Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] A couple weeks ago, during our hosting time, we did what we call the Pulse Survey, where we want to get our finger on the pulse of our church and kind of figure out, like, how are we doing at maturing as followers of Jesus and growing in our relationship with him.
[00:00:17] This last Pulse Survey, I asked if we could do a short answer question because I wanted to hear from you.
[00:00:25] If you had some things that you'd want to change about Journey, what would it be?
[00:00:30] It was interesting. I told a friend of mine that we were gonna do that, and her response was like, whoa, that's pretty brave. Cause we have about 1,000 to 1,200 people that fill that survey out. And she said, it seems like you're just giving them an opportunity to put a target on you and to give you a piece of their mind.
[00:00:49] Well, I think there's a couple of things that I believe to be true. And one, and I say this all the time around our staff, is that reality is our friend.
[00:00:58] Like, if you're thinking something out there, it doesn't do any damage for you to just turn your cards face over. And we know we just bring those things into the light. So reality is our friend. And the second thing that I believe to be true is that I haven't seen the results. But whatever the results are the things that you think we need to do better in order to grow and mature and be the kind of church that Jesus wants us to be. I don't see that as a me problem.
[00:01:26] Like, it's not like you have all these thoughts and ideas and feedback, and I need to carry that by myself or our staff need to carry that by ourself. It's not a me problem.
[00:01:38] It is a we problem.
[00:01:42] That's how I see it.
[00:01:43] And my thinking is shaped by the book that we're walking through, the book of Ephesians, because this isn't a book about me. It is a book about we. What does it look like for us to. To become the church that Jesus has called us to be? That's why the very series name is becoming who we are. When you read the book of Ephesians, you can't ask the question, God, what do you want me to do? You've always gotta think about it through the lens of God. What do you want us to do? It is a weird.
[00:02:19] So when we get to where we're at right now in the book of Ephesians, we're starting the beginning of chapter four, and there's a major transition that Paul makes at the beginning of Ephesians chapter 4. Up until this point, Paul has been talking about who we are and whose we are in relation to God.
[00:02:39] And it is this identity that has been given to us. This is how Paul says it at the very beginning of Ephesians chapter 4. He says, As a prisoner for the Lord, then I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling that you have received.
[00:02:57] There is a calling that we have. This is that chapter one through three, identity that we have. Reminder. Paul has told us, you have been chosen by God. You have been adopted and into the family of God. You are then heirs of God, co heirs with Christ.
[00:03:19] You've been forgiven, completely forgiven, all of your sins, past, present, future, in God's eyes. Your identity, your calling, says that you are holy and blameless.
[00:03:32] You have been united with Christ.
[00:03:36] And what that means is that everything that is true of Christ is now true of you because of your union with him. And you were united with him by grace, not by anything that you've done. It was a gift that was given to you by grace through faith, meaning that we received that gift by putting our trust in what Jesus has done for us. We bow our knee to him, we choose to follow him, and then for us, that everything changes.
[00:04:10] But here's what Paul wants us to understand as we start in to Ephesians chapter four is this calling, this identity means that we are in Christ. But that also makes us not only united to Christ, but we are then united to everyone else on this planet that is also united with Christ.
[00:04:33] It's not a me.
[00:04:34] It's not just me.
[00:04:36] It is a we.
[00:04:39] And Paul's going to help us understand that if we're going to become who we are intended to be, if we're to become mature, if we're to grow up in Christ, we're going to have to change our mindset from me to we.
[00:04:55] And that's why Paul says, if, if you have that calling, this is what we're going to do. We're going to live a life worthy of that calling. That's the maturity that we're called to. And this maturity involves unity.
[00:05:13] It involves how we relate to one another.
[00:05:18] It is a we.
[00:05:21] When we go to verse, oh, maturity equals unity. Should have had that slide up there.
[00:05:27] As Paul continues In Ephesians chapter 4, he immediately starts to talk about this life that's worthy of this calling. Immediately he starts to talk about how we relate to one another. He says, be completely humble and gentle. Be patient.
