The Gathering of the Body

Transcript

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

Thank you, Dan. Hey, let me just start by saying what a blessing it is for Dan and Sadie. Hey, to be leading us in worship. It's a treat. I love it. I love that you guys are up here. Yeah, I don't say it enough, but I definitely don't want to be guilty of taking you guys for granted. You do great stuff. This is our last week on our series, The Body. We've been talking about the body, the church, how if Jesus calls our church, his body, his hands and feet, then it means specifically that Jesus has a plan for all of us together. If you would, you can turn your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 11. 1 Corinthians chapter 11, that's where we're going to be today. And so if we are Jesus' body, that means that he has a plan for us all together, And that plan as his body that Jesus plans to unite us in love. Jesus plans to give us opportunities to sacrifice for one another.

Jesus looks at our church, our local body right here, and he says, I have a plan for those people specifically to come together and be my hands and feet. to be a blessing to the community around them. Jesus has a plan for that. He calls us to be a spiritual family that really that leaves everything else behind for the sake of following Him. He wants us to do that together. This picture, this is the picture that scripture paints for us of Jesus's body. And as we've looked closer, We've seen that Scripture gives special attention to a few areas. Now, to be perfectly honest, these few areas can be somewhat boring. They can be a little bit, I don't know, pedestrian, not very exciting. Okay, it's like talking about your monthly budget as a family, okay? It's not riveting conversation, but if there is disagreement there, it's really bad. So these things, even though they are a bit pedestrian,

Scripture does give special attention to them. So we've talked about how we should govern ourselves. And the way that we govern ourselves as a church should reflect the way of Jesus. How we handle unrepentant sin should reflect the way of Jesus. How we make disciples and invest in one another should reflect the way of Jesus. Scripture, specifically in 1 Corinthians, but a lot of places in the New Testament, Give specific special attention to those areas. It's almost as if to say, hey, don't take these for granted. I know it's all the time, I know you see it all the time. I know that all this stuff, it kind of follows these very well-worn paths, but don't take it for granted. Give special attention to these things.

In fact, today, as we end our series on the body, it is fitting that we discuss the thing that we do the most together. That is gather. Today, we are talking about the gathering of the body. Now, this fits that list, right? Of really pedestrian things that we take for granted, but that scripture actually gives special attention to. And because scripture gives special attention to it, we're gonna give special attention to it. We're gonna kinda see what's there. Every church gathers. Sometimes it's very formal. So there's, you know, very high church, very ordered ceremony, you know, robes. There's great intention behind every little thing. And sometimes it's very informal. I mean, there's churches that meet in living rooms and everybody kind of brings something to the service that way. And really there's everything in between. There's everything in between. But aside from musical style or technological preference,

if you kind of push those things aside, Jesus really wants us to see not just why we gather, excuse me, not just how we gather, but why we gather, right? Jesus wants us to see the why and the how of gathering together. And in this, in this picture, in this kind of prescription of how and why we gather, we also find the how and why of our own lives. We also find a rhythm of how Jesus wants us to live individually, us to live as family units, us to live as a church body. So we see this how and this why of gathering in scripture, but it also is reflective of our own rhythms, of our own lives. And it really matters to how our church gathers, because how we gather as a church also sets the rhythm, and you can see it by a negative example. So a church that has, you know, four regular gatherings a week, right? Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and Thursday night visitation, okay?

And if you don't believe me that there are churches that do that, either you haven't been around long enough or you haven't been to enough churches, they're there, okay? Four regular gatherings a week. Sometimes there's a fifth. And that's not counting special things. That's not counting, you know, like the special time of year, the Christmas cantata, nothing like that. Just the regular week, four things a week. When a church is that busy, when a church gathers that much, it sends the signal to the families that, hey, we're taking care of everything spiritually for you. You as a family, you don't need really time together to do things spiritually. You just need to do that all here in this building. Okay. And I know that sounds weird, but it's true. When a church gathers on that level to that degree, it does send a signal. This is how your, you know, this, this is how your family should gather in

light of how our church gathers. This is how you should spend your time in light of how we gather. And so, um, those things really are correlated. Uh, what we're going to do is we're going to find in first Corinthians 11, and then in first Corinthians 14. So both of those chapters, we're not going to read 12 or 13, we've already been there. But we're going to start in 11 and 14, and maybe I can show you a little bit about what I mean.

