The Year of Connecting

Transcript

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

If you would, please turn with your Bibles, turn with me and your Bibles to Matthew chapter 5. We're going to be Matthew 5 today. Before we get into Matthew 5 and before we really start getting into where we're going to be getting into today, I want to tell you that today is Vision Sunday. Vision Sunday is every year, and what we do on Vision Sunday is we kind of talk about plans for the year, what the year's going to look like and a big initiative for that year. And so we're going to be looking at that, but I really wanted to start it off with a story. It's out of a book called The Kingdom of God is a Party. It's by an author named Tony Campolo, who I actually would not recommend to you. But this story is great. Campolo is kind of weird, but this story is pretty great. So I want to just tell it to you, and I think it's going to be really helpful. Tony was speaking at an event in Hawaii.

That's important because Tony had jet lag. So because you have jet lag, you're up at three o'clock in the morning, wide awake with nothing to do. You're in the middle of Hawaii, but it's total dark. And Tony was up at 3 a.m., and he was ready, so. He just kind of got ready like normal, found a diner, and sat there with a coffee and a donut. And about 3-15, suddenly the doors swing open, and there are about eight or nine women who are clearly prostitutes, who are very loud, and they all kind of bust in, and they're just there. They're just off shift, and they're coming in. And because the diner is small, they're all sitting around Tony. So Tony's there trying to enjoy coffee and donut and he's got eight or nine prostitutes being very loud and just kind of talking having a good time. They're not being weird, they're just they're just talking and being loud. And so it's increasingly uncomfortable. In

fact, Tony was about to leave when one of the women said something that got his attention. She just made an announcement to her friends. She goes, Hey guys, tomorrow is my birthday. Tomorrow's my birthday. And the friends are like, oh, cool. What do you want from me? Like a party? You want a cake? You want to whatever? You want us to sing happy birthday? And they started making fun of her. And she got kind of sore. And she was like, come on, why do you have to be so mean? I'm just excited. I was just telling you, you don't have to put me down. You know what? I don't want anything from you. And that really got Tony's attention. And she continued complaining and finally said, why should I have a birthday party? I've never had a birthday party before. Never had a birthday party my whole life. Why would I have one now? And that really got his attention. And it was then that Tony made a decision.

When all the women left, Tony said to the cook, that was behind the counter, he said, hey, do they come in here every night? Cook said, oh yeah, yeah, they come in every night. What about the one that was sitting next to me? Did she come in every night? And the cook said, yeah, that's Agnes. Agnes comes in every night. And Tony says, well, tomorrow is her birthday. How about we throw a big party for her right here tomorrow night? Same time, about 3.15. And the cook said, that is great. I like it, let's do it. And so the cook called his wife from the back. He and his wife worked at the place. and they began making plans, they would bake the cake and Tony would buy the decorations, okay? So 2.30 the next morning, Tony begins decorating. He gets the crepe paper, he has a homemade sign that says, happy birthday Agnes, and he's real excited. And the cook and his wife must have done

a really good job getting the word out because by 3.15 every prostitute in Honolulu was in that place, right? They're all crowded around. And right on time, Agnes comes in with her friends, and everybody yells, happy birthday! And Agnes is flabbergasted. Agnes is stunned. She's weak at the knees, she's shaking, her legs were buckling, her friend had to grab her arm, And she sat down in a stupor at the counter and everybody sang happy birthday to Agnes. And when they brought out the cake, Agnes lost it. She broke down. She couldn't stop sobbing. Because she'd never had a birthday cake before. She'd never had a birthday party before. And so the cook is trying to console her and say, like, okay Agnes, blow out the candles.

It's your turn, come on, blow out the candles. And she couldn't, she was just crying. And the cook finally blew out the candles for her. And then he handed her the knife and he says, cut the cake Agnes, cut the cake. And Agnes could not cut the cake, she just stared at it. And then she said, listen, would it be okay? I mean, is it all right if I just take the cake home?