[00:05:47] And then he says this bearing with one another Love.
[00:05:52] Come back to that. He says, make every effort, like, work hard at this. Work hard to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. It is not a me, it is a we.
[00:06:06] But I want to go back to that phrase, bearing with one another in love.
[00:06:12] An appropriate or an accurate translation of what Paul writes there would be putting up with one another in love, learning to deal with one another in love.
[00:06:29] What does that mean?
[00:06:31] That means that we've got to figure out how to deal with each other's failures, and we all have them. We've got to figure out how do we deal with everybody's flaws and if we're going to be mature.
[00:06:46] Maturity requires unity.
[00:06:50] This is what I love about the scriptures. It is nothing if not honest.
[00:06:58] This is not easy, this maturity that we're called to, this unity that we're called to. We should expect.
[00:07:05] Paul wants us to understand. We should expect challenge and difficulty to try to step into this in our life.
[00:07:14] You might have heard the term church hurt people that have been hurt in and around the church. Let me just tell you, church hurt.
[00:07:23] It is a real thing.
[00:07:27] Why?
[00:07:29] Because people hurt people.
[00:07:35] Pastors hurt people.
[00:07:40] People hurt pastors.
[00:07:45] We're all in these relationships with one another where there is always the potential to hurt one another.
[00:07:52] And let me just say this.
[00:07:54] If you choose to be around Journey Church long enough, I promise you. I promise you that I will do something that will disappoint you.
[00:08:03] I promise you.
[00:08:05] And here's the thing. Because we don't do a good job, in my opinion, oftentimes at figuring out how do we bear with one another in our disappointment, in our flaws, in our failures. What we do is we just go to the other church down the street. We never talk about it. We don't talk to someone, we talk about them.
[00:08:22] We'll share our grievances on social media, but we just go to the next church down the street. We don't learn to bear with one another in love.
[00:08:33] It's always interesting to me. Oftentimes you meet people that are new around Journey, and after a while they'll come up and they'll share with me just how excited they are about Journey and share with me just how awesome Journey is. I'm just like, yeah, we're all right. We're pretty great.
[00:08:52] And then they'll say, let me tell you about the church that we came from.
[00:08:57] And they start to complain about that church. They start to complain about that pastor.
[00:09:03] And I just kind of look at my. I was like, yeah, I give Them about six months.
[00:09:07] About six months. And we will do something that will make me like that pastor, me like that church. And they will move on down the road because we don't know how to bear with one another.
[00:09:19] See, when Paul writes to like, we can go to the church down the street, Ephesus, they didn't have that.
[00:09:27] They were the church. They were the church.
[00:09:31] There wasn't anywhere for them to go, so they had to work it out. For them, maturity meant unity.
[00:09:39] And friends, when we don't learn to bear with one another in the midst of difficult things, we never learn the maturity that Paul wants us to have. We. We never become who we are intended to be as the Body of Christ.
[00:09:54] As Paul continues in this text of Scripture, he starts to talk about the oneness, this idea of unity.
[00:10:01] This is what I think is very important for you to catch. He ties the unity that we are called to to our identity, who we are as a follower of Jesus.
[00:10:14] Here's how Paul says it. He says it so clear and he says it so repetitively. He says, there is one body and one Spirit. Just as you were called to one hope when you were called one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
[00:10:43] You see what Paul was trying to communicate to us.
[00:10:47] We're one.
[00:10:49] What is that oneness rooted in?
[00:10:53] Paul wants us to understand that it is rooted in the character of God.
[00:10:59] See, as we look at this verse, we look at each verse individually. Verse 4. Paul is talking about the Spirit. We are united by the Spirit. The Spirit comes and indwells every true follower of Jesus.
[00:11:15] He makes us one together.
[00:11:18] But it's not just about what the Spirit does. It is about what the Lord does. And that's referring to Jesus. There is one Lord, there is one faith. Everyone that is in Jesus comes to Jesus through the exact same faith. We put our trust and our hope in what he did for us on the cross. Not what we did for ourselves, only what he did for us. We put our faith in him. And it says, one baptism.
