Well, if you're just joining us, we are wrapping up a series today called United. We've been talking for the last month, five weeks, or so about what it really means to be united as a church. And the reason we've been talking about this is because Jesus actually dreamed of a united church, a church that would be known for the fact that they love each other, the fact that they're together. If you look at the church today, and a lot of people outside of the church do, by the way, you may be here today and you may consider yourself someone who's not a Jesus follower. You're kind of checking this out, figuring this out. So glad that you're here. But if you've looked at the church from the outside, you may have noticed a lot of division. You may have noticed that the church looks just as fractured, just as splintered, sometimes even more so, than the rest of the world. And there's truth to that. That's a sad reality, and it has to change. I believe it is changing. But no matter what, we we know that Jesus did not envision that kind of church. Jesus envisioned and prayed for a united church. In fact, in John chapter 17, he prayed right before he went to the cross. And one of the things he prayed to God the Father, he said, I am in them and you are in me. May they experience, talking about his followers, us, may they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me. So he says, I pray that there is so much unity in my church, in my people, that the world sees that unity, they see that love, and they know that I'm from you. That's how united we're supposed to be. So we've been talking about what that really looks like, how that plays out. We've been going through a section in this book of the New Testament called Ephesians. Paul was writing to a group of Christians, and this really cool thing was happening in the church. Walls were coming down. People who had never ever interacted together, people who were completely separate in terms of their upbringing, in terms of their culture, that were coming together in the name of Jesus. So you have this mixture of cultures happening. People who used to hate each other are now worshiping together. And he's reflecting on this unity that we have, and he talks about all the different ways this unity plays out. He talks about the fact that we've been united by the blood of Christ, that Jesus has died for every single one of us. And so, because of the blood of Christ, we're blood, we're family. Sitting around you right now are not fellow church members. Sitting around you right now are not fellow citizens of this community, that they're not even like fellow attendees, they're brothers and sisters. The blood of Jesus has made us blood. We've talked about the fact that we're united by the Holy Spirit, that we all have the same spirit inside of us. Scripture says that if you give your life to Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes and joins with your spirit, making you a new creation. And if that's happened for you, if you've given your life to Jesus, then you have the Holy Spirit in you, and so does the person next to you, the person in front of you, behind you. We all share the same spirit that unites us. We've talked about how we're united by love. Last week we talked about how we're united by a commitment to peace, by a commitment to work through conflict. If we're gonna be the church that Jesus envisioned and dreamed about, we will have conflict. Because we should have conflict if we're doing important things. But real peace is not the absence of conflict, it's the overcoming of conflict. And so if we're gonna be a united church, we have to be committed to working through our issues. Because man, some of us have issues. Anyone here have issues? Anyone want to raise your hand and say, I have issues? Okay, issues. Jamie, you didn't raise your hand. You've got a few, at least one or two, right? It's my buddy Jamie. I just noticed you're sitting there. Sorry. I'm sorry. If you want to watch the Duke game tomorrow, um, I'm gonna be hanging out. You want to? We can do that? All right, they're cool. He doesn't have too many issues. He's a good guy. All right, whatever. Um, my point is we all have issues. But let's work through our issues. Like, let's be committed to peace. That's what it means to be united as a church. Today we're gonna talk about something actually really challenging. I got I got challenged big time this week preparing for this. It's kind of like this. Ooh, is that is that something that really describes our church? Is this something what we're gonna read, is this something that really describes the church in America? Is this something that we do well? And if not, what needs to change? Today we're gonna talk about the fact that we're united, or at least should be united, by a commitment to grow. We're united by a commitment to grow, a commitment to mature. I'm gonna open up to Ephesians chapter 4, verses 5 through 10. We're just gonna go through this. It's a pretty big section. Paul begins by just sort of going off on how awesome Jesus is and that he's the one true God, and he says, There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and in all and living through all. However, he's given each of us a special gift through the generosity of Christ. And then Paul does something like you ever see someone just get distracted? You know, they're talking all of a sudden they just like go off on a tangent. Paul does that all the time when he starts talking about Jesus. He gets so excited about Jesus. He starts talking about, you know, he's focused, he's on this one topic, then all of a sudden Jesus comes up and it's like he goes down this rabbit trail. And that's what happens here. This is his like squirrel moment, you know. He goes, That is why the scriptures say when he ascended to the heights, he led a crowd of captives and gave gifts to his people. Notice that it says he ascended. This clearly means that Christ also descended to our lowly world, and the same one who descended