Hope Church LV Sermons
The Life of a Jesus Follower :: The Mission is Big
7 weekends ago, I stood here before you and asked you two questions. The first question was simply, "How many of you desire to faithfully follow Jesus?" And almost everybody, if not everybody, raised their hand and said, "That's my desire. I desire to faithfully follow Christ." So then we ask a follow-up question that is extremely important. If you're going to say yes to the first question, you have to be able to answer the second question because the second question was is, "What does a faithful follower of Jesus look like?" If we identify the target of our lives as faithfully following Christ, it's important that we understand what it looks like to faithfully follow Jesus. For the last seven weekends at Hope, we have been walking through a series simply entitled "The Life of a Jesus follower." And we've been trying to take the New Testament and very simply answer the question, "What does it look like to faithfully follow Christ?" There's a lot of confusion out there, a lot of mistakes being made when it comes to faithfully following Jesus. It's so easy for us to think following Jesus is simply doing a few things you're supposed to do and not doing a few things you're not supposed to do, and that's what it means to faithfully follow Christ. And if we're not careful, we fall into the trap of believing that spiritual maturity equals spiritual activity. The more I'm doing, the more I'm serving, the more involved I am, all of these things equate to me being more spiritual and more faithful and God being more pleased with me. But as we've unpacked the New Testament, as we've tried to dig deep into the life of Christ and understand what it looks like to faithfully follow Him, we've given you a foundational statement that simply said, "The life of a Jesus follower is all about relationships." I want you to say that out loud with me this morning. You ready? One, two, three. "The life of a Jesus follower is all about relationships." When you examine the life of Christ in the Gospels, you see that His life revolved primarily around three relationships, and as you and I follow Christ and allow Christ to manifest His life in and through us, our life begins to resemble His life, those same three relationships. And let me just by way of review as we bring this to a close this weekend, I want to give you those three relationships one last time, and as you came in today, you should have received a listening guide that looks like this where you can follow along, and those three relationships are right there on the front, and I want to list them for you. Number one, first and foremost, following Jesus is about a relationship with God. And the key word that we gave you to remember that relationship was the word abide, abide. You see, before being a Christian is anything else, being a Christian is a love relationship with God. You see, God has invited us not into a religion, not into a system of do's and don'ts, rights and wrongs, rules and regulations, God has invited us into an intimate love relationship with Himself, and everything else that being a Christian is flows out of that love relationship with Him. The primary, most important thing that you can understand about following Jesus is that He's invited you into a relationship, and listen to me, the goal is the relationship. The relationship is not what you get, and then you start living the Christian life. No, the goal is the relationship. He's brought you into a relationship with Himself so that you focus on intimacy with Him. That's why we chose that word abide out of that John 15 passage. You and I are daily and personally to abide in Christ, and then live out of the overflow of that intimate love relationship with Him, relationship with God. But then secondly, we gave you the key word connect to describe our relationship with each other. Because you see, because I have a relationship with God, I now have a relationship with you. We are God's family, we are brothers and sisters in Christ. And what gives us that relationship with each other is our relationship with Him. And here's what you need to understand. These relationships are interdependent. Now the primary, the foundation is a relationship with God. If you miss that, you miss everything else. But our relationship with God and our relationship with each other interdependent, here's what I mean by that. It's my relationship with God that gives me a relationship with you, but it's my relationship with you that deepens and grows my relationship with Him. You see how they're interdependent? God designed it that way. We were never designed to live apart from fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ. So faithfully following Jesus means abiding in Christ daily and personally, but it also means connecting with other believers. And what we believe is a biblical pattern of large group worship gatherings and small group life on life, fellowship. Then there's a third relationship that we began to look at last weekend. And it's our relationship with those that don't know Christ. And the word that we gave you as the key word is the word share. You see, God brought us into relationship with Himself so that out of the overflow of our fellowship with Him, we get to share in His mission of making Himself known locally and globally. Locally as you and I begin to live out of the overflow of intimate fellowship with God, we begin to be changed from the inside out where God is changing us. You see, Christianity is not just an external conformity to some systems. Christianity is an internal work of transformation. We're out of the overflow of my fellowship with God. God is literally changing me on the inside. He's conforming me to the image of His Son so that what comes out of me is not just a better me. It's literally Christ in me. Paul says the hope of glory. As