You Are the Church

Here is the auto transcript from this week’s sermon on the UR the Church

Galatians 6.2 was on my heart this morning, not just because it says to bear one another's burden, and I got Brent's burden of coming up with a message right away, but because as we continue to be a church, as we continue to walk forward, as we continue to get settled here at Westmore in this new facility, in this new house of brick and stone, how do we become more of a family with the houses of flesh and bone?

Well, it says in Galatians, Paul's writing to the Galatians, it says, "Bear one another's burdens and so you will fulfill the law of Christ."

If you're in this room, you are a Hebrew passionate people, you love the law, you love Moses, you love David, you love Abraham, you love Yeshua, you love all things that are encompassed in the word of God.

But what does that look like for 21st century apprentices of Jesus?

Because a lot of times we want to go back, we want to go back even previous first century and we want to say this is how we practice, this is how we walk, but we've looked as we've gone through the gospel to the Hebrews, we've looked and we've seen the progressive nature of Yahweh through his son Jesus to lead from covenant to covenant to covenant to covenant to covenant.

Ultimately, with a plan to come full circle, to have the intimacy of the relationship in the garden, his first house with his first people and regain that intimacy in the future.

And all the things that have happened in between, all the times that Israel has gone astray, all the times that the Hebrew people fell into worshiping other gods, but then also to the time where the Hebrew people didn't even recognize God in the flesh in front of them.

And then when he went into the tomb and all hope was lost and they're like, is this going to be like everything before?

On the third day, the tomb was rolled away and Jesus came forth and it changed everything.

And then there was the Holy Spirit, the Ruach HaKodesh that fell in what was his house, in what was his house.

The duality of what God does sometimes in his word is just amazing.

But recently my wife and I began looking at houses.

You can say, oh, you moving?

No, we're not moving.

Finally got to a place where I've done everything in my house and I'm about ready to rip it apart and do it again.

But we've been looking at houses with another family and our leadership team whose family continues to grow and they're looking at options to potentially get a larger house, something that's a little bit more conducive for their family.

And no, we're not going to move in with them because Jesus wasn't creepy and so we're not supposed to be creepy either, but we're there to support them, to look, to see, to be a sounding board.

But there's three main types of houses that I've seen so far.

One, ones that have been neglected and they're falling apart.

Two, ones that have good bones, you know, the boomer dads where they walk up on the wall and they're like, solid bones, good bones.

That's some good construction right there.

Those, but they need a coat of paint or they need some updates.

You know, good solid house, but the light fixtures are 60, 70 years old.

And then three, ones that have been fully updated.

Now I'm sure, I'm sure that, you know, there's exceptions to this rule, but currently the ones that have been fully updated, if you look closely enough, you're like, man, that's beautiful.

That's beautiful.

That's a beautiful house.

But when you walk in and you look at the corner, like that crown molding was cut by somebody who had like a 12 pack already.

It's like, like that's not a 45.

That might be like a 42 and a third, but that's definitely not a 45.

Or you see that, that they tried to blend textures.

You know, we do textures out here.

We didn't in Nashville, we didn't in Ohio, but they tried to blend textures and you're like, ooh.

That was, that's supposed to be knocked down, not popcorn, but they just interweave them together.

Well, Hebrews chapter 10 says that we're a house.

Hebrews chapter 10, we looked at last week that there's a great high priest and this great high priest, Jesus is the high priest over the house of God, which is you and me.

Not only in this place today in a local community, but then also when communities come together with other communities and other communities and other communities.

See that word Ekklesia not only means one family, we would be one family, but it means when all the families come together.

Sometimes that makes us uncomfortable in our, where we come from.

That somehow the text of the Bible would say that we're supposed to be one family with the Baptist.

We're supposed to be one family with the Pentecostals.

We're supposed to be one family, but Chris, they don't keep the Torah.

Don't they?

I mean, there's 613 laws in there.

So you're telling me that somehow we're better at keeping 613 of the commandments than, than they are.

Each person in this house, in their own house, thrives in certain ways.

There's certain things you do really, really well.

There's gifts that God's given you.