is the one who ascended higher than all the heavens, so that he might fill the entire universe with himself. Then he goes, back to what I was talking about. Now, verse 11, these are the gifts Christ gave to the church. The apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors, and the teachers. Their responsibility is to entertain God's people, to keep them coming back to church. Um, I'm sorry, I read that wrong. Their responsibility is to excite people and make them inspired and feel excited about life. And nope, hold on. One more time. Their responsibility is to equip God's people, to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God's Son that we will be mature in the Lord. Measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ. Oof. Full and complete standard of Christ, that we will become mature in the Lord. We'll come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God's Son that we will be mature in the Lord. He then says this in verse 14 Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won't be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love. That's what it looks like to be mature in the Lord. So if we're going to be united as a church, we have to be united and committed to grow. Individually, corporately, we have to be united in a commitment to mature. Now let's let's talk for a second about growth and how growth happens. Because some growth happens just automatically, right? Some growth happens without effort. For example, I have a prop with me. I brought this with me to illustrate. Um, this is a pair of basketball shoes. It's been approximately five weeks since I've mentioned that my oldest son is really into basketball, and that's really good for me. So that's way, way more than my average. Um, my my daughter Lily's four, she just asked me if she could start playing basketball, and I was like, yes! It's happening, it's happening. If I have one more, I've got a whole team. So um that's what I'm going for. But um, there's a little story to these. These are my son's basketball shoes for his season that he's playing in right now. Um, they're yellow, if you can't tell. Anyone ever struggling to see that? Yellow? So the story behind the yellow shoe thing is that last year he was he was playing this game, he was just doing amazing. He was doing awesome. Had 22 points as a second grader in this game. He was just awe. It was awesome. It was unreal. And it's so cool as a dad when you have a seven-year-old who's making other seven-year-olds cry and like give up, that's great, right? That's the coolest thing as a dad. You're like, oh, I'm so proud of my son. Oh, whatever. Um, but in the middle of this game, Liam was wearing yellow shoes, and in the middle of this game, this mom on the other team just screams out in a very quiet moment someone stop the kid in the yellow shoes, which is my kid. And I was like, Oh, there's my kid in the yellow shoes. And just try, just try, you know? Um, because he literally plays like three hours a day every day, so just try. And so it was awesome. When the game was over, Liam said, Dad, did you hear what that mom yelled? And I said, The thing about the yellow shoes, he's like, Yeah, I'm gonna wear yellow shoes all the time now. Like, that's my thing. And I was like, Oh, I'm I am I am committed to this with you. Let's make this happen. So these are the shoes he's wearing this year. They're really cool. If you can't see them, you know, because I'm holding them, here's a picture of them, right? I found them online. And then check out the back of these. They say school bus. Somebody asked me why they say school bus, and I'm like, because my kid will take your kid to school. That's how this works. Okay? He's the bus driver. That's what he does. He takes him to school. Um, the funny thing, or not so funny thing, about these shoes, depending on how you look at it, is that I actually bought these for him a long time ago, way before he was able to wear them. Like, as soon as he said, I'm gonna wear yellow shoes, I was like, Yes. And I started looking online for yellow basketball shoes, and like I found these. I was like, those are incredible, they're amazing. They just don't fit them, they're like a couple sizes too big. And so a logical person would go, oh well, look for another pair. But I was like, you know, he's he's a kid, he's gonna grow. So I can buy him shoes that he doesn't fit into yet. He'll grow into them. It's gonna happen. And so I bought these. But once I crossed that bridge in my mind, I kind of live there for a while. And so every couple months, I would see another pair of shoes. I was like, oh, look at those, those are super cool, and and and and ooh, limited edition. That means they're gonna run out. I better, I better, you know, buy those. You know how you can talk yourself at anything? Like, really, if you think about it, I'm saving money by we've all done that. So I bought another pair. And then this happened a few more times, and I wasn't really keeping track in my mind. It actually got so bad that I was like, well, he's he's already stocked with shoes that are the next size up and the next size up. So then I'd see shoes and I would buy them for like three sizes up, four sizes up. Okay? Anyone think that's weird? Anyone? A little bit cool? I I agree. My wife would really agree with you. Um, she found out what was happening. I say found out because I was having the shoes delivered to the church, not to my house. Um, but uh, you know, happy wife, happy life, and secrets. I don't know. I was, I knew I was like, she's gonna have, I was trying to think of how I was gonna frame it, and I'm just being honest, guys. Don't do that, don't do that, okay? So she she figures it out, and I I came clean and I said, Look, I I have I've been doing this, I've been buying him shoes that don't fit him yet. Um, I have a problem. Help me. And she's like, Well, how many pairs have you bought? And I'm like, I really don't know. And so I went into this closet at home where I've I've I've