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sanctified warriors of Christ. Okay. If you use a phone, you're only less sanctified. Just a little. I'm just playing. If you've got your Bible device or on paper, flip it to Ephesians 3. We're in this series called Ta-Da. So the idea is that God has unveiled a mystery and we're trying to talk through it kind of like this idea of if there was like an art piece or something or maybe a magic trick you saw somebody do where they were like, here it is, like ta-da. We're kind of seeing that Paul is carrying that through these verses in Ephesians 3. We're going to be looking at verses 7 through 10 here in just a second. But as we get into it, last week, I took a long time. And you know, there's a part of me, I was talking to a friend of mine in Oklahoma who pastors, and I said, sometimes when I preach a long time, I feel very apologetic. And I don't know what it is right now, but it seems like we're preaching longer messages. And I asked my buddy, I said, you know, in the American church culture, it feels like if you preach more than 20 minutes, people are very like, you can't do that. In church culture, like if you preach more than 20 minutes, you're losing everybody. And I've thought about that because I have an attention span that's not very long. But I've realized that I also used to use that as an excuse not to be able to think, God asks me to do. And so this is what I would tell you, bear with us as we preach the gospel. And if we find ourselves or you find that we're rambling or ranting or doing things that are not useful, come talk to us because I want to hear that. But if it takes a little bit longer, because some of these passages are just filled, they're like a treasure chest filled with all of this Holy Spirit loot, if you will, that I'm like, I don't know how to get, through it without the time necessary to get through it. So I promise you, we'll still beat the Baptist to the food, okay? We'll, okay, now that one landed like a pregnant pole vaulter. All right, so that's an Andy Haas right there. Andy Haas, she said all the time. We are desperately trying to make services as useful as possible. But I don't want to ever apologize for us doing what we sense God would be doing, especially if we find it in the church. Some of this stuff, guys, is so rich, I just don't know what to do, except take the time. And then if we get through it, and at the end of it, you were like, he wasted so much time, come to me, tell me how to preach better, and I will listen to you, okay? But today, hopefully that's not the case. Hopefully we get through this. But man, I am absolutely astounded as what Paul says here in Ephesians chapter three. Verse seven starts this way. Paul has explained, this is the mystery of the gospel, that the Gentiles are made fellow heirs. They're partakers of the gospel. They're makers of the promise. They are joined to the body of Christ. And he says in verse seven, of this gospel, I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given to me by the working of his power. To me, though I'm the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. And let me just take a small pause there just to encourage many of us, many of us who know very well that we are not great. Maybe God has revealed to you that you are the least of these. And you would think in our world, people are trying to pump everybody up for the smallest little thing. Like, you know, we're pumping up our kids for just doing normal things. We're pumping up adults for just doing normal things, okay? Y'all know what I'm talking about in our culture, where everything is celebrated. Like you burp and they're like, good job. Like you're 45 years old, bro. Like we should have learned how to burp on your own a long time ago. So it's like, we try to celebrate everything, but Paul knew, even though he had a stature in Judaism, he knew that he wasn't very much of anything, but he also knew that God had given him grace. And I want every one of us that may think of ourselves little, that's fine. I think that's okay, is to think I'm not very much of anything, but God's given me grace. And there's many of you that you don't act according to how God's called the saints. You don't finish by saying, but the grace of God. So some of you, I want you to really encourage you as we get through this passage, it's not what this message is about, but I want to encourage you as we go through this, don't stop at, I am the least of these. Stop at, but the grace of God. And I think that'll help balance out our not being prideful, but being useful for the kingdom. Amen? So Paul says that I'm not that great, but grace has been given me to preach to the Gentiles. He would be called an apostle to the Gentiles. The scripture says, and to bring to light for everyone, what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God? God had hidden it, but then he revealed it through his apostles and his prophets. Paul just explained that to us in the previous verses. And he says that he has hidden it in the ages in God who created all things. And listen to what verse 10 says. So that through the church, the manifold, or this is actually a way you could look at it. It's like a multifaceted, I think of like a piece of origami, multifold. It says manifold, but think of minifold, M-A-N-Y, minifold. When people are making a piece of origami, they fold it, they fold it, they fold it, they fold it. And then bam, there's this thing. That is the manifold or minifold, multifaceted wisdom of God might now be made known to who? To the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. That is a mouthful. All right. So let's pray and let's ask that that mouthful be honoring to God as we walk through this. Listen with me as we walk through this, because I think there's something here for us. Why don't you ask the Lord to help you in your own ears. I'm going to ask the Lord to help me as I preach. Father, would you, as this series talks about, would you unveil, would you show, would you give ears to hear what it is that you're saying through your word? I do not desire to cause any issue to the hearer. So make my words straight, purposeful, filled with your power and with your grace. I am the least of these, like Paul said, but grace. I'm asking that that grace be upon my mouth and that grace be upon the ear of the church. We ask it in Jesus