're all members in the body of Christ, Jesus is the head, right? But scripture actually takes it a step further, Romans 12:5, and says, you're members of one another. We're going to look at the implications of this, but I just really want you to see it because that phrase, we are members

of one another, is also repeated in Ephesians 4:25, a little bit later in the chapter that we're studying. 1 Corinthians 1 13 is also really interesting because it's in response to divisions within the church, right? So in the Corinthian church, the church that received the letter, 1 Corinthians, there's all this division and there's four big camps and like I follow Jesus, I follow Peter, I follow Paul, I follow Apollos. And this is what, this is how the Apostle Paul handles that. He didn't just say, no, no, no, worship Jesus. Like Jesus is better than all of us. He, you know, you shouldn't have these factions. You should work toward unity. No, he points to the unity that's already there. He just asks these rhetorical questions. He says, is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? What's he doing? He's saying, you're already united.

You're baptized into one person that makes you a family, whether you like it or not. This is ingrained unity. And we see it here in Ephesians 4-3 where it talks about how you are maintaining the unity. You're not creating the unity. You're not drumming up the unity. You could point to it, but it's there. And this is in green unity, it's like an extended rope that binds us all. And it plays out in a few different ways. And I want to see how this plays out in the next couple of verses, and then we're actually going to go back to verse one and look at that a little bit more in depth. So let's see how this unity plays out. Let's see what it means. So we're going to look at verses four through six, Ephesians four, four through six. It says, there is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who's over all and through

all and in all. It's a lot of alls and a lot of ones. In the original language, the word one, there was one body. It has the same emphasis, but it's a little bit more. So if we want to talk about a piece of cake, we don't say, I have one piece of cake right here. We'll just use the indefinite article. We'll say, I have a piece of cake. When we say, I have one piece of cake, what we mean is that we are trying to emphasize the fact that there is one piece of cake. There's not multiple pieces of cake. There's one piece of cake. And we're somehow accenting that. We're trying to emphasize that. The same thing is going on here. In other words, he's saying there's one body and one spirit, not multiple bodies, not multiple spirits, not multiple gods, multiple faiths, multiple baptisms, not multiple, there's not different ones, it's all one, you're already united, okay?

And so what this helps us see is that our ingrained unity extends well past our point of view, okay? And this has two implications. First, it goes many directions chronologically. What I mean is that our journey with Jesus, right, as we are walking with the Lord, what you are going through, there's a striking resemblance to every other person that has walked with Jesus before, okay? This means, and particularly, people that have gone before us.

Right? What you're going through in your spiritual reality, wherever you are, is not somehow the first time anybody has ever gone through that spiritual reality. It's not the first hang up that somebody's had. It's not the first doubt that somebody's had. Your doubts, the things that you're going through, your frustrations, the things that you feel shame over and that you wanna hide are not new. They aren't even close to new. And all you've gotta do is have a conversation with somebody who's been in the faith, I don't know, five years longer than you? Or crack open a history book, Read some of the classics, read Augustine, read G.K. Chesterson, read Watchman Knee, I mean read anybody, not anybody. I'll give you a great list. It's a big list though. I mean it's a pretty wide pool to draw from. There's people that have been writing about this for a really long time.

all the time, what I hear all the time and what I feel when I read is that, man, I'm really glad they wrote about this so that I can know I'm not alone in this. Your rope extends across history. Your rope extends to people that you've never met. It's gonna be a great day in heaven whenever you're sitting across from somebody whose words in a book, and they died 250 years before you were born, ministered to you, that's gonna be a great conversation. Europe extends beyond that. People older than you, right? The ones that you think have it figured out, they're on the same journey. They've experienced doubt, they're experiencing frustration. They know, they don't want you to feel shame. People that are younger than you who wanna do things different, they're on the same journey as you. exact same journey, and they're connected to you. So this rope of unity, right? It ties

us to people in other eras, in other life stages, and it also ties us to people in other cultures. In other cultures. So this ingrain unity goes through different cultures. So in Colossians 1, you get this really great picture of the gospel going out to all the world, and it's growing. It's just like growing and burying fruit. You get this, I get this mind picture, right, this idea of a vine or a plant just covering the whole earth and growing fruit everywhere. Did you know that 89% of the Christians in the world today are outside the US? The gospel is going forth and bearing fruit in lots of other places. In Europe and the United States, we do not make up the majority of Christians in the world. A lot of them in Africa, a lot of them in Asia. And their faith journey, although there are some stark differences between their faith journey and yours, it's the same one.

