CHURCH: The Purpose of the Church

This podcast is the Ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church.

For more information in our church, please visit grandparkway.org.

Amen.

If you've got a Bible, I invite you to take it and open it up to Ephesians chapter 5.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

Who knew there were so many John Denver fans in church, huh?

Ephesians chapter 5.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

I'll start reading in verse 22.

As you know, we're in a series entitled The Church, where we're just kind of talking about what it means to be the church in this day and age.

And while you're finding Ephesians chapter 5, let me just begin with a confession that I've not always been a fan of the church.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

I did not become a Christian until I was 18.

And by the time I was 19, I was kind of an expert on the church.

What was wrong?

And what I really was really good at was what was wrong with the church.

And so me and my friends would get together.

We were all like 19 and 20 and 21, and we would weigh in with our opinions.

The church is a bunch of hypocrites, preachers are phony, church is boring, blah, blah, blah.

And one occasion I'm sitting, I'm working in a summer camp, and me and my buddies are just, we're just burning hot about what's wrong with the church.

And I think I said something to the effect of, you know, the church is, I mean, if half the churches in America burned down tomorrow, it'd be a sign of a revival.

And the guy sitting across me was 51 years old, which I thought was ancient at the time.

Now that I'm 48, that's very young.

But he just looked up and smiled kind of like, what a moron.

And basically he just said, uh, you and your friends here, y'all haven't lived long enough to be this angry or know as much as you think you know about anything, much less the church.

And you ever take a breath to say something and no words come?

It's like anyway, go ahead.

And he was very gracious.

And then he pulled out a pen.

I mean, the dude carried a pen in his pocket.

I mean, you gotta be over 50 to have stuff in your shirt pocket.

That's just there for decoration.

But he whips out a pen and he turned over a napkin and he just wrote down the word wife.

And he just said, you know, that that's that's somebody's wife you're talking about, the bride of Christ.

That's the church's Jesus' bride, and he's making her ready, and he's coming for her.

And he said a lot of things like, Maybe you should spend your time and your lives making the church ready instead of critiquing and criticizing her.

Because she's not helped by that, by the way.

And it was so overwhelming.

I think he may have talked four minutes, but it was like, you ever have a popcorn ball as a kid?

It's just kind of compressed popcorn.

It was like he compressed it all together and then just dropped the mic on us and walked off.

And when he walked away, me and my friends were like, all right, let's go.

No one said a word.

We just all got up and left.

And so I've never forgotten that, and it shaped my understanding about the church.

And I want to share just a little piece of that with you this morning.

And then what we'll do is if you're new today, uh, there'll be no pressure to end, and we won't dim the lights in Humkumbaya.

Uh, I'm not gonna ask you to do anything.

Uh, we'll we'll probably, Brett will come back, maybe play a little bit, and we'll just think for about a minute about what the Bible said and what it looks like with our life wrapped around it, because Christianity is not intellectual suicide.

As a matter of fact, some of the deepest thinking you will do, you will do about your faith and the integration of your faith into how you live.

It's not what we do on Sunday.

We come on Sunday to hear and to be equipped and to be provoked, and then Monday through Saturday and even Sunday afternoon, after your food-induced coma nap, you're gonna take in just a little bit.

And by the way, I know some of you are here for the first time in the 915 service because the Texans kick off at noon.

I'm not dumb.

Yes, I see that hand, or there are others.

Uh and so let me just read from the Bible.

Uh, Ephesians chapter 5, verse 22.

Ephesians 5:22

Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.

For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its savior.

Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor.

Think of a wedding day, that he might present the church, his bride, to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

And I'll just stop right there.

You don't have to read far in Ephesians 5 to get the nuance of the reference that it says husbands and wives, but it's also Christ in the church, and Christ in his bride, Christ in his wife.

And so it's this crazy things in there.

Like one of the things it says, ladies, that you would be real easy to kind of fall into and kind of go, oh, easy, easy.

I got my glorious dynam coming up in me, where it says, just as as the church submits to Christ, so wives submit to your husbands in everything.

And some of you hear that and you're like, you don't know my husband.

You have lost your mind.

We'll get to that in just a minute, okay?

And just stay with me.

