THE CHURCH - KINGDOM MATH SERIES

Transcription

1 Good morning Life Fellowship. It is good to see you today. Listen, I have to start this message off by first telling you how thankful I am to Pastor Dan and Pastor Ben for doing such an outstanding job in the pulpit recently. I know I have shared with you different times before that we are going to be moving toward having more diversity, because we believe it is not good to just have one person do all of the preaching. If a lead pastor gets hit by a Mack truck, and we haven t developed layers to take over, that is not healthy for the church. Not that I want to get hit by a Mack truck, but we are passionate about working together as a team. We know Jesus is the head of the church and we just get to be a part of it, but I believe that with building things it is so important that we make sure we do it in a team based fashion. So I am very thankful for them. It is nice to be back with you guys today. I spent most of July doing my research for my PhD, which is on the problem of guilt and Christian theism. And I have been looking at all of the different naturalistic explanations from Nietzsche and Darwin and neuroscience. I did a 10,000 word chapter on Freud, and now I only have two more chapters to go. And then I took the family to Turks and Caicos where there was some beautiful water. You cannot believe how beautiful that water is. But my goodness, it is not the cheapest place in the world. But I am excited to be back, and we are doing this series called Kingdom Math. Pastor Ben did a great job kicking off the first of the Kingdom Math series last week, talking about how God s glory is better than our story. And today we come to this idea that a church is less than the church. By that we mean that there is one universal church that we are all a part of, and then there are many local churches that are a part of the church. And if we are going to achieve the mission God has for us we are going to have to be doing our work together. So without further ado, let me pray first and we will get started. Father, thank you for allowing us to connect today. Use this message to transform our lives. In Jesus name. Amen. If you have been in the church awhile you know that from time to time I will throw an art piece up that I feel is important, or that might have a message for us to consider. And you are probably all familiar with Vincent Van Gogh s Starry Night. As we consider this particular painting, what we notice is our eyes are drawn to this sky that is brightly lit up. We can see some random lights in a little town, but what we notice most is that the church has no lights coming from it. One theologian talked about how Vincent Van Gogh in this stage of his life was struggling with the local church, and how the local church was to be the light of the community, the light of the world. It is as if perhaps Van Gogh in this painting is saying: Page 1 of 13 pages 8/12/2018

2 I don t see the difference that the church is making in this community, and where we are looking now to naturalism for our hope. The local church is always to provide hope for the world. It is to be a place where our lives can be transformed. But sadly many people don t wake up on a Sunday morning and say, We have to get to church if we are going to keep on this change project. I can t wait to show up so that I can experience some life change. Rather we can almost go to church out of habit; it has become part of what we just do. And somewhere along the line our heart for God can just go by the wayside and we just kind of wake up on Sunday mornings because we are creatures of habit. And we arrive week after week after week at church but it doesn t touch us in a visceral way. We do not feel God s presence. We don t sense His grandness. And so what ends up happening then is many people think church is irrelevant. We start thinking like Van Gogh, where we wonder, Is the church making a difference or are the lights out? And then people will end up taking a different approach. Some become separatists, and they break off from the world. They believe the purpose of the church is to basically isolate from culture, and that can create judgmentalism. It can create a sense of self-righteousness when they become separetistic, and end up like Simeon Stylite. What a cool name. What s your name? I m Simeon Stylite. Well, Simeon Stylite lived in the 5 th century and he was known as a pole sitter. That is to say that he climbed atop a 70 foot pole and he did not come down for 37 years. That is basically Page 2 of 13 pages 8/12/2018