you and I begin to live out the life of Christ, you looked at it last weekend in our schools, in our neighborhoods, in our jobs as Christ begins to make Himself known. You know what we become? Every one of us become a missionary. We're sharing in the mission of God making. You know why you work where you work and why you live where you live? Not because you chose it. You know, God puts you there as His missionary to make Himself known through your life out of the overflow of intimate fellowship with Him. We're just sharing the mission. Well as we bring this series to a close, I want to look at a passage of Scripture that really impacted my life back in 1998 because it was 1998 when the truths that we'd been sharing with you over the last seven weekends. These truths really became real for me in 1998. I became a Christian in 1989. I was born again, gave my life to Christ. But it was that first nine or ten years of walking with God where I fell into the trap of performance, thinking that God had saved me and I was supposed to live for him. I was supposed to do all the right things and not do all the wrong things and I was trying to hard to live the Christian life. In 1998, God just really shattered my world and brought me into another dimension, if you will, of following Christ's understanding that Christ is the goal, that Christ is the pursuit of our lives, that the goal for my life was not for me to live for Him but to let Him live through me and that's radically different. As I began to understand that God brought a person into my life, a man named Clyde Cranford that I've told you about many times, Clyde began to disciple me personally and began to just teach these truths and pour them into my life. One of the things that Clyde taught me was not to get too far from the gospels, in my personal devotional life to maybe every other book of the Bible, go back and dig back into a gospel and pursue the life of Christ and understand more about who He was. One morning I was doing that, God was teaching me the very things that I've been teaching to you over the last seven weekends and in simple pursuit of Christ, I'm reading the gospel of Luke. I'm not looking for a word from God, I'm not looking for direction in my life, I'm just trying to know Christ and allow Christ to live His life in and through me and I got to the end of the fourth chapter of the gospel of Luke and I read three little verses and those three verses are the reason my family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada. I want to read them for you this morning and then I want to share with you three final truths as we conclude this series on the life of a Jesus follower. Here are the verses, Luke chapter four, beginning in verse 42, it says, "When day came, Jesus left and went to a secluded place and the crowds were searching for Him and they came to Him and tried to keep Him from going away from them, but He said to them, "I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, for I was sent for this purpose." So He kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea. Three truths, here's the first one, "As I follow Jesus, what's on His heart will be on my heart?" Now, I know that sounds kind of simple, but it's really radical. My heart, in tune, enveloped in the heart of God. When I read that verse that morning, there was a phrase in it that just jumped off the page and you know what that is. If you've been a Christian finny length of time at all and you're a person that reads the word, you know what it is that you're reading the word and you may be reading something you've read before, maybe 100 times before, and then all of a sudden it's like, "Whoa, what was that again?" It's like it just reaches up off the page, grabs your head, pulls it down and says, "You need to camp out right here, right?" Here was the phrase, "I must." He's Jesus speaking and he said, "I must." When I heard it, the only word to describe what it spoke into my soul was passion. This was describing the very passion of his heart and the Greek language, this little word must is a word that means it is absolutely necessary. That means this is something that I have to do. And then he begins to tell us what this must is about. And when I read it, it deeply convicted my soul because there are two aspects to what he says his passion is and the first one is simply God's kingdom. Did you hear him? I must preach the kingdom of God. Here's Jesus revealing the very passion of his life. Here I am reading it, understanding that the goal of my life is not to live for him but to allow him to live his life through me which means what's on his heart will be on my heart. And I hear him say, "I must be about the kingdom." And to be totally honest with you this morning, when I read it in 1998, I didn't even know what the kingdom of God was much less to say it was the passion. I mean I heard the term and I could have said something churchy but I didn't know what the kingdom of God was. And right there before the Lord, God just began to do something in my heart because I knew if it was the passion of his life, it had to be the passion of my life. And so I set out trying to study the kingdom of God. Did you know that there were over 100 references and 16 different books of the New Testament to the kingdom of God? You know what that screams? It's important. I mean if something's in the Bible once, that's enough, right? I mean if it's in the Bible one time, it's important. A hundred times in 16 different books of the New Testament as I begin to understand the kingdom of God. And honestly if there's one subject that I would tell you over the now almost 12 years I've been in Las Vegas that God's just deep in my understanding and it's the one subject that I travel all over the world to talk about is the subject of the kingdom of God. Here's what I believe the kingdom of God is. Let me give