In week 5 of our series, The Life of a Jesus Follower, Pastor Scott taught from Acts 2:42-47. God can use all the relationships in His family to deepen your relationship with Him. Check out this sermon to learn more!
Hope Church LV Sermons
Life in Community
- Thank you for joining us today. We're excited that you came across this message. The sermon you are about to watch is from our teaching series, The Life of a Jesus follower. At Hope Church, we believe in connecting people to live the life of a Jesus follower. And we do this through abiding in Christ, connecting in community and sharing in the mission. In this foundational teaching series to the life of our church, we will discover together what it looks like to live the life of a Jesus follower. If you're joining us for the first time, I wanna be the first to say welcome to Hope Church. Go ahead and open up the Hope Church LV app or visit us at hopechurchlev.com. Click Las Vegas congregation and fill out the short digital connection card so we can get to know you better. Once again, thanks for joining us today. - Good morning, Hope Church family. My name is Brooks Hymer. I've been a member of the Hope family for about seven years and I have the awesome privilege of serving in the care ministry as a biblical counselor. And today I have the especially great honor of reading to you the word of God from Acts, chapter two, starting in verse 42 through 47. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship and to the breaking of bread and prayers. And all came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and their belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. And day by day attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor of all the people and the Lord added to the number day by day those who were being saved. This is the word of God. - Amen, amen, thank you, Brooks. Appreciate that. If you haven't already, go ahead and grab your Bibles. Acts chapter two and just a little while we're gonna make our way verse by verse, line by line through those verses that Brooks just read. Some of you know if you're a part of the Hope Church family that we normally worship a little more than we did just before. We're actually gonna do some at the end because today's a special day today. We get to celebrate the Lord's Supper together. So later on in our service, we're gonna celebrate communion together and worship a little more. But Acts chapter two, as you're turning there, in the year 2000, a personal trainer in Santa Cruz, California named Greg Glassman. He began to share his training methodologies that he developed personally over 20 years of training. He started to share those with the people he was training. The workouts were brutal. They were like nothing anyone had ever done before. It was gymnastics but it was harder. It was weightlifting but it was harder. It was cardio but it was harder. A year later in 2001, he began to post these on the early days of the internet on something called a message board. If some of you remember that. On this message board, it started to get picked up. It picked up some steam specifically in the military community with people who had been deployed overseas. These military guys and gals were like getting excited for these really brutal workouts that they got to do while they were deployed. It picked up steam within the first responder community. And now over 20 years later, millions and millions of people have been sucked in to this fascinating fitness model called CrossFit. I don't know why you're chuckling. Actually, I do know why you're chuckling. Which is why I bring it up. I got to buy it in my first CrossFit class in 2015. I told my wife this week, I said this is the week. Finally, I'm gonna talk about CrossFit 'cause if you do CrossFit, you gotta talk about CrossFit. That's part of the thing, right? But I heard some things, some bad things, some ugly things you probably have too. You can say whatever you want about CrossFit but the thing that it banks on in all the world is that CrossFit is a community. And I experienced that. I got invited to my first class nine years ago and I got sucked in all the way in, like some of you maybe have. Talk to many people Thursday night after the service. Whether you love it or you hate it, I wanna give you a statement that I think is true of CrossFit. By the way, I know some of you are like, I don't love it or hate it, I just don't care about it, okay? Whether you're there or not. Here's a statement that I've seen to be true all over the world in CrossFit. Because of real community, there is a radical commitment that is ridiculously contagious. You say, "How do you know that?" Well, I know that because you've probably been evangelized by a CrossFitter. Right, somebody said, "Hey, have you ever done CrossFit? "I do CrossFit. "You should do CrossFit. "You wanna try CrossFit?" And you're like, you know, okay. My church plan, a friend of mine, he planted a church in Tucson, Arizona, a few years after I started CrossFit, he sent me this joke on Facebook. And so I'll just go ahead and make fun of myself right now with this joke. He said, "A vegan and a CrossFitter walk into a bar. "I only know that because they told everyone "within the first three minutes." (congregation laughing) Yes. Like, why are you bringing this up in a sermon this morning? Here's why I bring this up. I'll begin this way because what we're gonna see in Acts chapter two, although it is infinitely of more