There's lessons that you've learned.

And then in somebody else's house, they maybe haven't learned that lesson.

And so when we come together as God's house, Hebrews chapter 10, verse 21, with Jesus as the head of the house, which house are we?

Are we the house that's been neglected and fallen apart?

Are we a house that has good bones, good foundation right there?

Ooh, they got a power jack in that, that foundation.

Like the foundation's solid.

That slab is good.

But it needs some updating.

Or the ones that have got all new clothes and we've got all new, we look really great.

We put, we put makeup on.

We put, like we, we trimmed our beard right.

We went over to Nicole and Nicole just got us a fresh cut.

Is fresh cut still something you say nowadays?

Is that allowed?

I'm in my 40s, so I'm just clarifying.

But they get a fresh cut and a fresh shave and it's like you look really good on the outside, but when you look really close, there's a crack.

Or somebody put the texture and they blended them together.

Because each house tells a story.

Each house has a past.

Each house will have a future.

Sometimes they're good stories and they're good memories and sometimes they're not so good stories and they're not so good memories.

But as a church, we have to embrace the good stories and the bad stories.

We have to embrace the good times and the bad times.

Because you don't really know how good you have it until you go through the trials and the tribulations of the bad times.

And when you go through both, it helps provide a balance.

It helps provide a place and over time, you should develop a skill set to be able to help other people.

Now it's become very, very popular to take issue with the church.

It's become very popular to do that.

Very kind of late 90s, early 2000s, people take issue with the church.

And so as Saturday church people, as Hebrew passionate, Hebrew loving people, it's not unique for us to all of a sudden take issue with theology or practice or things like this.

This is something that's existed in Christianity for a long time.

Anybody who has been around knows the worship wars that were there.

You had the arguments over the hymns and the transition to modern worship.

And then you got the whole traditional service, which was very liturgical in nature.

And then all of a sudden they said, "Well, we need to be seeker friendly."

Well, all of those things are in all denominations and in all churches to a certain degree.

They're in all places.

We all have preferences.

We all would prefer to put these curtains up.

We prefer to be in this color palette.

We prefer to do things a certain way.

So how do we get outside of when I want to go grayscale in my house and you want to go red?

How do we get outside that?

We go back to the Word of God, to be a church that's founded on the Word of God, powered by the Spirit of God, to bring praise to the Son of God.

Let's talk about Paul for a minute.

See, a lot of churches, doesn't matter what your denomination is, including us in this room, Paul is the majority of the writings of the New Testament.

His writings to Corinth, his writing to Galatians, to Ephesus, on and on and on.

This New Testament church predominantly uses the writings of a Jewish man who came after a Jewish Messiah.

But see, Paul's relationship to the early church was not much different than some of us because Paul's relationship with the church was fairly complicated.

And throughout times in your life, depending upon what house you went to, you might have had a complicated relationship with the church.

If you're in this room, my guess is this is not the original doctrine or practice of your faith.

So at one point in time, you were a Baptist, or you were a Seventh-day Adventist, or you were a Pentecostal, or an Assemblies of God, or a Catholic, or you were some other element of Christianity.

And so your relationship with the church obviously had some sort of growth or some sort of change, and so everybody in this room has that.

Well, Paul did too.

See Paul's relationship was fairly complicated because he grew up in a pretty religious spirit environment.

Paul was a very well-learned man.

He went to Torah school.

He understood, probably was going to be the rock star, the next, you know, to use football terms.

The reason why the New England Patriots are so bad right now is because Mack Jones was a horrible heir apparent after Tom Brady, considered to be the greatest of all time.

I know there's some Patrick Mahomes fans in the room, but he is not the GOAT.

Tom Brady is.

I got an amen from that.

As soon as we start talking about football, I get an amen.

All right.

Okay, Brent, take notes.

But he grew up in a very strict religious system.

He would have been like Tom Brady to Tom Brady.

He would have been going back and aging myself because there's nobody current.

I'll use Shohei Ohtani.

I don't like him, but I'll use him.

He was the Greg Maddox to the Greg Maddox.

He was the Nolan Ryan to the Nolan Ryan.