If I just kept it a little while, I've never had a cake. It's kind of intriguing to me, I don't know, you know, I want to just cake at home. I live just down the street. I'll be right back, honest. And so she got up off the stool, she picked up the cake and she walked out and Tony said she carried it like the holy grail, right? She was just not wanting to drop that cake at all. And the door closed, gone was Agnes, and there was silence in the diner. It was a pastor, a cook, his wife, and a lot of prostitutes.

Not knowing what else to do, Tony did the only thing that felt right, and Tony said, hey, everybody, let's pray. And he prayed for Agnes. He prayed for God to save Agnes. He prayed that her life would be changed. He prayed that God would be good to her. He prayed all of that. And when he said amen, The cook kind of looked up suspiciously, leaned over the counter and said, hey, you never told me that you were a preacher. What kind of church do you belong to?

And Tony, he says, just the right words came. He said, I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for prostitutes at 3.30 in the morning. And the cook was quiet in response for a long moment. Sorry for my runny nose. And then he said with a sneer, he said, there's no church like that. But if there were, I'd join it in a heartbeat. Wouldn't we all testify? We would, we would do that. We would join that kind of church. And it really makes me ask the question and I wanna answer it, what kind of church do we want to become? I'm good now, thank you. I'm about to get some Kleenex. We, what kind of church do we wanna become? We want to become that kind of church. I need the Kleenexes here. I'm getting thrown at. Sorry. I'm an emotional guy. I know, I know. It always surprises people, but I'm a big softy. OK. I think I'm composed. It does. It makes us ask and answer the question, what kind of church

are we going to become? What are some things that we want to do as a church? What is our future? Because if we're just expecting people like Agnes to walk in and for us to have this magical response, we're dreaming. We're not in touch with reality, right? If we're gonna be a family of disciples that helps connect outsiders to Jesus, then we've got some work to do.

And I say that to you as much as to me. If we're gonna be a family of disciples that helps connect outsiders to Jesus, then we've got some work to do. And I realize that in Burleson, Texas, Burleson, Texas, I realize that there's not many like Agnes, but we do have religious outsiders. We do have many people that are in Burleson and the surrounding areas that wouldn't even know what to do in a church if they found themselves in one. People that do not know how to pray, that do not know how to have a quiet time. They don't understand how to read the Bible. They probably never read the Bible. Or if they had, it was King James and it was weird. We have people, religious outsiders in Burleson, that if they were around Christians, they would immediately feel like an impostor. And that's exactly how they would feel if they darkened the door of a church. They would feel like they didn't belong.

They would feel like everybody knew it, and they would just stare at them down. They feel like they're an impostor. And yet, and yet, these same religious outsiders, these same outsiders that would not feel comfortable in a church, they still want to connect to Jesus in some capacity. There is still a deep desire within them. They still want their life to mean something. They still want to find an acceptance that is greater than any human is capable. They still want to experience the supernatural. There's a deep desire in there. Yeah, right. I know it's messed up by sin, like we're all human and we want good things, but we don't always do what we need to do to get those things. I get it, I do.

What I'm saying is that there are people that are outsiders that wanna connect to Jesus, but there's a lot of hurdles. And the number one thing that's gonna determine the kind of church that we're going to become has much less to do with doctrine or building style or how great our student ministry is. What matters much more, what determines much more what kind of church we're going to become is how, how we help connect outsiders to Jesus. A much greater impact on what kind of church we're going to become is how we will connect outsiders to Jesus. Notice I I said how and not if. I say how because there's a lot of ways that people try to connect outsiders to Jesus. For example, if I'm a legalist, okay, if I'm a legalist, I'm going to say, yeah, I'm going to help outsiders connect to Jesus. You outsiders, you need to follow these rules. You definitely don't need to break these rules. And you need to make sure that your

reputation is clean as a whistle. Then you can connect to Jesus. Okay. That's wrong. That's wrong and terrible. However, that is still somebody who's a legalist that is trying to help somebody else connect to Jesus. The how matters. The how is everything. And on this point, on this particular point, people connecting to God, Jesus was extremely specific. Jesus made a really big deal about this. It was so important that Jesus came to earth, demonstrated it with his life, with his ministry, with his death, with his resurrection and ascension. Jesus demonstrated how people were supposed to connect to God. He spoke about it many times. In Parable of the Lost Son, what do you think that's about? Jesus talking to the woman at the well. What do you think that's about? about outsiders being connected to God. That's what Jesus said, the single greatest commandment,

