Everyday Mission: The Church

Music.

All right. Well, good morning. So glad to see you guys all today. I know we just prayed like twice, but we're going to pray again because I really just want to, I just want to pray this morning. So it's about me. It's about me and seeking the Lord and you can be a part of it, but I think it'd be really good way to start off this morning. So would you guys just join me? So Lord, we just come into your presence this morning.

God, we just remind ourselves that we have this invitation, an invitation to walk right into the holiest of holies because of what you've done, Jesus, like we are invited into relationship with you. And we come together collectively just saying that, yeah, we have a relationship with you through Jesus, by the Spirit. And so we want to step into that. Lord, we want to be led by you. We want to hear from you. We want to stand in your grace, Lord.

We want to be taught by you, informed by you, and shaped by you. And so, Holy Spirit, we ask you to come. We ask you to be here. Lord Jesus, we want to know how how to worship you more and how to become people who just seeking after you with all that we have, Lord. And these are not things we can do in our strength. And so we come to you for your strength. We ask you to be here this morning in Jesus name.

Amen. All right, cool. Well, we are in the third week of this everyday mission series. And you know, the goal is that we should just think about, I want to think about how we can just be normal people partnering with God to do what he's up to in the world because he's doing something. I mean, Jesus has come into the world to reveal God's intention to reconcile people with him, to give people life and salvation and just like change the whole world. And all that is happening through Jesus.

And so like God is doing that, but we're invited to be a part of that. And so we're just thinking about what does that mean for us, you know, and how do we live as people on mission and a part of the mission of God. And really what I've come to really believe is that it doesn't involve us becoming different people. It's just the people that we are, normal people in our everyday course of our lives, just partnering with the Holy Spirit.

That's what we need to be. That's what we need to aspire to be. If you've been following along up to this point, you know that we've been talking a lot about the Holy Spirit. And that's because I think that if we're going to be people, again, who are partnering with God, a part of God's mission to tell people about Jesus, then we need to be people who are filled with the Spirit.

But even as I say that, I want to emphasize something distinct, and I've sort of been trying to do this the last couple of weeks, about our relationship with the Spirit. And that's this. I'm just going to underline the point here, that our relationship with the Spirit, it's not additive, it's formative. And I'm going to explain what I mean by that in a second. But this is kind of, I think, something we need clarity on when we're thinking about the Spirit and we're thinking about mission.

Our relationship with the Spirit is not additive, it's formative. So let me explain what I mean by that. I am alive. And so I love Chick-fil-A sauce, just like you, right? I have a picture of Chick-fil-A sauce. I actually stole this picture off of eBay and someone was selling 16 packets for $15. And I was like, that's a great business model. You just go in and you steal 16 packets of Chick-fil-A sauce and you sell it for a crazy markup. That's probably what they were doing.

And I was thinking, there's probably an easier way to get Chick-fil-A sauce. So that's a total aside. I was just floored by the asking price for that this morning. But I love Chick-fil-A sauce. I was just at Chick-fil-A yesterday. Not today, though, because it's a Sunday. But the recipe for Chick-fil-A sauce is a secret, as you know. It's a secret sauce. And Molly and I were talking about this the other day, because this is all we do.

We eat Chick-fil-A and we talk. We were talking about this the other day, and we were trying to figure out, what's in there? What's in that secret sauce? And she had some ideas, is, and she's probably right and mine was probably wrong. But I bet if we actually set out to make our own version of Chick-fil-A sauce, we would get something that's really good, but that isn't quite right. Because that's the way secret sauces work.

You taste and you just say, it's really close, but there's just something's missing, right? There's something missing that you don't get until you get the real stuff. And here's the thing that I've noticed about Christians Christians, is that we are always trying to crack the secret sauce. I mean, this is people in general. People are always trying to crack the secret sauce. But as Christians, we're trying to crack the spiritual secret sauce.

We think, man, if I could just do this or learn this or be this way or have this kind of experience, then I would crack the code and my spiritual life would be set. You know, and so we put a lot of effort into trying to crack the code. And so we say, well, I'm gonna do this program or I'm gonna serve in this way, or I'm gonna give this much, or I am going to, you know, just seek the Holy Spirit and I'm just gonna get filled with the Holy Ghost, right?