Starting in 11 verse 20, so 1 Corinthians 11 verse 20. And if you read 1 Corinthians, you come upon these kinds of verses a lot. 1 Corinthians was written to a church in Corinth about particular things. So it's almost like a letter back. So the Corinthian church wrote Paul the letter and just said, hey, we're trying to think about, you know, we need to know about spiritual gifts. We need to know about this guy that has, you know, his father's wife. We need to know about this, that, the other. And also Paul heard a report about how they were gathering. So in verse 20, 1 Corinthians 11 verse 20 says, when you come together, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat. Okay. When you come together, and what he's saying is When you come together for the Lord's Supper, when you come together as a church, you are thinking that you are eating and celebrating the Lord's Supper together,

but it is not the Lord's Supper that you eat. In other words, when you gather, you are missing the point. He illuminates that in the next two verses. It says, For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. What? Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not." So give attention to verse 21. It says, one goes hungry, another gets drunk. Verse 22, near the middle end, it talks about, do you want to humiliate those who have nothing? So what is happening? What is happening in the 1st Corinthians, in the Corinthian church here in 1 Corinthians 11, it is likely that when the church gathered, they had the Lord's Supper, and in this day and age, the wealthier you were, the less you had to work.

So if you were poorer, you would work probably until sundown. If you were wealthier, you were off maybe after lunch or something, I don't know. But you were off earlier, you didn't have to work as much. So then when they came together, the wealthier members would arrive first. And what he's saying is he's saying you're not waiting. You're not waiting on everybody to get there. And really what's happening is you being wealthy, you are not waiting on your poorer brothers and sisters. That's why it's talking about in verse 22, you're humiliating those who have nothing, okay? Moreover, the Lord suffered that they're celebrating was like a potluck, okay? So it wasn't like a little wafer and a little cup of, you know, no, it was a table. It was a spread. Okay, it was a meal. And so what's happening, well, wealthier members are bringing better food, better wine, right?

Better everything. And they're arriving earlier. So if I'm a rich person and I go to the Lord's Supper, then I have all my good stuff. It's all prepared. It's all there. And it sits on the table and I wait. And then when my poor brothers and sisters come, they're not bringing as much. The wine isn't as good. The food is not as good, or there's not as much. And so instead of everybody bringing something together, what was happening is it was being staggered in stages. The wealthy were going first and leaving the poor behind. So it wasn't that they weren't, it wasn't that they were just going ahead, it's that they were eating all the good food, they were drinking all the good wine, They were essentially having this insider wealthy people party before the poor people got there. And by the time the poor people got there, there wasn't really much to go around. So this situation was happening enough.

This became enough of an occurrence for Paul to write about it. So it's not a small thing. It's not incidental. It didn't just happen once. It was happening with great frequency, with great regularity. He's saying, when you come together, Corinthian Church, you are not gathering in the way of Jesus. Your gatherings, the way you conduct them, don't look like Jesus. So in verse 20, when it says that it is not the Lord's supper that you eat, what he's saying is, you must be commemorating someone else, because it's not the Lord. You must be eating in honor of some other person, but it's not the risen Lord. It's not Jesus. It's not his supper that you're eating because the Lord's supper points to the Lord. So the Lord's supper exists for Jesus's honor. This is what you see in the next couple of verses in 23, 24, and 25. It says, For I receive from the Lord, but I also deliver to you

that the Lord Jesus on the night that he was betrayed took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, he, in the same way also, he took the cup after supper saying, the cup, this cup is the new covenant of my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. So when you come together, when you gather, you honor Jesus. You don't profane Jesus's name with how you behave toward one another when you gather. 1 Corinthians 11, 26, it says, For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Here we see the first why of church gathering. This is why churches gather. Churches gather to honor Jesus. They gather to worship Jesus.