Don't check out and kind of go, the Bible's irrelevant and it doesn't understand our culture in our time.

Actually, it does.

And so what I want to do over the next couple of Sundays is just talk about what it means, the purpose of the church.

Last week we talked about the work of the church.

What is the purpose of the church?

Here is the purpose of the church in one simple, condensed, compressed phrase.

The purpose of the church is to live and act and be as the bride of Christ, is to be as a body of people, a group of people, a woman who is adorned and ready and eager and anticipating the coming of her groom.

The Bible says we look forward to that day and we speed its coming, which is a real irregular way to say we live in such a way that it gets quicker and quicker, like that, that train at the intersection of Highway 90, and it's going real slow.

And eventually it picks up speed and starts clicking down the track, and you're like, okay, finally, we're gonna get through here.

You speed its coming by the way you live.

And I just want to talk about one word today that just kind of just kind of tattoo this on the inside of your soul.

And it's the first word my friend wrote down that day.

When he wrote down the word wife, he said, the church name is about worship.

And I was like, whoa.

And he said, basically, it's it's it's about worship, it's about the worth of God and the way you and your friends talk about the church.

You don't understand the worth of God.

And I was like, thank you.

Thank you, sir.

May I have another?

And so I wanted to want to talk about the different dimensions of worship, and and I'll start with the most obvious one, which is what we just did.

It's singing, but I hesitate to even say the word singing, but when you say, when you say worship, a lot of people think, well, yeah, that's what we do at church.

We come and we worship and then we hear the sermon.

This is worship as well.

That was worship, and this is worship because here's one of the things that all these things have in common, and it's simply this that at their core, they all about the worth of God.

See, we we we sang and we said earlier when we were singing that song, we said, Let me be singing when the evening comes.

Remember that?

The song about 10,000 reasons to bless the Lord.

And you said this little phrase, let me be singing when the evening comes.

Because Brett Nimley began with a song we didn't know, and you were kind of like kids in choir who forgot the words.

You were like, banana, banana, banana, Christmas, Christmas.

And then you got to that song you knew, and you're like, All right, I'm on this one.

Oh, yeah, we've sung this one before.

Let's bring it up in here.

And you kind of got going.

10,000 reasons to bless the Lord.

Oh, yeah, okay.

And in the midst of that, you're like, I didn't, no one was clogging.

What are you doing, dude?

Maybe that was just me.

But one of the things you said was, let me be singing when the evening comes.

And whether you know it or not, what you were saying was, God, let me.

It's easy to begin your day and sing.

You realize that?

It's easy to, oh man, this is gonna be awesome.

Let me get to the end of the day.

Let me be still singing, let me still get to the end of my day, and let me be singing when the evening comes, regardless of what the diagnosis is.

I saw my friend last week who's here at our church, and he said, Hey, I got some tests coming up, and I don't know.

I'll be praying.

He saw me just 10 minutes ago and said, Man, uh, yeah, the doctor said he saw some things that concerned him.

I gotta go get some more tests.

And my first thought was, let my friend be singing when the evening comes.

When he goes to the doctor and whatever the doctor says, let him get to the end of the day and still be singing.

You say, What do you mean?

It's not just singing, because I know we men are kind of like, I don't like to sing.

That's kind of a chick thing.

I don't want to hey, you you you you'll sing.

Usually it takes a few beers, but you'll sing.

I had dinner with some friends last night, and they're telling me about going to the Garth Brooks concert in Vegas.

Apparently, Garth ain't traveling anymore.

And that brother is has a show in Vegas.

And if you're going and you got extra tickets, I'm your man, okay?

I'll be your designated driver.

I'll be going crazy up in there.

But no one goes to a Garth Brooks show and just sits there and kind of goes, Oh, that was fun.

I mean, you're up there calling, I got friends, and because something inside of you kind of rises up and you're like, Oh yeah, I gotta say this.

See, singing is not about your voice, it's about your heart.

It's about there's something in you that's just kind of, oh, it's about the worth of God.

And when you said, let me be singing when the evening comes, what you were really saying, what I was saying was, God, let me get to the end of my day, and having subjected everything in my day to the worth of God.