He was the Walter Payton to the Walter Payton.

He was an up and coming star who came from a strict religious environment.

And in that religious environment, he understood what it meant to be a part of Judaism.

Not only did he know what the system of Judaism at that point in time was in the first century, but he had the curb appeal and the blessing of the leadership to go forward.

He did so by persecuting the church.

He did so by going out and seeking.

He was the dog, the bounty hunter of the first century Judaism.

He was going and finding followers of Jesus.

He was persecuting them and then driving them back into this religious system in order for them to be able to discipline them.

Paul's relationship with the church founded on Jesus was a pretty peculiar one at the beginning of the testimony of Paul.

Philomene chapter three tells us that Paul was ruthless in his persecution of the church.

That he was the perfection of the religious spirit.

And he would find his righteousness on what he did.

Every day, if I turn in this gentleman, if I find somebody who is higher up in here and I turn them in, that religious spirit would bring about this righteousness.

If I only do more, if I only do more, I can attain the praise of men, the position of men.

If I only take more issues with people and tear them down more, I can elevate myself.

Yet on the way to persecute more temples of God, the ones that were made of the flesh and the bone, Paul had a radical encounter.

A radical encounter.

You know, some in this room had a progressive relationship with the Lord.

Little by little he built on things.

However, there are individuals who have a radical encounter in salvation with the Lord.

Radical.

In the blink of an eye, things are changed.

This is what Paul had.

He had a life-altering account with Jesus when he went on the road to go persecute more.

And from that moment, everything changed.

He went from being probably the greatest adversary in the flesh of those who believe in Jesus to being one of the most extolled men in the writing.

If you don't think that God can change your story, then you're not reading the stories God has given you about God.

I've said it many times over, I don't care how you were born, because the Bible says you have to be born again.

And so if you are in this room and you say, "Hey, Chris, I was born into a family that didn't have a lot of money.

I was born into a family that was abusive.

I was born into a family that had all of these things."

I understand that, and God does too.

But it doesn't matter how you were born, you have to be born again.

And even though Paul was born again, he had this radical transformation with the Lord.

He experienced some of the things we currently experience in our relationships with others.

One of the things Paul experienced after that life-altering moment with Jesus was other leaders were skeptical of his conversion.

Nobody's ever been skeptical of what your faith is or what your belief is.

That's never happened.

Nobody's ever called you out on social media, most won't do it to your face, and accused you of something that just is blatantly false.

Nobody's ever done that, let alone had a spouse do it or a family member do it.

When you started keeping the Sabbath or you started doing some of these things, there was nobody in your family who said that you were becoming a Jew.

There's nobody in your family who said that you were becoming legalistic or that you were a Judaizer.

It never happened.

There was nobody who ever was skeptical of what God was doing in your life.

See, I had this radical transformation.

It wasn't a salvation.

I already had my salvation in Jesus.

But there was a year and a half to two years ago, there was just this radical transformation of what the Lord did in my own heart.

And at first I was skeptical of myself.

Am I really going to be able to walk this way?

Am I really going to be able to walk in trust of God and joy and peace and patience and kindness?

Am I really going to be able to be long-suffering?

I was skeptical of myself, let alone others being skeptical of me.

But Paul experienced this because in Acts chapter 9, 26, it says, "And when he had come to Jerusalem," that was the religious hub of that religious spirit that was happening there, that was anti-Yeshua's yoke, his teaching.

When Paul now goes to Jerusalem, he attempted to join up with the other apprentices of Jesus, the sons of thunder, as Brent likes to call some of them.

And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple.

Can you imagine?

Can you imagine like having a radical transformation of the Lord and then coming through the doors on a Saturday and being like, "You'll never guess what God did.

Like God, like he just radically saved me from depression and anxiety and all these things."

And then walking through the doors and having people say, "Oh, I don't know if you should join our family.

Oh, I don't know if that's true.

I think you still might have problems.

I think you might not be able to be here."

Paul has this radical transformation.

He goes to Jerusalem and he says, "I'm not the same guy anymore.

I want to join up with the disciples.

I want to join up with the team.