name. Amen. All right. Paul says something really kind of, it's not crazy, but it's kind of weird. I want to give you a little insight to how I study real quick, because I think it's purposeful for what we're talking about today. So on Mondays, I'm preaching on the following Sunday. On Monday, I will take the scripture text. For us, we go out in advance and we say we want to tackle these verses ahead of time. So we kind of have an idea of what we're doing. And since we're in Ephesians going line by line, it makes it really easy to know what the text is. So on Monday, I'm looking at the text. I'm just reading it over and over again. I'm reading before it. I'm reading after it. I'm trying to get context. What is exactly that this text is really all about? And I have a saying on Monday that I say many times as I'm saying, Father, show me the path. I have a sticky note on my desk that says, get out of the weeds and onto the path. The reason I have that is because I like getting into the weeds. And for the sake of the church and for the sake of what God's trying to do, I need to be out of the weeds. I need to be on the path. For your sake and for my sake, we need to be on the path. It needs to be clear. So I'm asking the Lord, hey, what is it that you want me to focus on? There's so much to look at here. We just don't have the time. So what do you want us to look at here? So I get drawn in typically to one particular verse. I'm going to read it to you. I'm going to read it to you. I begin to pray in that. On Wednesday and Thursday, I'm usually basically studying that text in commentary. If there's a sermon on it, I might listen to a few sermons on it. Just see what other people are saying. And then I'll read lots and lots of commentary. There's a great study resource online if you ever decide to use it called Blue Letter Bible. It's a great resource if you don't know what a Strong's Concordance is so you can know what the Greek and Hebrew are or words. Sometimes it's not that our translation are inaccurate. It's just that they're not as full. So you may be reading a translation today that if you went and used Blue Letter Bible, you may find out something like manifold wisdom would mean something more expressive, like a diamond being turned and you seeing every etching of the diamond and what people ooh and ah over a diamond, God is saying, that's my manifold wisdom. That's the kind of stuff you can do when you study the Greek. You can kind of get a little bit more than just what's on the page. And so I'll do a lot of that. And let me tell you something about this particular verse. Not a lot, going on in commentaries and sermons when it comes to this verse, which I mean isn't a problem. It's just one of those things where you go, well, I wonder why that is. And so two things before we kind of shove off into this, okay? Why would that be? Why is it that it seems like there's probably not a lot said about this? Listen once again to our focal point for today is verse 10. So that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known, to the rulers and authorities in heavenly places. Rulers and authorities in heavenly places, probably what caught your ear definitely would have been mine. I have a deep desire for this church to hold intention to realities. One of them is being charismatic. When I say charismatic, I don't mean crazy. I don't mean weird. Many of us were raised in the charismatic stream. We know weird. Oh, we've seen it. What do I want? What do I mean when I say charismatic? When I say charismatic, I mean, we believe in the gifts of the spirit. We believe that the spirit of God works in us, not only the fruit, which is the character of Christ, but the gifts of God. We believe in every one of them. We do not believe they cease just because we got the Bible, because we believe the reason the gifts exist is to build up the church, not to make some special, what's the word I'm looking for? Thank you. So much, man. Maybe some of y'all do need to help me preach. Okay. A spectacle. In the charismatic stream, sometimes the gifts are used as a spectacle. Tongues is used as a spectacle. Prophecy is used as a spectacle. It's not supposed to be a spectacle. It's supposed to be an edification. It's not about me when I'm using my gift. It's about what God's doing through me to build his church. So when I say charismatic, that's not lively worship. You can go to any church and find lively worship music. That's not what we're talking about. Talking about deeply charismatic in the sense that we hold that there are gifts and that there is a spiritual reality of the world. But I also want us to hold very tightly to orthodoxy. Now, you might look at me and not think of me as an orthodox person. I'm preaching to you with all my tattoos. I've got my, these are stretch fit. They're not skinny jeans, but I've got my flavor and non-denominational churches are pegged a lot of times as not being orthodox. And there's a lot of charismatics out there that like to be orthodox. And I've got a lot of people that are like the idea of not being orthodox. They love the idea of being unorthodox. And here's what I would tell you. The reason you have to hold this tension with me, if you're a part of this church is because we believe in certain things over here, but we need to drop our excitement and emotion when it causes us to let go of orthodoxy. So why am I telling you that? Because in my charismatic experience, if we read this about the rulers, authorities and heavenly places, buddy, we would go into the stratosphere about what's going on. In the heavenly places. And here's a beautiful thing about Paul. Charismatics do this typically. And the only reason I'm saying that is because this is what I did when I was really fully in the charismatic stream. If you're talking about the spiritual world or you're talking about gifts, the charismatics go off into a world that's not biblical. Paul does something for us that safeguards us. He mentions things without going into deep detail about them. Here's what I'll tell you. If the scriptures don't go that far, you don't go that far. There's a lot of people that there's no reason for you to make up a path. If God says this is the path, go that path. Because what ends up happening is we get into our flavors and we go into ditches. Any good thing taken to an extreme is a problem. So why am I bringing that