[00:11:46] Our baptism. We just did this a week ago. A baptism is us reminding ourselves and declaring to the world that we are identifying everything about our life with the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. We're reminding ourselves of. Of our identity, one Lord.
[00:12:05] And lastly, Paul says, one God and Father of all.
[00:12:12] Our oneness, our oneness, our ability to be together, to be unified, is rooted in the very character of God. Think all the way back, if you remember back to Genesis, the Creation story.
[00:12:29] The text says, let us make man in our image.
[00:12:36] It's the Trinity. The Trinity created man and created us to be a unity in a diversity. Because that's what God is. That's his image. We are made in his image.
[00:12:54] God is three distinct persons that lives together in a diversity, in a relationship of love. That's the image that we were made in.
[00:13:04] So that's what God wants us to do, to live that diversity in a unity.
[00:13:11] Friends, that's why Jesus, at the very end of his life, when he was praying the last night that he was with his closest followers and he was praying not only for them, but he was praying for everyone that would come after them, every true follower of Jesus, what was he praying to the Father? Father, make them one.
[00:13:32] Make them one. Just as you and I are one, you and me and I in them. Make us one.
[00:13:42] Jesus prayed for that.
[00:13:44] It's his heart, for his church, for his body.
[00:13:50] But here's the truth.
[00:13:53] Unity is hard.
[00:13:56] You know what comes natural to us? Division.
[00:13:59] I mean, just look at it. In the world around us, division comes naturally to us. We don't have to work at it. It just happens.
[00:14:07] But unity, the kind of unity that Paul is talking about here, it's not natural, it's supernatural. And it's only accomplished through the Trinity working in and through God's people. Friends, that is us.
[00:14:24] And the reason that we maintain a belief that there should be a unity is that we are unified together in Christ. And that unifies us and ties us to every other person, to every other person that is also united in Christ.
[00:14:43] It's not about me.
[00:14:46] It is about we.
[00:14:48] We can't read the book of Ephesians and think about, what does this mean for me? It is always about, what does this mean for we? It means this for us.
[00:14:59] And so there's some implications. Friends, sometimes you can hear people like, well, what do we need to do to try to create unity?
[00:15:06] Don't think about it that way. It's not something that we create.
[00:15:10] It's something that exists.
[00:15:12] Just like our identity. When we've talked about our identity in Christ, it's not something that we've worked for or earned. It's what God has declared to be true about us as his followers. Friends, unity fits into that same category. God has declared that we are one in.
[00:15:32] So it's not about creating unity, but it is about something.
[00:15:36] It is about us valuing and maintaining what God has said is true.
[00:15:43] We need to value it. It needs to matter to us. That's why Paul would say, make every effort to live out the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. Make every effort, value it, maintain it, because that's what it means to live a life that is worthy of the gospel of Christ.
[00:16:04] Unity is about moving from me to we make every effort.
[00:16:15] Paul, as he continues, he balances this idea of unity with an emphasis on diversity.
[00:16:25] And not just diversity, but responsibility. Every one of us is different from one another, but every one of us is responsible for the unity that God has called us to.
[00:16:38] I want you to hear this.
[00:16:39] When we say unity, unity does not mean in any way uniformity.
[00:16:46] It doesn't mean that we all have to be the same. In fact, Paul wants us to understand we are completely unique in how God has made us.
[00:16:56] So he talks about unity, but then Paul uses the word but, which means there's a contrast. But to each one of us, grace has been given. And when we hear that word, grace, we need to think about the word gift.
[00:17:10] A gift has been given to us as Christ apportioned it.
[00:17:15] We have a gift, a unique gift that God has given to at least one that God has given to each person uniquely.
[00:17:26] You don't lose in this idea of unity, you don't lose your individuality and you don't lose your personal responsibility.
[00:17:35] Have you. Have you ever heard this rally that scientists have said that there are no two snowflakes ever that have been the same?
[00:17:45] Just in terms the conditions that create the snowflakes, they are all unique.
[00:17:51] Think about the number of snowflakes that there are.