They display the worth of Jesus by acting in a way That is a blessing to him. Look at what we read in Revelation when it says, Worthy are you of all blessing and glory and honor, right? Whenever we're saying that, whenever we sing worship to Jesus, we are ascribing worth to him. And what Paul is saying is saying, don't just do it with your words, do it with your actions. Don't just talk about how great Jesus is. Show who Jesus is by how you conduct your meal, your communal meal.

And you see this, you also see this in the rhythm of our own lives and our own families today, right? That our whole lives as Christ followers, they are shaped by following Jesus. They are shaped by worshiping the Lord, honoring Jesus. In other words, we don't believe that as soon as we leave our gathering, that somehow we can live like heathens, okay? That's a real problem. It's actually a real American problem.

But the understanding is that our whole lives are shaped this way, not just our gatherings, right? That all of our decisions, all of our experiences, they are lived in worship, in honor of Jesus. And what we see happening in the Corinthian church is so contrary to the way of Jesus that it is equivalent to drinking judgment. Look in verses 28 and 29. It says, Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, that's the key phrase, discerning the body, they eat and drink judgment on themselves. Harsh words. Just in case we thought this was our minor affair. Just in case we thought this was like an incidental infraction. No, no, no. No. What we see here in 1 Corinthians 11 is a major break. It's a major deal. It says when you gather, if you do not discern the body, in other words, if you do not understand

that the local body is Jesus's body, that you don't understand that we gather in obedience to Jesus, then you are missing the bow. You are eating and drinking judgment on yourself. It's heavy. And this is the first how, right? So we got the why, the why is the church gathers to honor Jesus. The first how is that whenever we come together, man, we sing worship songs. Okay, we gather in obedience to Jesus, in reverence to Jesus. We give offerings in worship. We hear His word in order for us to obey Him.

Now, if you're paying attention at home, if you're listening, you might be saying, well, hang on a second. Hang on a second. First, we're going to these 11s talking about the Lord's Supper. And we don't celebrate the Lord's Supper every Sunday. In fact, since I've been here in in January 2020, since that day, we have not celebrated the Lord's Supper in a worship service. We celebrated it once virtually on Good Friday, the Good Friday of COVID, the first one of COVID. So you might be looking and saying, hey, hey, hey, you're talking about what we do on a Sunday morning, but these verses are talking about the Lord's Supper and that's not the same thing. However, there's a long story behind this. I'll give you the very short version, is that it is the same thing. Okay? Originally, churches would take the Lord's Supper very frequently, if not every time.

In fact, there are some churches today who take the Lord's Supper every single week. Church of Christ, I think. There's a...thank you. Yes, I got an amen on that, Church of Christ. And there's some that take it every week, every time they are gathered. And so we should not read 1 Corinthians 20 and go, oh, that was just incidental. They only do that three times a year. No, no, this was very often, if not every time they met. This is, you know, verse 20, whenever it says, when you come together, it is talking about regular, frequent gatherings. And like I said before, it's enough to write about. It's enough for Paul to say, look, when you come together, okay? When you come together, because you're coming together and when you do, you're eating the Lord's supper. So this is our first how and our first why. Jesus is worthy. We obey him as we gather. It points to our own lives, living in obedience.

