Rhythms (Week 5)

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Let's give it up for Jesus this morning.

Let's give it up for Jesus.

Give it up for Jesus.

You can do better than that.

Come on, give it up for Jesus.

He's the one that woke you up, not your alarm.

Not that you had to go to the bathroom.

It was God that woke you up.

Give it up for Jesus, man.

Grateful to be here.

Excited to be here.

Thankful to be here.

Every time my family gets to come and be a part of this church family, it's a sweet time.

We look forward to it.

My son said, Are we going to the ex-church today?

He for some reason can't remember the name of the church, but he knows what the logo is.

And he says, We're going to the ex-church.

Yes.

Can I bring my football?

Like, what are you talking about, bro?

Because we got to play last time.

Like, he just loves coming to this place.

This place exudes joy to him.

And so that's always a win for me when my kids are excited to go to church.

And so were we.

Even though we drove past the exit this morning, I told Forrest, I said, Man, I got lost.

I kept typing in Jefferson Square.

And I was like, man, that was a Jefferson Square in Frankfurt.

He kept trying to take me to downtown Louisville.

And then we get to the Buffalo Wild Wings, or exit 58, and I'm like, Franklin Square.

All right, let's turn around and go back.

So we made it.

We're excited to be here.

Took up multiple tries, but I'm thankful.

Man, I love being here.

Today I'm excited to talk about something that is so important.

Today, I'm just a part of this mission of God for this place to unleash you all to really uh impact this city.

And one of the primary ways that you all can impact this city is to be a place where people come and find mission.

And one of the ways that people come to find mission at a place like this is when they see everybody in this place on mission.

And so one of the beautiful things about a church plan is this there's always something for you to do.

And so today I'm excited to just challenge you to consider what your part might be in God's work here through Multipied Church and in Frankfurt.

I want to talk a little bit, though, about the way that we understand ourselves.

If you've lived in this world long enough, you've probably had questions about who you are and what you're made for.

In fact, I believe that labels, titles, self-worth, and self-perception have all, one way or another, uh found themselves at the center and in the fabric of who we are as a modern society.

Whether it's the pressure to fit in, the desire to stand out, uh in the pursuit of happiness, our human experience.

It always seems to come back to three fundamental questions.

Here are those questions.

Number one, who am I?

Number two, what am I made for?

And number three, does my life really matter?

Those three questions are in the backdrop of every social movement.

They're in the fabric of every good endeavor, every sinful pursuit.

They are the power behind human ambition and the sickness in our human insecurity.

They are in the whispers that keep us selfish and the voice that tells us to do amazing things.

Deep inside of every human heart is this desert-like wandering that even in the best of times seems to try to creep up and take control.

In preparing for this message, I found this uh LifeWay study from 2021, and there was just some interesting things from the study.

Here's what it says Says this is about American people.

Says 57% say they wonder how I can find more meaning and purpose in my life, at least monthly.

Says that 81% of Americans believe there is an ultimate purpose and plan for every person's life.

Says that 68% say a major priority in their life is finding their deeper purpose.

And 73% say it's important they pursue a higher purpose and meaning for their life.

I think stacks like this bear witness to the fact that those foundational questions are valid and need real, tangible answers.

They need answers with substance and sustainability.

They need answers that give them the right labels and titles and self-perception.

For the church, I think they bear witness to an amazing opportunity.

When we study Jesus, I think it's clear he understood this.

From the way he ministered to the words he said, Jesus determined himself to nullify all oppressive labels and all oppressive titles and to give people a correct self-worth and self-perception.

In place of these bad labels and these bad self-perceptions, Jesus oftentimes spoken to them new ones.

To those who felt the bad and he would say daughter and son.

To those who were lonely, he would say friend.

To those who walked cloaked in shame, he would say forgiven.

To those who felt ostracized because of an ailment, he would say, You are healed.

And to those who felt like the scum on the earth and in the bottom of the totem pole, he would say, You're blessed.

To some, he touched, communed, and fellowshipped, and to others he spoke words of correction.

All with the purpose of announcing the coming of his kingdom that would make things right and new.

And from his love, Jesus reminded people who they were.

And from the words he preached, Jesus reminded people what they were made for.

And from the way in which he died, Jesus assures us all that our lives matter more than we could ever imagine.

With that in mind, today, I want to take us to a passage in 1 Peter chapter 2.

1 Peter 2 · chapter mention

With today being a servant push, I want to take some time to speak into some of the beautiful labels and titles we received in Christ to remind us who we are, what we are saved for, and why our lives really matter.

Ultimately, my aim is to establish in us a correct and right self-perception so that we might engage in the right participation.

I want to challenge us to really know deep inside of us what does it mean to have our identity in Christ, and what our identity in Christ calls us to.

So if you have your Bibles, you can begin to scroll on your phones or pull out the paper Bible.

We're going to be in 1 Peter chapter 2.

1 Peter 2 · chapter mention

We just got two verses today.

1 Peter chapter 2, 9 and 10.

1 Peter 2 · chapter mention

And as you turn there, I just want to give you my thesis statement.

This is for my note takers.

Here's your thesis statement.

Who we are in Christ is who we are for.

I'm sorry, excuse me.

Who we are in Christ is who we are for Christ.

Who we are in Christ or who we are for Christ.

1 Peter 2, 9 through 10 is what it says.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people.

You had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Who we are in Christ is who we are for Christ.

Now, the book of 1 Peter is one of the most practical books in the Bible.