to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. But the second greatest commandment is like it, it's to love your neighbor as yourself. How you love a person is deeply connected to how you love God. This morning then, I want to focus for just a moment on this point. And there's a moment in scripture where Jesus kind of cuts through a lot of the conversation and is very clear. And he does this in Matthew five, verses 13, and 13 through 16. Matthew five, 13 through 16. It's very familiar to some of you. Jesus in this moment, he cuts through a lot And he just says, listen, you help people connect to me because you are salt and because you are light.

You help people connect to me because you are salt and because you are light. And so, uh, I realized this is a somewhat popular passage and a somewhat popular conception being salt and light. Although Jesus does start with salt, what I would like to do is actually start with light first. Okay, I'm going to start with light first. So I'm actually going to read Matthew 5, 14 through 16 first, and then we're going to go back to verse 13. So Jesus says to his disciples, You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket but on a stand. And it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." So Jesus then is looking at his disciples and he says, you help people connect to God

because I have made you light. Jesus doesn't say, work hard to become light, or you're going to be light one day, or there's nothing progressive about it. It is a fact I have made you light. If you are a disciple of Jesus, if you follow Jesus, if you love Jesus, if you claim to be a Christian, then you are light. You are light. In fact, I'm going to substitute a word for light here, not because I'm smarter than because I think it's just a little bit more clearer. Instead of light, maybe you could say lantern, right? A light is a bit generic. A lamp is kind of generic in our terminology, but a lantern, it really communicates the idea of shining outward, right? Being a city on a hill, which is what Jesus uses, what we would call kind of useful lighting, like headlamp lighting, lighting that has a purpose, that shines out for a reason. And lanterns then, and this is Jesus' logic here in 15,

lanterns only make sense on a stand. That's the only place they make sense. See his appeal to reason, right? Jesus is not trying to convince us that we are lanterns. He's not trying to say like, wouldn't it be great if? He is saying point blank, flat out, You are lanterns no matter what You are lights and it only makes sense for you to be on a state You are light Not asking for permission not trying to motivate you not trying to encourage you and I said, oh you're light. Let's try it harder No Jesus is saying you are light it makes sense for you to be on a stand period and And we've talked about this many times, in fact, the past couple of Sundays, I've talked about it. But there is an assumption here on Jesus' part that anybody that follows Him is going to be in other people's lives. What we are trying to call front yard living, right? Where you are literally in your front yard or, you know, whatever that is for you.

You're in your front yard, you're grilling in the front yard, you're having conversations with your family in the front yard. Maybe you walk around the neighborhood, this idea that you are making yourself available to other people, that they can see you, you can see them. You are in other people's lives. Because according to Jesus, if you follow Him, if you love Him, you cannot be hidden. You are light, and it doesn't make sense for you to be hidden. Why would you do that? It doesn't make sense to hide it, but we do hide it. Why? We hide our light when we don't believe we are light. Maybe some of you are unsure of your salvation. You don't know if you're a Christian. You don't know if you're light. You kind of shrug your shoulders at it, but at least you don't have to deal with what Jesus is saying right here, right? So I don't know, maybe.

Maybe, maybe you hide your light because you're ashamed. Maybe there's something that you did, maybe there's something you're doing that you are completely ashamed of. And you would think, nope, that's not, I'm not light. I'm dim, dark thing. I'm not a light thing, I'm a dark thing. And to that, what Jesus does is he looks you squarely in the eye and he says, if you follow me, you are light. I don't care what you've done. I don't care about these mistakes you've made, right? Say I don't care. I'm not trying to be flippant. I'm just saying Jesus is looking past that and He's saying you are light. You are in front of other people. You are in their life. If you follow Me, then you are involved in other people's lives to a degree that they can see you. You can see them. discern the way of your life, so often we believe that it's up to us to seem like light. We get really caught up in having to portray ourselves as holy or godly.