3 where he spent the rest of his life. Why? He was separating himself from the culture. He would preach the gospel at them, but food had to be lifted up to him. I mean for 37 years there wasn t even a bungee jump, folks, can you imagine what that would be like? So you have the separatists, but then others go to the other extreme and they become enmeshed with culture. They get so involved with it that it is hard to tell the difference between their lives and the culture. And we can go between these extremes, like with ultra-liberalism, where we just try to fit in. But see, the call that we have as Christians is not to fit in but to stand out, not to get enmeshed, but to make a difference, to transform our city, to transform our neighborhood. It is turning our stranger hoods into neighborhoods. It is turning the market place into our mission field. It is every person on a mission for Christ. So we step back and we go - what is it then, how are we to live, how do we protect ourselves from this irrelevance? In a poll taken, George Barner found that six out of ten Americans believe the church is irrelevant to their lives. It is not making a difference. That is a shocking statement. I came across some thoughts many years ago from some bumper stickers and some sermon tag lines, and this is sometimes the way the culture perceives the church. Here are some of them: Turn now or burn later. Well, that connects with my heart. I would love to know where they go to church. Jesus -tougher than hell. That was a bumper sticker message. Is that the one you want to go with? Of all the messages that we can give, that is what some people come down to. This car is prayer conditioned. Golly, where can I get one of those prayer conditioned cars. We end up sounding so cheesy sometimes, right. The world comes out with Guitar Hero and then we come out with Christian Hero. The world says you need mints for that bad breath. No, we don t, we need Testaments. Here are some sermon titles from the LA Times. Check out some of these because they should make you really want to get up and head to church. A God forsaken true believer and a benevolent heretic. Yes, now I just have to go to church. Here s another one: There is no such thing as a rubber ducky. Well, I am certainly just inspired by that sermon title. Page 3 of 13 pages 8/12/2018

4 You have probably seen something back in the day where people have made faux pas in their church bulletins. For example: What hell is like - Special music by our organist. The destiny of the dead - Deacon Ordination. Old fashioned hellfire preaching - Evangelist Glen Ice. Here is one more: Oakland Tenth Avenue Baptist Church - Reverend Cecil Johnson preaching in the morning and evening: In the AM Ten virgins and a crisis. In the PM I am only one man, so what? So as a church then, we have to figure out what our mission is in this world. How are we to live? And for us to kind of crack that code we first need to engage God s heart. And to do this I am going to take a little bit of time to paint the history of God s heart for the nations. I will come to Acts Chapter 2 where the church began in a little bit, but I think it is apropos to go back to the beginning. So let s walk back into history together and we would see that the Bible says, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And God said, Let there be light. So light comes into this dark world. In Genesis Chapter 1 and verse 26 we learned that when God creates mankind, humanity, that we were created in His image. And we are to be image bearers, we are to be reflections of His passion, of His heart in our world. We were created perfectly in a perfect environment, but the heart of mankind wanted to rebel against God. And in rebelling we are ousted from the great Garden. We know that the story of Adam s family is highly dramatic and highly tweaked. Through Adam eventually what happened was God would call a person by the name of Abraham, formerly named Abram, out of Southern Mesopotamia, and God would form a nation through him. He said through Abraham, All nations will be blessed through your descendants. The first basic institution that was set up in the book of Genesis is marriage. God creates man and woman in His own image and He says to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The second thing God does is He creates the institution of a nation. He sets up a nation with Abraham as the father of it. God wants to bless all people through him. Abraham has a son named Isaac, and Isaac had Jacob, and Jacob had 12 sons that would eventually become the twelve tribes of Israel. Then Jacob s son Joseph would be sold off by his brothers into slavery where he would spend time in Egypt. But guess what Joseph did? He lived as light in a dark world and found favor before the Pharaoh. And because Joseph was committed to God he was used by God to make a difference for not only the nation of Egypt but for the known Page 4 of 13 pages 8/12/2018

5 world at the time. Joseph held fast, living out his purpose, trusting in God. Four hundred years later Moses comes on the scene after things had grown progressively worse. God s people were now in Egypt in bondage and slavery, and God raised up Moses to lead the people out of Egypt and into the wilderness. And at first at this time the people are praising God because they had seen the miracles and the parting of the Red Sea. But shortly after that the people lost sight of God s greatness and His purpose. They threw a big jewelry party and they melted their gold into an idol and it was Mardi Gras at Mt. Sinai. After Moses died, Joshua would lead God s people out of the wilderness and into the Promised Land to experience the life that God had for them. But did they experience it? No, because into the time of Judges the Bible said the people did, Everything that was right in their own eyes. They didn t want God s way, they didn t want to make a difference, they didn t want to be the light of the nations; rather they wanted to do what seemed right in their own eyes. After the time of the judges, the people got restless and they looked around and saw that all the other nations had a king, so they wanted a king for Israel too. They wanted to be like all the other nations. And God reluctantly gives them Saul as their first king. Then they had David and then Solomon. But do God s people hold fast? Did this solution work? No, the kingdom is divided into two parts - the Northern Kingdom becomes Israel and the Southern Kingdom becomes Judah. The people still would not walk with God. The great hound of Heaven all the way through this grand narrative has been pursuing them, showing them that He wants them to live distinct, showing them that He wants them to make a difference in the way that they live, showing them that He is the King and they are to model His Kingdom principles. After the nation is divided, in 722 BC the Assyrians take the Northern Kingdom into captivity because they were living just like all the other nations. And God did not want to put His stamp on them because if they were not going to live it, it was going to send mixed messages. If they wanted to live like all the other nations, then they could go be a part of it. So they went into captivity. Then in 586 BC the Southern Kingdom, who hadn t learned the lesson either, they went into captivity as well. And all along in the story we find in Scripture how this epic is unfolding. There are prophets warning the people, telling them not to live this way but to live for God or this is going to happen. But the people just persisted in ignoring God and wanting to be like the other nations, wanting to fit in and not stand out. And ultimately captivity befell the people. Page 5 of 13 pages 8/12/2018