[00:17:56] God can't bring himself to make two snowflakes the same, much less people.
[00:18:05] And earlier at the nine, I said, snowflakes don't even matter.
[00:18:09] And some skiers were calling me on that snowflakes do matter. They said, we want lots of them.
[00:18:16] But think about that. No two snowflakes can be the same. I mean, God could have 50 years ago put a snowflake in the Himalayas and put one up in the Bridgers last week, exactly the same, and no one would catch him.
[00:18:32] But he can't even bring himself to make two snowflakes the same.
[00:18:38] Paul wants us to understand we are unique, we are diverse, and how God has made us.
[00:18:44] So, Paul continues, he says, so Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and the teachers. What Paul is simply trying to say is that there's lots of different ways that God has wired people personally. And if you go to lots of different letters of Paul, there's lots of lifts of the different kinds of gifts, which aren't the only gifts there are. It's just a representative of all the kind of gifts that God gives to people.
[00:19:12] But then he tells us we are to be responsible to do something with our gifts. It is to equip his people for what?
[00:19:23] For works of service, for worship service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.
[00:19:34] That's our purpose, is it would bring our gifts to accomplish those purposes in and through the church.
[00:19:42] Friends, when the church is accomplishing what Jesus wants it to accomplish, it is like the best potluck ever. Oh, I love me some potluck.
[00:19:56] What makes potlucks awesome?
[00:19:59] Everyone.
[00:20:00] Everyone. They. I don't know how everyone decides what they bring, but most of the time it's like, what do I like to make? What am I good at making? What is it that over time I've heard people say, I love that thing that you bring.
[00:20:12] We tend to bring those things. And everybody brings their things. They bring their best. And there's oftentimes these long tables with all this food.
[00:20:23] So awesome.
[00:20:24] The challenge. The challenge for me with the potluck is you need to, like, see everything that's there first.
[00:20:31] Because what happens is you start maybe on one end, and you start filling your plate with all these things that look good. And you get to the end and your plate is completely full. And then right at the end, you find fried chicken. Oh, homemade fried chicken. Come on.
[00:20:48] How awesome is fried chicken?
[00:20:52] Potlucks.
[00:20:54] The best potlucks.
[00:20:56] It's a picture of the best churches.
[00:21:01] What makes a potluck bad?
[00:21:04] Nobody brings their best.
[00:21:06] In fact, some people don't bring anything. There's not enough food.
[00:21:12] Not everybody eats.
[00:21:14] But a good potluck, everybody brings something. Everybody feasts. And if you've ever been to the end of a good potluck, there's so much left over. Everybody eats. Nobody is left unfed.
[00:21:29] The problem is that churches can be like bad potlucks. Lots of people showing up saying, feed me, feed me. It's your job.
[00:21:41] And there's not enough people showing up saying, how do I feed others?
[00:21:48] That's when we're modeling Christ. Christ didn't come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. My life for yours. That's what maturity looks like. That's what unity looks like. Going from me to we and then Paul helps us understand what's the result.
[00:22:10] Until here's where it goes. Until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attending to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
[00:22:26] The result all, there's unity and there is maturity.
[00:22:34] That's the goal of the church.
[00:22:38] With every gift that we've been given, we're to ask ourselves, how do I bring that gift to the church?
[00:22:48] And I would just say this. Sometimes we get overly concerned about, well, what is my gift? Well, you can try. You can ask that question. But I think a better question is simply to just ask, how can I be a gift?
[00:23:00] How can I be a gift? When I show up, it might not even be what I think I'm good at, but how can I be a gift into the life of other people in and around our church?
[00:23:12] The apostle Paul, when he talks about this idea of unity, creating maturity, he oftentimes uses a metaphor that ties it to how we grow physically, how we grow up physically. Because we all start out. We all start out as an infant or a child. And here's what an infant or a child is saying.
[00:23:37] They're saying, feed me.