I want to be a part of a family.

I want to be a family on mission."

And he walks in and they're like, "Hmm, is he going to shank me while I'm sleeping?"

He was personally attacked.

Second Corinthians 10.10 says, "For they, his letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak and his speech is of no account."

See, they gave the testimony throughout the epistles that Jesus, when he spoke, when he walked into the synagogue and he spoke, he spoke with authority.

And in Second Corinthians, they're saying, "Paul didn't have any authority.

He's weak.

His speech has no account."

They're discrediting who he is.

He was intentionally misunderstood by other believers.

Second Peter 3.16 says, "As he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters, there are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction as they do the other scriptures."

He said that we're twisting them, we're manipulating them, there's a game, we're doing this for some reason.

None of us have ever been intentionally misunderstood by other Christians.

He had disagreements with other Christians.

Oh man, what do you mean we have arguments with each other?

We have arguments?

Acts 15.36-40 says, "And after some days Paul said to Barnabas."

Paul and Barnabas, they were pretty close.

"Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaim the word of the Lord and see how they are.

Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark, but Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in this town of Pee."

Oh, that sounds even worse than trying to pronounce the name, sorry.

"And had not gone with them to work.

And there arose a sharp disagreement."

Ooh, they had a sharp disagreement.

"And they separated from each other.

Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord."

Sometimes you just got to go your separate way.

Sometimes you're going to have to agree to disagree.

Sometimes you're going to have to take your homeboy and you're just going to have to go.

Paul would get disappointed with other Christians.

Second Corinthians 11, 22 through 29.

"Are they Hebrews?

So am I.

Are they Israelites?

So am I.

Are they the offspring of Abraham?

So am I.

Are they the servants of Christ?

I am a better one.

I am talking like a madman."

He was talking like a madman.

He was a little heated.

"And far greater laborers, far more imprisonments with countless beatings and often near death.

Five times I have received at the hands of the Jews, the forty lashes less one.

Three times I was beaten with rods once I was stoned.

Three times I was shipwrecked."

He continues to go on about all the things that have happened to him.

And he's like, "Who is weak?

I am not weak.

Who is made to fall?"

He got sideways with others who were like him.

Paul has many stories of being disappointed and even betrayed by the church.

Just like you and just like me.

Yet throughout his letters he calls the church beloved.

He calls them brothers and sisters.

Now before the Orphan Spirit series a couple months ago, some of you would have been like, "My brother and my sister are crazy."

And that might be true, but you're called to love them.

Just like Paul tells us, "These guys are making me mad.

My peers are making me mad.

These things aren't going right."

But yet he says, "I'm called to love them.

They're my brothers and sisters.

They're beloved."

So what does Paul tell us about how we should interact when we come together as a church, when we come together as a family?

One, he says, "Speak lovingly and truthfully to one another."

Okay, real quick.

It is a lie when you say that you love somebody who you have not put any effort into getting into a relationship with, and then you turn around and say, "Well, I spoke the truth and love to them."

No, no, no, you didn't.

No, that's not how that works.

You don't get to just call up Jace and say, "Jace, I haven't even attempted to have a relationship with you.

I haven't even attempted to be family with you.

But today I'm going to tell you that you need to change this.

You have to lovingly have a relationship with people who play with lights during the sermon.

You can't make me look any better.

I was born with this face."

Paul calls other believers brothers and sisters.

He loudly affirms that the saints are to walk in a manner worthy of your calling and stay the course.

We're supposed to show more honor to each other.

We're supposed to show more love to each other.

We're supposed to be more steadfast and have fidelity with each other.

We're supposed to be a family on mission.

I don't get to just walk up to you for the first time and say, "Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy, but don't come back."

I don't get to do that if I'm truly being loving to you.

I should attempt to know you and persevere with you and have your back.

That's what Paul says.

That's what Jesus did.

Number two, that we are to show up and participate.

At least seven times in Paul's writing does he say that he has a great desire to be face to face with them.

Even when he's writing to them.

Sometimes when he gets into the letter, towards the end he's like, "You guys suck at life.

You need to fix it.

