I want to talk to you this morning about building a culture that combats the enemy schemes.
Building a culture that combats the enemy schemes.
Talked about some of these things, or a lot of these things at Bellicose the last couple weeks.
So if you guys heard that, it's going to be some similar stuff, but hopefully specifically to our church, Christ Church.
So, essentially, you know, we're in the first few months of this church plant.
And a lot of what we're building into it now will be stuff that will be just caught more in the future than it will be intentionally built.
Culture is caught.
And so there's certain things that when we're intentional to build into our culture now, eventually we won't have to try very hard to build them.
And new people will come in and just be, oh, this is normal.
This is what you do.
And that's the benefit of culture.
That's also the drawback of culture.
Because when you build the wrong things, people catch the wrong thing.
Okay?
So, this time of our church life, building into kind of the wet cement of our foundation, is really important that we build well.
And that verse says, the one that I preached on when we sent you guys all off, that we should be careful how we build.
Okay?
And so, when we're culture building, it's good for us to think, though, too, it's oftentimes we think, oh, the culture of our church will be determined by the culture of our church.
Sounds redundant.
But really, there's two kind of things that factor into it.
One, the culture of our own homes always affects the household of God.
Okay?
Does that make sense?
So, like, the qualifications for an overseer and elder in 1 Timothy 3.
He, speaking of an overseer, must manage his own household well, with all dignity, keeping his children submissive.
For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care for God's church?
Okay?
And then he says later in verse 12, when he's talking about deacons, similar thing.
Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well.
Later, in verse 15, he says, he speaks of the church as the household of God, which is the church of the living God.
Okay?
The household of God, which is the church of the living God.
And so, oftentimes, we've gotten into this deception that we can separate the household, our own household, from the household of God.
When in God's economy, in his scriptures, he's saying, if you can't care for your own household, you can't care for the household of God.
And so, ultimately, when we're building into the culture of a church, we're always building on those two fronts.
We're building in households and then the household of God.
And you can't just build the household of God and not pay attention to your own household.
The household, your personal household comes first in divine order, according to 1 Timothy 3,
in order for the culture of the household of God to be what it's supposed to be.
You can't care for the household of God if you don't care first for your own household.
And so, a lot of this starts off with us just saying, okay, we need to make sure we're building these things.
There are demonic schemes against us.
The devil has a vision to thwart what God is doing.
And one of the main ways we combat it is by having a house in order, both our personal house, and then a household of God in order.
Does that make sense?
You follow me on that?
Okay.
So, but I wanted to go into a little bit more specific of what the schemes of the devil are that I see really coming at us right now.
And I think it's important for us.
He's not going to be new to you, but I think when we talk about it together, it kind of opens our eyes to see what we're up against
and maybe give us a little bit more sobriety.
So, 2 Corinthians 10, I mean, sorry, 2 Corinthians 2, 10 to 11, in the NIV says,
Anyone you forgive, I also forgive.
And what I have forgiven, if there was anything to forgive, I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake,
in order, okay, so answering the question why, in order that Satan might not outwit us, for we are not unaware of his schemes.
Okay.
The devil has schemes.
Okay.
We shouldn't be outwitted by his schemes.
In other words, we should know what his schemes are.
We should not be unaware of them.
Ephesians 6, 11 says, put on the whole armor of God.
Why?
So that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
There are demonic schemes that are against us, and we are to stand against them.
Okay.
So, the way I kind of envision this and see this is that there's three things that the devil has been throwing at us and our culture big time these days.
First one is trying to get us, all three of them are isolated, fruitless consumers.
Okay.
The devil is trying to get us isolated.
He's trying to get us to not bear fruit.
And he's trying to get us to just only think about consuming.
This is kind of an onslaught of our culture.
It's coming at us harder than ever before.
And if we're not aware of it, it'll come into the church as well.
And I'll talk about that in a second as well.
So, first one, isolated.
You see this all over in kind of our culture.
You see it with social media.
You can be in the same room with a bunch of people, and everybody's on their phones, right?
It just, it isolates us.
I'm not saying that means that that's bad in and of itself.
In fact, a lot of times what it's really just exposing is what's inside of us rather than the evil of, like, social media.
It's really the evil in our own hearts that gravitates towards that isolation.
That's the desire of our flesh, to not care about other people, to only care about ourselves.
Social media, you see this in what's happening with the government shutdowns that we had with COVID, all isolation, where it's basically built into us now for us to be used to that.
It didn't really, there wasn't a whole lot of opposition to it because this is our culture now.
You see this in entertainment, with our phones, with the epidemic of loneliness.
If you just look up news articles on loneliness, it's at epidemic proportions, where most people are feeling lonely.
Most people are feeling isolated.
And this is a demonic strategy.
This is not an accident.
The devil wants you to feel isolated.
And it's crept into the church as well.
You have people who are part of churches, but they have no friends.
That is absolutely asinine and absurd.
Like, that makes no sense whatsoever.
And that's ipso facto not the church as well, okay?
You cannot have a church where you don't have friends.
That's not church.
You can call it a million other things, but don't call it church, okay?
But this is the devil's strategy.
Like, yeah, I'm a part of this church.
Do you have any friends there?
No.
What?
Right?
Like, this is, and you might think, well, yeah, I would never do that.
But I'm telling you, in the name of church, this is happening all over the place.
Elders who aren't friends.