6 But there was always that hope that the Messiah would come. And He did come. The Lord Jesus came, the second person of the Trinity, in the incarnation, and He comes on the scene of human history and announces that He is the Starry Night. He comes into the world as the light of the world. And then He tells His followers that they are to be the light of the world. They are to make a difference. Jesus would go to the cross as the perfect image of God, as God in the flesh. He was the exact representation of God in His being according to Hebrews Chapter 1 and verse 3. He lived the life we were meant to live in perfect harmony with the father. And then He dies in our place. Three days later He rises from the dead in order to set our mission straight. After various appearances He finally announces that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon them and they will be His witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth. And Acts Chapter 2 unfolds with that exact happening. The Spirit of God falls upon them and the church begins. Now we have the church, this third institution, which is an organism. God wanted to change culture through marriage and family. He wanted to change culture through Israel. And He wants to change culture through church. The Spirit of God shows up and the church begins. And we are going to look at the ideal church. But first we need to say this is what the church is not. The church is not a building; rather the church is a body of collective believers that come together to make a missional difference. And in the church when we come together we are to look to Jesus as our moral exemplar. And as we live for Him and believe in Him and walk with Him, He saves us out of darkness. As we focus on Him as the light our starry night lights up more and more and people can see the imago dei, the image of God in us. The Greek word, ekklesia, means called out one. And that is what we are as the church. That is what church in the Greek means, ekklesia, the called out ones. We are called out of the darkness into the light to make a difference in the culture. So what can we know about the church? Not everybody that is a part of the local churches is a part of the universal church. Only those who really have placed their faith and trust in Jesus are a part of the universal body of Christ. It is possible to sit in church year after year all your life and to be outside of the true body of Christ. Jesus is the head of the church and we are the body of Christ. We see these local churches like in Revelation Chapters 2 and 3 - Smyrna, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. We see that Paul wrote 13 letters to local churches like the churches at Corinth, Philippi, Galatia and Thessalonica. These were local churches and each of these churches had different issues that Paul was writing about. What kind of a letter would Paul write to this church? What would Paul tell us Page 6 of 13 pages 8/12/2018

7 about being on a mission? We can look at these different churches and learn God s heartbeat for the nations, His passion for missions. So in Acts Chapter 2 the Spirit of God shows up and 3,000 people are added to the church that day. In Galatians Chapter 4 and verse 4 it says, In the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son. The fullness of time was what? It was when everything was ready for the gospel to be spread out. In Acts Chapter 2 it is Pentecost. And Pentecost means that all the different people from the known world would come together to Jerusalem. The Roman system was now in place so when the Spirit of God fell the people could take the gospel back to their cities, back to their communities and make a difference with the gospel. Let s take a look at this early church in Acts Chapter 2 and see what the gospel did in their lives. Let s take a peek at the difference these Christians made after placing their faith in Christ in order to see the way God desires us to live. When we talk about church, the church we all long to be like is the Acts Chapter 2 church. At this time they didn t have the New Testament, they didn t even have the first book of the New Testament. The church was just starting, but when we look back we can see a church just simply loving God, loving people, celebrating the gospel and the gospel spreading powerfully. When we think we want to see a church like Acts Chapter 2 what we think it represents in a lot of ways is new conversion. A lot of our Christian life individually starts off the way this church did - on fire, sold out, utterly and completely committed. But as the story goes on, as the drama unfolds, something happens where the habit turns into mundane, complacency, indifference, and we lose that early conversion passion. And when we look at these believers it is an early conversion story. Let s begin in verse 42. And they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching. So the early church might not have had the New Testament yet, but they were hungry to learn from the apostles. Tell us about Jesus. What was it like walking with Him? What did you learn from Him? They were eager to learn. So the early church was passionate. They weren t the kind of church that didn t care about doctrine but just wanted to have a love fest. They weren t the kind of church that didn t want to learn, no, they wanted to know. You know I thought my grandmother lived the most boring existence. She would sit on her couch and just read all the time. And I remember thinking that she looked miserable. I didn t understand how she could sit with a book in her hand all the time, because I was a guy who had never read a book until I was 21 years old that I can remember, except Freckle Juice by Judy Blume. I even got sent home from school as a kid because I glued a book together. I hated reading. Page 7 of 13 pages 8/12/2018