been sneaking them in, and uh, and I counted ten pairs, ten pairs of shoes that he can't even wear yet. And my wife looked at me and she's like, Justin, you're a pastor! Like, what? How do you? But they're not all yellow. No, there's a few that are like not yellow for him to wear at other times, you know, like to practice and stuff. Which is that's a very but here's what I will here's what popped in my head, and this is totally just BS and me rationalizing it. But it sounded good. I said, you know, honey, sometimes God has blessings for us that he prepares ahead of time. And we're just not ready to receive them yet. Like we have to grow, and once we grow, we can step into those blessings, much like my son will be able to step into his shoes once he grows and is ready for them. And and she was not swayed or moved by that argument whatsoever. She said, Can we take them back? I said, No, they're from eBay. That's not how that works. And we're still married, so it's good. And I'm done, I'm done, no more new shoes. It's like, it's it's I realize I have a problem. Um, but that's that's that, okay? Here's why I talk about this. He he grew into those shoes, and even though my rationale is crazy, and even though, yes, I was trying to talk myself into a bad decision, and yes, it is ridiculous to have bought 10 pairs of shoes that a child of yours cannot even wear yet. That is silly, and I I acknowledge that. The reality is he will grow into them. There will be a day that he will wear all of those shoes because he's going to grow, because he's a kid, and kids just grow. There is some growth that happens automatically. There is some growth, there's some types of growth that we don't even have to work for. It just it just comes. He does he's not gonna have to try to go up a shoe size in the next year. It'll happen. It's automatic. The growth that Paul's talking about here in Ephesians, this this spiritual growth, this spiritual maturity, it's not that kind of growth. It's not growth that just happens automatically with no effort. It's not the kind of growth that just happens by accident. It's it's actually growth that requires faith. It's growth that requires commitment, it's growth that requires a lot. Sacrifice sometimes. It's growth that requires effort and selflessness. The growth, the maturity that he's talking about, it's not a kid's foot growing a size, it's it's something that takes a lot. If we want to be people, Christians, followers of Jesus, a church that is like the church described here, if we want to be full of maturity when it comes to our faith, growing together, and like it said at the end there, each part, each member doing what God has called them to do, aware of what God wants us to do and doing it so that the whole body can grow and be healthy, that's growth that's gonna take effort. That's growth that'll take commitment. I want to read real quick. This is a section from Acts chapter 2, it's verses 42 through 47. And guys in the back, I apologize, I think I'm springing this on you. This is describing the early church. All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship and to sharing in meals, including the Lord's Supper, and to prayer. A deep sense of awe came over all of them. And the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders, and all the believers met together in one place and they shared everything they had. They sold their property and possessions and they shared the money with those in need. They worshiped together in the temple each day. They met in homes for the Lord's Supper. They shared their meals with great joy and generosity, all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved. That's a description of the early church. It's no wonder that it exploded into a movement that has changed the course of history. That's a description of what it looks like to be a church that is mature in the Lord. And as I read that this week, as I'm preparing for this and I'm having to ask some hard questions, are we a mature church? And I don't just mean his hands, I mean the church in America. I want to ask your permission for something. I don't technically need that permission, but I would love to have it if it's okay with you. Sometimes to really grow, you have to be okay to be made uncomfortable. Sometimes to really grow, you have to be challenged. Like some of you have decided at some point in the past that you were gonna get fit physically. You wanted to grow in terms of your physical health, and that definitely meant physical discomfort, right? Some of you have gone to counseling to become emotionally healthy, and if you've ever done that, which I have many different times, like it's it's uncomfortable because you have to deal with things. If we're gonna become spiritually healthy, spiritually mature, if we're gonna grow in this way, we have to be okay with a little discomfort from time to time. So as I explore this and as we really look at, are we, ask this question, are we really mature in the Lord? Amen. That was a infant amen. Um as we ask that question, are we okay being challenged a little bit? Are we okay being stretched, being made a little uncomfortable? Are you guys okay with that? A little bit? Anyone not okay with that? Of course you're not gonna raise your hand because that would make you uncomfortable. Um, right? I want you to know, as I as I go through this, none of this is intended to offend, but there's also no way to talk about certain things without offending. But a sign of maturity is that we can handle it. A sign of maturity, or at least being open to maturity, is that is that we don't need people just to tell us that we're amazing and we're awesome, we're doing everything wonderful and good, but we can say, Can I grow? And maybe the question I should ask before I say, Do you do you mind being made uncomfortable is do you want to grow? Do we want to grow and mature? Are we happy with where we're at individually and corporately, or do we want to go places we've never been before? Do we