value than anything in any CrossFit gym, hear me clearly. The principle that's still on the screen is still true of what we just read in Acts chapter two. Because of real community, there is a radical commitment that is ridiculously contagious. We are going to see that as we make our way through this passage of scripture. If you are just joining us, we're in a series right now. I encourage you, go back online and catch up with where we've been. We've been in it now for several weeks called The Life of a Jesus follower. This is a foundational sermon series for our church. I won't recap the whole series, but I do need to give you the foundational principle, not just for a series, but for our lives as followers of Jesus. Here it is. The life of a Jesus follower is all about relationships. This is what we've been unpacking over the last month, that we abide in Christ because we have a relationship with God as Jesus followers. We connect in community because He's given us a relationship with one another, a relationship with brothers and sisters in Christ. And we share in the mission because we have a relationship with people that do not know God. We want to introduce them to the King of Glory like we prayed earlier in our service. If you missed last week, here's a quick recap of us diving into this idea of connecting in community. We said that when you joined, when you became a follower of Jesus, when God saved you, He adopted you into His family. And it's a very big, diverse, multi-generational family. You don't just have a relationship with God because you were adopted. You also have a relationship with His family because you've been adopted. It's a multi-generational, really big, incredible family. In fact, we said last week that the New Testament knows nothing of a Christianity apart from real life-on-life community. And we're gonna read in this text exactly how that plays out within the body of Christ. So Acts chapter two, I always want to give us a little bit of background as we parachute into a passage of scripture. What's going on here is that Jesus Christ is calm and died for the sin of the world. We're gonna celebrate that and remember that later through the Lord's Supper. He took on all of our sin. We are saved because of the blood of Jesus. And then three days later, he rose again. He spent about 40 days on earth telling his followers about the kingdom of God. And he said, "As I ascend to the right hand of the Father, "I'm going to send you the Spirit, the helper, "God, the Holy Spirit will come and birth the church, "which will lead a couple of thousand years later "to you being in the room." And that's exactly what happens in the early part of the book of Acts. A sermon is preached, the Holy Spirit falls, and 3,000 people begin to follow Jesus. But more than that is a community is born. They weren't called Christians. In fact, you may know this, but Christians was actually given to them as a way to mock them. It was a name that people gave these little Christ. That's what Christian means. So it was actually a name given to them to mock them. These earlier followers of Jesus were just called the way. They were following the way of Jesus. And all throughout history, both Christian and secular historians show something was different about these followers of the way. Because of real community, there was a radical commitment that was ridiculously contagious. And that's what we're gonna look at in this passage of scripture, this community that was birthed. This community was so pure in its form of loving and being sent out to make disciples. It was real community that resulted in a radical commitment that was ridiculously contagious. So very simply, we're gonna look at three ways we need each other as Jesus followers. We're gonna double down again on this idea of community. Maybe you're not convinced if you were here last week or maybe you're hearing stuff like this for the first time out of this passage of scripture. We're gonna give us three ways, reasons why we need community. Here's the first one. We need one another to grow an intimacy with God. We need one another to grow an intimacy with God. Let's start in our Bibles verse 42, Acts two. Simply says when they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Our word devoted is a word in the original Greek language. This was written in that means to remain steadfast, to continue in. They were continually gathering in formal and informal settings. We'll talk about that more later, to share in each other's lives. If you look at that verse through prayer through the Word of God, and I love this in food. Praise God twice in this passage. It shows that we gather around food. Yes and amen, food, food, food. You'll see. But here's the point. There are things about God that these people would not learn if they were not with each other. Two thousand years later's church, it's the same. There are things about God that you and I will never learn apart from fellowship, like this kind of community with other believers. In fact, I wanna give you kind of a banner statement that I'm gonna repeat several times throughout the message where we get it right out of the principles from God's Word. If you do this, you will never become all that God created you to be by yourself. Some of you, that's the sermon in a sentence and that's all you need to walk away with 'cause you've been trying to do it by yourself. You will never become all that God has created you to be by yourself. That's