Okay. So there's this big holiness understanding, right? When you are, when we are gathered here in Jesus name, that, that There is a reverence about our gathering because we honor Jesus. Right? It's not because the building's pretty. It's not because we're dressed nice. It's because we are Jesus's body gathering. And when we gather, we do it in obedience to Jesus. We do it because He's holy and we worship Him. Right? This is the first how and why. And why? And for the second why and how, we need to look at another gathering that 1 Corinthians discusses. And we're going to be in 1 Corinthians 14 for that. 1 Corinthians 14, and we're going to start in verse 2, and we pick it up where the church... So a couple of weeks ago, we talked about this. In 1 Corinthians 12 and in 1 Corinthians 13, it's all about spiritual gifts. Okay, so we're getting into a lot of different spiritual gifts, gifts of tongues, gifts of prophecy, gifts of teaching,

encouragement, all these things, right? All these different gifts. And specifically, those chapters are about how to use those gifts when you gather. And what we're going to see in chapter 14, starting in verse two, is we're going to see him talk about how to use these gifts whenever they gather. And he's going to do it by highlighting or comparing two gifts. Those two gifts are tongues and prophecy. I will not be preaching on those two gifts this morning. I do not desire to spend another hour and a half talking about tongues and prophecy, because that's how long it would take to do a good job. But we are not discussing those gifts here. I'd be happy to have a conversation with you during the week about it. I'm not afraid to talk about it, just trying to use time well. That is another sermon. So, but the point is, and I don't want to lose this, the point is he's taking two gifts,

tongues and prophecy, and he's comparing them, and he's making a point about how the church gathers. Okay, so let's read. 1 Corinthians 14:2, it says, For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men, but to God, for no one understands him. But he utters mysteries in the Spirit. Okay, so in his comparison, he's rolled out one gift and he says, tongues, they help you, but they don't really help other people. Let's keep reading in verses three and four. On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. The one who speaks in a tongue builds himself up, but the one who prophesies builds up the church. Okay, what he's going to go on to say is that prophecy is better. Prophecy is better than tongues when you gather. He's not making a value statement on those two gifts alone. He's saying when you are gathered, tongues are not as good as prophecy.

And the reason that he gives is that prophecy does a better job at building up other people. Tongues builds you up, but prophecy builds other people up. Prophecy is better when you gather as a body. This is our second why, that the church gathers to build people up, right? So the first why is big holiness, right? We worship Jesus. He's a second why though, is to build other people up. And we see it again in verses 14 and 15. So skip down, 1 Corinthians 14, 14 and 15. It says, for if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also. I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also. This is a bit veiled, but the idea of praying or singing with my mind, it means praying or singing out loud. Okay? So he's saying, he's saying like, for when I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays,

but my mind's unfruitful. So in other words, if I'm praying in a tongue, like I might be saying things, but other people can't hear it. They can't understand it if I'm doing that. And it's really clear in the next two verses, verses 16 and 17. It says, otherwise, if you give thanks with your spirit, how can anyone in the position of outsiders say amen to your thanksgiving when he does not know what you're saying. For you may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being built up. So you see here when a church gathers, Paul is instructing this Corinthian church, when you gather, if all you're doing is just rattling off a bunch of tongues, well, that's well and good, but that doesn't really help other people. And it's clearly the point of the passage here is that when you gather as a church, the priority is building people up. But when you get to the how on this

second gathering here, when you get to the how, something odd pops up. Because in 1 Corinthians 11, where we went to first, the why is obeying Jesus. The how is everybody obeying Jesus and how they worship. In 1 Corinthians 14, the why is building other people up. But the how, you see there in verses 16 and 17, it includes outsiders. Look at there again in verse 16, it says, it says, how can anyone in the position of an outsider say amen to your thanksgiving when he does not know what you are saying? Well, great, I'm glad that outsiders are at this gathering, But outsiders, they're not taking the Lord's Supper. Outsiders can't obey Jesus from the heart. What are outsiders and unbelievers doing at this gathering that is supposed to be devoted to Jesus' holiness? That is saying, if you eat and drink the Lord's Supper incorrectly without discerning the body, that you