Don't let me look at things on the internet that I shouldn't be looking at, because I got a wife, okay?

And if I subject her and me and our relationship to that, I can I'm not gonna be singing when the evening comes.

I'm gonna be going, oh God, you know, it's me again, Margaret.

Are you kidding me?

There's gotta be a point where you just go, hey, it's not about singing, it's about the worth of God.

We read the Apostles' Creed.

You know how long they've been singing and reciting reciting and singing the Apostles' Creed?

I mean, that's the church universal.

There are people in Europe right now, in Scotland, and there's people in Africa that today stand up and say, I believe in God the Father, maker of heaven and earth.

You just want to just pull your shirt off and say, let's eat red meat to the glory of God.

Why?

Because there's something, it's powerful to be reminded, I believe in something that matters.

And the purpose of the church is to believe those kind of things and let your life just kind of resonate with a song about God.

You say, Well, what do you mean?

It's not as hard as you might think.

Yesterday morning I got up and I was in a great mood because here's how shallow your pastor is.

Because college football was coming on.

I was jacked up.

I was like, I ain't doing nothing.

My wife and I come in here.

I need you.

I need you to hush, is what I need, woman.

AM in Florida kick off at 2.30, so zip it.

Get them kids and go to Chick-fil-A and have a picnic.

I didn't say that, but I thought it.

And then AM got playing, and apparently they forgot how to play the second half.

Hello.

I was like, hey, what happened?

What'd y'all do in the locker room?

But anyway, that's a whole nother story.

Whoop.

Anybody?

Yeah, you ain't all you ain't all proud today, are you?

Andrea Keith, I see your ADM shirt.

Anyway, that's faith right there.

But yesterday I got up, I was in such a good mood.

I just it just rose up out of me.

You know what happened?

I wasn't singing holy, holy, holy like we did a minute ago.

Great song.

A line from an old Tim McGraw song started coming out of me.

I'm laid in my bed drinking coffee, reading a book about God and Jesus.

And I just started singing just to see you smile.

I do anything that you wanted me to, and all is said and done.

It's worth all the cost, it's worth all that's lost just to see you smile.

And then I started crying.

I was like, what are you a woman?

What are you doing?

You're laying in bed singing and crying.

American Idol's not even on.

And I heard this little voice say, say it again.

And I was sitting there and I sang it again in my Austin High School FCA t-shirt and a pair of shorts I've had since 1981.

My wife's like, hey, is that like a shroud of Turin?

Throw those things away.

You you every time she washes, I'm like, no, you're not.

I got these babies broke in now.

And I found my soul.

I was so happy and content with my life and my wife and my kids and my house and my grass and my food and everything that I just spontaneously combusted and said, just to see you smile.

God, I'd do anything that you wanted me to.

When all is said and done, it's worth all the cost, it's worth all that's lost.

Just to see you smile because I want to get to the end of my day and my life and have it subjected everything to the worth of God.

That's why one of the primary purposes of the church is worship, not just singing, but that's just a part of it.

Second part of it is stewardship.

Stewardship of all of life.

Now don't check out on and go, oh great, here goes the preacher talking about money.

Not going there.

Not going there.

Not in the way you think I'm going there.

You say, what do you mean stewardship?

It's go, don't turn there, but in Genesis, God said to Adam and Eve, hey, rule over creation and subdue it.

That's stewardship.

Don't live at the mercy of anything.

Now the Bible kind of unpacks it like my wife's van, the air conditioner.

And sometimes bad stuff happens to us, and my thought is, I work for God.

That shouldn't happen.

The air conditioner went out of my wife's van.

And I was like, you know, it's easy to sing Tim McGraw when you're laying in bed and you're like, it's all great and everything.

College football comes on here in 10 minutes.

It's another thing when that little voice says, Oh, you do anything, okay?

Let your wife have your truck with its air conditioned seats and you drive the van with no XC.

What are you talking about, Willis?

Woman don't mean to drive a no truck.

They don't look right on her.

So I take her van out to where I get my vehicle service, integrity tire and auto, and they say, Hey, we got a loaner car for you.

Got the loaner car and was driving home.

And that little voice said, Oh, but yesterday, that little voice said, Hey, by the way, look at this.