And you're connected to them. I had the privilege of going to Madagascar about two years ago. And one thing that absolutely floored me was we're going through, you know, I taught them a survey of the New Testament. I'm talking about fun. I had to have a translator, and we went through every book of the Bible in like two and a half days. Every book of the New Testament in two and a half days. And I had to like say it and then a translator, and then say it and then a translator. It's great. really overcame me in that moment was these men and women, these guys, they're experiencing the exact same thing that I'm experiencing in my suburb house in Fort Worth, Texas. They're in a mud hut in the bush in Madagascar and they're feeling the exact same thing. They're going through the exact same thing. They got the same word I got. It's the same. It's the faith journey.

have more lemurs running around them, which is cool. But it's the same. On the Appalachian Trail, there is, I don't know much about the Appalachian Trail. It's on the eastern side of the United States. And when people hike it, it's a really long trail. And there's this one trail that people can just kind of hike and it takes months to hike. And so people do it. And what's really cool is when you get on that trail, there's this visible unity between everybody else on that trail. There's this like, yeah, we're all on this journey together and some are going north and some are going south, but there's this camaraderie that just kind of extends between all the people that are hiking, even the people that live on the trail. So there's people that own homes that are right on the Appalachian trail. And really all they do, they just like cook breakfast and put it out and people just walk by and eat it.

They, they put little puzzles out. They have little lean-to's, little shelters that people can use. And people just use it. And they love being on the Appalachian Trail because they feel the camaraderie, the bond, the rope, this unity with other people on this Appalachian Trail. It gives you a sense of awe, a sense of generosity. Our ingrained unity, which runs much deeper than whatever experience we've had on the Appalachian trail. Our ingrained unity gives us grounding and history because it helps us understand we're not alone. We're not alone across culture. We're not alone across history. What we are going through, we are a thread and a fabric and a tapestry that is much bigger that extends across generations. There is a hope in that. And maybe this is an encouragement to you. The Christianity that you saw your parents live out, okay, isn't the only kind of Christianity there is to live out, right?

That if you saw someone, and in our day and age, we've seen more than a few someone's, If you see someone that you respect that you think, oh man, they really got it together and you watch them crash and burn, you watch them tear down their life, their marriage, their ministry, you watch them just burn it all down and renounce the Lord. The reason that we can still have hope beyond that is because our faith doesn't depend on them. Our faith extends well beyond,

it extends well beyond one idiot pastor. Glory to God. Okay, it extends well beyond one idiot pastor And you know, I'll say it man if If I'm the reason that you believe in Jesus, you need a better reason Okay, I mean I'm okay, but I'm no reason to believe in Jesus. I will fail you Repeatedly I'm a flawed human being I'm gonna get the I'm gonna get the announcement wrong a national night out Okay, I'm gonna mess it up. I'm gonna do things that are gonna be frustrating Our ingrain unity shows us that we are not alone and and really it keeps us from being dependent upon one person To just own all of Christianity for us

But it also our rope of unity also connects us in a more direct way I'm gonna look at the first two verses again sorry Ephesians 4, 2 and 3, as talking about walking and walk with all humility and gentleness and patience, bearing one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. It is enough to say that our ingrained unity connects us in this church family. It connects us relationally. It connects us relationally. The Bible describes this very beautifully in Ecclesiastes 4 when it talks about a quart of three strands is not easily broken. You hear this preached in weddings a lot. It says like when one falls, the other can pick them up. There's safety and security whenever there's two people that are together instead of going on it by yourself. If you've ever played, you know, these silly icebreakers like if you've ever played human

amoeba or human not, right, where everybody kind of twists their hands up and you all grab somebody else's hand, you got to kind of unravel together, you know, that number. And you got to like step over somebody's hand, you know. You look really silly doing it just like I looked. But you know whenever you're doing that game, you know when somebody loses their balance. Because everybody starts to lean, right? So somebody's, oh no, you know, like, you know, that somebody's not able to stand on their own, they start leaning to the side, and everybody else comes with them, either that or you break the bonds of unity, right? In scripture, what we see in church, you can't break these bonds, they're there. And so our rope of ingrained unity, it keeps us emotionally in tune with one another. So that when one falls, we all feel it. When one's hurting, we all know it.