And it's not that we, I'm not saying we shouldn't want holiness or godliness, we should, but we are preoccupied with seeming that way. We are preoccupied with saying, no, no, no, I'm, listen, I'm not that messed up. I'm not as messed up as somebody else. However, if you are light, if you are light, then you will connect with outsiders. It's not like you have to seem like light. I'm not talking about becoming a brighter person or being effervescent or becoming any other kind of person than you are. What I'm saying is that the Lord God made you and made you to be light. If you follow Jesus, you are light. You don't need to become a preacher on a stage to let your light shine, right? In fact, sometimes being a preacher on a stage makes it a lot harder for your light to shine. Just take it from me. I got problems too. So then how does it look to let your light shine?

What does it mean whenever Jesus commands his disciples to let your light shine? Let me just take a stab at it. It means that the Holy Spirit is going to draw people to Jesus through your life. The Holy Spirit is going to draw people to Jesus through your life. And again, it's not because you're so cool. It's not because you're effervescent or because you are such a people person. Listen, I've talked with many, many people that have discipled a lot of other people who are not what you would call like really friendly. Okay. I've met people that have discipled hundreds of others and no one would call them effervescent. No one would call them the life of the party. They're kind of boring. Okay. They don't even dress that well. just plain really but isn't that so good to know that there's all these people just ordinary people they're not Instagram influencers they don't have

their own YouTube channel they're just doing their job every day day in a day out and and just investing in the lives of other people they're not they're not winsome. They have just decided to live their life alongside another person. That's what they decided to do. And it's because that person loved Jesus and then they let it show. And so in some ways, let your light shine. What does that mean? Well, do you love Jesus? The answer is yes, then just let it show. Just let it show. Jesus says you're you are light the plan the plan is for people to see me in you that's what Jesus is saying us the plan is for people to see me in you so again how's this work the Spirit's gonna draw people you must you must be willing to put yourself in the middle of the outsiders you must be willing to be at a diner that you don't know that well and you're kind of be kind of victim to

whoever comes in through the door and you can talk to them, right? It means that you must be available physically, like so be physically present and emotionally present for other people to actually be in their lives. This is why we're calling 2022 the year of connecting. The emphasis for our year this year is going to be connecting the greatest, the greatest ditch, excuse me, The greatest ditch for our church this year is thinking that our job is to grow a worship service. Let me say that one more time, just so you hear me. The greatest ditch that we could fall into this year for our church is thinking that our job is to get more people in a worship service. That's actually a terrible goal. What we must be vigilant to do. to put ourselves out there in other people's lives. We must connect with outsiders. We must pray for outsiders. We must love outsiders.

We must include outsiders and not just include them when they visit a church, but include them at work, include them in your neighborhood, include them in your apartment complex. We must love people, connect with people where they are. This is why we're going to be focusing much more this year on connect groups and connect events. Connect groups are simply opportunities to connect with people. That's all they are. They're opportunities to connect with people. For example, I'm a pastor. By profession, I'm surrounded by Christians. I cannot get away from them. They're all around me. I love them. I do. I love them. It's great. not trying to meet people who are outsiders, then I won't. Okay? And some of you might be in a similar position. Maybe you work with just a bunch of Christians and you're not really dealing with anybody else but your coworkers, or maybe you're an entrepreneur,

solo entrepreneur, and the only people you hang out with your family and they're all Christians. Okay, what Jesus says to you and to me is you've got to get out of that. You have to be in people's lives that are far from me. Jesus, for example, could have just hung out in Jerusalem all day and just talked to Jews who were close to figuring out that he was the Messiah. But he didn't. He went to Samaria. He went to the Decapolis. He talked to people that were possessed by a demon. Look, I don't know where people rank as far as like almost going to become a Christian, My guess is if you're demon possessed, you're probably pretty far down the list. That's just a guess. I mean, I don't really know, but I'm just guessing.