Which I recommend, I recommend, I'm not putting this down. None of these things are bad things, right? But what we are always doing is we're trying to figure out the secret sauce. We're trying to figure out what we need to add to ourselves in order to make ourselves whole and complete. Because we think that we have everything, but we just need to add one more thing in our lives. And we're operating under that assumption. And we treat the Holy Spirit that way too.

So we treat the Holy Spirit like he's withholding something from us. We treat God like he's withholding something from us. And we just have to crack the code in order to get what we want from God so that we can feel complete and feel empowered and feel like we're really on our way. But I think that just like is such a misunderstanding about what we're called to do that it really ends up, like if we think of our relationship, we've got that way.

It ends up really stealing our joy and keeping us from what we're really called to. Let me give you another illustration. Like say you have a car and the car doesn't have an engine and that's a problem, right? You wouldn't be wrong to think, well, in order to get this car moving, in order to crack the code of the car, I need to go buy an engine. You would be correct. That is what you need to do. You need to add an engine to the car.

But if you just buy an engine, at that point, your car is not drivable. That's about as much of my mechanical knowledge. We've exhausted it. I know that you need one, and I know that just buying it is not enough. You actually need to, at that point, that you buy the engine, you need to install it. You need to hook the engine up to the drive train. Yeah, confidence, the drive train. You do, see, you believe me and you don't

know. I don't know, no one knows. You need to put the engine up, you need to hook it up, Or to put it another way, what you need is you need to have the engine get into a right relationship with the rest of the car, okay? Like, and it needs to stay there. It needs to stay in that relationship for the car to be what it's called to be, to function as a vehicle. So as we start to talk about living the missional life, we're starting with the Holy Spirit.

But I think that we, I really want to clarify, it's not just that, I'm not just prescribing you take one dose of the Holy Spirit and you'll be all set. That's not it. It's not like we just need to come into this kind of additive kind of relationship with the Spirit. What we need is to, we need to come into a right relationship with the Spirit. And we're invited into that because of what Jesus has done. He sent his Spirit. And then we need to stay in that place.

Like, like we, just like the engine needs to remain in the place where the engine goes, like in stay in that kind of relationship with the rest of the car. We're called to stay in this kind of formative relationship with the Holy Spirit, to pursue God, to listen to Him, to be led by Him, to fellowship with Him, and to stay in that sort of relationship. You don't just need the Spirit like you need the last ingredient to know about

what it is, and then you can add it as much as you want to the recipe. to be. You need the Spirit to be your constant and ongoing companion who's forming your character, who's leading you, who's telling you how to pray. That's something that the Holy Spirit does. Who's telling you how to share with people. He's telling you what opportunities there are before you to be a part of the mission that God is bringing about in the world.

You need to be in this relationship with God by the Spirit to embody and be who you're called to be. And it's not just like a one-time, oh, I have it and then I'm done. It's you're called to be in this relationship and then to stay in that sort of relationship. And I really think it's fundamental to being a Christian, at least being a mature Christian.

Because one of the crazy things about Christianity, and it's part of what I think is sort of scandalous about Christianity, is that we make some really big claims that we say are true to all people about what it means to be a human being, to be a flourishing person, to be what you were created to be. We make some big claims about what it means to be a person. And there are at least four that are really fundamental to the underlying worldview and backstory of Christianity.

Like in the first one is that God made us well. I mean, that's what we read Genesis 1 and 2. We know that God created everything and then he created people and he set them in this kind of context, the Garden of Eden. And it's like there was a relationship between man and God in that place that was as it should be. And we read, look in the book of Genesis, it's like Adam and Eve were just walking with God, just hanging out with him, talking to him.

They had this kind of formative, dependent, relational connection. And that is how God created us. That's how we were meant to be created, right? And then the second thing that we believe is that we were created to be in that kind of relationship, but because of sin, because of disobedience, and because of the the brokenness that's come into the world, that relationship isn't functioning. You are out of relationship with God because of sin.