you a definition. It is God's sovereign activity in the world resulting in people being in right relationship with himself. That's the kingdom of God. That's God's sovereign activity in the world resulting in people being in right relationship with himself. It's the big picture of what God is doing in the world. It's the whole plan and purpose of God. Now let me give you three words to hang that definition on so that you can leave here with some real handles about the kingdom. Here's the first one. The kingdom is believers, believers. Let me show it to you in the Bible in the book of Revelation chapter 5. The Bible is describing this scene after the end of the world has already come. The Bible is describing this scene in Revelation chapter 5 where there's this throng of people around the throne of Jesus Christ worshiping Him. Listen what it says. Worthy are you to take the book and to break its seals for you were slain and purchased for God with your blood, men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and you have made them to be a what? Set out loud, kingdom. Here's what that means. Everywhere you meet a child of God, doesn't matter if it's in Pakistan or America or China or Brazil, wherever in the world you meet a child of God. Someone who's been born again through the redemptive purpose of God accomplished in Jesus Christ on the cross through His death, burial and resurrection. Everywhere you meet a born again blood bought Christian, you encounter the kingdom of God. The kingdom is believers. You and I are not just members of a local church. Listen, we are citizens of a kingdom because of what Jesus has done. It's believers, here's the second reality. The kingdom is big. Say that with me. The kingdom is big, did you hear it? Every tribe and tongue and people and nation. You know we're reading, right? We're reading a scene that we're going to be a part of. We're reading biblical prophecy. We're reading what God already allowed John to see and John wrote it down in the book of Revelation one day around the throne of Jesus Christ. If you are a Christian, you and I are going to be standing there with our hands lifted up and I know for some of you that's going to be a little bit uncomfortable. We're going to be standing there with our hands lifted up and we're going to be saying worthy is the land and we're going to look around and they're going to be men and women from every tribe and every tongue and every people and every nation all bowing and worshiping and celebrating the one true and living God. The kingdom is so much bigger than our church. It's so much bigger than our city. It's so much bigger than our country. It's big. Number three, the kingdom is being built. I see right now we're in process. The gospel of Matthew says it this way in Matthew chapter 24. This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations and knows this, then the end will come. The end of what? The end of the world as we know it. Listen, don't forget this isn't it. You see, we get to work in our jobs and planning our retirement and watching the stock market and focusing on the economy and looking at political elections and we start thinking this is it. This is not it. The real it is yet to come and one day, the last soul will repent and turn to the gospel of Jesus Christ and be born again into the kingdom of God and the Bible says then the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout with a voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God and then the dead in Christ are going to rise first and we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and thus we will always be with the Lord. That's not fairytale, that's not myth, that's not pie in the sky, that is the word of God. You go see it one day, right now it's being built, one soul at a time. You know why we get excited here when people get baptized because we're seeing a public profession of the kingdom being built, one soul at a time, one person at a time who will be a part of that great throng around the throne of Jesus in the book of Revelation now. Now here's what I want you to understand, here's the life changing reality. God is at work all over the world and he brought us into a relationship with himself to join him. Mission is not what we do as Christians. Mission is who we are. For seven weeks we've been telling you that it's all about relationships, God brought you into relationship with himself and that's true but listen, God didn't just bring you into relationship with himself for you. I know we live in a western individualistic society that so focuses on us and even in our Christianity to our shame we have become so man-centered and all over this town and all over our country you can go to churches this weekend and you can hear preachers preach messages about how God's in heaven just for you to make your life better and to give you a better existence and to put more money in your bank account but listen to me, God didn't bring me into relationship with himself just for me. You see God brought you into relationship with himself because he's building a kingdom and God desires out of the overflow of his fellowship with you to conform you to the image of Christ and to manifest the very life of Christ in and through you so that others may come to know him and be drawn to a glorious life changing relationship with him. John Piper said it this way, look at this quote on the screen. If we as a church are disobedient it is not ultimately the cause of God and the cause of world missions that will lose, we will lose. God's counsel will stand and he will accomplish all his purposes. His triumph is never in question, only our participation in it, our incalculable loss. He can be drunk with private concerns and indifferent to the great enterprise of world evangelization but God will simply pass over us and do his work while we shrivel up in our little