[00:23:40] And that makes sense to us. Children, infants, they need to be fed. If you just leave them on their own, they will not be taken care of. They will not be able to survive. They need someone to help feed them. In the same way, in our spiritual world, in our church, there are young people, young believers that need someone to come around them, to walk with them, to help them learn. What does it mean to know Jesus and follow Jesus? We need people to come alongside.
[00:24:07] But ultimately, as we start to grow, we start to head toward adulthood, maybe what we would call a young adult.
[00:24:15] And a young adult says, I feed myself.
[00:24:22] I can actually feed myself.
[00:24:25] You know, it's cute when a little kid is in a high chair with a bib.
[00:24:30] When you're 18, if you're in a high chair with a bib, it's not cute.
[00:24:36] Something's broken.
[00:24:40] You should be able to feed yourself.
[00:24:43] Ultimately, we get to that place as we grow and mature, where it isn't just about me. With little kids, it's always about me.
[00:24:51] But as you mature, it's about others. It is about we.
[00:24:56] You actually start to look for, how can I serve? How can I bring my best? How can I bring my gift to the church? And here's what you're gonna find out as you start to do that, as you start to serve the life of other people, you're gonna find out that it's not just output, that you actually grow and there's actually joy in serving other people.
[00:25:23] That's what it's like, you get to a place where it's like, I just wanna serve people.
[00:25:28] It doesn't matter if I get thanked. It doesn't matter if there's great gratitude out there. It doesn't even matter if anybody even knows that it happened. I have great gratitude, joy, and getting to serve others the way that Jesus has served me. I had a friend that told me one time, and I've never forgotten this. And I guarantee you, you're not gonna forget this either.
[00:25:48] He said, when we get to that place where we serve without expecting gratitude, he says, it's like peeing in a wetsuit.
[00:26:01] Nobody knows what you're doing, but it makes you feel warm all over.
[00:26:08] Good luck getting that out of your mind for the rest of the day.
[00:26:15] But we don't stop just at serving, feeding ourselves. We become a spiritual parent where we actually think about, what does it mean to feed others that we actually think about in an environment like this?
[00:26:33] I've been fed. I know how to feed myself. Who needs me to come alongside them and feed them?
[00:26:41] My life for yours.
[00:26:44] And again, you will know this if you've walked with Jesus and if you've sought to try to build into the lives of other people, invest in the lives of other people, you get way more out of it than they do. God shows up in your life. You get to see the hand of God at work in the lives of other people. And it grows our faith. It feeds us.
[00:27:05] That's why in John 4, when Jesus was talking to the disciples, he says, my food is to do the will of him who sent me.
[00:27:13] It's to serve others, to do the things that Jesus did. That is our food. Think about the Great Commission.
[00:27:21] Jesus invited the disciples, and us as disciples, as followers, apprentices of him. He said to them, therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Meaning, invite them in. Help them identify with the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. Evangelism.
[00:27:45] But then he says, teach them. Teach them to obey everything I have commanded you, even to the end of the age. And then he makes this promise. Jesus said, surely, surely I am with you even to the end of the age.
[00:28:04] You want Jesus to be with you in a special way. Be involved in his work, in the lives of other people. Evangelism, discipleship, investment, thinking about, not me, thinking about we. How can I invest in the lives of others?
[00:28:23] This is the challenge. In the church.
[00:28:28] There are so many people that never really reach maturity as a follower of Jesus.
[00:28:34] Because their whole life is always about, feed me, feed me. I want to learn more. I want to grow more, feed me. They never think about feeding others.
[00:28:45] It's like the Dead Sea.
[00:28:48] Why is the Dead Sea dead?
[00:28:51] Lots of inflows, no outflow, and it just gets stagnant and rots.
[00:29:01] Friends, our faith can just get stagnant. And we get bored and we rotate when we don't think about, how do I take what has been given to me, the things that I have been fed? And I start to think about, how do I feed others.
[00:29:18] I want to continue a story that I started a couple weeks ago, because this story just keeps going.
[00:29:24] I shared about a friend of mine that had a friend in jail that he led to faith in Christ. And immediately he was thinking about the there are other people in here that don't know Jesus. Help me figure out how do I tell them about Jesus immediately. It wasn't just about him being fed. It was a how do I start to feed other people?