That's things that you've done, yes, but also just because you live in a broken world. We believe that sin has come into the world. It's broken our relationship with God. It has broken us. It is stopping us from being who we were created to be. Sin is keeping us from having this right relationship with God and consequently for keeping us from being who we were made to be.

And that's a big claim to make about all people. And sometimes people don't like it when you say that, but that's just kind of in the Bible, it's the backstory of everything. But then the good news is that there's this third claim that we make and we believe that Jesus's life, death and resurrection.

About a good news, a statement of good news that that life that we were created for, that we lost because of sin can be restored to us, not because of our works, not because we perform our way into the good graces of God, but because as a gift, Jesus has come, he's died, he's taken away our sin and now we can receive this new life. We're reconciled to God because of what Jesus has done. done and that's available to anyone who wants it.

But the fourth thing that we believe is in order for us to receive that, in order for that to be meaningful to us, we respond in faith. That is, we say, I understand what God is saying he's done. He's restoring this relationship. He's taking away sin. He's forgiving me. He's calling me to this new kind of life of relationship. And as a party to this relationship. I have to participate in it. Jesus died. He's done everything on his end to restore the relationship.

And now he says, okay, I've done it. It's a free gift offered to you. I've died for sin. I'm taking it away. I want you to be reconciled to me. And all you have to do now is by faith, just come and say, okay, Jesus, I'll take this. And I'm going to live now into this restored dynamic relationship with God. And what the Bible says is that means that you're you're going to have a life. You're going to have salvation is the word that we use. It's a very Christian word.

And we've kind of, I think, caked it in some culture, but it's just describing this kind of heavenly life, this relational life with God, the life that we live by faith in Jesus Christ. And it's a new kind of life. And it's not merely like that. Just, we need to, we just need Jesus to take away our sin. And then we're fine. We're all set. We're on our way. We can go our merry way and we're just going to be happy and healthy and great.

It's that we come actually, when we come by faith, we come into a relationship with God. Faith brings us into a relationship with God and that relationship itself, staying in that relationship, continuing on in that trust and faith and hope and seeking after God and listening to God and walking with God, it changes us if we stay in it. It's a transformative kind of relationship. Ray Stedman, who's like an old school pastor, he's, I've passed away a while back.

I like how he kind of describes what's going on here, what the invitation to faith is. He says, the apostle Paul, so he's talking about Paul's teaching on this. He says, the apostle Paul indicates that the secret to an effective and meaningful life lies in what he terms the new covenant, which is that, which is what Jesus refers to when he passed the cup to his disciples at the institution of the Lord's Supper.

And he says, this is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. This cup taken with bread is to remind us of the central truth of our lives, that Jesus died for us in order that he may live in us. It is his life in us that is the power by which we live a true Christian life. So like what we're reminded of when we come into church and when we take communion and when we worship God and we have this relationship with him,

it's that we're in a new kind of relationship with God. It's not that he just adds something to us and now we're all set. It's that we remain in this kind of connectedness with him and his life is pouring into us and his power is working in us by the spirit. And his intentions are gonna play out in our lives to the extent that we sit with Jesus and we keep hanging in by faith and he's gonna do something in us.

It's what Jesus talks about in that famous passage from John 15, 4 through 9. I have it in a different translation, but typically the word remain here is translated abide, right? So you probably know about we're called to abide. What Jesus says is this. He says, remain in me and I in you, just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me.

I'm the vine, you're the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit because without me, you can do nothing. So if we're setting up to figure out how can we live on mission? How can we bear fruit? We don't have to look to crack the secret sauce. What we're called to is to be in the right kind of relationship. Remain in him, he'll remain in you and you'll bear fruit. See, a lot of times we're just saying, well, how do I bear fruit? What's the method? What's the technique?

What are the three steps to fruitfulness? What's the three steps to living like an everyday missionary? And Jesus says, there are no three steps. The three steps, if you wanna bear fruit, remain in me and I'll remain in you. Stay in this kind of connected, obedient, loving, relational position with me. And the consequence of that in your life will be fruitfulness. We're so prone. It's a really American, Western, European kind of thing to just focus on technique and method.