By the way, did I tell you you suck at life?

Fix it."

But he starts off by saying, "It is my great desire that I could be there face to face with you, and because I cannot be there face to face with you today, I am sending you a Dear John letter."

He had a desire to be face to face with people.

Where else do we see that?

We see that with our Heavenly Father, who had a desire to be face to face with the Israelites at the base of Sinai.

He had a desire to commune with each other when he took on the body of flesh and he came and he walked on the earth.

Jesus went out of his way to love on people.

You could say, "Well, he didn't love their sin."

You're missing the point, and you need more love.

He went out of his way to develop a relationship and love on people that nobody thought had value.

But to God, they had all the value.

How could he speak truth and love to them without first showing them that they're loved?

And again, this message comes from one of the greatest hypocrites for the last 17 years.

It's easy to hide in apostolic vain and tell people what they need to fix, rather than get into the mud and do life with them and still be there and still love them and still lock arms with them and still be steadfast with them when they don't maybe make an adjustment as quickly as you would like.

But normally when I'm thinking about how quickly you should make an adjustment, you're also thinking about how quickly I should make an adjustment.

And when we stop loving one another, what happens?

We end up with another church, end up with another split, we end up with another problem.

We have enough problems, people.

We got 99 problems and we're all of them.

We're the problem.

How we think, how we go about things, how we process, God is never the problem.

His systems, His places, His word is never the problem.

Show up and participate.

Time warms my heart more than getting to see you guys face to face.

And I understand there's illnesses, there's COVID, there's whatever the flu was that was going around.

People get knocked down left and right this year.

I don't remember when that song was released, but it must be the 10 year anniversary because it's like I get knocked down and I ain't getting up again.

You are going to keep me down.

That's what's happened this year. 25 years.

Thank you.

The random facts you have in your brain is scary.

But yet it's not the same when we see each other through social media or we see each other through a text messages when we see each other face to face.

And I'm not a people person, but I enjoy seeing you.

It warms my heart to see you.

Number three, invest in your church, both in the work and the function and the facility.

Again, this is far more than just financial.

This isn't a tithe message.

Invest where you're planted.

The grass is greener where you water it.

And I know you've heard that a hundred times over.

You've seen it on social media.

But the truth is, is the more time you spend thinking on the things of what you don't like here and how great it would be over there.

By the time you get there, you've already self-fulfilled prophecy and you've caused your own conflict.

And you could have been part of the solution.

Part of the solution is developing relationships with each other and being willing to go in, go in deep, praying, working, seeking tirelessly to overcome the obstacles to keep the commands.

But see, until we fully have the right framework to understand who Jesus is and who Yahweh is, we kind of mask everything with what's called a religious spirit.

Very haughty.

Like, "I keep the commandments.

I'm really good."

We pack a lunch and bring our demons to church with us.

And we spend all the time, the entire time worried about somebody else's demons.

Like, "Oh, did you see what that person was wearing?

Oh, did you hear what they said?"

Meanwhile, you can't even recognize the person that you're feeding right next to you.

God wants deliverance, not just abstinence.

Abstinence is the first step.

But his spirit doesn't just say, "I want you to just have turmoil and trial for the rest of your life."

No, he says, "I want to set you free."

He's a God of setting people free.

If he can't do that here, then where can he do it?

If you don't come expecting to sow and to pray and to walk with each other here, are you going to get it at Walmart?

You going to get it at Popeyes?

A superior chicken sandwich does not put you in deliverance.

Somebody said amen to that one too.

The most random amens today, I guess.

Give thanks and speak life.

Paul tells us that we're supposed to give thanks for the church, for the opportunity to come together.

We're to give thanks for the opportunity to come praise God corporately.

That we're to make a public profession of our faith and our testimony.

We see that in Romans 1.8.

I think it was last week or the week before Tim came and gave his testimony.

He didn't know he was going to give his testimony.

I didn't tell him he was going to give his testimony.

But right in the start of the service, he talked about this radical salvation he experienced while going to a camp out with a bunch of men.

It was so radical that he immediately went and got baptized as well.

You're supposed to testify of the good things that God's done in your life.