what's happening in this text. There's a community that was born and God is growing the community through the community. We get passages in Scripture like Hebrews chapter 10 that continue to solidify this idea. Look at Hebrews 10, 24 and 25 and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. It was their relationship with God that brought them into a relationship with each other, but it was their relationship with each other that deepened their relationship with God. Look at your Bible. Continue, verse 43. And all came upon every soul. Many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. As they grew together, as they were living life together, they grew in their awe of God. It wasn't just head knowledge, it was overflowing and it was transforming their hearts and lives. They were devoted to getting in the word together, to praying for each other, to seeing God working in their midst and it made them stand in awe, like wow. Look at what God's doing in our midst. And the question we have to wrestle with is where does this primarily happen? This primarily happens as you get in a group of people that know you. I love, I said this last week and I just wanna continue to continually remind you, I love this setting. This is a beautiful setting and as we'll see later, this is a setting that we are commanded to be a part of, these large group gatherings. It's a privilege every time I get to stand before you and preach the word of God. But this primarily is not the context where you grow deeply in the word and deeply in your love for Jesus and his church. Because you can sit in the seats you're sitting in and not be known for decades. But you're grown where you're known. And we get to be known when people actually get to know you. I don't believe primarily God uses the church for worship center seats, but maybe for seats on couch cushions. It's not around a pulpit, but it's around a kitchen table. And listen, this is good and right, and we will never stop doing this 'cause the word tells us to. But primarily how we grow as followers of Jesus is not a bunch of people listening to one guy with a microphone on his face, but people interacting and talking around the word of God together in a community where you can be known. You can sit and hear hundreds of sermons and gain a bunch of knowledge but remain completely unknown. And you are grown where you are known. There are things about God you will never learn apart from fellowship or other believers. Relationships with other Jesus followers. In fact, let's dive into that a little bit more. I believe this statement that'll be on the screen here in just a moment is true. God can use all the relationships in his family to deepen my relationship with him. I've highlighted that word 'cause I don't think everyone in the room necessarily believes this to be true. So I'm gonna say it again. And when we get to that word all, I want you to say that word all with some passion, okay? Here we go, one, two, three. God can use, oh man, you guys did that so well. Thursday was really unsure about whether they wanted to say that or not. God can use all the relationship. Why are we stressing this? Because we got a couple different kinds of relationships in God's family, amen? I'll give you to you, there's easy relationships. We love those. Those are your people. These are relationships that are characterized by love and trust and transparency and it's just easy. Like you go to coffee with an easy relationship and it's just like, man, you have to, it's just easy. It just kind of flows. That's not the only relationships we have in God's family. There's also hard relationships. We all have these relationships in our lives and maybe even right now, hard relationships in God's family are popping up in your mind right at this moment. In fact, if this wasn't true, verses like Colossians 3, 12 wouldn't have to be in the Word of God. Look at Colossians 3, 12. If hard relationships didn't exist, this verse doesn't need to exist. Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Don't forget, who was this written to? A church. The church in Colossae received the letter of Colossians. Why do they need to be reminded of this? Because sometimes siblings in the family don't get along. So to the church of Hope Church in the city of Las Vegas, I say the same thing. There are hard relationships and sometimes siblings in the family don't always get along. I try to illustrate this for you using my own family. I have four children, my wife and I have four children. We love it, but there are four kids spanning only five years. So there's a lot of fun in my house. In fact, let me give you a formula. Four kids spanning four years plus close proximity, plus constantly being together. Many of you know we're a homeschool family, so we don't even get the break of school. So you have four amazing little sinners that I love, but yeah, they're in the service. I won't point them out. Plus close proximity, plus always being together. You know what that formula equals? War at times. I'll get home sometimes from the office and why I've seen you understand this look. Sometimes my wife will just give me that look. It's like you better do something right now. I need a break. So here's what I could do in that moment. I could take each of those amazing four kids of mine and I could throw one in a room with an iPad and one in a room with a book and one in a room with video games. I can completely separate those four kids out