For some of you, it's going to mean being in places where you could run into somebody who is demon possessed. It's gonna be being in places where there's gonna be people that do things for a living that you frown upon. They talk in a way that's gonna make you uncomfortable, And they're not gonna care. Being around outsiders is risky, but it is our calling. Connect groups help us do that. So connect groups are just a way for us to, so a connect group could be like a book club. It could actually be a Bible study. It could be a basketball team, like a rec team. And let me just draw a real, I think this distinction really helps. In years gone by, there was such a thing as a church softball league. Raise your hand if you've ever heard Church Softball League. I will explain the phenomena very quickly. Church Softball League is typically a bunch of churches getting together and each of them having their own team and

then they compete against one another in softball games. And it sounds innocent enough. It's great. It's so great. When I say, if I'm saying a connect group should be a softball team, what I do not mean is a softball team full of people from our church. That's actually what I don't mean. What I mean is whenever you have two or three or four people from our church and you have a bunch of people, other people on that softball team that do not know the Lord or are disconnected from church or are outsiders in some kind of respect. That's what I mean. That's what I'm talking about with the Connect Group. I don't want to shuffle the deck and have a bunch of Christians all in a big group that's actually the opposite of what Jesus was trying to do. What did Jesus do? He called 12 disciples and then he sent them out. He called those disciples and he said, hey, hey, follow me, I'm going to Samaria

where you think all of them are heathens. And truly where most of them, most people in Samaria didn't know the Lord, didn't worship God, they were complete heathens. And Jesus goes there and he says, listen, And the woman at the well, that was in Samaria. And whatever Jesus is there, he's saying, look, it doesn't matter, our, you know, like you worship on this mountain, I worship, that's, the Lord is looking, God is looking for people who will worship him in spirit and in truth. And the woman at the well was flabbergasted. What did she do? She goes home to Samaria, where there's a bunch of people who are living way off the rails, morally speaking, living way off the rails. But what does she do? She goes, hey, there's this guy in that? I think he's the one, he told me everything I ever did. And the implication was that, and he didn't judge me for that, he loved me in the midst of that.

He welcomed me in a relationship with him, he talked to me, he approached me. This is what it's like to be in a connect group where people, and I hear it all the time, I hear people's stories all the time, I heard one again in a gospel course this morning, where somebody's saying, you know, I knew about Christians, but I was a bit skeptical of them And then I met one, and then I figured out she wasn't that weird.

Look, I get it, that sounds totally normal, or that sounds kind of strange to me and you, but that is exactly how people come to know the Lord. They hear about Christianity, they hear these wild things on the news, they see three preachers, they've heard of Bible studies, they hear about pastors getting caught in sin, they hear about all that noise, and they don't really know what to think about it. And they think that Christians are a voting block, and then they meet one. And they meet somebody who really loves the Lord. No, I'm not perfect. Maybe not even that pleasant to be around, but they love the Lord. And they can see it. And they say, that person's real. The Lord is calling us to be those people that other people see and go, hey, it's real. But they've got to be real. That is light. That being in front of other people and them seeing you, you living your life in front

of them, that is being light. Jesus says, He's not asking, He's saying, you are light. In the spring we hope to have two to three connect groups going, just kind of soft launch. In the fall we're going to officially launch a few more connect groups and we're going to do that in conjunction with National Night Out in October. So whenever the whole community has come into our grounds, right, and we're just kind of having stuff out, we're going to have information for ways for them to connect with just stuff that we're doing. Just like, just board game night. I don't know, man, anything you can think of. It's kind of wild, but I do know this. I do know as we are looking to start connect groups, I do know that some of you, the Lord is putting in your heart a way to connect with outsiders that meets a passion point for you. Not all of you, but some of you, the Lord is calling you

to do that. My challenge is for you to this year, this spring, to start a connect group, to figure out how you can get that going. Daniel Oster, who's not here this morning, he's sick, his wife was told she was sick earlier this week and was like, dang, he really wanted to be here this morning. But Daniel Oster is one of our deacons and he's going to be over connect groups in particular and connect events. And so he's the guy to talk to and I wish I could make him raise his hand right now, but he's not here. That's okay. So those are our connect group. Connect events are, we have two big connect events. One is VBS Rec Week in June and one is National Night Out in October. And on both of those, what we try to do is just open it up and just meet people where they are, right? Just people that are disconnected from church in whatever capacity, we want them to connect here because we want them to