are eating and drinking judgment on yourself, why would we invite an outsider to take the Lord's Supper, potentially erroneously and drink judgment on themselves. Well, we wouldn't. In verses 23 and 25, we get a clearer picture of what's going on. Verse 23, 1 Corinthians 14, 23, If therefore the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds? So look, it's saying when the whole church comes together and what he's encouraging the church is, think about what your gathering looks like from an outsider or an unbeliever's perspective. And this wasn't an uncommon occurrence. It's not like if, like if it magically happens, like if I win the lottery. This is a win. This is a, hey, outsiders and unbelievers are coming in. He's giving instructions on how to order their worship based on

outsiders or unbelievers coming in. Interesting. Look at the next two verses, 24 and 25. It says, But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you. So before we get to what that means for our church, I want to just say this, our lives work on this same rhythm. That Jesus calls each of us to be salt and light, right? He calls us to build relationships with people who are exploring the gospel in hopes, in the hope that these people will worship God and declare that he is really among us. In hopes that people will see our salt and light and understand, Oh, then God is real.

God is real. What these two places in 1 Corinthians show us, 1 Corinthians 11 and 1 Corinthians 14, they show us alternating rhythms of our lives. One rhythm is personal, right? This personal, this holiness, this devotion to God, I'm confessing sin, I'm sharing burdens, that's a personal thing. And the other rhythm is public, where we are on mission and we are inviting the lost to see our lives. We're being hospitable. We're inviting them into our home. We're talking about that in adult Bible study this morning. The thing that we need to discern from 1 Corinthians 11 and 1 Corinthians 13 together, how they're both talking about a gathering, is that we need to understand that following Jesus works on that same rhythm, that following Jesus is personal and it's public. Following Jesus means we do things in our personal life that reflect the holiness of Jesus,

but then we also do things that are public, that invite other people in. You see the same rhythms in Jesus' ministry where sometimes he'd be outward facing and he'd be talking to crowds and he'd be doing miracles, and then sometimes he would be away with the disciples. Sometimes he'd even be by himself. And the thing about those two rhythms is that we are rarely doing them at the same time. time. Even in Jesus' ministry, he was rarely doing them at the same time. Many times he would steal away with his disciples and talk with them about things that he wouldn't talk to the crowds about. These two rhythms, this personal rhythm and this public rhythm are displayed here in 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 11 would be personal, and 1 Corinthians 14 would be public. The body then, as we gather, houses, if you will, both personal and public rhythms.

And maybe we don't say personal because we're a church family, so we can say something like a family rhythm and then a public rhythm, right? We have both. The church, in other words, let me be real practical. The church, the body should concern itself with being holy, with being set apart. Right? We talked about this a couple of weeks ago about the witness of the body. Right? And I told that awful story of the hair stylist talking to the preacher and said, Oh, you're the, you work at that church where everybody sleeps with their spouse, with each other's spouses. And just kind of, it's the kind of story that takes your breath away.

And so we understand like the church needs to be holy. The church needs to be set apart. We do have those things going on. However, we also need to maintain an open invitation to outsiders and unbelievers. We are being sent into the world. So we are being sent into the world, but we are not to be of the world. Right? We are sent as missionaries, but we aren't sent in to look like everybody else, to act like everybody else. We're different. We're holy. We're holy because Jesus has made us holy. And when you try to get these two rhythms, this family rhythm and this public rhythm, when you try to get them into the same gathering, it proves problematic. In other words, people are confused in a church where we don't know if our gathering, so we'll just pick on Sunday morning because it's really common, We don't know if our Sunday morning gathering is an inner gathering or if

it's a public gathering, because those two things function very differently. How do we sort that out? Historically, in many traditions, not just Baptist, many traditions, you actually see two different gatherings. You see one gathering that is for the family, and you see another gathering that is public. In fact, in Baptist life in particular, part of the reason that Baptist churches started doing a Sunday morning and a Sunday night meeting was that Sunday morning was the public meeting and Sunday night was the family meeting. You could see church history from, gosh, from the 17, 1600, 1700, 1800. It happened for a really long time where you, particularly in Baptist life, You had this idea that there were people that were members that were the family, and they would handle things as a family. They'd vote on things together, for example. But then there was this public meeting.