Most people don't take care of a loaner car.

Why don't you take this home and vacuum it out and wash it?

Because I was thinking, man, whoever borrowed this wasn't very grateful.

They got grass all on the floorboard and everything.

What's up with this?

See how easy it is to complain?

I felt so self-righteous.

Until that little voice said, You want to see me smile?

Clean this car.

And I'm cleaning the car.

My neighbor pulls up and she goes, You're cleaning a loner?

Uh uh.

It's just stewardship.

She shook her head and walked in.

Whatever.

See, stewardship permeates every area of your life.

But one of the areas that it permeates is what you think of when you hear the word stewardship.

It's it's it's it's money or tithing or giving or whatever you call it in the church.

And people say, you don't really talk about that much.

I don't have to.

This is a very generous church.

I mean, at the at the height of the recession, about 18 months ago, the newspaper, Houston Chronicle, called and said, Hey, we want to do a survey, want to see how the recession, the economy has affected giving in your church.

Actually, it really hasn't.

Our people outgive the budget every month, every year since I've been here, we've outgiven the budget.

And the guy went, Are you kidding me?

You're the only church we've talked to.

We've called 41 churches.

You're the 41st church.

I went, it's just these people because they understand what the Bible says.

And he goes, Well, can I just get off the script and ask you, what are you referring to?

And I said, Absolutely.

So what I told him was, I said, it's 2 Corinthians.

You don't have to turn, though, you can't if you're in Ephesians, turn to the left.

2 Corinthians chapter 9.

2 Corinthians 9 · chapter mention

I said, this is what the Bible says.

2 Corinthians chapter 9, verse 6.

2 Corinthians 9:6

It should come up on the screen.

He says, This, the point is this.

By the way, anytime the Bible says the point is this, just kind of sharpen your focus and kind of lean in and listen.

He says, hey, the point is this.

Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly.

Whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver, and God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.

And he said, So, because he asked the question, how do you get your people to give?

What do you do to motivate them to give?

I tell them what the Bible says.

He goes, Well, I understand that you know the Bible says you should give a tenth.

That's what a tithe is.

And I said, actually, the Bible says that and more.

And you say, What do you mean?

Well, the Old Testament, that's what the the by the way, because a lot of people, some of you here may think this, oh well, the Bible talks about tithing in the Old Testament.

We're in the New Testament, or that was under the law, we're under grace.

Actually, the principle of tithing precedes the giving of the law.

Just for all you Bible scholars, all eight of you in here.

Tithing is like a Genesis 14.

The law is not given until like an Exodus somewhere where God gives the law to Moses.

So you can't cop out on that, but relax.

We believe what the Bible says that we just said stewardship is more than just giving money, but that's a part of it.

Okay?

There's a reason Jesus said, where your treasure is, that's where your heart will be.

And so I said to the guy, and I say to you, if you're visiting today, relax.

There's no pressure, no expectation.

We're not gonna pass out envelopes and say, hey, you want to help a brother out?

Mm-mm.

That is not your privilege.

It is a privilege of the members of this church to give to the ministry of this church.

You say, What do you mean?

The Bible says, hey, don't give under compulsion, out of guilt, or everything.

Don't give reluctantly because God loves a cheerful giver.

It says, How do you give in?

You give as you've decided in your heart.

It's a Greek word cardia.

K-A-R-D-I-A, cardia.

Give as you've decided in your heart.

So the issue of stewardship is really an issue of your heart.

Okay?

It's not about, well, do you have a good week or a bad week or this?

It just give as you've decided in your heart.

Now let me show you something.

A lot of people go, well, I think I'd rather go back to the 10% thing.

That sounds more safe and predictable because God might get your heart.

He might swell up on you.

Like you say, what do you mean?

This week I was meeting a friend of mine for breakfast at Casa de Solís.

It's a little taco joint over on Dulles.

You know what I'm talking about?

If you don't know what I'm talking about, you need to.

Oh my gosh, incredible.

But it's about as big as this rug I'm standing on, okay?

And people call in orders, and it's just crazy from like 7 to 8:30.

It's bedlam.

And so we're standing there.