and for a moment we would experience peace. But what if we just always live like that, completely isolated, that's not a family, that's isolation. In fact, I want you to imagine you followed my family around for a few weeks and you noticed, man, they never argue. This isn't gonna happen by the way, this is completely hypothetical. But if you were to follow my family around and notice, they never argue like, they literally, they always are getting along. You would come rightly to one of two conclusions. Number one, the Worthington kids are perfect. They don't ever make mistakes. They're perfect little angels. I love 'em, I don't wanna look at 'em, but they're in the room. That ain't true, okay? So that conclusion can't be right. Here's the other conclusion you might come to. I don't know if the Worthingtons have much of a relationship. I asked you the same question about our church family. If there is never a time where the siblings disagree, there is never a time when there's an argument because of sin or misunderstanding or miscommunication. You follow us around for months and never argue, come on one of two conclusions. Number one, these people are perfect angels who are sinless before God. We're not. Or, if you've never had an issue with somebody in the Hope Church family, maybe you don't have much of a relationship within the family. The reality is, because of sin that's still indwelling us, that flesh, that pesky flesh that we wrestle with on a daily basis, sin, conflict, misunderstanding, miscommunication, there will be times in the family where the siblings don't get along. Siblings get hurt in a family. Siblings need to reconcile in a family. God wants to use even those relationships. I praise God and my family for the times I get some siblings together and we have to have a conversation that actually makes them better because God's even using those relationships in our lives. Let's continue to learn from these early followers of Jesus, verse 44, and all who believe were together and had all things in common. Now, we need to understand this word phrase all things in common does not mean that they agreed on everything. How do you know that? Well, we know from other parts of the New Testament that these are actually people being born into a community that had very different opinions on things. These should have been ideological enemies. In our context, these are people on both sides of the aisle. They did not agree on everything but the point of this passage is they agreed on the main thing. Remember last week we said in God's family he intentionally doesn't make the siblings clones. We need each other in all of our uniqueness to understand that despite our difference we have the thing in common. We are sons and daughters of the king of glory and that supersedes all other differences. That's what's happening here when it says they had all things in common. But you know what this kind of community means? This kind of community means you can't hide. It's really important for us 'cause to be half known means to be unknown. These people were living life in such a way where they were known. They had all things in common. They knew each other, no hiding. Life change happens when there's no fronts, no faking it, no, oh, we're going to small group. Let's put on our good church face. Now this is like, man, I gotta be honest with you, this is a terrible week and I'm not in a very good mood and I don't even want to be here right now. But I'm here, yes. That's where God changes. That's where God moves because when we try to put up a fake, we try to put up a front. We don't become all of who God wants us to be because we cannot do it by ourselves. We need other people to help us. And I understand even as I say this, this is hard. You actually show up to group for real, for real, without an affront, without a fake. Listen, you are susceptible and vulnerable to get hurt. That's what we see here in this passage. This is real life on life community. And God will use that to grow us in our relationship with Him. We need one another to grow in our intimacy with God because we will never become all that God created us to be by ourselves. Here's the second reality. And the second reason we need each other. We need one another to walk through the ups and downs of life. We need one another to walk through the ups and downs of life. We'll see that in this passage in just a moment. But before we get there, we need to make sure we're all on the same page. A universal reality is that life can be hard. We praise God for the mountaintop seasons, the celebratory seasons. But we also understand there's valleys coming. There are times when we walk through moments of sorrow and pain. And what I want us to see today is one of God's means of grace is that He has given us followers of Jesus to do life with that can help us in that season. That can help us, that we wouldn't have to walk through those moments alone. That's a burden I have as I pastor Hope Church, along with our other incredible pastors is I'm afraid there are people in the Hope Church family that are completely isolated and alone. And when the valley moments of life come, those sorrow moments, those pain moments, they are walking through those things completely by themselves. A harsh reality that I don't like to think about very much, but it's true, is that we are all one phone call away from our entire lives being upended. Like God forbid this happens, but right now, Pastor Tom's on