We're obsessed with this idea. And I'm not trashing it. It's just like part of our culture and part of our intellectual history since the Enlightenment. I'm such a nerd. I'm sorry. We think that if we understand something, something, then we'll know what to do with it. We think that understanding something is having power to use it for my ends. So we think, oh, okay, so I need a relationship with God so that I can be fruitful.

And so I'm just going to pursue the technique and the method for fruitfulness. And so I'm going to turn everything into, you know, a tool that I can use. But Jesus just says, look, if you really want the results, if you want the fruitfulness, then it's just about this relationship. Pursue that thing. And then the methods will follow. The results will follow. God is not a thing that you need to do stuff. God is not a thing that you need to be happy.

God is not a thing that you can convert into something that gives you a sense of power and accomplishment. Jesus says, if you want to do something, if you want to have this kind of reconnected, joyful life of peace, overflowing with power and fruitfulness, then just remain in me. Pursue this relationship above all else. Just the fastest way for us to be fruitful is to just to pray, to set aside time to walk with Jesus and talk with him like we would our spouse or our good friend.

We're to remain in him. If we remain in him, if we continue to just pursue him in faith, we continue to pursue him in relationship, the fruitfulness will follow.

And so you know i really want to get practical like i want to just give you a bunch of great steps but i just really like want to encourage you first and foremost is that the thing that's going to be formative and fruitful in your life is abiding in that relationship with jesus, and just listening to the spirit who's always pointing you and developing you in your relationship with Jesus. That's enough. And it will lead to the fruitfulness.

So as we move along here, I want to just ask a question. I mean, this is kind of where we're going to be for the rest of our time together. And that is, okay, so what does the church have to do with everyday mission, right? So we're going to talk about the church and the next week we'll talk about your everyday life. But what does the church have to do with everyday mission? And really. I think it's not so different than what we're called to individually.

We are called, like we've been talking about, to be in this kind of right relationship, this right relationship with Jesus by the Spirit, like listening to Him, remaining in that relationship, being led by Jesus, like having this time of just enjoying His presence and connecting with Him.

We believe that as an individual, like that's going to, that kind of relationship of trust and faith and independence and, you know, that looks like our normal relationships that we invest in, it's going to bear fruit. But because of what the church is, right? It's not you and your individual life and your relationship with Jesus. It is a gathering of multiple people.

I mean, just look around. Here we are. Here we are. We're a church by the biblical standards that is a gathering of saints, a gathering of people called to worship God, who've been invited in, who know Jesus, who are following after him. We're this gathering of people. And so because of what we are as the church, there are some unique ways in which our relationship with the spirit, our relationship with Jesus is playing out.

And Paul gives us some insight about what that unique arrangement looks like. And 1 Corinthians is a great chapter for like, what is the church and how does it operate? And 1 Corinthians 12, 12, I'll put it up here. There's also Bibles in front of you. Paul talks He gives us some language to describe what the church is and how it operates. He says this, For just as the body is one and has many parts, and all the parts of that body, though many, are one body, so also is Christ.

For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slave or free, and we were all given one Spirit to drink. Indeed, the body is not one, but many. So if you're in Christ, if you trusted in Jesus, the Holy Spirit is working in you. He's connecting you together with other people who have this common experience. And the language, the biblical language for this, what we call the church, right?

And that's one way that the Bible describes it. But to give us an image of what it looks like, it's a body. Like us together form a body. And it's likely not new to you. I'm sure if you've been around church for a little while, You've heard this language before, but I think it's worth thinking about. And I want to remind you of it, that according to Scripture, church is like a body.

It is the best illustration of its nature. And that matters, I think, because it helps us to understand God's design for the church. It helps us to understand specifically how the church best lives out its design and how we're called to be and how we're called to relate to God collectively as we gather. And if we want it to bear fruit, to be people who are called to be and do that together, then I think we just need to live into God's design.