8 But becoming a Christian did something. It made me passionate about learning. Why? It was because I wanted to know who this God was that saved me. From the onset of my salvation I was on a quest for truth, wanting to know more about God. It has been said before that the only thing needed to make a philosopher is wonder. And something happened in my heart at conversion where God gave me an incredible sense of wonder and curiosity where I just wanted to study in order to know what people thought about God and what the Scriptures had to say about how He has revealed Himself. I can remember even as an early Christian just constantly asking people questions. What about this? What about that? I was just hungry to know how this all fit, how this worked, how this happened, what this is about. I was just eager, reading and studying and memorizing verses, so I could show up at my Small Group and look for ways to insert verses that I had memorized throughout the week. I just really wanted to share those things because I believed those things could make a difference. I can remember filling out those prayer cards that we had, writing them out week after week after week. I would put those prayer cards in and I would believe with all of my heart that God was going to answer those prayers. I just believed strongly in the power of prayer. God so wants us to stay hungry for Him, because we can lose sight of that in our walk sometimes. So these early Christians devoted themselves to the apostles teaching. We need to make sure we get our orthodoxy down before we get concerned about how to live it out. So often people say they want to just live it, but what are they living? We have to define it. What does it mean to live it? What am I living? And out of that understanding there should be transformation. It is not just listening to the word and so deceiving ourselves but we have to do what it says. We need to live it, but we can t live what we haven t learned. So the early Christians devoted themselves to the teaching. And they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. This was a church that was passionate not just about education but they were also relational. They devoted themselves to each other. They were connected. And so often what can happen is we can become either/or. We can become passionate with the head - education, or we can become passionate with the heart - relational. But God wants us to have integration between the head, heart and hands, in the way that we think, the way that we connect and the way that we make a difference in the community. The early Christians were connecting around doctrine. They were spiritual conversationalists. It wasn t just connecting at their small groups just to hang out and talk about sports and eat snacks. It was bigger than that. We should eat snacks and talk about sports, but listen, our life group experiences, our spiritual connections should be Page 8 of 13 pages 8/12/2018

9 where we learn to become spiritual conversationalists. Where we get together and we talk about things more substantive than just how much money we are making, what job we have, what vacation we are taking, how we look, how we don t look, what music we listen to, or what movies we want to see. See, what happens if we are not careful is we will be living just like the world out there, talking about the same things as the world does but in the name of Christianity. We do come together as Christians, but this early church was passionate about spiritual conversations, because they knew that fed them, it excited them and it was flowing out of their lives. What happened as a result? Let s look in verse 43: And awe came upon every soul. They were in awe of God. Their jaws were dropping. They got together and they were excited to be Christians. They were excited about God and who He is and the difference He could make. It was big, it was real and it was contagious. Awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. The apostles were doing miracles like Jesus had done. And because miracles confirmed Jesus as Messiah these miracles were confirming the apostles as messengers and eyewitnesses of the Messiah. And still today if we are going to reach the community, it starts with awe. We can do things for the community as it relates to philanthropy, but it is bigger than that. And at times we have to figure out how to re-claim our awe, how to hallow God s name, how to get that sense of wonder for who He is back in our lives. And here is the deal. We cannot expect our city to stand in awe of a God that we are not awed by ourselves. If we want our city and our community to be in awe of God then we must be in awe of God. If we want people in our neighborhoods, in our homes, in our workplaces, in the marketplace to stand in awe of God, they need to see that we are in awe of God. But sadly we so have bought into this narrative of tolerance where we don t want to offend, we don t want to step on toes, and we think that the greatest goal in life is being liked. And if our goal is to be liked my fear is that people won t fall in love with our Savior. Now I am not saying that we should go out and be jerks. We should be very loving, but our goal should be bigger than that. It is bigger than fitting in, it is standing out. We are to be in awe for who God is; that is what He desires. Let s look at verse 44: And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. They didn t hold to any rights. They didn t think of life as mine, but as ours. It was God who had called them together and it was a sharing with extravagant generosity in that community in the way that they lived. Page 9 of 13 pages 8/12/2018