I my buddy's running late, and I called and said, What do you want?

I'll go ahead and order and pay for it.

And so I ordered and pay for it.

This kid from the high school, it's right across from Dulles High School.

He steps up to the counter and he looks at the menu.

Then I see him reaching his bill phone and pulls out his bill phone and he has a dollar.

And then he just turned around.

And because it's cash only.

That's how you know it's a joint, is it's cash only.

We ain't got no credit card machine.

This is a joint, not a restaurant.

And so he turned to the door.

And Johnny, the guy behind the counter said, Hey, dude, you want to order?

He goes, I didn't realize it was cash only.

I only got a dollar.

And something just swole up in me.

He said, Hey, no, no, no, no, come back here.

I said, My pastor is always talking to us about being a blessing.

We've been blessed to be a blessing.

I want to buy you breakfast, so get whatever you want.

Oh, you don't have to do that.

And I don't have to.

I want to.

That's the crazy part of this.

So get what you want.

Are you serious?

And he said, uh, well, I'll have.

I said, I recommend one of them darlings right there.

Bacon, egg, cheese, and potato.

Wrapped up.

And it's not like those little stings ones you get a water burger with your taquito.

Shut up.

That's not a breakfast taco.

That is you getting ripped off and you ain't even smart enough to know it.

That thing is big and fat like a Cheech and Chong party joint, okay?

Looks like the now, now you listen.

Now you're like, well, I've got a frame of reference for that, brother.

Big fat, I mean, and homemade tortillas they make right there in the back.

They don't get them at Sam's and heat them up in the microwave.

Suckers come right off the little griddle there.

And he said, Well, I'll have one of these.

And I said, One?

What grade are you in, dude?

I'm a senior across the street.

I said, You're a growing boy.

You need two.

Were you gonna get two?

Well, I was, but uh, hey, I'm loaded.

And he goes, Oh, uh, oh, okay, I'll have two of those and something to drink.

No, I don't anything to drink.

You're gonna wash it down with spit?

See, because that's the way we are.

We're kind of like, oh, I just, I'm just I'm like a stowaway on a ship, and I hope God doesn't find out I'm here.

Are you kidding me?

He knows.

But I said, What are you gonna do when you graduate?

And he said, Well, uh, I'm I'm gonna be a psychiatrist.

I I I I I could I I I need to come see you, probably.

And then while he's waiting, because they make it fresh, he can't help but just I'm sitting at a table waiting on my friend to show up.

He just keeps staring at me, and I'm like, Are you okay?

Yeah, uh, and I say, hey dude, it's just money, it's just dead precedence, is all it is.

And he's like, I oh, I got it, yeah, yeah.

Uh you say, why am I telling you that?

Because here's the thing stewardship is one of the most consequential things in the world, and here's why.

How many times can that happen to that guy and him still think there is no God, or all Christians are hypocrites?

Everybody in that place was kind of like that was awesome.

And my mind thinking it was five dollars.

I got some change back from a five.

Are you kidding me?

I gave one president and got three back.

Think about it, they're on the coins, too.

Oh my god, what is that crazy man talking about?

He said, What do you mean?

He says, It gives you purpose in your heart.

He said, What do you mean?

Turn back to chapter 8.

2 Corinthians chapter 8.

2 Corinthians 8 · chapter mention

Just one chapter.

I just want to see something.

We're just about done.

You say.

With me?

Second Corinthians chapter 8, look at verse 1.

2 Corinthians 8 · chapter mention

He says, We want you to know, brothers, because people always say, Oh, I'd love to, I'd love to give, I'd love to be a better steward, but we just can't afford to.

And I'm like, that's interesting.

He says in verse chapter 8, verse 1, we want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia.

For in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.

Did you hear that?

How does extreme poverty overflow in this wealth of generosity?

For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means of their own free will, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints, and this is not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us.

See, their heart overflows.

You say, Yeah, yeah, well, you know, because somebody asked me recently, I love people ask me crazy questions.

A guy said, uh, somebody said you were generous.

How much of your money do you give away?

It depends on how much my wife wants this week.

I don't know.

Uh he goes, No, seriously, and I said, I don't know.