land of comfort. Now listen, Jesus said I must. When I read it in 1998, you know my problem, my problem is I had substituted the word must with the word might, a might, maybe, Jesus said I must. Not only God's kingdom, we see here his passion for God's kingdom expanding. Here's what he said, I must preach the kingdom to, here was the phrase, the other cities. You see, what motivated Christ was the cry of those who had not yet heard the glorious message of the gospel of the kingdom of God, the other cities. His other cities mean for you and me today, well, Jesus said it more plainly in Acts chapter one and verse eight, look at this verse, he says, but you say that with me, but you, it's you plural, that means it includes you and me, you, me, you will be my witnesses. When you receive power, you'll be my witnesses. Where in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and the remotest part of the earth. If you study Acts chapter one and verse three, Jesus had spent 40 days talking to him about the kingdom of God, and then he brings it to this crescendo, this climax by saying I brought you into relationship with me, so that you can now join me in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and the remotest part of the earth. Let me tell you what it means for you and me. Here's what it means for you and me, Las Vegas, the west, and the world. The reason my family is in Las Vegas is that phrase, other cities. I was very comfortable where I was, I was happy where I was. Had a good situation where I was, but I saw something in Jesus that wasn't in me and my wife and I had to put our yes on the table and say, Lord, we don't know what this means. Now God filled in the blank with Las Vegas, you know Las Vegas as a city, I read an article this week in The Huffington Post out of 52 metropolitan areas in America with over one million people living in them, Las Vegas is the fourth least religious city in America. And what's sad is that's even counting in other faith elements. So if you narrowed the scope to just Christianity, studies have been done that reveal 95% of our city is lost. You know what that means, right? When you go to Walmart this week, almost every person you pass in the store, if they died today, they'll spend eternity in hell. Why did God put you here? He put you here to make himself known through you. He didn't put you here to make a living. He didn't put you here to plan for retirement. He didn't put you here just to raise a family. He put you here to make himself known through you. The West, the United States of America, did you know that the United States of America is now the fourth largest lost nation on planet Earth, over 255 million lost people in America. Only China, India and Indonesia have more lost people than the United States of America. Forty percent of the unchurched population in America lives, guess where? The Western United States. Now get this, God, in His sovereignty, drew you to Himself, God brought you in the relationship with Himself, and God has strategically planted you in the center of the fourth largest numerical mission field on planet Earth. And we so live in our bubble that our biggest prayer request is all about us. Lord, heal my body. God pay my bills. Lord, give me a new job. And God put you here, the world, 7 billion, almost 7 billion people in the world, made up of 196 nations, those 196 nations made up of 11,000 different people groups. A people group is a group of people with its own language, culture and custom. 11,000 people groups in the world, over 6,700 people groups in the world representing one and a half billion people have little or no access to the gospel at all in their language. If you were to count to one and a half billion by seconds, it would take you 55 and a half years. As we sit here today, one and a half billion people in the world have little or no access to the gospel in their language. And let me tell you something even more tragic, over 3,600 of those people groups are not even on anybody's radar today. That means there's no church, no missionary organization that's even targeting them to take the gospel to them. I want you to hear it again. I must. As we follow Jesus, missions is not just a program in the church that we participate in. As we follow Jesus, mission just becomes our DNA. Remember when we started this series, we said we were going to give you a paradigm you can lay down on your life. Am I a faithful follower of Jesus while I go to church every week or read my Bible I give? I hope we've blown that up for you. Faithfully following Jesus, am I abiding in Christ daily and personally? Am I connecting with others in large groups and small groups? Am I living on mission? Here's what I'm saying to you. This idea of mission, that's not for the Marine Corps in the church. That's for all of us, because it's who Jesus was. And if he lives in you and he lives in me, his heart hasn't changed. Let me give you the second reality this morning. My relationship to the world is dependent on my fellowship with the Father. My relationship to the world is dependent on my fellowship with the Father. Remember how we said at the beginning that all these relationships are interdependent? Well, us being right with the world is dependent upon our fellowship with the Father. Let me show it to you. What do you think is the greatest obstacle to the spread of the gospel in the world today? Some people think the greatest obstacle is the persecution of the church. It's the rising up against believers and persecuting them. That happens currently in over 50 countries around the world on a continuous daily basis. But if you study missiology, you understand that persecution is not really a deterrent. If you study those places where persecution is happening, the gospel is exploding. The message of Christ is rapidly. Even some missiologists have quoted the missionary