up again? Because I don't think a lot of things are written about this because I don't think a lot of people know a lot about this. And that's okay because there's not a lot to know about this. The rulers and authorities in heavenly places. Paul mentions it two other times. In the beginning of Ephesians, if you were with us when we did this series, we said that we're seated with Christ in heavenly places. The only reference point that I have for that particular spiritual world is what we're going to call it for the rest of the service. That spiritual world that exists with beings that we cannot see, that's a world that we are not a part of, is in Job. Job is the only book that kind of gives us some idea about what the activity looks like. Daniel talks about seeing some things. There are other books of the Bible that mention seeing particular things. But for the most part, it remains a mystery, the spiritual world and these beings that are there. So that's number one. The reason I was telling you about my study time is because if you do find some people that decided to write about this, they're writing about stuff that you don't see in the Bible. And listen, as a person who wants to cling tightly to my charisma, my charismatic upbringing, but wants to hold very truly to orthodoxy and biblical doctrine and the foundations of our faith. Because I've watched the charismatic church go into places and believe things that are not the Bible. And if you do things based on things that are not the Bible, you will have a fruitless life in Christ. What does Paul say in first Corinthians chapter 13? He says, if you have prophetic powers and you have all of this ability and you have not love, you're like a sounding gong. In other words, he tends to write towards, you need to have gifts, but your gifts don't need to have you. You are not a spectacle. Charisma and your charismatic upbringing are good. Listen, I'm glad for the lively church. I want the church to be excited. I've been in orthodox churches where I was like, did they remember that Jesus died for them? I mean, it was like almost like stale bread. But I've also been in charismatic churches where the foundations of the doctrine have been let go of. And we're saying things that are not actual Christianity. They're emotionalism. So we're tasked with something very unique. We want to hold to sound doctrine and we want to be charismatic. That's what I'd love to see in this church. If you were wondering what my take was, that's what I'd love to see. I don't think that matters as much in our worship style and music and things. It matters in how we believe. So the charismatics would take something like this and go off into the stratosphere. The orthodox people would say, glory to God, move on. So when you come back to the text, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made. And we're going to see that. And we're going to see that made known to the rulers and authorities in heavenly places. This is a world we're not a part of, filled with beings that we cannot see. And the thought would be that the popular idea in our culture right now, it's said probably many times, I hear it at the gym all the time. If somebody hits a PR and a lift, or if they do like one of these gymnastics movements that we have, like a bar muscle-up, somebody will come up at the gym and say, I got my bar muscle-up yesterday. And one of the things we're going to say is, if you didn't take a video of it, it didn't happen, right? That's where we get the whole for the gram. Why did you post it on there? Because if it's not enough for you to tell somebody anymore, you've got to show the picture. You got to show the video. And here's the reality, why this is probably not an interesting subject for a sermon on a Sunday. I'm not saying that you're not enthralled in what I'm saying right now. I'm just saying, you know, the reason there's probably not a lot of commentary, probably the reason there's not a lot of sermons, the problem, probably the reason why there's not a lot of us going like, let's talk more about this is because where's the picture? Where's the picture? Okay, God is displaying his wisdom to beings we can't see in a world that we're not a part of. If I could be blunt, who cares? Can I get some people that are honest that we have maybe the same sentiment? You'd be like, honestly, Jonathan, maybe I'll just check back in next week and see what y'all are preaching on. Because like, what does that matter? I think that's a great question, because that's the thought I had. Why focus me on a part of the text? We could have talked about the grace of God to preach to the Gentiles. We could talk about all these things. why do we need to deal with verse 10? The reason we need to deal with verse 10 is because it makes something very plain to the church. You are a means for the mystery, not its centerpiece. In other words, even the gospel that saves you is not ultimately about you. And the American church don't like that. The charismatic church really don't like that. What we want is to feel good about the things that we can see. So show us, Lord, show us everything you're doing. And if we don't see it, why would I care about it? Now, again, that's a great question. If you can't see it, why would you care about it? There was an Irish philosopher, you wouldn't know his name. His name is George Berkeley. And he was the one that kind of coined the idea of idealism, which deals with how a person feels or thinks about a thing that they have not experienced. In other words, one of the problems with most people is this question that got, it kind of, they took what George Berkeley said and his idea and they formalized it into a question. Many of you have heard it, okay? Again, you wouldn't know who George Berkeley is, probably never thought about idealism unless you took a philosophy class in college. George Berkeley had this idea that was formalized into this question. If a tree falls in the forest, does it make? A sound. Maybe you've heard that from your philosophy class or maybe you've heard that just in talking. Somebody mentioned it or somebody brought it up. It is a, as a natural question, every one of us, if we're thinking naturally, we're like, this is not that hard. Open, closed. Of course it makes a sound. But it's not talking, the question is not posed to make you think about it naturally. It's to make