want to have experiences with God we've never had before? You know, what if there's a spiritual shoe, so to speak, out there that God has prepared for us and we just need to grow into it? Do we want to grow into it and wear it? I do. Yes, I just connected that metaphor to this. I'm sorry, but but I want to grow. And if growth requires discomfort, so be it. When I look at the description of this church in Acts, ooh, all the believers devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching. Let's talk about that for a second. Devoted to teaching, devoted to learning. Is the church in America known for its devotion to learning, devotion to knowledge, devotion, for example, to knowing the Word of God? You know, as a church, if you're here and you're relatively new, we teach scripture. There's a big push in modern American church not to focus on scripture too much. In fact, you can you can hear really well-known pastors talk about it. Don't don't use too much scripture, it's gonna push people away. Well, if I don't use scripture, that means I'm gonna rely on my own observations. I'm 35 years old. I've bought 10 pairs of shoes that don't even fit my son. Do you really want to rely on my observational powers for wisdom in your life? Is that what you want? You know? Like observation has its place, and you can observe really good things, and that's fine, but revelation is greater than observation. And I believe that the word of God is revelation. I believe there are things in God's word that we would never be able to discern for ourselves through observation alone. And if we're really going to grow and mature in our faith, we need to know his word. Is the church in America known for its passion for the word of God? It's not. It's not. It's amazing. We might be part of, and by the way, this is not me just saying, hey, church stinks, it's all going down the tubes, whatever. There's people who say that. I don't believe that. I don't believe that. I believe there's great opportunity in our nation for the church to change and the church to be what it's meant to be, but it's gonna have to be because we as a church and other churches like us decide to do this. But the church right now in America is one of the most biblically illiterate churches that has ever existed in our nation. And it's not because we don't have access. I mean, we have we have bookstores filled with Bibles, every translation you could imagine. We have we have tools at our disposal. We we have Bibles on our phones now. I've got two or three different apps on my phone. I have an app that can translate whatever's in the original Greek or Hebrew language into English and give me all kinds of illustrations about that. I've got an app that has videos for every book of the Bible and describes the history behind them. I have I have the Bible app, I have the Read Scripture app, I have the Connect Bible app, I have all these apps, right? But how much time when I'm on my phone am I am I in the Word? The average American today watches between five and six hours of television a day, and the average Christian doesn't open their Bible maybe once a week. One in five Christians polled say they never read scripture, ever. Never read the Bible. Don't ever do it. And the vast majority of those who do, it's a verse here, it's a verse there. I want to show you guys a video. Um, this is something that I saw years ago, it really hit me hard. The quality is not awesome. It was captured from a phone. Uh it's a it's a group of Christians in China. They're not allowed to worship publicly in China, so they they they're part of what's called an underground church, meaning they meet in homes secretly because it can't be known that they're actually there to worship Jesus. In China, you can't have a Bible, Bibles are outlawed, and and you can be you can get in a lot of trouble for owning one, and if you bring one into the country, you can get in serious, serious trouble. But missionaries will smuggle Bibles into the country. And this is a video of a group of Chinese Christians receiving Bibles for the very first time. It's the very first time they've ever had the Word of God in their hands. I want you to watch this for just a second. It's very short, but it's really powerful. Guys, go ahead and play that. And you can tell you can tell the reverence, and the joy and the excitement that they have just to have scripture in hand. And you don't even have to wonder if any of them went home and read it that night. You know? And yet here we are as the church in America, and we have more access to scripture and tools for it than ever before, and and most of the time, in most of our lives, I know not all of us, but in most of our lives. Scripture doesn't even really ping on the radar for something we're going to spend time doing. If we're going to become mature in the Lord, we got to know Scripture. Because it says that those who are mature in the Lord, we read this, will speak the truth in love. How can you speak the truth if you don't know the truth? It says those who are mature in the Lord will no longer be easily swayed, easily led astray by every false teaching that comes their way. We live in a culture full of false teaching. We live in a culture full of these ideas that are so contrary to what Scripture teaches. It's not even funny. And yet, yet, we don't even recognize it half the time. We hear the same things said to us, and we nod our heads in agreement, even though what's being said is so completely contrary to the truth of God. For example, our culture, and I've used this before, it's kind of an easy example, but our culture says, follow your heart, do what's right for you. Do what's right for you. Do what feels good. What do you feel like your heart is telling you? I call that Disney theology because that's like Disney song stuff. You know, be true to your heart. There's a Disney song in a movie, I think it's Mulan, where it says, be true to your heart, open your eyes, your heart can tell you no lies.

Right?