Uh for me, there's a starting point in the Bible, but he says that basically their hearts overflowed.

And I asked him the question I would just ask you, how does something overflow if all you put in is 10%?

Now don't check out on me.

Y'all are kind of like, you just ran the yoke on us right there.

No, I didn't.

Stewardship as far as giving to tithing, giving, that that's give as you've purposed in your heart, you've decided in your heart.

Uh-uh.

I remember when I first became, and I didn't realize what a big deal this was, that you didn't like strong arm people into it when I first became the pastor, and I would ask people to lunch.

About 20 minutes in, they'd go, uh, is this going anywhere?

I'm like, you need to go somewhere?

Are you in a hurry?

No.

I mean, did you want to talk to me about something?

No, I just want to get to know you.

Oh, dude.

Man, I wish you'd have said that early on.

I've been there.

I didn't sleep last night.

I said, why didn't you sleep last night?

Well, because in my last church, anytime the pastor took you to lunch, he was going to ask you for a donation.

What you do if your money's none of my business?

And I look up and the guy's crying.

I'm like, why are you crying?

Well, I just hey, here's the deal.

You give as you've decided in your heart to give.

And pass the salt.

Let's talk about something else.

Okay, what do you say?

Stewardship, it's not just that.

You say, What do you mean?

We practice what we preach.

We try to get our heart to overflow.

So when you give to this church, let me just put up here.

Here's a list of the ministries and the people that just some of what it goes to.

Norm and Fran West are a couple in our church that feel called to work with the Turks.

And so they reach out, they have a ministry here.

Norm chats online with folks all over the world.

The Epley family is in Bangladesh.

We're going to see them in January.

We go to India.

The Cardi family used to sit right over there.

They're now missionaries in Costa Rica because they went on a mission trip and Bart didn't want to come home.

So they came home, sold all their stuff, and they moved there.

The Stoneworks is an orphan outreach.

Just pick one, Kids Hope USA.

That's we mentor uh at-risk elementary school kids at a school about two minutes that way.

My brother's keeper is a food shelter where people get spiritual and physical assistance.

Uh Renee Nelson leads that.

She'll be in our next service.

Sits about right over here.

Uh Romania.

We're developing a missional partnership with a community of folks in Romania where we can go back every year and build physically as well as spiritually.

Uh Costa Rica, I was in Costa Rica this summer.

Uh I probably should be more aware of this, but they had bundles of PVC pipe about 20 feet long or 15 feet long, and all these water tanks, all these fittings and stuff.

And I said to our missionary, man, where'd you get all this stuff?

And he went, he started laughing.

And I said, Well, he goes, your church paid for it.

Oh yeah, yeah.

And in that moment, I was tempted to lie and act like I knew more than I knew.

And instead, I went, oh yeah, I had no idea.

And then the Guami Indians were like, and you're the leader?

Yes, I'm the leader.

Follow me.

Where are they?

Okay, here we go.

And so as I'm lugging bundles of PVC pipe up the mountain, holding on for dear life, going, I could fall and never be seen again.

I had the thought, my church paid for this stuff.

Why does my church hate me?

So, see, stewardship is not just giving, it's it's it's us giving.

It's not just you giving to the church, it's the church blessing the world.

And house of love, if you're wondering, what is house of love?

That sounds kind of it's an orphanage in India where 40 boys and girls don't have food to eat unless this church sends them money.

And we do.

So when you give to this church, if you're checking out our church today, kind of going, what is this about?

We practice full disclosure.

We got nothing to hide.

The stewardship means that we get to be a blessing because don't turn there, but just write down in your mind uh Genesis chapter 12, verse 1.

Genesis 12:1

God told Abram, I'll bless you, and you'll be a blessing.

We get to be a blessing.

And we're always going to do that.

And that's just what we're about, by the way.

Uh that's what we do.

We also uh paid almost$400,000 on our student ministry building back here.

I think the next slide will come up.

Uh, we opened it a year ago in September this month, and that's what we owed a year ago, and we paid almost$400,000.

And so we we did that, but go back to the other slide.

We didn't stop doing uh all this to do that.

And we're never going to.

We're always gonna do missions in ministry.

Okay?

This is not my church.