You have pastors and elders who are a team of elders, and they don't have a relationship.
They're not friends.
They're just, they're professionals.
Okay, this, it's, comes into the church where we don't act like family, okay?
We're, we're, we want community, so to speak, and that's what everybody says.
I've heard so many people that come to church, they say, oh, I'm looking for community.
All right?
Well, there's nothing distinctly Christian about community.
You can get community anywhere.
There is something distinctly Christian about the family of God.
God creates family.
The devil tries to counterfeit it.
He's the father of lies.
And his version of church is a counterfeit family where we're not friends and where we're not connected and where we're still isolated, but we call it community.
That's dangerous.
All right?
This is the, this is the strategy.
We saw this infiltrating the church when the church just played dead and just did whatever the government wanted to do with these government shutdowns and just stopped meeting.
You know?
The church you guys were sent out of?
I mean, I remember multiple people coming to Bellicose Church, and they were coming from other churches.
I'm just like, why are these people coming from other churches?
What is going on with other churches?
And they literally say, I remember people saying, I have not heard from my church in any way, shape, or form for three months.
How does that even happen?
All right?
But again, it's a demonic strategy.
Isolated.
Get people isolated.
Get the church isolated.
People who think that church is just an optional thing, that church is, as long as I get a certain level of community or a certain level of preaching, it doesn't really matter what it looks like.
And so I can substitute with podcasts and just make sure I get together with people who are my friends here and there.
But that's not the church.
Okay?
The church is specific things.
The church is a family, a body, an army, salt, light.
The church is a house of prayer.
It's many other things.
And so we can't just do, you know, kind of our own version of church and say, oh, I have community, and I get some preaching on a podcast, and that's church.
That's not church.
And you wouldn't find anything like that in the Bible.
But again, that is a demonic strategy to get you isolated and think, oh, I'm fine.
I have community.
I have preaching.
Therefore, I have church.
You absolutely don't have church if you have that.
You do not.
And I think the Bible is clear on that.
You don't see anything like that in the book of Acts or anything in the epistles.
It's people being stuck in the same small group for 20 years, right, where it's like they never get any other people.
They've hit their friend limit.
They've hit their capacity for who they can know.
There's no mission.
It's just I want to grow old with this group of people, and our kids grow up together, and there's not a desire to be on mission to lost people.
It's a demonic strategy of isolation.
This kind of mentality that says I can only get to know so many people.
I can't get to know more than that.
I only have this certain friend limit that I could get.
It's all demonic strategy of isolation.
Second, fruitless.
We see this in the culture.
We see this with the scourge of abortion.
You see this on social media.
People trumpeting how awesome it is to be a double-income, no-kid family.
Saying how great that is, as if not having kids is the new cool thing to do.
Fruitlessness.
It's less people getting married than ever before.
This is the first time in American history where more people don't get married than do.
And it's all the demonic strategy of fruitlessness.
You see this with the rampant rise of homosexuality.
Again, what is it doing?
Homosexual couples can't have kids.
It's fruitless.
It's all a strategy together.
The amount of people exalting career over fruitfulness and over family.
Exalting making money.
You see this even with the trans movement where we're literally, now it's to the point
where we're cutting off the actual parts of our body that were meant to bear fruit with
children.
I mean, think about this.
It's a demonic strategy.
And it's crept into the church.
It's crept into the church as well.
Where the church just becomes attenders and observers.
I'm not bearing fruit myself.
I just consume the fruit of others.
I just attend.
I just observe.
I don't produce value.
I'm not expected to produce value.
I'm not expected to bear responsibility.
I just come to the dog and pony show, put my money in the plate and leave.
I consume things as products.
I'm getting to the next point.
Stay focused here.
Fruitless, right?
Not producing value.
People who can't be counted on.
Not having or valuing kids.
Not valuing marriage.
Not going after marriage.
It's just, it's crept into the church where fruitlessness is becoming more and more normal.
Becoming more and more normal.
And this is not okay.
We can't let this creep in.
We can't, we have to fight this with everything within us.
Okay?
He said to us in Genesis, he said, be fruitful and multiply.
He said, bear fruit in keeping with repentance.
The church should bear fruit.
The church should not be isolated.
The church should not be fruitless.
And the church should not be marked by consumption.
Okay?
We see this in our culture.
Number three, consumers.
Just the selfish, narcissistic kind of culture.
Some of you maybe heard me say this before, but there was literally someone, I think, in
Europe a couple years ago who married themself.
I mean, talk about in the last days, there will be lovers of themselves.
Like this woman literally married herself.
Don't even know how that is a thing, but it was a thing.
Like we've literally reached that point where someone married themself.
Okay?
This is the pinnacle of selfish, narcissistic behavior and thinking, but it's all demonic
strategy to just have consumption be what you exist for.
I exist to consume.
You exist to consume.
That's what the devil's trying to get into our hearts and minds.
Okay?
Where it's just, I don't exist for another person.
I don't even think about marriage.
I'm just thinking about what I can consume.
You have men, there's women who'd love to marry a guy and these guys are just like, what
in the world?
Like you literally just exist for yourself.
How in the world could I ever marry you because you're so full of yourself?
I would never trust you to be someone who could be in a family.
And it's the same thing with women as well, where there's men who would love to get married,
but women who just are living for their own narcissistic pleasure.
Okay?
Not thinking about what it means to be someone who gives of themselves.