you think about it philosophically. In other words, what is it to you that a tree fell in the forest and in the woods? In other words, if you're not there to witness it, does it even matter to you? So I'm not here to teach a philosophy class because I'm not good at philosophy. I think it's an interesting subject. I like more than philosophy. I like my Christian theology because my Christian theology doesn't say, if a tree falls in the woods, do you hear it speaking to your subjective reality? Well, I didn't see it, so it doesn't make a hill of beans whether it happened or not. Well, I didn't see it, so it doesn't make a hill of beans whether it happened or not. So I take that over to my Christian theology and I say, does it matter to you that God uses the church, which you are a part of, to display his multifaceted wisdom to beings you can't see in a world you're not a part of? Why would it matter to me that God is displaying his wisdom to beings I can't see in a world I'm not a part of? I take these walks in the morning. People poke fun at me about my morning walks, about how I'm out there with my, I'm like Snow White. I'm out there with all my creatures. I'm out there with all my friends. And if you've ever gotten a voice note from me early in the morning, you probably heard all the birdsong and you heard all the stuff. And I go out there. It's so good for my soul. I would encourage many of you, if you're finding you're in a doldrum in your prayer life, go take a prayer walk. It's changed my life. And I go on these walks and sometimes what I like to do, you may think this is really goofy, but what I like to do is I like to stop and I just like to acknowledge what was going on in my life. What was going on before I got there, okay? This is what I mean. One of my favorite things to do is if I see some ants, this is, again, kind of goofy, but go with me. After these ants, you know, how they'll form a line and I walk up on them. It's not like they were sitting around at a coffee break and they were like, oh, here comes Jonathan. Everybody get like, everybody scram. You're gonna grab a particle, take it to the colony, you know? They're out there working. I don't know who instructed them. I don't know how they knew that when they were born into this world, they were just supposed to start doing everything for their colony. I don't know how that got in there. I can tell you that God created them that way and that's hopefully how I hope to get you to, but I'll stop and I'll watch these ants and I think even the Proverbs tells us, it's very interesting, it says, consider the ant. So maybe that's just me being biblical, but the ants will be walking along and I'll be thinking, who's this for? Who's this for? If I wouldn't have come out here and seen it, who are they doing this for? Because we, like a lot of us, you know, me and my wife, when we celebrated 15 years, we went to, tell me where we went. Zion National Park. I'm not good with names. I'm not good with names of people or parks. You go into that park and you just start looking and you're like, what? I went to the Grand Canyon when I was like 14. I'm like, what? I went to a place in China one time where an earthquake was happening. It was so intense, it changed the direction of a river. I think, what? So when we view it, we go, oh my goodness, we're so small, we're so insignificant. God is so great. But here's the thing. But what about what you don't see that's happening whether you see it or not? And here are these little ants. Y'all, they're out there doing it right now. We could go find them. If y'all wanna take a field trip one day, y'all come on over to Hayfield Road. We'll find the ants, okay? We'll find the ants. And what I do is I back up. Just a little bit. And I think, who's this for? What does that question reveal? It reveals that I still believe that part of my experience is it was curated for me and not that the whole world and everything in it was created for him, by him, and through him. Things seen and things unseen is what Colossians says. In other words, Paul says everything that is done, everything that you see and that you don't see, God created it and he created it for his glory. Every time one of those little ants picks up a piece of debris and takes it back to its colony, it is crying out in its ant form the glory of God. How much more, come on, how much more when you forgive someone who's wronged? How much more when you give of your gift to another brother or sister? How much more when you mourn with those who mourn or you rejoice with those who rejoice? He said, well, nobody saw it. Everything that is seen and unseen was made for him. Some of you deal with not being seen. And our world right now in the psychological world screams, I wanna be seen. You know, the ant doesn't cry out. I haven't passed. I haven't passed those ants one time with them doing a protest until someone acknowledges this colony that we built. We won't do what we've been asked to do, what we've been hardwired to do. I've never seen an ant protest. I've never seen a bird go on a vocal strike because they weren't acknowledged for their song. I've only seen this happen in the church where the people of God refuse to do things because they haven't been acknowledged. You see, we ask God in the Psalms, remember, Father, that we are dust. But sometimes we need God to remind us that we're dust because sometimes we think we're a little bit more, deserving of a little bit more. Everything in your life that's good right now is sheer grace. You did not earn it. Can I tell somebody without being too ugly, how dare you put claim to anything that's come into your life. John said, if you've received anything, it's only been given. It's only been given from heaven. And when we lay hold to something claiming that it's for us or it's about me, then we lose this glorious thing that's not seen by the natural eye, but it's seen in a world we're not a part of by beings that we can't see. And here's a very, very, I think, interesting idea. I want you to think with me. Let's use our brains. That's a big old thing up in there. I got a pretty big forehead. So I'm thinking my brain's a little bit bigger than the average person. That's a lot of brain. That's a lot of brain, okay? Let's use that brain for a second. Think with me as you're reading this statement in your mind of all that the hosts of heaven have seen. When I say hosts of heaven, I am referring to this group that Paul will get to later on in Ephesians where Paul says that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but we wrestle against powers and principalities and rulers, authorities, and heavenly places. When he talks about that, that's what he means. That's what he means. Heavenly hosts. He's not talking about heaven where saints are temporarily being held until the renewal of all things. He's talking about a world where there's spiritual activity that we don't know much about, but we know is happening. Go read Job. You'll find out real quick. Stuff's going on up there, up there, out there. The ancient world pointed up. That was the best way to do it. But we say out there, a world that we do not understand with beings that we cannot see of all that the hosts of heaven have seen. Let me point you one thing that makes this true so I don't have to prove a bunch of texts here. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. He creates the world. He creates everything. And then he sets man in the garden. In chapter three of Genesis, it says that as man is in the garden, the serpent came. Now the serpent is the devil and the devil is a part of that heavenly host. Heavenly does not describe their nature as in, oh, they're heavenly. Like they're one of those naked angels that floats around and is real sweet. When it says heavenly, it means they're a being, a part of that particular world. And the devil is a part of that particular world. He is a heavenly host. And here comes the devil slithering in in Genesis three. That means that because we don't have their creation account in Genesis, it must mean that God created them at some point. We just don't know when that was. I'm not trying to get too deep, too conspiracy with you, but they had to have been created at some point for the devil to slide. Slide into the garden. Are y'all with me? So the heavenly host of all that they've seen, let's think about some things that they've seen. They've seen God's power and creation. They have seen God speak and things exist. Power, we don't comprehend. You can sit here and think about it as long as you want. And by the way, you should. Can I tell you real quick too? You should think on the things of God more often. It is not a problem to get lost in thought about what God has done. And go, I can barely even comprehend that. That's good. What a world we would live in if more people would just marinate or brood over the attributes of God. He is all powerful. You have seen strong men and women in your life. You have seen machinery that can do all kinds of feats, but you have never fully comprehended the power of God. And these beings have seen it. They watched God form atoms. They watched God. They watched God do all of these things. So they know his power. You know what else they know? They know his love. He has watched God the Father bear with much patience the sinfulness of men, all while planning to redeem them by the shed blood of Jesus on the cross. They look in on the love of God and they think, what is this? Because they don't get that. They know his love. They know his mercy and his compassion. Think about how many times, God relented when man repented. And they thought, what is this? What is this relationship? I've watched you breathe atoms and you're gonna let them off the hook? They've seen his holiness. They've seen his justice. They've seen his judgment. I dare to say they know the attributes of God better than we do. Now here's the kicker. Of all that the hosts of heaven have seen, things we can't fathom or even have a concept of, what has that heavenly host? What have these beings we can't see in a world that we're not a part of, what have they missed that only gets revealed in us? Think about this. I'm not trying to get you to be a theologian this morning. I'm trying to get you as close as I can. But I want you to consider for just a second, they've seen it all, but they've missed what can only come through the church that Jesus promised he would build. That's insane. You'd say, okay. Okay. That's cool. But also, don't care. It doesn't matter to me. Why should it matter to me? Well, because you're the means. You are the means. Now, whether you think it's a big deal that you're the means or not, that's kind of indicative of our situation and culture right now. I'm gonna talk to that in just a second because I need to wrap up. But you need to care. You need to at least say, why don't I care? You need to wrestle with this because you're involved. You're a part of the means. Three ways that I think that actually happens. The first one is one that I hope no one in here thinks I'm being petty. I hope no one in here takes this as a shot or you think, well, when Jonathan said that, he was thinking about this with me. I've not thought about anybody. In fact, I wanted to preface what I was about to say with one thing. We have all seen viral videos of pastors losing their grits on the church. There was one we used to pass around all the time of this guy. It's really kind of sad. If you were a part of that church, it would have been like, oh my gosh. He's preaching and there's somebody falls asleep. And some of y'all fall asleep. I'm like, man, thank God they feel so peaceful. They can have them a little nap. Glory to God. You know, don't hurt my, people have been at my house talking to me while I was on my couch and I fell asleep on them. So, you know, turnabout's fair play, right? So some of y'all get comfortable in here and y'all fall asleep. I ain't gonna, I am, listen, Trace may get you, but I ain't gonna get you, okay? So, person's like falling asleep and this guy comes down out of the, kind of away from the pulpit. He's like, hey, hey, hey, wake up, boy. He starts talking. He's obviously maybe a teenager. I hope he was a teenager and not some like middle-aged dude, but he's like, look at me. He said, I'm not your English teacher. I'm teaching eternal life. I was like, ooh, ooh. Like, first off, chill, you know? Like, go back to what Paul said here. I'm the least of these, you know? Like, I don't have any magic power over you. Like, I'm not your Lord. That's Jesus' job. I'm just here to say what, the scriptures say, you know? Well, y'all, I don't know what happened, but when he got down there and started dealing with that guy that fell asleep, he