Yet scripture says the human heart is wicked and deceitful above all things. But if we don't know that, we hear that in our culture, yeah, follow your heart, do what you want. Do whatever you want. By the way, anytime you see Satan tempt people in scripture, he's almost always telling them to do what they want to do. You know, he says to Eve in the Garden of Eden, as she's looking at the tree, he says, Well, what do you want? And it says, and the woman looked at the fruit and it looked good to her. You know, Satan doesn't really ask us to worship him, sing songs to him. He just says, Worship yourself. The elevation of self is always, always what Satan desires. And our culture sings about it, writes children's songs about it. Do what you feel is right, do what you want to do. What do you want? What do you feel is right? Those are the lies of our culture. But we hear that and we incorporate that so much into our thinking because we don't know the truth of Scripture. So we're not guarded against it. Listen to what Jesus says in Luke chapter 9. Once I find it, it's good, here we go. Then he said to the crowd, if any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way. Take up your cross daily and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. Does that sound like, hey, if you want to be my follower, just kick back, you be you, do your thing? How can I make you more comfortable? Now here's the thing I'm not saying this to like get in our grills and make us feel bad. But the question is, are are we known for our maturity in the church today? In the American church, are we mature? The early church was mature in that they were devoted to the apostles' teaching. By the way, we we call the apostles' teaching the New Testament. That's what the apostles' teaching became. Are we devoted to Scripture, to learning it, to knowing it, so that we can recognize the truth, so that we can guard against the lies in our world? Because, guys, I'm telling you, we live in a culture right now that is running a certain direction. It is not toward Jesus. And by the way, that's pretty much been every culture ever. But we don't want to get swept up with that. We've got to know the truth. And there are these issues at play, and there are politically incorrect issues to talk about. But there are these issues at play in our culture, and it's amazing if you study the statistics of the number of people who are part of the church that have the same opinions as the rest of the world. Things like abortion, for example. By the way, I have very good friends who've had abortions. Um, if that's if that's you, there's there's no shame, there's no guilt that's intended. In fact, we partner with the Hope Center across the street, which is a crisis pregnancy center. They're amazing. One of their greatest ministries is that they provide counseling to people who have had abortions to help them have healing from that. We actually have a group that's getting ready to start here at his hands for that same reason. If anyone's ever had an abortion and would like to talk about that and have healing through that, because oftentimes people carry guilt and shame, and God does not want you to carry guilt and shame. Period. Right? So I'm not talking about this to personally offend anyone, but let's just talk about this as an issue. If you study the number of believers who agree with the practice of abortion, it's amazing. The statistics are high. It's outrageous. I mean, there's really very few behaviors or or or or things in our culture that are as antithetical to scripture as that. Because scripture teaches us that God is the author of life, that he alone has the authority to decide when life begins and when life ends. And here we are as a culture trying to like thread the needle on, well, when is it really a life? Like that's the discussion. How do we know if it's really a life? Well, um, is it alive? Yes. So it's alive. Is it a human? Absolutely. Genetically, 100% human. So it's a it's alive and it's a human, but somehow we've convinced ourselves that it's not a human life. What? If a germ was discovered on Mars tomorrow, every single headline would say life discovered on Mars. And yet our culture tries to get us to say, well, it's not that we're anti-life, we're pro-choice. Lies so clever, they sound like the truth. Okay? But if we don't know the word, we won't be guarded against stuff like that. It's just, and I know it's politically incorrect and all that. There's so many other other examples in culture that we could talk about like that. But the point is, if we're gonna be mature in our faith and actually guarded against this stuff, we got to know the word. And you have it. You have it. You don't need to come here on Sunday mornings to learn scripture. I mean, hopefully, I can read it and teach you and give you different perspectives on it, show you you know pictures of shoes and stuff, like really important stuff like that. But but you don't need me to know the word. You have it. If you don't have a Bible, we'll give you one, download one on your phone, but but dive into it. Be like those brothers and sisters of ours in China. Recognize the beauty of what you have and the wisdom that's there, and the the fact that if you want to be mature in your faith, if you want to, if you want to be committed to growth, you have to know truth. The early church was committed to the teaching of the apostles. One of the other things it talked about was generosity. That they got together, they shared meals together, they sold what they had, they gave their money to those in need. This is kind of interesting. If generosity is one of the marks of maturity in the church, is the American church known for maturity? The average, in the average church in America, 7% of the congregation gives financially. 