Again, God has designed you to have this relationship with Jesus by the Spirit, and God has designed us to also share in that, but to do so together according to this kind of body metaphor. And Paul goes on here in 1 Corinthians 12, and he leans into and explains the significance of the body metaphor, because there's more to it, I think, than just meets the eye. He says this, God has arranged each one of the parts in the body just as he wanted.

And if they were all the same part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, I don't need you. Or again, the head can't say to the feet, I don't need you. On the the contrary, those parts of the body that are weaker are indispensable. And those parts of the body that we consider less honorable, we clothe with greater honor. And our unrespectable parts are treated with greater respect, which our respectable parts do not need.

Instead, God has put the body together, giving great honor to the less honorable, so that there would be no division in the body, but that the members would have the same concern for each other. So if one member suffers, all the members suffer. And if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. And now you are the body of Christ and individual members of it.

See, this body metaphor is really interesting because it's not just a convenient way for Paul to say that we're all in this together, like we're all connected because your body is all connected. There's more to the metaphor, and Paul is using it to teach them about the way the church should function and it should relate to the Holy Spirit and relate to the mission of God playing out in in the church.

It's Paul's way, this metaphor is Paul's way of saying that each of us not only is a part of something, but has a vital part to play in the work and calling of the church. I mean, he's going to such great lengths to make sure that no one could say that they don't have a really important part to play. He's actually going, he's saying, we do this kind of weird thing where we honor what seems dishonorable and we dishonor what seems honorable.

He's saying in the church, we kind of intentionally flop the normal way of thinking about what's important and what's valuable. We turn it on its head so that we could say that everybody has a really important and vital part to play.

It's his way of reminding us that if we don't all do what we're called to do, or we don't actually have a vision for what we're called to do, then we're going to be missing out on the kind of relationship we're supposed to have with Jesus, we're gonna be missing out on the fruitfulness that God can use, make the church to bear. And I think Paul's challenge is especially urgent for us as Americans in 2024, because, and this is not critical, this is just observation, okay?

Really, for the last 40 or 50 years in America, the church has invested in a model of organization and church growth that comes out of what's called the church growth movement. This is a real thing that scholars kind of study. And that model was built around three, maybe some extra things, but an awesome Sunday experience where there's just like great music, right? And like a dynamic pastor.

And we already don't have that. and like great kids programs, you know, it was like, we're gonna put on a big show, a big event on Sundays. And again, this is not criticism because actually this was effective to a point. That's what I'm saying. This was effective to a point. Like, and so the church grew really for the past 40 years by like inviting people in and developing community and relationships and like serving people and meeting their felt needs and stuff like that.

And a lot of people came to know Jesus as a result of that. That's been good. I don't think it's been bad, But I will say that the collective impact of a half a century of focus on methods and technique of church growth like that have, I think, worn on the church a little bit. And again, not like trashing the model. I'm just saying, like, I think it needs a little bit of correction because we've emphasized skinny jeans pastor and great awesome music and great kids programs.

And the thing is like we have a limited amount of focus and a little amount of time and a little amount of resources. And my experience growing up in the church like this is like, yeah, it was great. There were great experiences. But can we say that y'all who come and attend churches, do you feel like you are being given great honor and calling and empowerment for you to have the Holy Spirit working through you, just as much as say the guy with the microphone.

I'm just saying that I think the consequence of a model that so emphasizes stage gifts is that the gifts that God has called the church to have have been neglected.

And for a while it was successful. And I think that what most people who study church growth and there are people who do it, missiology, like how the mission works and how the church is to be organized, are realizing that the model is not working as much anymore in our present increasingly secular culture, because people won't go to a place that they're just not interested in. And increasingly, people don't have any context for church.

And I think, again, what I think has happened is that we have neglected the kind of relationship that the church collectively needs to have with the Spirit, where each of us are being empowered and equipped and using our gifts, so that we can go out into the world and use them. Paul says this, he goes on, 1 Corinthians 12, 27 through 28. He says, all of you together are Christ's body and each of you is a part of it. Here are some of the parts God has appointed for the church.