statement that says the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. So persecution is not the greatest obstacle to the spread of the gospel in the kingdom. And some people believe it's false teaching, a lot of false teaching out there. But I don't think either of those. I think the greatest obstacle to the spread of the gospel in the expansion of the kingdoms right here in verse 42, listen to it. When day came, Jesus left and went to a secluded place and the crowds were searching for him and they came to him, and now listen, and they tried to keep him. From going away from them. Do you hear it? You know what the greatest obstacle is to the expansion of God's kingdom? It's the self-centeredness of the people of God. Here are a group of people. If you read Luke chapter 4, if you study it, in Luke chapter 4, these people had heard Jesus teach. And verse 32 of chapter 4 says they'd heard him teach and they were wowed by it. They said he taught like nobody they'd ever heard before. He taught with authority. And then the Bible says that they saw his powers. He cast out demons and he demonstrated power over spiritual beings. They were captivated by it. And then they saw his heart of compassion and his love for people at the end. And in verses 40 and 41, they were bringing everybody who was sick and needed healing. And Jesus was laying his hands on them and he was touching them and he was healing them. And after seeing his passion and they'd understood his teaching and they'd witnessed his power. Here was their response. Let's just keep it all right here. Lord, this is good. It's still small enough that we know everybody good. Let's just stop right here. The reason most churches and most Christians aren't involved in expanding God's kingdom is because we care more about ourselves than we do the world Christ died to save. What have you sacrificed for the expansion of the kingdom of God? We're all about missions until it cost me something. My time, little discomfort, my pleasure, my resources. We love the missionary stories. We love the celebrated moments, but let me just watch from the sidelines and cheer. The Jesus who lives in you says, "I must, I must." How did they get here? You see, God had blessed them just like God's blessed us. If you live in the United States of America, listen, you're blessed. I know we're in tough economic times right now, but compared to the rest of the world, we're still blessed. If you're a part of hope, church, you're blessed. God's been good to us over 11 years. We've had our ups and downs. We've had some difficult days, but God's been good to us. Let me show you Psalm 67 verse 7. That's one of the driving verses of my life. Here's what it says. God blesses us. That all the ends of the earth may fear Him. God doesn't bless us, so we can just enjoy our blessing. God doesn't bless us so we can get together and say, "Man, look how blessed we are." God blesses us so that through us, He might be a blessing to the very ends of the earth. Now there's balance in this principle, understanding. We can't enjoy the blessing of God. There's nothing wrong with that. He tells us that in His Word. The problem is we're so out of balance. How did Jesus maintain the heart of the Father? I mean, this crowd, imagine this scene. Here comes this strong of people. Oh, Jesus, we love you. Oh, Jesus. Your teaching is amazing. Oh, Jesus, your power. We just want you to stay here. Let's build a ministry right here. How do you maintain the heart of the Father? Well, Luke doesn't tell us, but Mark does. In verse 42, Luke says, "When day came, He went to a secluded place." Luke doesn't tell us what he did there. Mark does, Mark says, in Mark 135 describing the same account in the Gospels. He says, "And in the early morning while it was still dark, He arose, went out to a lonely place and was praying there." You see, Jesus maintained the heart of the Father through fellowship with the Father. Let's just be real honest, all right, left to ourselves. We can all be pretty self-centered. If we're going to take the church face off this morning and just get real, we can all get focused on us. How do we battle? How do we combat that focus on us? Same way Jesus did? Fellowship with the Father. You see what we said in the beginning, "Everything flows out of our intimate love relationship with Him as I maintain fellowship with the Father what's on His heart gets on my heart." I'll be honest with you, I've been going to Africa now every year since 1999. I've been over there in 1998, it was my first trip. In November of 1998, I've been going every year since then, been in other places around the world. I hate getting on airplanes. I hate it. I'm six foot three and a half. I hate getting on airplanes. Thank God for Delta's new economy comfort for frequent flyers. Amen. If you're a frequent flyer, you know what I'm talking about. I love that part of the airplane. I hate flying, it's uncomfortable. About September every year, I start thinking, "Oh man, December's coming when I got to get back on that airplane, go to Africa." I think this is going to be my last time, I'm not going back over there again. I fold up and get in that little seat and have to have a crowbar to get out when you get over there. And then you get in the presence of God. I was complaining a little bit this morning when I woke up to the Lord and opened that message from John Piper's ministry and thought about 73 million Persians that woke up today with no access to the gospel through fellowship with the Father. That's why the goal is the relationship. Let me give you the last reality. The life I live should reflect the purpose that I have. I love the way that this text ends, Jesus said, "For I was sent for this purpose." Jesus said, "I can't stay here, I must preach the kingdom to the other cities. I was sent for this purpose." So I love the way he took verse 44, so