the front row, Pastor Tom could get a text right now that would actually make him get on the stage, interrupt my message and say, "Scott, something's happened, you need to go right now." That could happen as I'm preaching, as I'm preaching to you right now from the Word of God, you could get a text or a phone call that makes you step out into the lobby. And in one moment, your entire life could flip upside down. The question is, do you have anybody, when that happens, that's a part of the family here at Hope Church that you can call, another follower of Jesus, that you can call in that moment to help you walk through that valley, when life falls apart, who do you call? At Hope, we call him two AM friends, two AM friends. This is when something happens in the middle of the night, no matter how inconvenient, no matter the time, no matter the situation, you can call somebody and they will be there to help. These are your people, they want to step in, they want to serve you. Believe that's what we see here in Acts two, look at your Bible, verse 45, and they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. We don't know all the details of this, but some sort of need arose in the community of believers and the community stepped in, they got involved. Notice what it doesn't say after it says they had a need, it doesn't say the believers thought, "Oh man, I'm so sorry that happened." Best of luck. (laughs) Oh man, how about this one? I'm gonna pray that God provides those resources for you. Let me know how it works out. I don't understand all that goes into this, but what we read is that they begin to share and sell their own possessions in order to meet the needs of their brothers and sisters in Christ. This is genuine, self-sacrificial, looks a lot like Jesus kind of sacrifice, the life of Christ being lived through them. Again, I don't pretend to understand all that goes into this. I know a lot of wisdom needs to go into this, but I know when I read this this week and I studied this this week, it rubs against everything I've been taught in my individualistic Western society, which basically says, "Get all you can, "take care of your own," and I don't mean the body of Christ, I mean my family, lend a hand, but not if it hurts the bottom line too much. And what we just read is, there was almost a reckless abandoned man, we need to help our people. Again, wisdom, yes, good stewardship, yes, but sometimes the need is financial, sometimes it's emotional, sometimes it's physical, sometimes it's spiritual, but in our individualistic society, most of the time when something goes wrong in our lives, we don't go to the people that can help us, we don't go to the church family that can pray for us and maybe even support us. A lot of times in our flesh, we just go to things that's been given to us about the world to try to figure it out ourselves. So I got to get that book that somebody told me about, if I'm really in a pit, I got to get myself a book and a coffee shop and a nice latte to try to figure it out. I got to get some podcasts or I got to get more therapy. And listen, I love every single one of those things. I love a good book and a good latte. I love podcasts, I love therapy. But sometimes we completely isolate ourselves and you will never become all that God has created you to be by yourself. God gave us the community of other brothers and sisters in Christ to walk through the ups and the downs of life. And I love that the Word of God doesn't leave us alone in this, it gives us evidence all over the New Testament. With a little two-word phrase that helps us see, this is something God desires for us. If you know your Bible, you know the two-word phrase is one another. Over 50 times, we are reminded that God has designed his church family to flourish together. I want to show you a bunch of options. These aren't all 50, but here's a bunch of things we read about all throughout the New Testament. Love one another, be devoted to one another, give preference to one another, accept one another, admonish one another, encourage one another, greet one another, serve one another, bear one another's burdens. Pray for one another, be kind to one another, forgive one another, be hospitable to one another, comfort one another, all throughout the New Testament. We are invited into this one another relationship with the body of Christ, why? 'Cause we need one another to walk through the ups and downs of life. And the reality is, if all you know of the church family is this environment right here, when you get in that 2 a.m. situation, you will feel alone and left out because you're not known. I love our staff. We have an incredible staff. Praise God, if you see a staff member, just high five and say you're doing a great job. We have an incredible staff, but listen, our staff cannot love 5,000 people that call Hope Church home well. But it's not that we're not doing a good job, it's that we were never meant to love 5,000 people well. Why? Because the 5,000 people are the body of Christ and they were called to love each other well. So the way we walk through the ups and downs in life is not isolated alone, it's together. It's with one another. So ask yourself, do you have this kind of community? This isn't condemnation, this is taking the word of God and saying, do we have what we see here? So we look at this and a lot of us, we go that's like impossible in 2024. Why? Same God, same spirit in us. Why can't we see this kind of community? I believe we can't. Listen, if you have this kind of community in your life, praise God, keep on going. Press into the easy relationships, press into the hard relationships. But if you're hearing what we're saying today from God's word and you think I do not have that, don't hear that as shame or condemnation, hear that as an invitation. Today's the day you trust the Lord. God help me get those kind of people around me because we need each other to grow an intimacy with God. We need each other to walk through the ups and downs of life. Here's the third reason we need one another. We need one another to accomplish the mission. We need one another to accomplish the mission. Watch what happens. Deep community begins to happen in Acts two and it becomes contagious. Look at verse 46. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread, there's that food, praise God. They receive their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. Said earlier, this environment is commanded in us by scripture. Day by day, they were attending temple together. What is that? That's a large group environment like this. They attended temple together, but it wasn't just this. They also were breaking bread in their homes. They met in small gatherings. They ate together. They laughed together. They were generous with one another. And joy-filled community was ongoing. See how do you know it was ongoing? Oh, in this passage, 10 out of the 16 verbs are imperfect. I know some of you don't know what that means at 930 on a Sunday morning, so I'll explain it to you. Imperfect means it kept happening. It didn't just happen once. It's ongoing. See, some of us do that. They all, man, I tried small group once. I didn't like it. I checked that box I'm moving on. That's never how a community is formed. Think about any sort of community you've ever been a part of. If you go to a CrossFit class one time and say, I did that, I didn't really feel the community aspect. That's because people barely got to know your name. You gotta keep going. You gotta keep pressing in, keep trusting. It was continuously happening. It's not a transaction that happens once. This is community for the long haul. In fact, there's a book called Slow Church. I love how the authors talked about this. Look at what they said. It's a spiritual formation occurs primarily in the context of community. Long-term interpersonal relationships are the place of genuine progress in the Christian life. People who stay, grow. People who leave do not grow. It is a simple yet profound reality that we both grow and thrive together or we don't grow much at all. I know you know this, but forgive the simplicity. There is no such thing as microwave spiritual formation. Meaning, I just wake up one day and become an awesome disciple of Jesus all by myself. Let's be honest, I wish that was the case. I wish I could just go take a class or read one book and boom, be incredible and an awesome disciple of Jesus fully spiritually formed. That is not how it works. God doesn't microwave us in our spiritual formation. In fact, he puts us in the crockpot of community. And that is long and slow and sometimes painful. But that's what he's designed for us. You will never be all that God created you to be by yourself. In fact, when you make a crockpot meal, I'm speaking from a second hand 'cause I don't make many meals at all. But if you make a meal in the crockpot, here's what I know, you don't just want to smell all that awesomeness and not share it. What's in the crockpot needs to be shared while we're talking about food. That's true of any crockpot meal. You share it. That's what we see here in our passages, we round third. That kind of community was radically and ridiculously contagious. Look at verse 47, "And the Lord added to their number "day by day those who are being saved." So let's go back to the beginning. God's doing a work, growing in their intimacy, growing their intimacy with him, with each other. They're growing, they're taking care of each other. They're not only just growing in intimacy with God, they're walking through the ups and downs of life together. And God overflows of this crockpot of community into expanding the kingdom of God, accomplishing the mission. God was using their community to bring more and more people into the community, to accomplish the mission. You say, "What's the mission?" "So glad you asked, that's my next slide." In Acts chapter one, verse eight, Jesus said right before all this went down in Acts two and Acts one, he said, "But you will receive power "when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, "and you will be my witnesses." In Jerusalem, in Judea, in all Samaria, to the ends of the earth. I've highlighted that word, you, 'cause a lot of times in America, when we read this, we think me, you, right? So Scott Worthington, get your plan to go, tell the world about Jesus. This is your mission. Every single time that word you is used in this passage, it's plural, meaning it was not written to just an individual Christian, trying to win the world for Jesus by themselves. No, it was written to a community. The only way we fulfill the mission of Christ is together. The mission was an overflow, ease an overflow of the community. In fact, I would submit to you, based on what we see in God's word, if the kingdom is not being expanded as a result of our community, then it is not biblical community. Because of real community, there is a radical commitment that is ridiculously