It's kind of a culture of permanent adolescence.
We're living in Neverland.
Okay?
Where nobody grows up.
Everybody just continues to stay in this perpetual state of adolescence.
We've come up with this new phrase called adultalescence, where it's just basically another excuse for people to live like kids while on into their old age.
Right?
And this has become normative.
A culture basically drunk on entertainment and pornography.
Right?
We just consume entertainment, consume entertainment, consume pornography.
It's like, how many shows can I watch?
How many movies can I take in?
How many podcasts can I consume?
How much pornography can I consume?
Whatever.
It's just me, me, me.
Consume, consume, consume.
And it's corrupted in the church as well.
Basically where you have a primarily receiving, not partnering kind of mentality when it comes to the church.
I'm not bearing responsibility and I'm not partnering together.
Where it becomes normative to complain about the church, to beat up the church.
Everyone thinks it's so fun to say how bad the church is.
Well, how about making it better?
How about being a group of people that says, I'm not going to complain about the church.
I'm going to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak.
I'm actually going to get in the ring and do something about it.
It's very easy to criticize people from the stands.
It's very hard to get in the ring and actually do something about it.
Who are going to be the people who get in the ring when it comes to the church?
It's the kind of people in the church who are upset with change that makes them uncomfortable.
Where worship, preaching, and child care become commodities that you consume.
You know, kind of the Holy Trinity of church planting.
It's like you have this worship experience that I can consume.
And then we say things like, oh, how was worship?
Ah, it wasn't very good.
You know, it's just like, wait a second.
Worship doesn't exist for you.
Worship is for the Lord.
It's not a product that you consume and determine whether it's good or bad.
It's something you give of yourself.
Okay?
And so we determine whether or not I'm church shopping.
I'm looking for a good worship experience, good child care experience, and good preaching.
And basically, I'm always rating it to see how it is.
Instead of saying, the church is people, and I'm not meant to consume, I'm meant to be someone who bears fruit and provides things of value.
And essentially, the church ends up being drunk on the same entertainment and pornography that the world is.
This is a three-fold demonic vision.
These are schemes that we should not be unaware of.
Okay?
We're talking about the devil trying to get us isolated, trying to get us not bearing fruit, and trying to be consumers.
All right?
Basically, sacrificing fruitfulness for our own desires.
Don't be so naive as to think that none of this has touched us.
All right?
Don't be so naive.
It's touched all of us.
We are in this culture.
It affects us.
Okay?
And so you can't just say, oh, that's not me.
You're a fool if you say that.
You have to be wise enough to say, this has affected me in some way, and I need to make sure that I am on the offensive as the church.
In my own household and in the house of God.
All right?
Which is why our mission and vision is the kingdom of God and all of life together.
Okay?
This is basically an assault against these three things.
Right?
The kingdom of God is about bearing fruit and producing value.
All right?
Seeking first the kingdom of God, it will have the fruit of the spirit.
It will have...
When you're seeking first God's kingdom, fruit is normative.
Okay?
Producing value is normative.
The actual substance of Christ is normative.
All right?
When we seek first the kingdom of God.
If we don't seek first the kingdom of God, it won't be.
We have to seek God's kingdom first.
Secondly, we ought to seek his kingdom in all of life.
Which is the kind of combating the selfish kind of mindset.
Church gets really weird when Christ isn't all your life.
Okay?
It doesn't work.
It gets convoluted.
We start to kind of butt heads.
Because everything that God has built into church requires all your life.
When you try to function as if Christ isn't your life and that church is living for Jesus
is just a part of your life, it's never going to work the way it's supposed to.
It's never going to work the way it's supposed to.
Most problems in church can be pointed to that reality.
That we've made what's supposed to be an all of life thing into just a part of our life thing.
And we're just trying to make excuses for it.
Lastly, together.
The kingdom of God and all of life together.
Together.
Where we share vision.
We share priorities.
And we share responsibility.
Where we don't let people be alone and isolated.
Where we're literally saying, I'm not going to let you go through this alone.
I'm not going to let you go through hard times alone.
I'm going to seek to make sure that we are seeking the kingdom.
We're doing it all of life, but we're also doing it together.
It's not, we're seeking the kingdom.
We're doing it all of life.
But we kind of do it in our kind of compartmentalized separate little worlds.
No, we have to do it together.
And the language of togetherness is what you see in the book of Acts.
Right?
So, how do we build this?
How do we build a culture that combats the enemy's schemes?
Well, we have to take care of what we build.
You can build wood, hay, and stubble.
Or you can build gold, silver, and precious stones.
Right?
1 Corinthians 3 says,
Let each one take care how he builds upon the foundation of Christ.
For if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, and straw,
each one's work will become manifest.
For the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire.
And the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.
If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive reward.
If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss.
Though he himself will be saved, but only as through the fire.
So, we have to ask ourselves, how are we going to build?
Okay?
How are we going to build?
It's a slower pace right now in this small little church plant.
Right?
It's a little more chill.
A little bit more relaxed.
Right?
Meeting in a...
What would you call this?
A shed.
Shed church.
Right?
We're meeting in a shed.
It's just a little bit more relaxed environment.
And there's things that are really beneficial about that.
But it's very important that we don't let that be...
Like, the...
We don't let that keep us from being on our spiritual toes.
And that we're not careful how we build.
We have to be careful how we build.
And we need to build with costly stones.