When one is joyful, we're all excited for them. Now, it doesn't mean that we don't have feelings for ourselves, it just means that we feel with. It means that we feel with. It means that we feel as a family. The number one reason that people leave churches is because they feel ignored. It's because of relational negligence. It's not even strife. I know it's kind of amazing that the number one reason isn't fighting or somebody saying something that hurt my feelings or something. No, it's the opposite almost. It's apathy. Because when you fight with somebody, at least you're showing you care about them. I mean a little. But when you just ignore them, you know, there's a lot of people that will just come through a church. Nobody speaks to them. Nobody gets to know them, nobody talks to them, nothing, and they just wilt under this heatlamp of being ignored, of negligence.

We are connected. This relational connection specifically, I want to say, is local. Some of us, and by the way, when I say local, I mean the people that are physically around you. Some of us are more relationally and emotionally in tune with our Facebook feed than we are with people that are in our body. Some of us are more in tune with social movements than they are with prayer needs in the body. us are more aware or care more about political ideologies than they care about what surgery somebody is going through, how we're praying for, how we're going to minister to the people that are around us. And I'm not saying politics don't matter, and I'm not saying social movements are something to be ignored. What I am saying though is that as a part of a church, your primary social and emotional connection needs to be with your local body. Yes, I mean, yes, have friends. Yes, do other

things besides be with our church. Yes, what I'm saying though is that when you are out of touch relationally and socially with your church body, something's off. When you know more about your third cousin's political leanings than you do about what's going on inside your own church body, something's out of balance. Something's not right. Something's amiss. We need to be in tune with that. We need to do that. This ingrained unity then, it binds us across histories. It binds us across culture. It binds us together locally. rope than is what makes us a church family. It's not a building, it's nothing else. It is a, it's not even a name, it's a spiritual unity, a real thing that's there. We are a family. There's one more part of this equation though, and it's the part that we skipped over, and it's going to be in verse It's in Ephesians 4 verse 1. Ephesians 4, 1, the part that I skipped, it says,

I therefore a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner of the Lord, sorry, in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. A prisoner of the Lord is what I skipped over before. I therefore a prisoner of the Lord. On this journey, and we'll talk more about this as we go, but on your journey with Jesus, okay, as you are walking by the Spirit, as you are in tune with that compass, as that gyroscope is leading you forward, even though there's no trail cut out for you, as you're still moving forward, what you will experience is great suffering. You will experience pain, you will experience travail. If you wanna go with the metaphor, there's gonna be really steep hills to climb. There's gonna be times whenever you need to sleep out in the middle of nothing. There's gonna be wild animals. There's going to be plants to watch out for, berries not to eat.

There's going to be things around you that can cause you harm or death. Jesus said it very directly, and this truth is all over scripture. Jesus said it very directly, very succinctly, in this world, you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world. He didn't say, you may have trouble, but take heart, I'm gonna keep you from that trouble. No, no. He said, you will have trouble, but you take heart, I've overcome where the trouble comes from. I've overcome the source of that trouble. Jesus said, take heart, I've overcome the world. As a church, we must understand that this journey is treacherous, perilous, dangerous, life-threatening.

This journey is not for wimps. If a journey, If a journey is a simple hike through the woods, right? If it's just this prance through golden meadows and the sun is shining and the birds are chirping and then you get to the other side and you're like, oh, that was fun. What a great little journey. Then you don't need a rope. You're just prancing in a meadow. No rope needed. So many packs of rope you'd be like why did you pack a rope? Why'd you pack anything? It's just a stroll through the meadow It's because we're not packing for a stroll through the meadow There's no rainbows and unicorns Okay. Yes, sir. That's that's a couple of decades of spiritual reality talking right there saying amen. Okay? He knows many other silent a men's were happening, too This is not a prance through the meadow. This isn't rainbows and unicorns. This is hard This is difficult. This is suffering. We need to understand that the journey is

treacherous. When we understand the journey is treacherous, when we are metaphorically climbing very steep cliffs, when we have to walk in pitch darkness. If you're walking in pitch darkness on your hike, you better have a rope. If you're hiking steep cliffs, you better have rope. Because that's when you're really gonna need one. I don't know how many times too many to count and it makes me sad. It doesn't make me frustrated, it just makes me sad. I hear about people that are, they've been walking with the Lord a long time, they've been on the journey a long time, and I'll ask them specifically, like, hey, what church are you a part of? And they're kind of ham and haw, and eventually they just kind of blurred out that they're not part of the church anywhere, that they got hurt at their previous church, or they quit going because of COVID, now they just kinda, they don't really need to go anymore.