7% of the congregation gives and contributes to what God is doing in the church. And at his hands, we beat the average. We're at like 12%. And I don't say that by the way, there's no thermometer that's about to be wheeled onto the stage right now. But that is the truth. It's interesting, for this church to start, a couple named Stephen Susan Craig gave $16 million. They gave $16 million to start this church. And they asked for nothing back in return. Nothing. And it was not an investment. If it was, it was a really bad investment, you know, if you're looking at financial return. But if you're looking at impact, it was the best investment they could have made because thousands of people's lives have been changed. It's awesome to see what they did. But $16 million. In the average Christian household today, the average Christian household that gives, so we're talking about the 7% that give. The average amount that's given is 2.5% of the income. That's the average. During the Great Depression, the average Christian, the average Christian household that gave gave over 3%. During the Great Depression. Like we just went through a recession a few years back, and at the height of the recession, one in ten people lost their job. The Great Depression was one in four. You had food lines, you had famines, you had food shortages, like you know, we didn't have a big weight loss epidemic in the last 10 years because food wasn't scarce. We had some inconveniences, we had to we had to lessen our lifestyles a little bit, many of us, but we we weren't wondering if we were gonna eat the next day. And so, how how crazy is it that the Christians in the Great Depression, the worst economic time in the history of our nation, gave a higher percent of their income to the work that God is doing in this world than than this generation does. If I'm just saying, if maturity is marked by generosity, are we mature? And you know, it's just it's amazing how many people say, I can't afford to. You know, I don't I don't really talk about giving that much. I really should because Jesus talked about it a lot, but there's really four different types of people who either who either do or don't give. Okay, you kind of divide it a line. There's those who don't, there's those who do. If you don't, it's either because A, you're a selfish jerk, okay? And you just don't care about other people, you don't care about anyone but yourself. The only thing you're consumed with is what you want, and like that's all you care about, right? You're either a selfish jerk, and the cool thing is I don't think anyone here is a selfish jerk. Is is anyone a selfish jerk? No, okay, good. Um person number two, and this is like the most, this is the common one, is I want to, I just can't afford to, right? Which is silly. It really is. Because if I say to my my children, you know, daddy doesn't have a lot of time, and so I really want to spend time with you, I just don't have a lot of time to spend. So one day, when I have more time, then I'll give you my time. But I can't afford to right now. If that's my mentality, guess what will never happen? I will never spend time with my children. Because life does not organize itself around what's important, right? So if you're if you're going, man, I want to give, I want to be a generous person, I want to commit to helping people and serving people and give to those in need, I just I'm just waiting until I have more money to do that, like, okay. It's just not gonna happen. That's not how life works. So there's the that don't, then there's those who do, and some who do give out of convenience, like when I have a little extra, and then there's those who give out of commitment. Out of commitment. And that's very few people. And I really didn't even know how few people it was until I became a pastor. And I was like, oh wow. Because that's just that's the reality of the church. It's not just our church, it's like it's it's every church. It's a very small percentage of people who go, yeah, I'll do that. And to those who do, awesome. And to those who don't, again, no guilt, no shame. I trust the Lord will speak to you. I really do. But I'm just saying, if if mature faith is marked by generosity, is the church in America mature? Not as mature as it as it could be. What about what about serving? You know what we've never had once as a church? And we're an awesome church, by the way. This church rocks. If you're here for the first time, this is not by the way, normally I'm like really funny and lighthearted, and I tell stories about shoes and stuff like that. So normally it's like really, everyone's laughing, it's great. Um, you have to come back. But like, but you know what we've never had? Ever. We've never had like too many people volunteering on a team. That's never happened before, ever in the history of our church or any church. I've I'm friends with lots of pastors. I've never heard a pastor say, Man, we had a really rough Sunday. Why? We had like three times the number of volunteers, and we were trying to figure out how we're gonna give these people something to do. Like it's never happened, you know? But very, very few Christians serve in their churches. Very few. It's just like it's a very small percentage of people who serve. And yet Jesus said to his good friend Peter, Peter was dejected, had really messed up, had really had failed as a disciple in a lot of ways. And Jesus comes to him after he's resurrected and he encourages them. They have breakfast together. It says, after breakfast, John 21, after breakfast, Jesus asked Simon, Peter, Simon of son of John, do you love me more than these? Yes, Lord, Peter replied, You know I love you. Well, then feed my lambs. He's talking about people. Jesus told him. Jesus repeated the question, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Yes, Lord, Peter said, You know I love you, then take care of my sheep. A third time he asked, Simon, son of John, do you love me? And Peter was hurt that Jesus asked the question a third time. He said, Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you. Jesus said, then feed my sheep. Jesus says, if you love me, then serve people. Serve them. Because Peter was really down at this point in time and he was fishing, he was like doing his own thing. And Jesus says, if you love me, serve people. I want you to know, those of you who serve on teams, you guys are amazing. Or if you serve somewhere else, if there's another ministry that you serve at, you are you are like, there's so few of you. And it's like the the 100% of the work being done by by 15% of the people. It's amazing. Keep serving. And if you're here and you don't serve, I'm not saying you don't love the Lord. I'm not saying that. Jesus is just saying that. You know, I'm not really just playing with you. No, but what he is saying is Peter did love him. But Jesus is saying, well, if you love me, then you will serve my people. You will look at your your own gifts and abilities and say, how can I use this to bless others? How can I use what you've given me to teach, to encourage, to shape. If we're going to be united as a church, that means we've got to be be committed to maturity, to growing together. I'll go back to verses 14 through 16 in Ephesians 4. We'll start to wrap up since we're on such a high note. Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won't be tossed and blown about at every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly as each part does its own special work. It helps the other parts grow so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love. I want us to be healthy and growing and full of love. But for that to happen, according to Ephesians, according to Scripture, each of us has to do the work that God has for us to do. When we each do what God tells us to do, the whole body, it grows. I believe that this church is meant for something really special. I believe God wants to do something in this country. I mean, we we look at this country and it's so easy, and I'm not one of these people that turns the news on and is like, oh, look at how because the news just tells you all the horrible things happening, right? It's a very, it's a very specific view. You have to be careful about that. But there are things that that are happening, and the world has no clue what the answer is. There's no clue. None whatsoever, but we know it's Jesus. Our world, our country right now, has a spiritual void, and laws passed are not gonna create heart change. But if our culture can can know Jesus, if our culture can see Jesus and really see him for who he is, there are people in our culture right now who have rejected Jesus, but they've rejected Jesus because the Jesus they've been shown is not the real Jesus. And that's because the church that they looked at was not reflecting the real Jesus. They looked at an immature church focused on themselves, focused on silly fighting, focused on selfishness. Like, like let's be honest. One of the main reasons that the church in America is known for its immaturity is because the main question most Christians ask is, how does this benefit me? When I write messages, I have to think through the idea of well, well, I get to this point, I gotta answer this question that's on people's minds. How does this help me? Why is that the question? Why is that the question that we're asking? Why aren't we we we hearing scripture and saying, How can this help others? How can I take this and use this to encourage my brother and my sister? Why do we always think about ourselves? A famous pastor once said, for every one look itself, take ten looks at Christ. And yet in our culture, it's like every one look at Christ, we we take ten looks itself. Church anymore has become a place where people don't go to learn about God, they go to learn about themselves. And it's it's gotta change. There's been this huge shift in church culture in America that that has to change. And it started by being about relevance. We gotta be relevant to culture, we've got to make sure that we we don't disconnect with culture, but what it became was just consumerism. I got an email this last week. I'm ranting, and I really apologize, but worship team came out, so I finish. Um I got an email this last week from a Christian organization. Um, when you're a pastor, you get put on email lists, and there's all these companies out there to try to help churches and all this kind of stuff. And the title of the email said, How to get into your church members' pockets. That was the title of the email that I got. I didn't read it, don't worry. Um but I don't even have to read it because I know what it is. It's just a bunch of consumerism, it's a bunch of like marketing strategies and business strategies because that's what churches become in a lot of people's eyes. Churches treat Christians like customers. You know, that's why I joked when I read Ephesians 4. If there, if you didn't sense a little bit of uh frustration in my voice when you know the job of a pastor is to entertain the people to keep them coming back, or the job of the pastor, you know, because some of you are gonna be like, he wasn't as funny as he was last week, you know, whatever. Um, the job of the pastor is to get people excited. No, it's to equip people. Right? To equip people. That that's I will stand in front of God one day, and he's not gonna ask me, Did you have him rolling in the aisles? He's not gonna say that. He's gonna ask me, Did you equip my church to do the work that I had prepared for them to do? And I have to answer that question. And sometimes, I'll be honest with you. There have been seasons where I would not have wanted the Lord to ask me that question. But I have to be committed to your growth. I have to be committed to my own growth so that I can help you grow. We all have to do that together. It's not me versus it's it's all of us. We gotta grow. If we're gonna be the church, let's be the church Jesus envisioned. You know, my my wife's my wife's grandfather became a Christian when he was a young man and he had a lot of things in his life that didn't fit that lifestyle and eventually became a missionary. But early in his in his Christian walk, he just said, and he says it so simply, he's got this wonderful southern accent. He said, You know, I just decided if I'm gonna be a Christian, I'm gonna be a good one. Well, if we're gonna be a church, let's be the church Jesus envisioned. Like I said, the the average the average church thing that's happening right now, like especially with big thriving churches or so-called thriving churches, is that they they're really good at creating the the best experience for people. And we want to create a great experience. We do. But but it's gotten to the point where churches treat Christians like customers. And sometimes I think it's like that because Christians act like customers. You know, if you go and look at Facebook reviews of churches, which is a really funny thing to read, by the way. Um it's like actually hysterical sometimes. Um I was like, what in the world? What would it have been like if Jesus would have had a like a review? You know, like he would have had some really bad ones. Really, really bad ones. But how how crazy it is that we even have this mindset today that, like, you know what I'm gonna do after church? I'm gonna go give them, I'm gonna give them a three-star rating because I think they have some things they could get better at. You know? Now, am I gonna help them get better at it?