With gold and silver.
Not with wood, hay, and stubble.
And if we're not intentional in how we build,
we won't build things into the culture in these important days.
Like, it's not that what we build later won't be important.
It's that what you build on the front end
is what people are going to catch on the back end.
Okay?
And so what you're building now,
we have to be very careful how we build.
And this is the time when it's very easy not to be careful
because you think, well, there's just so much less at stake.
It's just this small group of believers
meeting in a shed and meeting in our homes.
It's like, no, you don't understand.
That's what the devil would want you to believe.
Actually, there's a ton at stake.
What you build into the foundation right now,
I mean, the church you guys were sent out of,
thinking of Bellicose 13 years later,
there are so many things that people catch now at that church
that were built intentionally in the beginning.
You guys are doing the hard work right now
of building into the culture
what you want to see later on,
what God wants to see later on.
And we have to be diligent to do those things.
So I got, don't worry, I'm going to fly through these,
but I got 13 things that I want us to,
things to avoid, wood, hay, and straw,
and then things to build, gold, silver, and precious stones.
Okay.
First one, avoid community without mission
and mission without community.
Avoid community without mission
and mission without community.
Okay.
Community without mission
is selfish, codependent, and complacent.
Okay.
It's not okay for us to just say,
oh, this is great.
We got our nice little group.
We got our little mission communities.
We're meeting in homes.
They're nice and small.
We got our small church.
Man, I love small church.
It's just nice and intimate and fun.
And then we forget that there's lost people out there.
It becomes selfish, codependent, and complacent.
We cannot have community without mission.
All right.
That's very important.
But also mission without community
forfeits one of the greatest apologetics for the gospel.
Jesus said, I want to make you fishers of men.
What's the net that you're catching those men into?
It's community.
It's deeper the community.
It's the family of God.
So we can't just say, oh, yeah, let's be on mission.
Let's be on mission.
And forget that to be diligent,
to cultivate a sense of family in the church
so that there's something to adopt them into.
God is a father who adopted us into his family
through the son, right?
And we need to be that family that people are adopted into.
Otherwise, we betray the gospel with our very existence.
Okay?
Got to be both.
We need to build mission and community.
Mission and community that goes deeper
than just community, but it's family.
All right?
We have to build both.
And we have to make sure that some of you
are going to be better than others
at detecting where we're missing that.
And you can't just say, well, oh, someone else will get it.
No.
If God is putting, if you're seeing that,
you have to speak up.
You're saying, oh, we have mission,
but we're lacking community.
We have to, you have to speak up and help insert that.
If we have a sense of community,
but we're not on mission,
and you're kind of angsty about that,
maybe that's because God has put that in your heart
to make sure that that's there.
Don't assume someone else has that.
Right?
Samir?
Avoid community without mission
and mission without community
and build missional community.
Build both.
Number two.
Okay?
Avoid inviting people to your missional community.
What do I mean by that?
All right?
You can't invite someone to your missional community.
It's not possible.
Okay?
Because it's not a weekly meeting.
Right?
It's not a weekly meeting.
You can't go to it,
and it's not a night of the week.
You can invite people to a dinner.
You can invite people to a hangout.
You can invite people to a bonfire,
a men's or ladies get-together,
a game night,
a Bible or book study,
a kids' sports game.
You can invite people to play a sport.
You can invite people to a park night,
a movie night,
a camp out,
a weekend getaway,
a party,
a celebration,
a missional outreach,
but you cannot invite someone
to a missional community
because
a missional community is people.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
Like you should,
as a church,
we should,
we function,
the smaller groups of people
in our church,
the way we organize the life
of our church,
where we do counseling,
where we do discipleship,
where we do the everyday stuff of life
with our church together,
where we share meals together,
where we watch each other's kids,
where we pray together.
Missional communities
are the small family believers
where we're doing mission together,
all these things.
Okay?
But you should never invite someone
to a missional community.
It's not possible.
You can invite people
to the life of the missional community,
and it could be all those things
that I just said.
Do you understand the difference?
It becomes really weird
when you say,
hey,
come to my MC.
First of all,
you have that weird,
like,
acronym language
that people are like,
why are you talking in acronyms?
That's weird.
Okay?
Just talk normal.
Why can't,
the church just needs to be normal
and just say,
hey,
we're having dinner
with some people from my church.
You want to come over?
Hey,
we're all getting together
in a park
and hanging out together
with some friends of ours
or some people from the church.
Would you like to come?
Hey,
we're going to hang out
and have a bonfire house,
make some s'mores.
Would you like to come?
Or we're going to go,
for the next eight weeks,
we're going to go through
this book of the Bible
or we're going to go through
this book
that someone else wrote
with some people from our church.
We'd love for you to come.
Do you see the difference?
You can build this
into the culture
of our church right away.
It's hard for people
to get around that.
I don't know at what point in time
the church became
all about inviting people
to meetings.
Like,
look at your,
read your Bible.
Read the book of Acts.
Is there ever a time
when someone is inviting
someone to a meeting
and that,
that's what,
that's like what the sum total
of churches become.
Hey,
come to a Sunday morning gathering.
It's just,
it's like we're,
we're basically
trading personal discipleship,
personal hospitality,
and personal evangelism
for a meeting invite.
At what point in time
did Christianity
just become about
meeting invites?
What we should be doing
is sharing our lives
with one another.