see the Lord, we want them to grow in grace. In fact, that's another common story I hear is people that maybe they knew about the Lord, maybe they grew up going to church, but in their 20s they could go into church, in their 30s they could go to church, something happened they could go into church. And then they just realized that their spiritual life was just kind of hollowed out, like just kind of non-existent, kind of bleh. And the Lord brought them back into a church family and began to teach them and help them to see things in a completely different way, help them to grow again. For a lot of people in Burleson, let me tell you, a lot of people in Burleson used to go to church. A lot of people in Burleson used to go to church. Don't let that fool you. That doesn't mean that there's a bunch of Christians in Burleson. It just means that Burleson was religious for a really long time.

you still have a lot of people that are disconnected from church and they're not grown in the Lord. They're not, there's, there's, there's nothing in them that is alive. What the Lord wants to do is to connect them with our local body or with another church in the area. I don't care. It's kingdom, right? Doesn't matter. But once the connecting with the local body and wake them up and begin to, to see them grow, connect groups and connect events. If we are saying that Jesus is light, and if we are saying that Jesus displayed this by connecting with outsiders like the woman at the well, like the centurion's daughter, like the lepers, and if we are saying that Jesus told stories about outsiders like the persistent widow, the tax collector, the prodigal sons, if Jesus was so concerned about the outsider that shouldn't we be to. Those stories I'm listening off, those

interactions that Jesus has, that's the highlights of his ministry. That's not some obscure passage. Everybody knows the story. Most everybody knows the story of the rich young ruler. Most everybody knows the story of the prodigal son. Who were those people? Outsiders. If Jesus is saying we are light, then we should act like it. We should plan on it. We should have a year of 2022 where we are connecting with people on purpose. We're figuring that out. Jesus says, I have made you light. And there's another part. Matthew 5 13.

We're not just light, we're salt. Jesus says, you are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. Jesus looks at his disciples and says, you help people connect to me because I have made you salt. Now salt, just so you know, whenever Jesus is talking about salt, there's people that are hearing it. Salt did two things for them. Salt preserves. Salt also heightens or brings out flavor. So rather than go all the way into salt here, I'm just going to compare them. In comparison to light salt is harder to see. To know that salt is there you actually have to dig in a little bit. You have to you have to taste. Okay salt is for taste. With light you're gonna be focusing on interactions on deeds. Right? So Jesus says make your light shine. You're gonna be people are gonna see

your deeds and glorify God in heaven. Okay with light you're focusing on interactions with salt you're focusing more on identity who are you on the inside how are you praying what is your perspective with light Jesus is saying I will connect you with outsiders with salt Jesus is saying I will connect you to me whenever we have salt and light together there is this push-pull factor and maybe this is why Jesus gives us twin metaphors I don't know why salt and light why not just salt or why not just light Jesus gives both and I believe at least one way to look at this is that Jesus saying you're salt so you're connected to me your identity is in me who you are is in me and you are light I want to keep you connected to outsiders being a disciple means that we trust Jesus for both and look this is why we have life groups okay so just to keep all the groups straight. We have connect groups and life groups. Connect groups are

for connecting with people that are outsiders, connecting with people that are maybe far from God or far from church or however you want to describe it. Life groups are for helping each other connect with Jesus. Life groups are small pockets of people, two to four people, same gender, that when they get together every other week, when they get together, talk about how they're hearing from the Lord, they talk about how they're struggling, and they're talking about who they're praying for. The purpose of those life groups is to be salt, is to be salty. I know some of you think I'm salty enough, but I need to be in a life group. Some of you are way too salty, but you still need to be in a life group. The idea that we are salt, it's not something that is just,

something that is meant to us for just to be on our own. We are part of a family. This family keeps us salty in way more ways than one. If somebody says like, I'm a Christian, but I totally do church all on my own. I'm not accountable to anybody. I'm not a part of a spiritual family. I'm not, look, I say listen, I mean, I understand. I've preached on this before and you can go back and listen to it. But when you are part of a community of disciples