he kept on. He kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea. Here's what it says, "The life he lived reflected the purpose that he had." God brought you into relationship with himself so that through you, you could join in the mission of making him known to the ends of the earth. Because the life you live reflects the purpose you have. Matthew chapter 5, Jesus said these simple words, "You are the light of the world." If you have your listening guide and you're filling that in, I want you to circle the word world. I want you to imagine just you and Jesus, eyeball to eyeball, and I want you to hear him say to you, "You are the light of the world." Now, not because there's anything special in us, apart from Christ in us. The life of a Jesus follower, it's all about relationships. A relationship with God that's intimate and personal and daily where I'm abiding in Christ moment by moment. That connects me into relationship with my brothers and sisters in Christ where I'm walking in fellowship, my relationship with God's being deepened, and that then spills out of my life, sharing in God's mission locally and globally, of making him known to the ends of the earth. Why have we taken seven weeks and unpacked this? Why do we do it every four to five years in the life of our church? Let me tell you why, because it's our mission. We say it this way. Our mission is connecting people to live the life of a Jesus follower. That's why we exist as a church. We don't exist to plan a dynamic event where we can come every weekend and have our spirits lifted. We exist to connect people to live the life of a Jesus follower. So it demands we understand what it means to follow Jesus, abide, connect, share. That's who we are as a church. Everything we're about is helping people move forward in abiding, connecting, and sharing. Now that may mean that there are some things that we as a church aren't great at, that may be other churches are great at. Let me tell you what it does mean for sure. When you stand before Jesus, you'll have been a part of something that was the main thing. Abiding, connecting, sharing. Some of you this morning are already members of this church. You've joined in with us. You've joined this community of believers. And here's what I want you to hear me say. When you joined this fellowship, this abide, connect, share, that's the mission you were becoming a part of. That's who we are. It's the mission Jesus gave us. He said, go make disciples. What is a disciple, a Jesus follower? What does that mean, a bi-connect share? Love relationship with God, relationship with others, relationship with the world. If you're already a member of this fellowship, that is our mission. And we've created a statement to kind of bring this series to a close that we're simply calling our hope fellowship covenant. It's really the defining statement that all of us that are members of this fellowship, we've wrapped our hearts around. We've just never said it in one succinct statement before. I want to put it up on the screen and I want you to read it out loud with me. You ready? Here we go. Understanding that Christ's life in me is being rightly related with God, one another and the world, I desire to demonstrate His life at hope through abiding in Him, connecting in community and sharing in His mission. That is who we are as a fellowship. If you're already a member of this church, tomorrow morning, we're sending out copies of this statement in the mail to every person that's a member of our fellowship. Because we said when we started that we wanted to give you a paradigm where you could lay it down over your life and answer the question, "Am I faithfully following Jesus?" We really believe that this helps us do that. Am I abiding in Him personally and daily? Am I connecting with others in large group and small group? And am I sharing in the mission locally and globally? Now, if you don't get this in the mail in the next seven to ten days and you say, "Hey, I'm a member, I didn't get one," we had some data transfer problems. We moved from our other site to this site. So if you don't get it, listen, don't get mad at us, all right? We didn't mean not to send it to you. You've just helped us discover one of the pieces of information we lost. So if you don't get this in the mail in the next week to ten days, you just contact us, give us your information, we'll get you one if you're already a member of our fellowship. We want you to have this so that you can just understand even more what it means to be a part of this fellowship. We want to give you these tangible handles. Now, some of you are here today and you're not members of this church. If you're not a member of this fellowship and you're somebody who's seeking God or seeking Christ, we want to encourage you, you just keep coming. Let us help you. Let us help point you to Jesus. Let us help point you to a relationship with Him. Let us get you connected in a small group where you can understand even more what it is to live in community and who Christ is and how Christ can totally change and transform your life. Maybe there's some of you who are here and you've been visiting, you've been attending, once you haven't yet joined our fellowship. But after this seven weeks of unpacking this, you're now ready to do that next Sunday evening, not tonight, next week. We're going to have our next, what we call dinner with the pastors. It's an opportunity for you to come, all our pastors and our wives will be here to sit out with you, to have dinner with you and to share our heart. It's that first step of membership here in our fellowship. You can sign up for it today out at the information desk. We've shared this with you for seven weeks to say this is who we are. If God's calling you, we invite you to join us in the mission. The life of a Jesus follower is all about relationships. [BLANK_AUDIO]