Paul said,
I share with you
not,
not only the gospel,
but our very lives.
And so we invite people
into our lives,
not to just a meeting
so that someone else
can do the work.
You can build that
into this culture
right from the get-go,
or we can get weird
and goofy
and invite people
to acronym language
and people are like,
what is this?
You guys are kind of weird.
Like,
how about we just be normal
and just invite things,
people into our lives
and get to know people.
And then when they do come,
and then maybe
when they show interest
or when they get saved
or whatever happens,
and then they want to come
on a Sunday morning,
we can say,
oh yeah,
come on Sunday morning.
You know,
so-and-so and so-and-so
and so-and-so.
You're not,
it's not going to be weird
and intimidating for you.
Does that make sense?
Build the people.
Don't just build meetings,
build the people.
This is what we need to do.
Number three,
avoid a one-home-centric
missional community.
Okay?
It's not a house church.
Missional communities
are not house churches.
Build a happy,
joyful hosting
among all or most.
A community that meets
in multiple homes.
Not just one,
sharing the load with everyone.
Not just one homeowner,
always willing to go
where the people
that it's on mission to are.
Okay?
We don't just want,
these missional communities
aren't house churches,
so it shouldn't just be
one home-centric.
And you might say,
well,
my home's not big enough.
Think of how weird
that would sound
to someone
who's meeting in the church
in some third world country
who meets in their home
that only is one room.
Like,
the whole house
is one room.
Think of how goofy
you would sound
when you say,
I can't meet in my,
you know,
1800 square foot home
because it's too small
and because my bathroom's outdated.
And their bathroom's
in a hole behind the house
out,
you know,
wherever.
That's goofy.
But that's how we as Americans talk.
Don't talk like that.
Open up your home.
Don't just let one person
be the one
who's doing that.
And by all means,
don't say,
well,
by all means too,
be able to meet in multiple homes
and train your children
to do as well.
Sometimes we've trained
our children
to only be able to meet
in our home
because we've childproof
our home.
We haven't taught our kids
how to function
in someone else's home.
That's not good.
Again,
this is something
you can build into the culture.
If you can only host people
in your home
because your kids
can only handle your home,
you're not training
your kids well.
You're not training
your kids for church
and you're not training
your kids for hospitality.
It's an important thing
to get into our kids.
And please don't use the excuse
while I'm not just hospitable.
Romans 12, 13.
Okay?
Contribute to the needs
of the saints
and seek to show hospitality.
1 Peter 4, 9.
Show hospitality
to one another
without grumbling.
This isn't an optional thing.
This is for all Christians.
We're all supposed
to show hospitality.
Yes, there's some people
with a gift of hospitality,
but everybody's supposed
to show hospitality.
Number four.
Avoid study-centric
missional community.
It's not primarily
a Bible or book study.
Okay?
You can and should do
studies in the Bible
or in other books,
but it can't just be that.
Okay?
We have to build discipleship
in all of life.
Deuteronomy 6, 6-9
is a great way
of thinking about this,
which it's talking
about the family,
but it should be
about the family
of God as well.
It says,
All these words
that I command you today
shall be on your heart.
You shall teach them
diligently to your children.
You shall talk of them
when you sit in your house
and when you walk by the way
and when you lie down
and when you rise.
You shall bind them
as a sign on your hand
and they shall be
as frontlets between your eyes.
You shall write them
on the doorposts
of your house
and on your gates.
Essentially,
it's saying
discipleship should be
an all of life thing.
It's not just,
you know,
well,
we have this little study
here and there.
We should be looking
for opportunities
to speak the truth
into people's life
in the everyday stuff
of life.
And that's where
it's most normal, right?
You're going through
something and say,
Hey, how are you handling that?
How's this going?
And if that becomes
a normative culture,
then our church,
when people come into the church,
they catch that.
Oh,
you don't just do
discipleship in official meetings.
You do do discipleship
in official meetings,
but you're also doing
it in the everyday stuff
of life.
I know I can count
on rich conversation
in discipleship
even when I'm not
at an official
Sunday morning meeting
or such.
And that should be normative.
You have the opportunity
to build that.
Will you build that?
Will you build discipleship
in all of life?
Number five,
avoid leader-centric
missional community.
Okay,
what I mean by this is
missional communities
where all the leadership
falls on one person
or one couple,
just the lead partners,
where you're almost
treating them like
mini elders
or they're viewing
themselves as that,
but rather building
partnership.
Partner-led
missional community
where multiple people
are bearing responsibility,
sharing the leadership
weight of responsibility
among all its partners.
Okay,
the lead partner
is the first among equals,
but all the partners
carry the weight together.
Okay,
Philippians 1,
3 to 5,
I thank my God
in all my remembrance
of you,
always in every prayer
of mine for you
all making my prayer
with joy because
of your partnership
in the gospel
from the first day
until now.
It should be partnership.
Okay,
it's so easy to just
have a couple leaders
leading the church
and having all the
responsibility on them.
And then it's saying,
oh,
I want community.
There is no such thing
as community
without responsibility
and accountability.
There's no such thing.
You cannot have
true accountability
or true family life
together
without shared responsibility
and accountability.
That has to be there.
That's absolutely necessary.
What are you going to build?
Are we going to build it
so we just farm it in?
We go to a gathering
together with our
missional community
and we go with
nothing to bring,
nothing on our hearts,
nothing,
not spirit-led.