If you testify of the good things that God's done in your life, maybe we'll have more of that than always talking about the negative things you see in somebody else's life.

One of these days, we have to get to a place where we fill our mouth with power.

Because the power that we're using in our mouth is to destroy the very temple that God died and resurrected to put his spirit in.

The most Hebrew thing you can do is to realize that the power of death comes in the tongue.

Why?

Because the adversary spoke to Haba, to Eve, and said, "Surely God's lying.

He's lying to you."

You surely will not die.

We're lying to ourself.

If we lie on other people, they surely won't die.

No, but you will.

That poison will eat you alive.

And what you try to do to somebody else's character, another child of God, it'll come back to you.

Give thanks and speak life by giving gifts and affording grace, which is 1 Corinthians 1, 4 through 7.

We all need more grace.

God is the perfect judge.

He does not need you to judge.

But he gives you an outline on how you can rightfully discern the spirits that are interacting there.

Why does he give us that text?

"Michelle, if he gives us a text on how I can rightly discern the spirit, my job isn't to discern the spirit so I can somehow cast you out of the congregation of the church.

My job is to then walk with you so that you can experience the power of the deliverance of the Lord.

I don't have the power to deliver you.

Moses didn't have the power to deliver them.

It was by the power of God that Moses was a tool.

You're a tool in the hands of the Almighty King."

Hebrews, wake up.

Loving each other, Ephesians 1, 15 through 16.

It's hard to love others if you don't love yourself.

I mean, let's talk about pride.

We're going to talk about that in the new series that's coming up.

But pride is more than just the love of self.

So then don't go all the false humility way and say, "Woe is me.

I'm just, I'm ugly.

I'm not worthy."

You're a child of God.

He thought you were worthy, so why don't you think you're worthy?

Love one another.

Rejoicing in the fellowship with other gospel believers.

We've got our friends who are not believers.

We've got our friends who are in the world.

We've got our colleagues, our coworkers.

We spend a lot of time with them.

What would it be like if you just made a minor adjustment, just a 10% adjustment of spent people who speak life into you, who allow you to be at peace in your family?

Nobody in this room wants more peace?

Being and rejoicing in the steadfastness, 1 Thessalonians 1, 2 through 3.

We all know those firecrackers.

Fireworks are beautiful.

But what happens when the fireworks are done?

Kind of like, "Oh, that was awesome.

Now I'm ready to go home.

That was the greatest five minutes of my life."

Then we forget about it and a couple times a year we do it again.

Be steadfast.

Shine brightly all the time, not just for 30 seconds.

That's hard to do.

I haven't got it all figured out.

But shine bright and be steadfast for one another because your Messiah was steadfast for you.

Israel throughout the Bible didn't deserve a blessing at all.

They perverted everything God did.

They rebelled and God was steadfast and still is steadfast.

Look around the world.

Look in our churches.

We're full of broken people playing games.

Yet God still loves you.

God still cares for you.

And maturing in your faith, 2 Thessalonians 1.3.

Being stuck in a rut is not the life of Christ.

Christ says, "I came to give you life and life abundantly."

He wants you to grow.

He wants you to constantly be maturing and growing and having that growth.

Don't think that you have arrived.

The moment you think that you have arrived, you have not arrived.

You are dying.

I thought I had arrived after 17 years in this full Bible walk.

And what I realized by the power of God was that I don't know anything.

And it took God to reach down and radically transform my heart.

That's awesome.

But it's going to take many, many years of walking with others just like you for me to mature in my faith.

When the Hebrews used to come to the house of the Lord, the temple, they would come following the instructions of Yahweh.

Yahweh would say, "Hey, today if you have this sin, go ahead and bring me two turtle doves and a partridge and a pear tree."

I'm not meaning to mock His Word.

I just don't remember what all they were.

And there was multiple different things.

And they would.

And they would bring that.

How would we interact if we took what we see today in most churches and we applied it to the temple of God?

We'd be singing Paul Wilber, I'm just telling you.

And be like, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of."

Hey, God, I didn't want to bring a bull today because I felt like a turkey was more appropriate.