who love the Lord and who love you, they help you stay connected to Jesus. They help you stay so. They help you make sure that whatever you're going through isn't getting you off track, that you're not starting to doubt God's character just because you're going through a trial, they make sure your life group, this church, this body, this community, makes sure that you understand what you're going through is to keep you connected to Jesus. What you're going through is actually something that the Lord is using in your life to grow you into His image, to make you more like Him. Salt. Being a disciple means we trust Jesus for both. We cannot get caught up in thinking that it's just us. that it's just up to us. We don't just thank Jesus for saving us and then act like the rest is our job, that's not good. Jesus simultaneously connects us to God and to people. Jesus does the heavy lifting of making peace

between us and God, and he does the heavy lifting of revealing himself to other people, even as we're just making time to be with people. Even if we're just taking a coworker out to lunch. Jesus is at work right now in the lives of so many people. And we were talking about this in gospel course today. Look, we're asleep on the couch by 8.30 watching Netflix,

but the Lord God in heaven is working in people's lives to bring him to himself, bring people to himself. The Lord God in heaven is working in people's lives and he intends for us to be a part of that process. So in an attempt to get our thinking aligned with this in 2022, the year of connecting, what we're gonna be offering is something called the disciples course. And again, that starts February 6th. It is gonna be available three times this year. And again, we're gonna be discovering how Jesus made you to connect with other people in a way that makes sense. Look, I happen to be an extrovert. I know that might shock some of you, but I am an extreme extrovert, okay? That was a joke. Okay, moderate laughter. I'll deal with it. Some of you are not extroverts. Some of you are introverts. Some of you, if I said, hey, let's go to a party with 50 people, you're like, how can I get out of this?

There's no way I would love doing that ever. That would, that's horrible. Please don't make me do that. That is a small taste of how we are all different. Not just introverts, extroverts, but a lot of other ways. The Lord has made you specifically, not by accident. Yeah, you've got things to grow in. I'm not trying to baptize every part of your personality. What I am doing though is saying, you are made specifically and you are made with the intention of connecting with outsiders, but you do it in a way that's different than me, right? You do it in a way that's different than me. And if you think that's not important, just wait till you're trying to connect with people. And the only thing you have on the brain is how I do it. Well, I happen to be a six, five, 200 pound extrovert.

I am loud, I am in your face, I have the pastor badge, I have all these things at my disposal that you don't have. If you're just trying to do it like me, it's not gonna be okay. You have a lot of things at your disposal, a lot of gifts that I don't have. And now the Lord has made you to use those gifts. You're not gonna figure out how to use those gifts, just, I don't know, thinking really hard. You need to interact with the church body to figure that out. You need help in doing that. I need help in doing that. That's what the disciple course is about.

I wanna move into our time of response. And I just wanna encourage you, as we sing, we're gonna sing a few songs. As we do, I wanna encourage you to pray. I want you to respond to what the Lord is doing. You don't need to come down and pray with me, but I would encourage you to pray where you are. If you need help, you can come pray with me, you can pray with somebody that's right next to you. If you wanna pray with a stranger that's a couple seats down, that's cool, right? No judgment here. Whatever you need to do, please do it. Please respond to what the Lord is doing in you. Maybe some of you felt that call, like, hey, I need to start a connect group, or I need to be a part of a connect group, or hey, I need to position my life to be in outsiders more. Or man, hey, maybe I don't even know if I'm a Christian. Like half of what this guy said made sense to me,

but the other half didn't. I don't even know if I'm even following, or I don't even know if I'm a disciple. I don't know if I'm a salt and light. We can help with that. This is what we do, we're a church, man. And so if you are interested in taking a step, figuring that out, talking with somebody about it, I'm gonna be right up here. Let's stand and sing. Bless me now my Savior I come to the end I stay there nearby Temptations lose their power Thou art nigh Thee, O our knee, Thee Every hour I need Thee O bless me now, my Savior I come to Thee Every hour enjoy quickly and abide by his vain He be blessed me now my Savior I come to thee sing that again I need the oh I need the every hour I need the oh bless me now my Savior I come to