contagious. So I will submit to you one more time. You will never become all that God has created you to be by yourself. So, here's where the rubber hits the road. Are you in community like this? Here at Hope Church. If you're visiting, you're from another church and another part of the city or another part of the country, are you in community with the people that can actually know you? Again, if yes, praise God, keep ongoing may today be a day that fuels your faith toward what God has called you to, that crockpot where you grow. But if not, and as soon as we're done with the service, you can go out to guest services, you can talk to somebody about what it means, just like people did Thursday. Hey, what does it mean to take a step? I talked to a guy in the service this morning who was here on Thursday that said, "Hey, I took the step. "I know I need to be in community, "and I joined a men's group. "Praise God." Not because we're trying to check the boxes and get more people in groups, we're trying to get more people grown. We're trying to see God form people. And this is how the word of God tells us we are formed. The overflow of our relationship with Jesus with other followers of Jesus is where we grow. Primarily at Hope, we connect in community in large groups like this and in small groups. Maybe you're here today and you're thinking, "Oh, I get it, but I'm not into it." I'm not into it, I got excuses. I wanna actually just call some of those excuses out if you'll let me. Maybe you're here today and you say, "You know what, I would join a group, "but I think it's gonna be on the screen, maybe. "I would join a group, but there it is right there." I highlighted B-U-T 'cause I actually just had to make that an acronym. Maybe you're here today and you think, "I would join a group, but here's the first excuse we give." I'm too busy. You ever said that, I've said that. Too busy, man, four kids, lots going on. I'm too busy. Here's what, the Lord has slowly but surely shown me by conviction of his spirit in me. If I say I'm too busy to walk in the things, he has clearly laid out for me in the word. Maybe there are things on my calendar that God didn't put there. Maybe there's something that I'm prioritizing that God would tell me you shouldn't prioritize because if I'm calling you to do something and you say you're too busy for it, something's gotta go. So maybe you have to take it to the Lord again. This is not condemnation. This is invitation. What might need to move around in your schedule to open up that crock pot opportunity for you to grow? Maybe here's another excuse. I would join a group, but it's uncomfortable. Yeah, amen. Sometimes siblings and families fight. I would submit to you sometimes the biggest growth in my life has been when I'm uncomfortable. In fact, you know this if you have been ever been in a gym, how do you know something's working when you wake up the next morning in your sore? You're like, ah, you're uncomfortable, but something's working, something's growing. In my experience, you actually grow most when you're uncomfortable, not in comfort and ease, sometimes uncomfort and hard relationships. Here's another one. I've joined a group, but I've tried it and it didn't work. I've tried it. Check that box again, remember 10 out of 16 times in that passage over and over again. It's for the long haul. It's not gonna happen overnight. It will never happen overnight. Rarely have I ever said, I went to that group and I found my best friends in two hours. No, slowly but surely. There's another T, but I thought I'd be weird to put BUTT as an acronym. Some of you'll get that when you go to lunch later. So I just put it all in the one T. This is where I'm living. It's too hard with kids. Amen. But so many people say it's too hard with kids. We'll just do it when the kids get older. Next thing you know, you've lived 10 years without community in your life 'cause you couldn't find a babysitter. You know, we've done, we took a break for the summer, but my community group, we bring all the kids. It's chaos. We got a bunch of people with really young babies. Our kids are actually the oldest in the group, which means there's a lot of young kids. So we're meeting at the end of this month and we say, bring all the kids. When it's time to get serious, we'll put Netflix on for the kids, praise God for Netflix, and we can have a conversation as adults. But if we wait till we can find a babysitter and all the schedules work out, it'll never happen. So if you hear your day and you're thinking, maybe I wanna join a group with a bunch of kids because that's where I'm at in life. Maybe walk out to the guest services area and assets or any other family groups. We understand that's where you are in seasons of life, but sometimes we punt on what God's called us to because our season of life feels too difficult rather than pressing into the difficult. It is hard with kids, but it's great to be with people that understand the struggle of having kids. So get together, trust the Lord for those little moments that might be incredible breakthroughs later on, even in the midst of the chaos. So I don't know where you're at today, but I do know you will never become all that God has created you to be by yourself. So where is the spirit of God leading you right now? In this area of getting some people around you to become fully known, whatever he's putting on your heart, would we all be faithful and obedient to say yes and to trust him.