So I went ahead and I stopped off and I got a turkey and I'm bringing you a turkey.

And we'd be negotiating or arguing with God.

We would get into the temple and we would come through the outer courts and we'd be like, "Oh, Lord, you're going to have to go ahead and shut down that altar of incense because it is jacking with my sinuses."

We would make things about ourself because that's what we do.

Especially as Americans, as westernized people, we would say, we would argue with God.

I put those into those tangible things because we still do it.

We argue with the Word of God that says you need to repent.

We argue with the Word of God that says you need to love somebody.

We argue with the Word of God that says, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments."

We argue with the Word of God that says that he put his spirit in you.

We argue with the Word of God and other people saying that he can somehow give you a gift to speak in tongues.

Oh my gosh, Lord, you cannot do these things to me.

We argue.

We fight.

But when do we finally submit?

When do we finally get to a place where we say, "Your will, not mine?"

When do we get to a place where we stop negotiating with the Lord?

Worship team, you can come back.

Lord, if you do this for me, I will do this for you.

Lord, if you do this, I will do this.

Jesus said, "Come follow me."

Their response was to cast down their nets.

I'm not sure they knew what they were signing up for.

They didn't get a 30-day trial.

There was no 7-day money-back guarantee.

He said, "Come follow me."

And they cast down and turned away from what they knew to do, their profession.

And then he said, "I will make you fishers of men."

There's a process there.

We see that same process again in Acts chapter 15 to the letter of the Gentiles.

The very first four things that God says when you're a Gentile and you want to be grafted into his family is that you should abstain from the four pagan practices of idol worship that were happening.

First thing is just to stop.

So what is it for you?

Is it a judgmental spirit for somebody else?

Does your mouth speak death over people?

Do your eyes watch things you shouldn't?

What is it for you?

Every person has one.

The first thing you do is you cast it down.

Then he teaches you.

And as he teaches you, you then have a responsibility and an obligation to go help everybody else renovate their house.

Sometimes you've got to put windows in.

Sometimes you've got to fog.

Sometimes you've got to dust.

Sometimes you've got to cry.

Sometimes you've got to laugh.

But at the root of all those, you have to first care.

When stuff hits the fan, there should be two people for sure that you can count on that don't have the same blood as you.

It should be Jesus first.

And then the other people who were bought by the same blood.

I know that's hard.

Because when you open yourself up to love or to have joy or to have peace, that means at a time when you don't have love or you don't have peace or you don't have joy, it's going to be a little bit harder.

So we would prefer to use the logic that says, "Well, I'd rather have an okay marriage.

I'd rather have an okay friendship."

You ain't going to last in this church.

Because I want your marriage to be the best ever.

I want the Lord to supernaturally do things in your relationships and in your life that you've never experienced before.

And some of you in this room have had healing.

You've seen miracles.

I want more because the Bible says there is more.

But the adversary is not the person causing issue on the church.

We are.

And the church is the one causing the problem with the church.

Because we believe the lie.

We focused on the twisting of truth.

Your value is not in your current circumstance.

Because if that's the case, then throw out, "While yet we were sinners, Christ died for us."

Throw it out.

Some of you come to church and you're the house that's fully been renovated.

And yet behind the walls is mold.

There's foundation issues.

There's shingles that have been put over top.

There's three layers.

Once you get to the bottom layer, like, "Ooooh."

Some of you arrived.

You're a house that just has never been renovated.

It's just, "I'm here.

I'm just here."

Complacency is not what the church is called to do.

Paul talks about how much he loves the body.

How much he cares about the body.

How he calls us to extort one another.

How we're supposed to speak life with exhortation.

And we're supposed to get in the mud and help each other.

Church is not a social club.

You don't come here to get your needs met.

Because I can promise you, you're not going to.

If you come here and it's like, "Well, I want this and I want this, I want this, I want this," it's not going to happen.

Because this isn't McDonald's.

It's not Burger King.

You don't get to have it your way.

It's got to be Yahweh.

It's got to be His way.

Today, as we respond and we sing worthy of it all and whatever else the Lord wants to do, which house are you?