10 Verse 46: And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts. They didn t have a whole lot, but they were glad. Thankfulness was their story. They were driven by principles bigger than materialism. They were driven by principles bigger than beauty, bigger than power. They were driven by principles of standing on the promises of God, having a sense of awe for who He is, praying together and connecting with each other. They shared as need was revealed. And those values served to transform the early Roman world. Verse 47: Praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. The fruit of this church was contagion. What they were experiencing was spreading. The reason that Christians were added to their church day by day is because people wanted what they had. What did they have? They had simplistic lives where they didn t hold onto their valuables because they didn t find meaning and purpose in what they had; rather it was more important to share. They found a sense of gladness and gratitude in their lives. They were overcome with joy because they had been forgiven. They had awe. They were thankful and they praised God. And those things were the principles that were making a difference in that culture. And when a church figures that out, they will stand in awe of God, their gatherings will be more than just social fests to do everything that they would see in the world. They no longer will be bereft of spiritual conversations but powered by God. But when we fail to get together and share what God is doing in our lives, when we go to work, and we go in our community, and into the world, and think very little about how lost the world is, and very much about our own daily problems, our hearts begin to shrink and something begins to die in us. This was a church obsessed with God. This was a church that stood in absolute jaw dropping awe of who He was. And as a result of that vision of God, and that belief in God, they held their hands wide open, they came together frequently and they couldn t get enough of their community. And when they got together they would stop and pray. They would start bragging on God and praising Him. Did you hear what God did this week? Do you know what He did? And more people kept coming because something was real. But the fact of the matter is we can lose that sense of wonder. We read on in the book of Acts and it is not long before their own problems ensue. There would be divisions and uptightness as they lost focus. Peter gets rebuked by Paul at one point because he lost sight of the message. And you know what - that can happen to us all. In fact it does happen to us all. We all have seasons where we get empty, but God wants us to be inspired by something great. Page 10 of 13 pages 8/12/2018

11 Pastor Ben talked about this last week as he preached about the vision of God, recognizing who He is and His glory, and realizing that in His holiness and in His glory we are so far separated from Him. It is so tough to live this Christian life alone, and that is why we need Life Groups. That is why we need other Christians. And folks, we don t just need Life Groups where we get together and watch sports, listen to music, and talk about everyday stuff. We need to go after each other s hearts. We need to call the imago dei, the image of God, out in each other. We need to want more. And if there is no fire in the group then we need to set ourselves on fire and let it spread. Ask God to do it in us, so that people can be added. So what is our local church about here at Life Fellowship? Well, we want to pursue at all costs a passionate God centered life. It all begins by focusing on Him, getting that vision of Him. The L-I-F-E means L - living in community, and they were relating to one another. They were frequently connecting day by day. The I in Life means - investing in growth. They were investing in growth, learning the apostles teaching. The F in Life means - finding our purpose. They were doing that as well, helping each other out, sharing their belongings and giving to one another. And the E in Life means - embracing the Great Commission. That is exactly what they were doing, praising God, spreading the Good News, and people were being added. But you see we live in a time where it is no longer respectable to be a part of a church. There was a time in America where everyone was a part of a church. They came dignified, dressed up, and the churches would grow. And there have been times, and there still is, where churches can grow on gimmicks and marketing and slickness, but that is not the kind of stuff that lasts when things get hard. By the way, these people were suffering. They understood it deeply but they still were glad, they still were happy. And when we don t have a vision in our life that transcends the ability to navigate our lives in the midst of suffering, if we don t believe that can happen, we will get empty, we will hang by a rope. When we think about the Scriptures, folks, we want to grow a church the right way. And this church started with prayer. In Acts Chapter 1 they were calling out to God, they were pleading with the Spirit of God to fall on them. And that is when God meets His people. He said, My house shall be called a house of prayer. God wants us to be a praying people. God wants us to seek Him. As they prayed, the Spirit of God fell and transformation happened. And when we really get together striving to seek His heart it can make a difference. And frankly, it can be tough, exhausting and tiring. But the Great Awakenings and the great revivals are what our nation needs right now. This church is a church and less than the church, and if we keep doing our separate things, keep having our different methods, we won t bring about change. But if Page 11 of 13 pages 8/12/2018