[00:29:44] His. His whole story was so encouraging to me that I. I just. I. I need to go talk to him. I need to go to the jail. I need to meet him. I need to hear more of what's happening inside of him. The day that I was supposed to go and see him, we found out that he got moved to another facility and in another part of the state. And I didn't get a chance to go see him.
[00:30:03] So bummed.
[00:30:04] Wanted to just encourage him for all the ways that he was encouraging my heart with his willingness to begin to invest in the lives of other people.
[00:30:14] Well, the story continues this week. He's in this other facility, and so he starts to ask questions around there. How many people around there know Jesus? He says, there's lots of people in here that don't know Jesus.
[00:30:25] And he said, and I'm talking to them about Jesus and they're asking me questions. And he tells my friend, you know what? Actually, I know the answers to some of the questions that they have, but they need more. He's like, I'm gonna start a Bible study in this facility. He was like, buddy, can you get me some Bibles? And my friend was like, I don't know how. I will figure it out. I will get you Bibles. I will drive them up there if I have to myself.
[00:30:51] This guy has been a follower of Jesus for about 15 minutes, and he's gone from a child to a young adult to thinking about, how in the world can I invest in the lives of other people?
[00:31:06] What if.
[00:31:08] What if everyone was like that, what if everyone in the church said, it's not about me, it's about we.
[00:31:19] How can I invest in the lives of other people? Friends, the church would be absolutely transformed if we would just figure out how to go from me to we, every one of us.
[00:31:32] Paul gives us a picture of what it looks like when we go from me to we.
[00:31:39] As he continues, he says, then.
[00:31:41] Then we will no longer be infants.
[00:31:45] We're not just children that are like, feed me, feed me, feed me. No. Children that are tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.
[00:31:59] No, that's not how we're gonna be. Instead, we're gonna be in each other's lives instead, speaking the truth, in love, bearing with one another in love. We will, will grow.
[00:32:14] We will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is Christ.
[00:32:24] From him the whole body joined together.
[00:32:29] Joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work, the whole body, every supporting ligament, each part.
[00:32:45] Paul wants us to know if this is going to work.
[00:32:48] It's an all play.
[00:32:51] Nobody sits to the bench, nobody rides the bench in this enterprise. It is about everyone doing their part, everyone saying, I'm going to move from me to we.
[00:33:04] Paul tells us this is what is required for us to live in the kind of unity that is representative of the unity that Jesus declares is true of us.
[00:33:14] You know what Paul doesn't say?
[00:33:17] Paul doesn't say that we need to like each other.
[00:33:21] He says we need to bear with one another.
[00:33:24] Sometimes we've got to bear with one another and people that are difficult to love. I can be difficult to love at times, but God still wants you to to bear with me even when I'm not likable. You don't have to like me and you don't have to be like me or like each other.
[00:33:40] You don't even have to agree with one another.
[00:33:44] But Paul says you've got to put up with one another.
[00:33:48] You've got to bear with one another in love.
[00:33:54] And if I could try to just say it as clearly as I can.
[00:33:59] If you're a follower of Jesus and you've decided to unite your life with Christ to take on his identity, at that moment, friends, you and I, we lost our right to write off anyone on this planet that is also united to Christ. That's what Paul Wants us to know you lost your right when you grabbed a hold of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
[00:34:34] So what do we do?
[00:34:36] What do we do if we want to take a step toward the kind of unity that Paul is talking about here?
[00:34:43] Two words. Two words. And I think this is important. Start small.
[00:34:50] Start small. Think mustard seed.
[00:34:53] That's what Jesus tells us, is how the kingdom grows. Think the smallest of things, that if you just take it and you plant it and you fertilize it, it actually can grow big over time. Small is big in the hands of a big God. Start small.
[00:35:10] Start with one person, because every one matters. Everyone that's part of this family matters to God, whether you know them or not.