First apostles, second prophets, third are teachers, then those who do miracles and those who have the gift of healing and those who can help others, those who have the gift of leadership, those who speak in unknown languages, right? And this is one list that Paul gives us of kind of like spiritual giftings. And there are other lists. This is not an exhaustive list. But what we get as we read the scriptures and we ask ourselves the question,

what is the church? What is the church? And how does the body operate? And what we see is that there are many parts. And it's not just like one person who gets to sit and teach the Bible is the most honorable. And in fact, if we would read into this 1 Corinthians 12 metaphor, it's actually like the one that seems most honorable, we actually need to dishonor a little bit and not think that they're that important because we want to lift up the others.

And here's the thing, like I grew up in the church where it's like, okay, big bands, big pastors. And again, I love great music. I love great teaching. Like I'm gonna strive to teach well and effectively. And I'm not gonna say, oh, I'll just like show up here. And I was gonna say and not shower, but sometimes I don't do that because I'm kind of, I'm Seattle. I'm very, I have a Seattle vibe and that's okay. That works here.

Nowhere else in the country can I look like this, but it's Seattle. So I think it's okay. Will you forgive me? I'm sorry. My wife won't, but that's all right. Okay. So it's like, it's like we can, we can do all this and we can do things with excellence and we can like put on like a good, meaningful church experience.

But if we neglect the real thing, which is that you guys are learning to use your gifts and you are being called out and empowered and encouraged to do so, then I think in the end, we're going to hit a wall. And I think the American church is already hitting a wall. Because, I mean, what's more effective? We invite people to one hour on a Sunday morning when it's beautiful and they'd rather be mountain biking, right? And then we give them this emotional experience.

Or, which again, some people get saved that way. I'm not trying to just say, they, wow, that's like dumb, throw it out. But what could be more effective? Is it that, that we all have to come here at this one hour, hour and a half on a Sunday, or is the more effective thing that every single one of us goes out and we are in this relationship with the Holy Spirit where he's leading us and he's showing us how we pray for each other and how we love each other and how just in your everyday lives.

Like you can just share Jesus with people and encourage them and bless them. To me, that seems like the way more effective strategy is an empowered church to go about the mission of spreading the gospel than an awesome one hour experience. And we don't have to choose one or the other. We don't have to choose one or the other.

Again, not saying that, but what I want to encourage us in and what I feel like is the next thing for I-90 is how do we become a church where these kind of gifts and like just everybody is empowered and encouraged and equipped to do these things. And you know, the funny thing is, guys, I feel this way all the time. I've never been to that church. So I don't have the playbook for you. This is the playbook I've got, right? And I'm like, okay, so how are we going to do this? And so if you're like,

well, this guy doesn't know what he's doing. Yeah, you're right. I don't, I don't, but I have, I've just seen all of like these other ways of doing things and I'm, and I'm reading the scripture enough and I just feel like the Lord wants to do something within us. And I don't know everything that that's going to look like, but I think it's going to be good. And I think that we need to figure out as a church and that's going to involve all of this, right?

Because of the nature of what it is, we need to figure out as a church, like how do we get into this kind of relationship where. The Holy Spirit with Jesus Christ through the Spirit where we are collectively being who we're called to be.

And I don't have the roadmap. I don't have the confidence. Isn't it great that God uses weak, dumb people? That's in the Bible somewhere. It's actually all over the place in the Bible if you read it. And I'm just another one of those weak, dumb people. But here's what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14, 26, as he's kind of wrapping up his argument, he's gone digressed rest a little bit, but he comes back and then he kind of sums it up.

He says, what then brothers and sisters, whenever you come together, each one has a hymn, a teaching or revelation, a tongue or interpretation. So you all have many gifts and you're using them. It says, but everything is to be done for building up. We want to be an empowered church. We want to be a missionally effective church. We want to be a church where it's like, man, people are getting saved and we're all growing. knowing it looks like this. Each of us has a gift. Each of us is using it.