just took it as an opportunity and he started going after everybody. He walks down the aisle. He's like, you ain't been here in seven weeks. You want me to marry you to her and her to him? You're the sorriest church member I got. I'm verbatim saying what he said. He said, you're not worth 15 cents. And then he says, stand up. Makes the person stand up and he goes, give me a hug. Makes him hug him. It was the cringiest thing I'd ever seen in my life. I preface that. I preface that by saying, whatever I'm about to say, I hope it's not in that same vein. I don't want you to think that I'm like that. Because what I'm gonna talk to you about for just a second is the three things I wanna talk to you about is us being together. The first one would be that we gather together. We gather together. This is important. And here's a few things. It's not important. There are many churches. I was a part of it. When I first started preaching and pastoring, y'all, there was so much of my soul wrapped up in butts being in chairs. Let me tell you something that's absolutely true. It's a lot more fun to preach to 200 than to two. That's not biblical. That's the soul. The soul likes preaching to 200 more than it likes preaching to two. And you know, a lot of pastors go, well, if it's just for that one, that's to attaboy themselves for feeling bad that they had to preach to two. I'm just giving you the down low, okay? There are tons of ministries that want attendance. That's fine. I think attendance can be, can be a metric of something. But at the end of the day, if the church is filled with a few or it's filled with a thousand, his church is where the saints gather. So I'm prefacing by saying, I'm not after your church attendance, but I don't think you should miss Sundays. I will never bother you. The reason I'm bringing this up too is because recently I was talking to somebody and they asked me, they said, you know, you pastor church. When someone doesn't come on a Sunday, what do you do? And I was, I didn't know what to, how to answer because I don't know that I should do anything. You know, I'm just like, I check on them. I see how they're doing. I just noticed that they weren't there and I asked how they were doing. Maybe some of you have gotten a text from me. I said, hey, we missed you today. That's not a like, she's, and this particular person said, my pastor says, where were you? I thought, okay, that's a way to handle it, I guess. But what is that? It's this, if you're not here, it's bothersome to the leadership, right? And that would be the old paradigm. If you're not here on a Sunday, where were you? You better be here. In the church world, it's about attendance and giving. I'm telling y'all, that's how it works. When people ask about how the church is doing, usually what people wanna know is how many people are coming on Sundays and what's your budget look like? I'm so glad that we're free from that mess. And people are like, I hope y'all, I bet y'all wish y'all had a building. You're like, guys, y'all don't understand the overhead of a building. I would rather every bit of that money be going to the things that God feels like we should be doing and the church sees as right and good than us to be paying for it. If we're paying for a building, we only meet in a couple of times. I'm just telling you, if we get a building, great. But if we stay here until Jesus comes back, well, that's just what it is, right? Because the church isn't the building. Where we gather is what makes the church. It's not the building. It's not an activity. It's not what you do. You don't go to church. We say this to our kids all the time. When are we going to the church? I say, we don't go to church, right? When we gather together, we are the church. And it matters that you're here. My question would be is, for this one, would be is, why would Sundays be a negotiable for you? Again, I'm not here to harp on one particular group, but I get it. I take vacations. I need to take more, I've been told. And I think a Sunday would be an appropriate timeframe for me not to be here, right? Take a vacation, okay. But my thought has been that if you look at the stats, the attendance of Christians in church services has steadily gone down the last 30 years or so. So what sometimes pastors do, I think as a mistake, they attack attendance as the problem and not a symptom to a problem. The lack of church attendance is not an issue. It shows that there's an issue. And the issue is, is that the American church doesn't really think much of the church. I'm telling you, Paul just said that it's through you, he displays his multifaceted wisdom to rulers and powers and authorities in heavenly places. And we're saying, eh, Saturday was hard. Eh, you know what I'm saying? I'm not gonna get petty and point at you like that guy did, but I'm just saying, right? There have been plenty of times in my own tenure pastoring this church that I thought I could do a thousand other things. Why? Because emotionally, I didn't feel good because I had a long weekend because I dealt with something hard. I get it. But we're the means of God doing something, whether we can see it or not, or be a part of it or not, is not the point. The point is, that's how God wants to do it. And one of the ways he does that is when we gather. When we gather together, something special happens. Now, you may not be moved emotionally. Emotionally, that's where I tell you, that's where I wanna let go of my charismatic side and I wanna hold the orthodoxy. I'm not here to be emotionally moved by God. I'm here for truth. I need truth because emotions don't get me through Monday. Holding to Christ does. More specifically, Christ holding to me. And I gotta know that. Because if I get in here and I get happy, because I do like that. I do like getting happy. I like a good worship chorus. Me and Cam talk about this all the time. Man, you could get me riled up. My charismatic will come out real fast. But my charisma isn't gonna get me into places when I'm in the valley of the shadow of death. I can't turn on emotion. I need something thicker. And who is supposed to be reminding me of that? The church. It is not my responsibility alone to be a reminder to you that God's got you. That's why we say every member's a minister. Because when we gather together, you should be, we should be like the angels. It should be that instead of