12 we have a posture, a lifestyle of praying and pursuing God it could be the international vision. If people would come together and say what we want is Him, what this nation needs is Him, if we can get that vision God will be satisfied to meet us with His presence. Folks, we can talk about reaching this culture for a long time, but the greatest thing that is going to reach this culture is becoming Spirit empowered. We need the Spirit of God to fall fresh on our lives, on our church and on our nation. The Spirit of God in one moment can do more than a lifetime of study, a lifetime of trying to figure it all out, a lifetime of feeling desperation and anguish, when what we need is a heart that returns to Him. When we get in awe other people will get in awe and that is the way we want to grow. We need to become a church that stands in awe of God, that praises Him, that gathers to pray, and that is thankful and generous. The way to grow our church is remembering that LIFE stands for - L - lives in community, I - invests in growth, F - finds our purpose and E - embraces the Great Commission. That is what we should desire to do. Let me share two questions with you for reflection. First - what difference would it make if our church didn t exist in our community? I do believe that this church has done amazing things together for helping out the homeless, for helping families with adoptions and foster care, with Operation Christmas Child, with giving extravagantly to different things, and with Love Life Charlotte and Habitat Humanity. This is a generous church, but I think we should always keep that question before us - are we making a difference in our community? Secondly - how is God inviting you to help build His church and make a difference in our community? Jesus said He would build His church, but are we personally helping to build the church? Have you figured out your missional niche? How does God want you to be a part of the church? Are you a spectator or are you in the game? Is church a catering service where you come to get a weekly piece of meat, or are you living it? Folks, the church has met its greatest opportunity in America because it is so difficult right now for people to feel like they can be a Christian and still be acceptable. Now it is going to get costly. And in the midst of it being costly what s going to happen is the real bride, the real church is going to stand up. Those who really want to live for Him, those who are willing to say they are in, those who want to be committed to Jesus. God has a part for you and for me and all of us to play. I have shared with you that this year my missional niche focus is working with alcoholics. We started an AA program on campus, and now we have about 20 alcoholics showing up every week at these meetings. Isn t that exciting? I am putting my focus there and wanting to reach people in that way. At some point we want to start a Celebrate Recovery program this Page 12 of 13 pages 8/12/2018

13 year. And then people in AA who might not have a clear picture of a higher power will be welcome to come to our Celebrate Recovery here and learn about Jesus Christ and how He can make the ultimate difference in their recovery. What is it that God is calling you to do to make a difference in this community? Where have you been wounded? Where have you been hurt? Where have you suffered? Where have you struggled? What are your strengths? What are your gifts? Put it all together and think about it and use your story. Lastly, Paul in writing the book of Philippians said this: Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world. Paul was an even earlier Van Gogh type in his writings, telling us that we are to be the lights in the world, that our lives are to be stars, and that we are to shine. May God use us to be that kind of church. Let s pray. God, I thank you for today. I thank you for allowing us to connect. I pray that your word will be powerful in all of our lives. God, forgive us for our sins, forgive us for our lukewarmness, forgive us for when we lose sight of you, forgive us for our passion when it wanes. Help us, God, to see you. Meet us in this church and fall fresh on us in our worship. Meet us in our Life Groups, and meet us in our times of devotion with you. God, please change our nation, change our city, change our homes and change our lives. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. The preceding transcript was completed using raw audio recordings. As much as possible, it includes the actual words of the message with minor grammatical changes and editorial clarifications to provide context. Hebrew and Greek words are spelled using Google Translator and the actual spelling may be different in some cases. Page 13 of 13 pages 8/12/2018