And then we're all being built up. That's the roadmap, at least as far as I can see it. So the worship team is going to come up here and we're just going to spend some time. You know, we've kind of flopped the service a little bit. We used to do three songs and then one song at the end, but we've been doing two and two just to give us more time to respond. Because again, like I'm not going to be the guy who's going to give you all

the confidence in the world. I actually think the Holy Spirit wants to give you that confidence. And so what I want us to do right now is to just take some time as we worship and we're going to worship Jesus and we're just going to wait on the Lord. And I just like, again, I just want to emphasize these few things just as we do this. Number one is that you have permission to use the gifts that the Lord has given you.

And so that might look like you seeing somebody and feeling like the Lord is leading you to pray for them. And that means that you need to walk up to and then say, can I pray for you? And I think sometimes, honestly, like we like don't do those things because we think, well, is that weird? And yeah, it is. But you have permission to be weird. It's okay. And we like, think like, can we be that sort of people? And he thinks like, you have permission. If you need permission, you have it.

It's not even mine to give. I think the Holy Spirit is giving it to you, right? Because it's not my permission. You not only have permission, you have a calling. This is what Paul is saying. He's saying, look, don't be so sluggish and don't think that you're just to be like a consumer of grace. You have a calling to be a participant in the mission.

You have a calling and it's part of you're flourishing. It's part of you becoming like a happy, whole person in Jesus Christ, that you be in this kind of relationship where you are a normal person, but being led by the Spirit, and you're being used and filled, and God is going to do something with that. Not only do you have permission to do that, you have a calling. It's a part of how God made you to be.

It's a part of your vision for maturity, is that you are not only having gifts, you're able to use them, but you are using them, and you have the Holy Spirit. We started this series on Pentecost. And what happened is that like Jesus died, he rose from the grave, he showed up to the disciples and they were like, oh my gosh, that's amazing. And they were like, we should go tell people about this. And Jesus was like, no, no, no, no, no, don't do that.

Instead, spend 40 days, go hang out in Jerusalem and wait for the presence of the spirit to come down. And then the mission is gonna go forward. Do this abiding, resting, waiting upon me, and then I'm gonna show up in your life and you're gonna be in this right kind of relationship where you're by faith entering in.

And then what's gonna happen is I'm gonna show up and because you're in this kind of relationship of waiting and trusting and remaining with me, then the mission is gonna go forward and then people are gonna hear about Jesus. And the spirit, we've talked about this the past two weeks, the spirit is promised to us. There's no orphan children. There's no orphan children in the kingdom of God. We are all given our inheritance and our inheritance is the Holy Spirit.

And it doesn't look, your gifts don't look like my gifts. My gifts don't look like your gifts because they're about you and your relationship to him and how he's using you and how he's leading you. And you figure that out as you trust in him and as you walk with him And as you continue to move on, like in relationship with him, but you're not an orphan. He's not left you alone.

What you don't know. And what I don't know is like, because we've lived in kind of relational isolation from God because of sin, like what we need to figure out and what Christian maturity is, is learning to step back into that relationship and it's trust. It's obedience. It's prayerfulness. faithfulness. It's all these habits that we don't have that we need to learn. And the Holy Spirit will form those things within us. You've already got the Spirit. You need to listen to Him.

So you have permission, you have a calling and you have his presence, you have the spirit. And so let's just take some time and we're just going to worship for a minute and then we're gonna gather back together and just pray together a little bit.

And so I'm just gonna pray. So Lord, as we just come in, we wanna worship you. We're just gonna stand on our feet, Lord. And God, we're just gonna open our hands and just ask you, Holy Spirit, would you come? Would you be here present with us? Would you remind us that you don't leave us orphans, you don't abandon us. Lord, you've taken away the sin, you've taken away the shame, you've taken away the things that relationally make us wanna hide from you.

And you invite us to be washed clean and free and to learn and grow and to become who you've called us to be. And so we thank you for your freedom and we thank you for your gifts and we thank you for your love, Jesus. It's casting out all fear, that's what you say. say, love casts out fear. You've given us love. And so we're not afraid. And so we say, Holy Spirit, would you be present here? And would you empower us, Lord?

Even as we're gathered together, Lord, would you impress upon us what you're calling us to? Or would you give us understanding of a way forward for us as individuals to be on mission for you and what that looks like? So let's just worship the Lord together.