The one that's been neglected and fallen apart?

The one that has a good, solid structure and foundation to it, but it needs a new coat of paint and some updates?

Are you the one that got the really bad renovation?

You just threw some paint on it and you're acting like you're good.

And you ain't good.

Because until you can actually get to a place where you can love the body and love yourself as a member of that body, no work is going to get done.

No work is going to get done.

And just to acknowledge that we have problems doesn't mean work's going to get done.

The house of prayer is about the Lord.

It's a day where we're told, we're instructed to bear one another's burdens.

We're to hear the Word of God.

We're to bring an offering of praise and thanksgiving into this place.

If we start to focus on what God has said and who God is with the integrity of what He has said, maybe we'll start looking for every crack in the drywall.

Maybe we'll stop looking for all of your bed bugs.

And maybe we'll start to finally walk with each other where we're at in love, peace, patience, kindness, being gracious to one another, being compassionate to one another.

Is there anybody in this room who just has too much love?

Is there anybody who couldn't use one more hug?

Is there anybody in this room who couldn't just use one more like, "I'm not going to give up on you"?

Because I haven't met them.

Once we stop looking at each other and we refocus our eyes on the Lord and we get about the business of His kingdom, we no longer see each other as being in conflict with each other.

We see them as co-heirs able to help us solve the problem.

The problem is that this world needs to know Jesus.

We're all worried about whether they keep the Sabbath or not.

The Sabbath ain't going to save them.

They first need to know Jesus.

That they were bought by the blood of God, covered, redeemed.

Somebody loved them.

They didn't have to do anything for them.

This wasn't a sympathy gift.

"Thank you for getting me a gift card.

I'm giving you a gift card."

God wasn't like, "Okay, you obeyed me, you love me, and now I'm going to send my son as a thank you gift."

This was a plan all along.

You weren't worthy of anything.

You never were worthy of anything.

He knew you were broken.

He knew that you had problems.

He knew your wrestles.

He saw your wrestles.

He still sees your wrestles.

And He said, "It's by my might, by my power that you can be saved."

Tim, you can't do nothing.

You can love Him.

I can't do anything except for love Him.

And guess what?

I'm loving Him.

I'm commanded to love you.

Nobody needs more love.

Nobody needs more words of affirmation.

You're seeing your heard your love.

Today I'm asking you, make a shift.

Make a shift.

How do you walk through those doors?

Do you walk through those doors expecting to experience the power and the presence of God, or do you just walk through those doors to expect to go through the same routine?

Your routine needs to be interrupted because God wants more fruit.

And since He was the one who caused the seed in you to grow, He gets to tell you He wants more fruit.

And if we're actually working together, the harvest will be more plentiful.

But some of you in here are playing games.

You're the house that threw some flat, flat paint on the wall so you can't see the issues in the drywall.

We put the fifth coat of shingles on top of the bad ones.

So my question is, how long are you going to play the game with God?

Because see, God's the greatest general contractor there is.

He already knows that you're playing games.

When you leave here, He knows you're playing games.

So at what point in time are you truly going to do something different?

At what point in time are you truly going to acknowledge the brokenness you have and then cry out to Him in humility and submission to allow Him to overcome that in you?

At what point in time are you going to lock arms with somebody else and say, "It doesn't matter what you've done, you've got to be born again"?

Because there's a lot of churches out there.

And if we're just coming to church because we can check a box, you're missing a lot.

You're missing a lot.

So as we sing "Worthy of it All" today, I ask you, is He really worthy of it all in your life?

Or have you only given Him 1%, 2%?

Maybe you're like Mashable and you say, "Hey, if you put an 80% limit on your cell phone battery, so you've limited God at 80% in your life."

I don't know the answer to that, and it's none of my business.

But He does.

So if He loves you so much as the church to die for you and to give you gifts, when are you going to start loving yourself enough to receive them?

And then once you've received them, when are you going to love the other members of the church enough that you're going to go and you're going to sow into them?

Not for the original righteousness Paul was trying to do, which is his works under the law, but for the zeal and the fire that Paul had after he was radically transformed.