We're just consumed
with our day
and we just show up
tired,
disinterested
and unengaged.
We show up on a Sunday morning.
It's just,
it's the worship team's job
and the preacher's job
to kind of do everything.
I'm just here.
I'm just consuming.
Are you coming?
Led by the Spirit saying,
hey,
I'm going to cultivate
a culture of giving,
a culture of shared responsibility,
a culture of partnership
so that everybody
who's in this church
going forward
will understand
this is how you do church.
This is normal.
For those of you
who have never experienced
church like that as normal,
you can.
You can.
I've seen it multiple times.
I'm not talking about
some unicorn here.
I'm talking about
normal Christianity.
This is what it's supposed
to be like.
Number six,
avoid one-person-centric
discipleship,
primarily one-on-one
discipleship,
but instead build
discipleship for
multiple people.
Okay?
Multiple people
through multiple gifts
who are in multiple
different stages of life.
That's how discipleship
should be.
Now,
does that mean you can't
do anything one-on-one?
No.
But it should never
just be that.
Because 1 Corinthians 12
says all the parts
of the body
are indispensable.
If you only have
this one person
who's quote-unquote
discipling you,
and you're not
gleaning from the rest
of the body,
you are missing out
from things.
And if you think
that your part of the body
is not that important,
and you think,
well,
I don't have the same role
as so-and-so
who's really good
at speaking,
but I'm not good
at speaking,
you don't understand
your gift is indispensable,
and who you are
needs to bear upon
other people
in the context
of discipleship.
It can't just be
one-on-one.
It has to be
a shared responsibility.
You need to build
discipleship
from multiple people
through multiple gifts
who are in multiple
different stages of life.
It can't just be
young people
with young people
and old people
with old people.
You've got to mix
it up together.
There's much to glean
from one another,
and it goes both ways.
Number seven,
avoid meeting
without meals.
That doesn't mean
you can't ever meet
without a meal,
but I'm talking about
building a meal-sharing
familial culture.
It takes more work
to share meals together,
but you know what?
That's what families do.
Healthy families
eat meals together.
There's been study
after study done
of the difference
between a family
that eats meals together
and ones who don't.
That used to be
a normative part
of our culture.
It's something
that's going away,
and it's something
that's gone away
from church culture
as well.
We should eat
meals together.
Families eat meals together.
Jesus ate meals
with people.
The disciples
ate meals together.
Acts chapter 2,
46 to 47
in the CSB
says,
Every day they devoted
themselves to meeting
together in the temple
and broke bread
from house to house.
They ate their food
with joyful
and sincere hearts,
praising God
and enjoying the favor
of all the people.
Every day the Lord
added to their number
those who were being saved.
I know it's work
to do meals together.
I know it's work
to share the responsibility
of planning a meal.
I know it's work
to do our once-a-month meals
that we're doing
on Sunday mornings
like today.
I know it's work
to do meals
in your home.
I know it's work
to feed people.
I know it's work
to feed people
when sometimes
they don't clean up
after,
help clean up
and help with
the responsibility.
That's all work,
but meal sharing
is a way
that helps people
feel comfortable
and where people
can open up their hearts
to one another.
Very important.
It battles
that isolation culture.
Right?
Number eight,
avoid heavy,
burdensome,
missional community.
Instead,
building joy,
comfort,
refreshing,
and rest.
Okay?
Oftentimes with church
we think,
oh,
I'm part of a church,
that means I've got to
add a bunch of things
to my life.
Rather,
what about just
actually taking inventory?
What are we already doing?
What am I already involved with?
Like,
what are the neighbors
I'm already involved with?
What are the things
I'm already doing
with my kids?
What are the relationships
I already have?
What do we already have
and how can I just
show more gospel intentionality
with those things
that we have?
Instead of adding
a bunch of things,
are we being intentional
to do what we're doing
right now
with a missional mindset
and then doing it together
with other people?
So often,
the church says,
well,
we've got to add this,
we've got to add this program,
this program.
No.
We don't need to do that.
We just need to
get on mission together
in the everyday stuff of life,
the stuff we're already doing.
You already have neighbors.
You already have a job.
Your kids might already
be involved with certain things,
sports or this or that
or school stuff.
You already have
all these things.
Why not do them
with more missional
gospel intentionality
and then do it together?
That's what the church should be.
We need to build that
and that's a lot more restful
instead of constantly
adding more stuff.
Philemon verse 7 says,
I've derived much joy
and comfort
from your love,
my brother,
because the hearts
of the saints
have been refreshed
through you.
What if we focused
on being a refreshment
to one another?
Not constantly placing
more burdens
on one another
but just saying,
how can we do stuff together?
How can we do stuff
where we refresh
one another?
Where we're carrying the load
and we're saying,
you know what?
We already have a lot going on.
We don't need to
overwhelm people
with all kinds of stuff.
Let's just be intentional
with what we have.
Let's be good stewards
of what we have.
Number nine,
avoid a busy life.
Okay?
Lazy, indiscriminate,
unintentional,
the tyranny of the urgent,
always busy
but never getting done
what you want
or need to get done.
You know what I'm saying?
Some of us,
this is how we feel.
We feel like
we're on a hill
and we're constantly
riding the brakes.
Our life is constantly busy.
We are constantly
doing things
and people say,
what's going on?
It's like,
oh, just so busy.
Just really busy.
What are you busy with?