And the public meeting was typically on Sunday morning, and the inter-meeting, the family meeting was on Sunday night. We are Jesus's body. We are his hand and feet. And part of this means that we need to be conscious of how we gather, of what we do together, how we worship, how we sing. Look, Dan Hey and I talk about songs that we should or should not sing, right? And it isn't based on whether we like them or not, okay? Part of what we're considering is, is this good to sing together as a body? Is this good theologically? Is this a good way to represent who Jesus is? All those things go into picking songs. We don't just sing random songs together, we sing songs that point to Jesus. We sing songs that honor Jesus.

How we gather matters. How we take the Lord's Supper matters. That we haven't taken the Lord's Supper as a body together physically since January 2020 matters. However, in thinking about doing a public, or doing the Lord's Supper at a public gathering, and really Sunday morning is our public gathering. It honestly didn't seem fitting. So we're looking at a Wednesday night here pretty soon to do the Lord's Supper together as church members. In part, it's not to be exclusive, but it is to say there's rhythms where we are gonna, we need to handle things with Jesus personally, right? Just in our own lives, in our own personal lives, we need to understand that there's times whenever Jesus really just needs to deal with us on a hard issue. We need to confess Him. We need to just get before Him. But then we also have this life that is public. And if your life is all public and no private, then you're hollowed out.

You're just serving the Lord, but you're not finding any joy in Him. And if your life with the Lord is all personal and not public, then you are disobeying the Great Commission. You are actually not, you're not following Jesus, right? You're experiencing maybe this sentimental, sappy Christianity where you feel good and you and the Lord feel good about each other, but you're not walking in obedience with Him. You're not making disciples, you're not praying for the lost, you're not going out there, you're not being sent. You aren't going, you are sent, but you're not going. rhythms are important, not just for you personally, but for our church as a body, our church corporately, we can talk about it that way. So our church, we need to understand that there's times for us to gather as a family, and there's times for us to gather publicly. The reason that this matters, not just because the Bible

says it matters, but the reason it matters is because when we come together and we know why we're coming together, it can shape how we come together. I want you to think about this for just a second. When we come together as a body, I want you to think about what's on your brain as you walk through those doors physically. Are you considering how am I going to be a blessing to another person? How am I going to spur them on to love and good deeds? How am I going to encourage that brother? I wonder if there's a sister around that I can encourage. You know, I read this in my Bible on Thursday for my quiet time, and I really feel like the Lord wants me to share that with somebody at the local gathering as we come together as the body. I wonder if you're even thinking about that. I know many times I'm walking through the door, I'm on two wheels, man. I am just getting in.

And I can remember, you know, especially whenever we had little bitty, bitty kids, I mean, like, Christie was putting makeup in the car, you know, I was trying to do something with my hair, kids were screaming, somebody needed a diaper change, and all that, and we were already five minutes late, and oh my gosh, and of course, then you're sharp with one another, and you're, you know, by the time we would actually physically walk in the door to gather with our body, we needed like 15 minutes to just cool off. Okay. We just needed to calm down. And to you, I'd say, hey, that's okay. I'm not trying to be even judgmental about that. But what I'm saying is, man, when that family walks in, what are you doing to help? How are you thinking about the gathering? Are Are you thinking about this as like a special nourishing time together where you can be part of that nourishment for other people?