Just kind of this, it's really, and I say this with all love, it's stupid. It's ignorant. It's the lack of understanding of what kind of journey you're on, soldier. Because you're thinking, yeah, hey, I'm just gonna climb these really steep cliffs, No rope. I'll do it just fine. I'll do it all on my own, which actually sounds really heroic to our American sensibilities, right? It does, it sounds great, but it's not great. It's a way to die. In fact, it's a death sentence.

Because those cliffs don't get any less steep. There's no curve that anything's been graded on for your journey. You're on a tough spot. And because you're on a tough spot, You need that rope. You need that connection in other people. You need to know that the anchor of your soul has gone before you and that the rope is tied to him. You need to understand that your journey begins and ends with what Jesus is doing. As a church, we need to understand that when we are walking through our treacherous way, our perilous journey through the darkness, Surrounded by wild animals with thieves with people that want to kill us with with all those things Okay, and I'm not talking about your political ideologies. I'm not talking about whatever you hear on the news cycle I'm saying that there are spiritual realities going on that are working specifically against you They want you to fail and die

spiritually if not physically it's a real battle and I'm not much of an alarmist, but every once in a while you got to ring the bell It's real. It's happening. The people that we're going to be talking to for National Night Out, what kinds of things you think they're going through? People that are disconnected from church. You think their greatest need is to figure out how to remodel their kitchen? You think that's what they're going through? You think they're just maybe they think they should go to church?

Let me tell you. They are going through soul-crushing questions that they can't answer. They're going through a way to Regain some kind of magic they had in their marriage that is that it's gone They are trying to figure out how to connect to their children that children they lost five years ago That they don't know how to connect to anymore They're trying to figure out how to find meaning and purpose in their work and they just hate it They just hate their life. They hate waking up And if you don't think that's what the majority of people that are the majority of people are going through outside of Jesus you are delusional It is happening. It is real people don't talk about it at parties They don't talk about whenever you're at the neighborhood sipping tea They don't talk about it then but when they're in their room alone when the lights are out and they're alone with their thoughts

There is some So painful that they cannot name it What do you think we're doing a national line out? Think we're going to trade cupcake recipes? We're building bridges to people that are lost and dying. And we're inviting them on the journey with us. Jesus is reaching out to those people already. When we build conversation with them, when we build relationship with them, when we invest and then when we invite them into our own lives, that is life changing. Not because we're great, but because our rope is tied to our church and our rope is tied to Jesus through the Holy Spirit, because of our connection, because the Holy Spirit wants to work through us in them. That's what's going on. That's what National Night Out's about. That's what that co-worker that the Lord really is asking, like just burning on your heart to pray for. that's about. That classmate that you have that is really far from the Lord and

you've just been caught, you just, you want to pray for him. You don't know why, you don't know how, you're just gonna pray for him. That's what that's about. We are in a treacherous reality. It might look good on your Netflix stream, but it is not. So how does this ingrain unity, how does this help us on our journey? Let's get a better sense of how it looks and feels. First, this ingrained unity, it extends past our point of view. Like I said before, and I just want to review it, knowing that your journey is in the hiccups, in the pain, in the trial, on your journey, knowing that it's not something that's unique to you is helpful. It actually makes you humble, and it actually makes you ask for help. That's why we do life groups. This is why we confess sin. is so that we can, by the way, life groups, if you wanna sign up, there's a table right outside and to the left, my left, your right,

we start them every January and July. And so if you're interested, you can put your name down, it doesn't mean you're automatically in, it just means that you're interested and we can talk about it, okay? But this is why we have life groups, so that you can be real with other people, so that you can confess this, so that you can talk about it, so that you can understand not just that you're an idiot not making it because you understand that perfectly, but that other people are also idiots not making it and having trouble if I just called us all idiots. Tim, I can't believe I did that.