No.

Am I gonna contribute? No. But I'm gonna complain. So it's this weird chicken and egg thing. Is is the church treating Christians like customers creating a problem, or is it Christians acting like customers? I don't know. I don't have the answer, I have no idea. I'm 35, I don't know what I'm doing most days. I've bought 10 pairs of shoes that don't even fit my child. Like, I don't know what I'm doing in life. But but what I can tell you this clearly is that Jesus did not call us to be customers. He did not call us. Maturity does not mean you're a really good consumer. Maturity means you are a contributor. You are saying, God, what you've given me, I will use. I want to see you glorified. I want to see you praised. I want to see you made more famous. I want to see people know you. I want to live my life in such a way that people look at me and they see you. That's what Jesus prayed for. That people would look at the church. Amen. People would look at the church and they would see something real. Let's be real together. It's time. It's time. Let's grow. I'm serious. Let's be the church because maybe, just maybe, guys, absolutely, maybe just maybe. And again, I'm gonna go to this metaphor. Maybe, just like this pair of shoes did not fit my son six months ago. Maybe God has a destiny for you. Maybe God has a destiny for us that we're just not ready for yet. Maybe he has something for you to do in your life, and maybe he has something for us to do together that to be honest, it's amazing, it's awesome. If we could see it, we'd be like, whoa. But we're not mature enough yet to handle it. And so the question is, are we going to mature? Are we gonna grow? Are we gonna do what's necessary to grow? Are we gonna value his word? Are we gonna be people who are generous? Are we gonna stop asking the question of how does this impact me and my schedule? And oh, I don't know, I don't like getting up early, and you know. And I'm almost done. I was almost done. But like, I was talking to someone that was serving on a team a year ago, and this was like a really tense moment, and they were complaining about the fact that to serve on this one team, they were gonna have to miss two songs during one of the services. And they're like, I just don't want to miss worship. And I I am, if you know me well, you know I can really put my foot in my mouth. Like, I'm I have a gift for that. I was like, oh, you don't know what worship is. Oops, I'm sorry. Uh there's a better way to say that. You think worship is singing songs? Did you know that for most of the history of the church, like if you go Old Testament, you know what worship was? Killing a goat. Which I'm so who's glad that we sing songs now, right? Amen. But you know why? You know why worship was killing a goat? Because worship meant sacrificing something. Worship meant giving something up. Worship meant God, you're so amazing. What can I give to you? You're God, you're everything. What do I have? What do you want? You want my shoes, you want my money, you want my clothes, you want my house, you want my life, my time, my talent, God, you're God. What do I have that I can give to you? But instead, the church in America is like, you're God, and I just don't want to miss my favorite song.

Come on, let's be the church, let's grow up, let's do something, let's do something together.

Here's how we're gonna finish. Usually it's with a song. Today it's gonna be with Lord's Supper. Okay, we've got bread and juice on the sides of the room, and here's why we're gonna finish with this Acts 2, 42. All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship and to sharing in meals, including the Lord's Supper, and a prayer. The beautiful thing about Jesus is that where do we start? You know, we can talk here about how we're not there yet. Maybe you're sitting here and you're like, oh man, I don't serve, I don't give, I don't read the word. I'm horrible. No, don't think that way. Don't, please don't. Because you're his. You're his, and and he loves you. You know, I don't rate my children every day based on their performance. And if I did yesterday, I would have it would have been like survivor. One of them would have been voted off the island yesterday. You know? It just would have been what it was. No, no, this is where this is where you are, this is how you grow in life. You know, it's just it's it's how you grow in life. You look at yourself and you go, okay, this is where I am, and I'm not where I want to be, but this is where I am. Or where do I start? And how amazing is it that where we start is to to get together, to have fellowship, to share meals in life together, to pray. It says, including Lord's Supper. So where I want us to start, it's not some giant pledge, it's not some giant line out there for you to join a team, which by the way, though, if you want to, it'd be awesome to see a big line of people going, like, where can I serve? Um, but that's not the the that's not the the first place to start, even. It's us just to share together, to say, you know what, let's do this together. I'm gonna commit more to my own growth than I have before. And if you'll commit to your growth and your maturity, and if you'll commit to your growth and your maturity, and we can commit together and say, let's do this together, then we're gonna see some things happen. So let's go get some bread, let's go get some juice, let's do this. Think of this as the appetizer before lunch, and then we'll come together and pray and be done.