You are the church.

This is what you do.

I I don't do this, this is what you do.

So when you give to the ministry of this church, or someone says when you put something in those wooden boxes, that's just some of where it goes.

We want you to know that.

See, see, worship, the worth of God is about singing, it's also about stewardship.

And then thirdly and finally, it's about submission.

It's about submission.

Let me let me go back to Ephesians 5 and we'll be done this morning.

You still with me?

See, because this there's parts in the Bible that when sometimes when preachers read them, you ever notice they just kind of speed up and keep going?

You can slow down because you can understand this.

Look at verse 22 of Ephesians 5.

Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.

We men, we hear that and we're kind of like, that's right, baby.

And you women are kind of like, where's my fingernail file?

Stay with me.

For the husband is the head of the wife.

Even as Christ is the head of the church, you're like, it ain't getting better for me, dude.

Stay with me.

His body and is himself its savior.

Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

You're like, uh, tell me when this gets better for me as a woman.

Look at me.

Right there.

You say, What do you mean?

Now, as the church submits to Christ, if you've ever been a part of a church that just submits to Christ, it's not some megalomaniac off on some ego trip, but we just submit to Christ and just say, that's why we're a plurality of leadership.

That's why we want to have Paul Keith and Butch Ewing around the elder table to say, hey, let help us keep this thing submitted to Christ.

We don't want to lose focus and get into something we don't need to be in.

But as the church submits to Christ, so wives.

Submit to your husbands in everything.

Now, that sounds like a nah, unless you've ever been in part of a church that is submitted to Christ.

And by the way, you're sitting in one right now.

You're sitting amongst people.

Now I'm not saying it's perfect, we got it all together, but people say, hey, what did you do when you started here?

We just tried to submit everything to Christ.

I'm not saying they didn't before.

I wasn't a part of it.

I'm just saying, we just said, hey, God, we don't we don't know what we're doing.

We don't want to screw this up.

See, submission, when most people think submission, it sounds like punishment.

Like someone's got you and you've got to tap out because you can't get away.

Submission is not that in the Bible.

Submission is invitation.

Submission is invitation.

So I have a confession.

Last night I was flipping channels and I came across MMA, mixed martial arts, and some guy got some guy and some kind of hold on his ankle.

I thought he broke his ankle and the dude was tapping the floor, and you're like, what does he do?

That's called tapping out.

You submit because you can't take it anymore.

But that's not what the Bible's talking about here.

Just let this end this morning.

Submission is not punishment.

It's not God saying, I'm gonna inflict pain on you until you just realize that I'm bigger than you.

No, submission, hey, just as you know, the church submits to Christ, so wives and everything submit to your.

If the church submits, just think for a minute.

Let's close today thinking about what it would look like for you, because the church is not an institution, it it's an organism, it's people.

What it would look like for you as a person, as a part of the church, to submit in everything to Christ.

Never thought about that.

Across the board.

What you eat, what you drink, what you spend your money on, what you drive, what you wear, you just submit.

And we've kind of we're curious about it.

You say, how do you know?

Tell me if these initials sound familiar.

WWJD.

Remember that?

We kind of burned through that trend.

That's a great place to visit, but nobody wants to live there.

Submission is that.

It's just kind of saying, hey, I don't, I ain't gotta wonder.

I know because I just my life is just kind of submitted to Christ.

And it's just and what would it be like?

Because see, that's the invitation of today.

That that that's what God's saying to us as the church, of which you as an individual are part of.

So he's saying to you as an individual, hey, what would it be like if you just submitted to me?

If you just stopped kicking against the goads and said, you know what?

Because as a 19-year-old, I was just an opinionated idiot.

And I was like, oh, the church is taking.

And when I just submitted, I didn't lay down my brain.

I didn't stop being a critical thinker, I didn't stop being the guy that says, Hey, why do we do that?

We don't gotta do that.

Submission is invitation.

And the question I want you to think about, and I'm done today, look at me.

What is God inviting you into right now?

Stand to your feet if you would.

Hold your hands out.

When thinking about submission, remember this your father gave you senses.

Because all along he purposed to fill them up.

Depart now and figure out why.

In the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you, you're dismissed.