[00:35:22] And I imagine you. You could be sitting here and you're just, like, looking around at the people in this room and you're thinking, I. I don't even know these. I don't even know anyone's name in this place. I just kind of come in and I go, you know what? I think your small thing to do is learn a name.
[00:35:42] Ask them their name, introduce yourself.
[00:35:45] I'm not trying to be facetious. I'm not trying to be sarcastic. That small thing can be a game changer.
[00:35:53] Now, I know that there are some of you introverts out there that are already in your mind saying, hey, Siri, show me churches near me that won't make me talk to other people when I come. I know that that's true. It can be uncomfortable, but that's where we start. We learn someone's name, and then you know what, you know a name.
[00:36:13] Ask a question.
[00:36:15] Ask a question about their life. Learn something about them. Maybe ask another question that gets you to the place where you actually learn their story.
[00:36:24] You can. Where they're at in this life, whether they're even a follower of Jesus or not. Where they're at in their life and on their story.
[00:36:33] And when you get really bold, ask him, how can I pray for you?
[00:36:38] Is there any way that I could pray for you? Because here's what happens, friends. When we start to get to that level of vulnerability and people start to share, we actually start to learn the needs of people.
[00:36:52] And when we learn the needs of people, it gives us the opportunity to meet the needs of people.
[00:36:58] And those are the kinds of things that build the unity that Paul's talking about.
[00:37:04] Maybe your next step is just to find a way to serve. Like, I don't know exactly what my gift is, but I want to be a gift. When I show up at Journey, I'm going to look around, look for a way that I can be a gift into the lives of other people. Jesus didn't come to be served, but to serve and to give his life for others.
[00:37:24] When we follow him, we serve other people.
[00:37:29] Some of you, your next step is you've got to think about how do I learn to come alongside other people and help them grow. Who might be children or young adults that need someone that maybe has been fed their whole life. Maybe they need to be fed. Who is that?
[00:37:45] And friends, I'm just gonna, let's just be honest with each other. There are some that you've just spent your whole life being fed, being fed, being fed, being fed.
[00:37:57] And you know, I don't even have to tell you, the spirit is already saying something to your heart. It's time to feed others.
[00:38:04] Invest your life into the lives of other people. Lead a group or whatever it looks like, lead another person, invest in another person. Give your life to others. For some of you, maybe your next step is to repair a relationship.
[00:38:18] There's brokenness that you have in a relationship with another follower of Jesus.
[00:38:23] Your next step is to say, I'm sorry, I was wrong, will you forgive me? Maybe that's your next step.
[00:38:31] Some of you, your next step might be, I just need to express my need to another person.
[00:38:37] Express my need to another person who might be able to help me.
[00:38:43] I don't know what it is for you, but ask him.
[00:38:46] He knows.
[00:38:48] Ask God's spirit and start with one.
[00:38:53] Start with one. Be one with one. Start there, mustard seed. Start small.
[00:39:02] It may seem small, but in the kingdom of God it's not small.
[00:39:06] It's because every one matters.
[00:39:12] One step of moving from a me to a we, everybody taking those kind of steps over time turns us into a church that is becoming who we are.
[00:39:28] We're becoming the kind of church that Jesus died for.
[00:39:34] Become who we are. Me to we.
[00:39:40] Let's pray.
[00:39:49] Holy Spirit, what I know is true is that you live in the hearts and the lives of everyone that has bowed their knee to Jesus.
[00:40:00] Holy Spirit, you speak.
[00:40:03] You speak to our hearts and minds. You speak through your word. You speak to our hearts. You speak in so many different ways. Holy Spirit, speak everyone that is here, tell them what their next step is. What is it that you are asking them to do? Not what Bob is asking them to do, not what Journey is asking them to do. Holy Spirit, what are you asking, asking us to do? Because, Holy Spirit, you are the one that ties us all together. You know the needs of every person in this place. Help us.
[00:40:36] Help us to see those needs and to meet those needs and to be a part of moving from me to we. Holy Spirit, do this by your grace and for the glory of Jesus.
[00:40:50] Jesus, it's in your name that we pray.
[00:40:54] And all God's people said, amen.