Or are you thinking of it like a buffet? Where you come in and you get, oh, okay, oh, yeah, I like that. Okay, put it in my purse or my pocket and then I walk home. I'm fine. I've got my spiritual goods. I'm out. But Daniel Oster, when he preached just a really great metaphor, just like, are you coming to the buffet line or are you understanding that you're on the other side? You're on that serving side of the buffet, right? You are actually in charge of, and I hereby deputize each of you, right? You were already deputized. I just made that up. The Lord has done it. Commissioned each one of us to be a blessing to the other people and to own that as our responsibility. And I don't... Man, I don't care if you've been here for 30 years or you've been here for 30 minutes. If the Lord has called to be part of this church, the Lord has commissioned you to be

a blessing to other people, to be concerned about the welfare of our church together. Every time we pray at 8.30, so we pray with whoever's here, right? and we pray together. And there are a few gentlemen who we're praying with, and almost without fail, every time they pray, they pray for the people who can't make it this Sunday morning. And at first, when I heard that prayer,

that struck me as curious. I wanted to know a little bit more about that. Why would they pray for the people that can't make it that Sunday, specifically. Not that it's a bad prayer, but just how did that even come to mind? And it's because they know that whenever there's people that are missing from our body, there's a lot of wisdom there. When there's people that are missing from like a Sunday morning gathering, that they miss a lot, that they miss out on feeling, the feeling of being a part of the community, really understanding that they're a part of the family. And so I would just encourage you, hey, we pray at 8.30, but even as you pray for our church, praying for people that can't make it, maybe they're physically unable to come, maybe they're work schedules, preventing them from coming right now, like in this season, I would encourage you pray. Pray for the people of our church.

Pray for the people that are here and for the people who can't come. Pray for the people that are going to come. I want to encourage you, and maybe I just can't say this well enough, but I'm trying. Lord knows I'm trying. If you misunderstand what the body is, and if you misunderstand what the gathering is supposed to be, then you will be lost on how you're supposed to participate in it. You will be lost on what the Lord is doing among us together. You will just be kind of wandering around wondering why you didn't feel good this Sunday like you did the Sunday before. You will just approach this as spiritual commodity to be consumed. But if you understand the body, if you understand even why we gather, how we're governed, things like that, then you will understand how to grab hold of this church with both hands and say, hey, I'm in, I'm along for the ride,

I'm in this family, let's do it, let's go somewhere together, let's see where Jesus is calling us to go together. That's my encouragement for you. So for some of you, that's gonna mean actually joining our church. For some of you, that's gonna mean signing up for the next gospel course. For some of you, for many of you, it's gonna mean changing how you pray. changing the people that you pray for. I wanna encourage you just in this next week, I want you to just ask the Lord, just how can I pray for my church? How can I pray for my church? How can I be a benefit to the body that I'm a part of? Today during our time invitation, I want you to consider just what you and Jesus need to talk about.

I'm gonna be up here and if you wanna come pray. If you want to receive prayer, if you want to just pray with me, if you want me to just, if you want to pray, you want me to listen. Come on up. Regardless, if there's some decision that you need to make, if there's some prayer that you need to pray, please don't hesitate. Come on up. And as we sing, even then, even as we sing, I would encourage you to pray.

Let me pray for us right now. Jesus, we ask for, as we sing, as we function together as a bodies. We sing together that you would move in our hearts collectively. That you would help us to understand not just what you've called us personally to do but where you are moving in all of our lives together. That's your name. We pray. Amen. Would you please sing? God sent his son. They called him Jesus. He came to love.

He forgave the dead upon. And it is there to prove my Savior only. Because he lived I can't face too long Because he lived Because I hold the future I've lived work Just because he lived Enjoying the prom A show This child can't pay Some certain days Because he lives Because he lives I can face tomorrow Because he lives Fear is not a sign I can't do it I can't do it I can't do it I can't do it I can't do it God's eyes, the future is worth living, just in cross healing And then one day, I'll cross the reified life's path The war with pain

And then as death Is way too victory I serve glory Down the hill Because he lives I can face tomorrow Because he lives All fear is gone, I know the future I fear his worth already Just because he lived Because he lived I can't face tonight Because he All fear is gone Because I hold the future And life is worth the living Just because he lays