But that we're all not making it, that's helpful. It's helpful to understand that other people are going through what you're going through. I mean, how many times? I had countless conversations where I said, hey, I'm struggling with this, this, this, and just name stuff. And the person listening to me just breathed a huge sigh of relief. Like, I thought I was the only one. Thought I was the only one. No one, no one should think they're the only one. They should understand. So holding on to this rope then, it feels like comfort because you're not the only one. It also feels like humility because there's a certain amount of humility that washes over you when you read something that was written 50 years ago, three weeks ago, that you think, oh, that's exactly what I was thinking. And I thought it was a thought that it was original to me, but this person discovered it centuries ago.

Okay, this isn't new. I'm not the only one doing this. So in Grand Unity, it helps you kind of extend past your own point of view. It also helps you extend into your local church. Holding onto that rope then looks like intercession. It looks like you knowing what other people going through and praying for them. More than even your own thing that you're praying for. It looks like you letting those needs know. You being honest about what's going on and getting help. Hold on, that rope looks like accountability, which is a super scary word. But this, again, this is why we have life groups. Accountability isn't just answering 10 questions perfectly. It's not just coming together with somebody else and saying, hey, hold me accountable to doing X, Y, and Z. Sure, that's great, but accountability always happens in the context of a trusted relationship, of a friendship, and that's why we do that in life groups.

So that it's not just accountability, it's not just doing spiritual disciplines. It's doing them in a way that you hear from the Lord. Doing them in a way that you're confessing sin, that you're praying forward for people to come into the Lord. This is what holding onto that robe looks like. There's this old African proverb that gets quoted all the time. And it says, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. And that is good. That's some wisdom for what it is. And that kind of has to do with what we're talking about. But I'd like to state it a little bit more clearly. And I'd like to state it this way. So it says, if you want to fail, excuse me, if you want to go nowhere, that's how If you want to go nowhere, go alone. If you think that you can make progress on your spiritual journey all by yourself, you

will go nowhere. You will go nowhere. If you want to keep going, the church is a package deal. You don't have to... I'm not going to trademark that. You can use it if you want to. You don't have to cite me. I just want to drive home this, that the church is a package deal. The church is Jesus' plan A for bringing salvation to a lost and dying world. Okay? And it doesn't mean that we're better. It just means that there's no other option. So you better get in gear. We don't need to let that puff us up. Far from it, actually. We should feel the burden and run to Jesus with that burden. We should, man, when Clay Rickard is having a tough day, I need to feel Clay's tough day enough to pray for Clay.

When Ann Hoes is having some family trouble and her brother is in and out of the hospital having good and bad days like he is, I need to feel that. I need to know, I need to remember that I have a brother and how I would feel if my brother were in another hospital and not doing well. I need to know that, I need to go through that because Anne and I are in the same church. Except because I'm her pastor, it's because we are church members together. We're family.

And yeah, I bear a different kind of responsibility, but it's not altogether different than yours. We are church family. This is what we do. If you want to go nowhere, go alone. If you want to keep going, if you want to move, make progress in this journey, the church is a package deal. Look, both of these truths, all these truths, should lead us to worship. All of us should help us understand that we are a small part of a small thing that's a really big thing called the kingdom of God, right? The kingdom of God moving into this world. day it will be all here until that day we will struggle we will face treacherous journeys but we'll do it together the Lord has given us one another he has put a rope on us my encouragement to you hold on to that rope it is there embrace it if you're if you're not part of a life group or if you're interested in a life group you could sign up for that if you're interested in becoming

a part of our church if you want to join our church we're about to have a time where we can and do that. If you aren't even sure you're on this journey and you want someone to pray for you, I will be right up here. Do you wanna join our church? We need prayer, anything. I'm right up here and we're gonna be singing one last song. Tim, why don't you come up. We're gonna be singing one last song together. And guys, when we are a church together, when we sing together, when we stand together, as we are in corporate worship together, we feel that rope more than we normally do in a given week. And so my encouragement to you as we stand and we sing, that you would just let yourself feel that rope a little bit, and that you would make a decision

to do what the Spirit is leading you to do. Let me pray for us. Jesus, during this time of imitation, I pray that you would work on our hearts. I pray that you would help us to listen to you. I pray that we would have the courage to do what you're calling us to do. In your name that we pray. Amen.