Ah,
I don't know.
And you can't even say
what it is
because you're not doing,
your life is busy
but it's not filled
with the things
that you,
that are your priorities.
You go to bed at night
thinking,
I'm so busy,
I'm so tired
but I'm constantly
feeling guilty
that I'm not doing
what I should be doing.
We need to leave that behind.
Okay?
We need to leave
a busy life behind
and instead build
a full life.
It's not a difference
about how much you do
but what you do.
Not about how much you do
but what you do.
Doing,
being in divine order
and doing what God
says to do.
Tim Ferriss says,
lack of time
is actually
lack of priorities.
Being busy
is a form of laziness,
lazy thinking
and indiscriminate action.
Being overwhelmed
is often as unproductive
as doing nothing
and is far more unpleasant.
In other words,
a full life
plans priorities
so priorities
are prioritized
and accomplished.
Right?
A full life
plans priorities
so priorities
are prioritized
and accomplished.
Right?
The Bible
asks us
commands us
to find out
what pleases the Lord.
Ephesians 5,
15-17.
Look carefully
then how you walk.
Not as unwise
but as wise
making the best use
of the time
because the days
are evil.
Therefore do not
be foolish
but understand
what the will
of the Lord is.
It's very easy.
The last thing
we want to do
we might say,
oh,
new church plan.
It's easy to just be busy.
There's not as many people
to do the work.
So we're just
being busy
and being with people
and trying to get
a mission to this person.
Busy and overwhelmed
and constantly
and your life
is flying by.
Your kids are getting older.
Your life is passing you by
and all of a sudden
you realize
am I even doing
what I'm supposed
to be doing?
Am I doing the priorities?
Do I have a busy life
or a full life?
A full life plans
your priorities.
The priorities
that God says
are priorities.
Making the best use
of the time.
Okay?
That's the difference.
It's very important
for us
not to just be
busy consuming
but rather
be
have a full life
of planning priorities
of how can I
be someone
who refreshes others
gives to others
and is intentional
with my life
so that when I go to bed
and I hit the pillow
I can say
you know what?
I did what God
wanted me to do.
Today was a good day.
Number 10
avoiding
low bar partnership.
Partnership is what
we call membership
in this church.
Instead building
a high standard
of partnership
with accountability
and shared responsibility.
The strength
of our church
is very much
in the quality
of our partnership
together.
Okay?
The partners
are the people
we count on.
If we build that
into our church now
it's going to have
benefit
that will reap fruit
for years and years
and years
to say hey
it's important
that I partner
well with the church.
That I can be someone
that people count on.
And the quality
of our church
so many people think
oh no the quality
of the church
that's in
how good their
worship team is
and how good
their child care is
and how good
the preacher is.
Those things matter
but that's not
where the true
quality of the church
is.
Because the church
isn't a worship team
a preacher
and a child care
program.
The church
is the people.
And so the quality
of the people
the quality
of the members
of the church
and their partnership
together
will determine
the quality
of the church
as a whole.
And if you're someone
and everyone
is someone
who can be counted on
now we're talking
about a church
that is going
to bear a lot
of fruit together.
Number 11
avoid the illusion
of the kingdom
of God
as part of your life.
Instead build
an all of life
church
okay
an all of life
life
where you're
saying
I'm going
to give
God everything
I got.
Right?
I said it before
church gets weird
when Christ
isn't your whole life.
Colossians 3 verse 4
says Christ
who is your life.
Okay if you ever
some of you
have had maybe
a bad experience
of church
you've got to
ask the question
was my bad
experience of church
because the church
was bad?
Which could be true.
Or was it because
Christ wasn't my life
and I tried to
fit Jesus
into my life
instead of losing
my life for Jesus
and therefore
the filter
with which
I determined
what church was
and how it was
supposed to function
was off
from the get go.
Therefore
all my church
expression
and experience
was goofy
and off
because
at the end
of the day
it wasn't
maybe as much
as that the church
was messed up
although that
can be part of it
but that I
wasn't believing
and living
as if Christ
was my life.
When Christ
is your life
and the group
of people
you're meeting
with as church
Christ is their
life as well
it changes
everything.
Things are cohesive
things flow together
things function
the way they're
supposed to
when you're
just trying
to fit Christ
into your life
and you're
holding on
to your life
you lose it
and you got
a bunch of people
gathering together
in the name of church
when their life
is lost
because they don't
truly believe
and act as if
Christ is their life
who they've lost
their life for
then church gets
weird really fast.
You can determine
what that's going
to be like
in this church
you can build it
into the foundation
1 Corinthians
15 58
says
always
give yourselves
fully
to the work
of the Lord
how often?
Always
how much?
Fully
to what?
The work
of the Lord
1 Corinthians
15 58
always give
yourselves
fully
to the work
of the Lord
because
you know
that your
labor
in the Lord
is not
in vain
that's why
we always
give ourselves
that's why
we give
ourselves
fully
that's why
we give
ourselves
fully
to the work
of the Lord
why?
Because your labor in the Lord won't be in vain.
It is labor.
It is work.
But if we give ourselves fully,
always to the work of the Lord,
it won't be in vain.
There's a lot of work in the name of the Lord
that is vain because it's not always
and it's not fully.
And at the end of the day,
it's not really the work of the Lord
because it's just trying to fit Jesus into our life.
And God never meant it that way.
And we blame God for that.