us turning towards the band, we should be, turning towards each other and go, in Christ alone. Should we point back there to you, Drew? In Christ alone. And you look back at me, in Christ alone. We're like, yeah, dude, that's it. We're reminding each other that this is not about me. It's not about how I feel. God is doing something and he lets me be a part of it. That's the wild thing. So consider, church attendance went down and down and down and down and down. It's continued to go down. And this, it was awful. And it was wonderful. It was like Joseph being thrown, thrown in the pit. When God said to Joseph, he ended up saying to his brothers, what you meant for evil, God intended for good. This thing in 2020 called COVID happened. And you know what it revealed? I believe this with all my heart. What it revealed is what Hebrews talks about when it says, forsake not the assembling of yourselves together, even more so as you see the day approaching. What's the day approaching? Christ's return. Are we closer to it than we ever have been? Absolutely, because we're further away from the cross. Further away from the cross. The closer we get, the closer we get to his return. Do not forsake the assembly. And 2020 revealed Christians who had forsaken the assembly. They hadn't done it with their attendance yet. It starts in the heart. When the church becomes less than what it should be in your heart, attendance follows that. So I don't have a problem if you miss a Sunday. I have a problem if you miss the church. And I don't want anybody in here to miss the church, the means of God displaying the mystery. So don't feel bad when you take vacation, but be convicted if you think, missing doesn't matter, okay? Second thing is our interacting together. Well, we can't interact together if we don't gather together. I'm tired. Let me use a very, very strong word here. I'm tired of this baloney, okay? I'm tired of this baloney sentiment that I don't need to go to church to be a Christian. Of course not. No one would add to the gospel that, of course, you need to be joined to a church to be saved. That can only happen through Christ alone, his shed blood on the cross. But how in the world do you become formed? By Christ, if you're not a part of his body. The promise of the Gentiles was not just that they get to partake in what God was giving. He said, members of the same body. This whole renegade Christian thing, oh, okay, flesh, get under control right now. There's so many people who are saying that the church is the problem. I got church hurt. The church did this. The church did that. Maybe some people in that congregation did that, but that's not the church God is using to reveal his manifold, manifold wisdom to rulers and authorities in heavenly places. That's some bad actors in the church. If you've been church hurt, I'm gonna tell you, you might get church hurt here too. You wanna know why? People hurt people. But when we're interacting together, guess where God can lean over from his throne in the heavenly places and say, you see that? It's when you get church hurt and you learn how to forgive. I think it would be a great thing if God could just lean over and say, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, look right over there. Remember what I was telling you about? My wisdom right there. It's foolishness to the world, but right there, that's exactly what I'm talking about. She had every right in her flesh to hold a grudge and to leave and to hold unforgiveness in her heart. Look at what she's doing. She's clinging to the cross and she's saying, I'm so glad God didn't cling to my sin and my fault. So now I'm empowered to forgive because what they did to me is nothing. It's my sin. And that put Christ in nothing but an uncomfortable situation. And I just see God wafting the aroma of the church going, ha ha, y'all smell that? Y'all smell that? That's coming down from there because we become, as Paul said, an aroma of Christ. He can say, this is my church. We can begin to interact together. You provide for the needs of somebody. When you open up your home for hospitality, when you love people, when you take care of people, when you pray for people, when you intercede for people, when you give them a word of encouragement or you give them a prophetic word or a word of encouragement, a word of knowledge, and you come up to them and you say, I was thinking about you and this is what God says over you and you're loving them and you're spending time with them, all that kind of stuff. We do that from gathering to interacting and it becomes an aroma of Christ. And God can point to it and say, this is my multifaceted wisdom on display right here. There's no reason why these people should be doing that with each other. When we come together on a Sunday, when we come together in a home, we're representing the church. God is bringing us together and building us together. And lastly, I need to end here, going out together. In just a minute, we're gonna say together a sending liturgy. That liturgy is to inform just as the worship liturgy does and just as the giving liturgy does is to inform us of what we believe so that we can carry it with us more wholeheartedly. So the idea is that we were to go. Now again, we gather together, so New Testament, the Jews did this when they were the promised people and then when the Gentiles were grafted in, they continued to do that. They would meet in each other's homes and they would meet in spaces. They would meet in public areas. They would get together and they would interact with each other. Go read 1 Corinthians, go read 2 Corinthians. In fact, in the upcoming month or so, we're gonna get into a series called Walk It Out. And the whole point is we're getting into the practical parts of Ephesians. Paul has been for three chapters laying theological stones in the ground so that we could walk practically out whatever it was that God was saying. You know what most of the instruction has to do with? These interactions. And he says these interactions are important because there's a group of people watching the church. And Jesus said, they'll know you're my disciples by how you love one another. How are you caring for one another? Do you only care for your people? Do you only speak to your people? Or is your heart being expanded? Is the gospel allowing you to actually be in interactions with the