We say, God, your church is a joke.
God, church sucks.
And God, you haven't been faithful.
When all along what it is is,
no, Christianity hasn't been tried and found wanting,
but wanted and not tried,
as Chesterton said.
All right?
That's the problem.
Well, I tried Christianity.
No, you didn't.
You tried some selfish, consumeristic version of Christianity
that was not Christianity at all.
It's not that Christianity was tried
and it was found wanting.
It was wanted, but it was never tried
because it wasn't your life.
Number 12.
Two more.
Avoid closed hearts, closed homes,
and closed schedules.
Build open hearts, open homes,
and open schedules.
1 Timothy 6, 17-19 says,
As for the rich in this present age,
charge them not to be haughty
nor to set their hopes on uncertainty of riches,
but on God.
Through rich he provides us with everything to enjoy.
They are to do good,
to be rich in good works,
to be generous and ready to share,
thus storing up treasure for themselves
as a good foundation for the future,
so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.
How do you take hold of that which is truly life?
You're generous and willing to share.
And if you're saying,
well, that's not for me
because I'm not the rich in this world.
No.
If you're in this country,
you're wealthy beyond measure,
and if you live in the time you do,
which you do because I see you
and I know you're alive,
this is the richest time in all.
Kings weren't as rich as we are.
Okay?
2 Corinthians 6, 11-13 says,
We've spoken to you freely, Corinthians.
Our heart is wide open.
You are not restricted by us,
but you are restricted in your own affections.
In return, I speak as to children.
This is Paul speaking.
Widen your hearts also.
And then in verse 2 he says,
Make room in your hearts for us.
The life, wisdom, and power of God
is exchanged through open hearts.
Open hearts.
Jesus dwells in your heart through faith.
How do you experience Jesus together?
It has to be through open hearts.
And some of us have closed our hearts
because we've been burned by church
and we've been burned by other Christians,
and we want to get help,
but you can't open your...
The same openness that allows you to be helped
is the same openness that creates the possibility
of being hurt.
You can't open yourself to be helped
if you don't first open yourself to be hurt.
And know that when you close your heart
to other people,
it's not just the other people
you're closing your heart to.
You're also closing your heart to God.
Because Jesus lives inside of other people
and his love, wisdom, and power
is exchanged through open hearts.
And when you close your heart to people,
you're also closing your heart to God.
And at the end of the day,
you have to ask the question,
can Jesus be trusted?
And can he be trusted in his people?
And you don't get one without the other.
That's not how it works.
You can't say,
well, I just want...
Just give me Jesus.
I don't want the church.
Just give me Jesus.
I don't need the church.
Take the church out of the New Testament
and what do you have?
You got nothing.
There's no context for all of these epistles
and for the life of God
in the New Testament without the church.
You can't say,
I just have Jesus.
I'm fine.
I've been wounded.
I've been hurt.
I got Jesus.
That's good enough.
You can't say that.
That's not biblical.
It's not right.
It's not in any way, shape, or form
what God wanted.
Lastly, number 13.
I actually think this is a strength
of this church right from the get-go.
And I encourage you to keep it that way.
I actually rebuked
Bellicose Church last week
because I've noticed that
ever since you guys got sent out,
the prayer meeting on Sunday morning
has gotten really skimpy.
I showed up there the other day.
I'm like, where the heck is everybody?
And I realized that all the people
who were coming
are the people who got sent out
for this church.
And I was like, good grief.
These guys need to get praying.
Those Christchurch people
were the ones who were doing
all the prayer work
and now they're gone.
Who's going to pray?
Okay.
So I'm saying,
avoid low-priority prayer
and build high-priority prayer.
Which I think you guys are doing.
You guys value prayer.
And there's many ways
that Bellicose has felt
the loss of you guys.
But one of the things
I didn't anticipate
and didn't see
but I've noticed it
on those Sunday mornings is,
where'd everybody go?
And it's because it's you guys.
And that's encouraging.
Please keep that.
Keep prayer as a priority.
Jim Symbolus says,
Prayer cannot be taught
by principles and seminars
and symposiums.
It has to be born
out of a whole environment
of felt need.
If I say I ought to pray,
I will soon run out
of motivation and quit.
The flesh is too strong.
I have to be driven to pray.
Essentially what he's saying
is Matthew 5, 3,
Blessed are the poor in spirit.
You have to be poor in spirit.
You have to see that you're needy.
You don't pray
because you ought to.
You pray because
you know that you need to.
And so, Christchurch,
keep your neediness.
Let's build into the culture
a neediness in prayer.
People say,
I need God.
We sing our songs
and say, I need God.
We seek counsel and say,
I need God.
And then we don't show up
at the prayer meeting.
Let's not be a people like that.
Let's have prayer
always as a high priority.
Let's make sure that
his church is a house of prayer.
Okay?
And you might have been,
and especially all the more so,
living in a city
where all the weirdness
with IHOP
and all the stuff
that's happened there.
Listen,
don't let that keep you
from praying.
Don't let that burn you out
from praying.
Don't let that make it
less of a priority
because some sinful behavior
happened in a prominent ministry
in our city.
Don't do that.
It needs to be a priority.
Amen?
Amen.
This is our opportunity
to build into the culture
of this church.
Some of this stuff
you've heard me say before,
I'm going to keep saying it
over and over again
because it's so important now
to build into the culture
of our church.
Amen?
Amen.