church? Why? Because as we get built up together, as we get built together, then we become, like Jesus' disciples, and he can send us out. In that sense, the church should be apostolic. We should be sent out every Sunday. We should leave here knowing God is sending us out together. We are not separate. We're not being lopped off from the body and then being tossed into different parts of the world. No, we're going out. We're walking. If you remember that old casting crown song, come on, come on, some old sayings in the house right now. Y'all remember casting crowns? Y'all remember that song? If we are the body, why aren't his... I can't remember the lyrics because I'm really bad with lyrics, but the whole point of the song is, then why isn't the body of Christ being activated, being sent? Why does it seem like the church has turned inward and it's just looking to have another event or service? No, no, no. We don't gather for a spectacle. We gather to get built up so that we can be sent out. So that when you go out of here, the world doesn't beat your brains in. So when you leave out of here, you win. You live the victorious life that Christ has won on your behalf. And guess what? You start becoming attractive to the world. Somebody, somewhere needs the gospel. Y'all, I'm praying. I am praying that we actually see real conversions, real conversions to Christianity. If you've... Everybody, it seems that comes to move and this is totally fine. We come from different places. That's fine. I'm not against that. I think that that's great. If you find a home, you find a place where you're supposed to be connected and all of that. But y'all, I'm... I'm begging the Lord of the harvest for there to be people who have not done anything with their sin and they find Christ as the answer for their sin. And this is the hope we have. If we go out together, we don't go out, share the gospel and say, well, just live right until you die. We go, no, no, no. There's somewhere for you to come. And the somewhere isn't a location on Cane Creek Road, this old National Guard armory. The location is the people of God. He says, you are part of the, the household of God. No longer a stranger, separated from the promises of God. Now you're a part of the household of God. We gotta be sent out. I pray that that would be something we would carry with us today. Lots of stuff to think through in that scripture. But I would just say, as you kind of go through your week and you're thinking through maybe some of this, isn't it astounding to you that through the church, God would do something as outlandish as expressing his wisdom, his wisdom, not his power. Surely the church sees his power, not his grace. Surely the church sees his grace, but specifically he shows his wisdom. No one would do it the way God's done it, but he's holy. Amen. God is holy and he does what pleases him. And I'm just, be honest, I'm just glad to be a part. I'm just glad to be a part. Amen. Well, let me pray for us and we'll give some announcements and then we'll head out of here. Lord, cement in our hearts the things that you're speaking to your church. I know that in here today, there are many, they're hearing things in their heart. Holy Spirit, you are speaking things. You are saying things through the scriptures. And I ask Lord that those things be ironclad. Don't let it be taken from them. I think about the parable of the sower. I pray that these seeds are not left on the ground unattended to be picked up. I pray that they're not seeds that get choked out by other things that crowd it. Father, I pray that it doesn't lay out on the ground and get scorched by the concerns of our lives. I pray that it finds its way deep into our heart and that it produce something. Only you can do that. God, you're the only one that can give increase on your word. So let us be faithful to attend and steward all that you've put before us. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. A couple of things I need to remind you guys about. One of them is about our groups. Groups will kind of get kicked off here in July as far as signups and stuff like that. But if you're interested in leading a group, we'll have this QR code. If we can get that just to stay up maybe after we dismiss. If you're interested in leading interest group, discipleship group, or a growth group, scan that code, just let us know. We're wanting to see kind of what God would be doing during this season of groups. And so if you're interested in it, it's only interest that doesn't sign you up for anything. But make sure you scan that, fill out the form, let us know. And if you need anything from us, you need information on anything, our next meeting, Moves card is on the app. You can tap that disc in front of you. You can even fill out one of the old school ones back there in the back. If you're needing to make some kind of move particular that you know God's put on your heart, we would love to know that. Connection dinner, everything to baptism, child dedication, all that stuff's on there. Of course, your best bet is just to talk to somebody. Okay. You know, cards are great, but people are better. All right. And then we have some first five. These were some devotionals we put together. There are more out there. If you didn't get to do that during, June, during this month, and you wanted to do it in July, that'd be a great place. It's really just to recapture five minutes of the first part of your day. Really hoping to help people with some of that in their discipleship and learning how to grow in Christ. And so those, there's some new ones printed out there on the table. You can grab those as you leave. Let's stand our feet if you are able. Let's say this sending liturgy together. And as we leave out of here, let's have these things in our mind, okay? Let's say this together. We are not leaving this place. We are being sent. We are, we are obeying the command of our Lord to go. So send us Lord to find you in secret in prayer and devotion, to love and care for our families, to strengthen and encourage our brothers and sisters in Christ, to faithfully work as under the Lord in the marketplace and home, to wisely steward all you have given us, to recognize our place and ability in our community, to witness of your goodness and grace to neighbors and nations. Send us now in your presence and power. Amen. Y'all have a great Sunday.