It's my favorite book.

If you hang around me long enough, you're gonna hear me talking about 1 Peter a lot.

It's one of those tangible books that when you read and open it up, it feels like it was written in 2023.

Written to us as we process and go through a changing world around us.

And Peter's primary aim throughout this whole book is to say, hey, you are new people in Christ.

And your citizenship is not where you live.

In fact, you are exiles.

And so while you are living in exile until Christ returns, there are some things that God is calling you to do, and the type of people he is calling you to be for the purpose of his kingdom.

And so when we dive into our passage today, we find some beautiful reminders of that.

We see four kind of identity statements.

Can we say identity?

Identity are the facts about who we are, they are the attributes that distinguish us from something or someone else.

In the same way, identity are the things that make us most like something or someone else.

It is the truth about us that brings a oneness and a sameness.

It brings a congruence between us and others, yet it's the thing that makes us unique.

This is why in my personhood, uh, I'm distinctly different than my father.

But if we were standing right beside each other, you would see a oneness in our likeness.

Or if you saw a picture of him in the third grade and a picture of me in the third grade, you would, outside of him having an ugly outfit on, like you would think we are the same people.

Yeah, we all know that we're we're distinctively different.

So my likeness and my image testifies to the fact that without a reasonable doubt, we don't need Maury, we don't need Judge Mathis.

You can just look at us and know, besides me carrying his name, I carry within me his DNA.

In the same way, I believe as Christians, we have the opportunity, and might I even say the responsibility, to mirror Jesus in that way.

Though none of us are the Savior, our likeness and our lived outness, I made up that word, should testify to our identity being in Christ.

In relation to four titles in our text today helps us with our identity.

When I study the passage, I find three underlying truths that would guide us the rest of the way this morning.

The first underlying truth is that our identity is communal in nature.

What do I mean?

Our identity is best understood within a community and for a community.

The second thing that will guide us is that our identity in Christ comes with responsibility.

What do I mean?

We aren't just saved, we are called.

The third thing is this is that our identity in Christ is established and sustained in mercy.

What does that mean?

His mercy saved us, and his mercy through us helps save others.

Our identity in Christ is not just to make us feel good, but it's to make us do something.

And so here's the first title we see says that we are a chosen race.

Or your Bible may say a chosen people.

The first thing we need to know is that being a chosen race or a chosen people means that all other cultural distinctions we bring to Christ become submissive to the greater distinction of being a child of God.

Just as the chosen one, Christ Jesus, put on flesh for a very specific purpose and work, so are we called to step into that work.

This purpose, mission, and work was summed up like this by Jesus in Matthew 20, 28.

He said this, for even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

This line from Jesus follows after a previous verse in which Jesus told his disciples, Whoever wants to become great among you must become your servant.

What does this teach us?

It teaches that if the one we are chosen in came to serve and give his life for others, then his chosen people are called to do the same.

The Bible teaches that Christ is the head of the body.

And Jesus is the brains of this operation.

In his decrees, as we identify and reap the benefits that come from knowing we've been chosen by God, we must also identify and embrace the vocation that comes from being chosen by God.

So what's the application?

Here it is.

To be chosen is to be made for mission.

To be chosen is to be made for mission.

The second title says that we are a royal priesthood.

Can we say royal priesthood?

To understand this, we need to see it in two parts.

The first is that we are royal in the sense that as believers, the Bible tells us that we are citizens of heaven, that we are a part of God's kingdom and will one day reign with Jesus.

I don't know if you've read your Bible.

There's some stuff in the Bible that we don't talk about a lot at church, but the Bible says that we will reign with Jesus.

The apostle Paul says, Don't you know that you will judge the angels?

We have a high place.

We're royalty in Christ.

But we are a priesthood in the sense that we have the freedom and the access to the Father, no longer through an earthly mediator, but according to the book of Hebrews, priest, Christ Jesus, who mediates this new covenant of grace we enjoy every day.

See, in the Old Testament, priests were the ones who brought the offering before God to deal with the sin of the people.

There was only one high priest at a time, and he could only enter God's presence once a year.

And before he entered God's presence, he had to make a sacrifice not just for the people, but for himself.

See, these priests would wear these little bales on their on their feet, on their ankles.

Because there was a risk that God's presence was so powerful, if they walked in with any ounce of sin, with any ounce of unrepentant sins, they would fall over and die.

And so the people outside the holies of holy would hear that bell ring, that means that person fell over dead and they would have to pull them out of there.

Like that was the extent in which God humble for him before Christ Jesus.

But can I tell you that God lays that he'll be preaching beyond the earth?

And that's all because of Christ Jesus.

So so we get to walk as these priests.

And we're priests that are mediators to a lost world, to a holy God.

There was a time where where there was a specific day and a specific time that we could step before God, but the Bible says, approach the throne of grace with confidence.

That's our birthright in Christ Jesus.

So just like being a chosen people, being a royal priesthood is more than just receiving a new privilege.

As we receive identity in this title, we have to be faithful to receive the purpose and vocation of it.

As royal priests, we have been commissioned towards being mediators between God and the people around us who don't know Him.

We are called to make way and to make room for people to encounter the living God we worship.

We are called as kingdom citizens to take ground and enlarge the work of God's hand in the earth.

We are called to be his ambassadors, walking statues of Jesus every place we go.

Whether people are coming to worship with us here and multiply, or we're going out into the city, the peace of God should rest on us and flow through us.

And just give people this sense that God is doing something special and God is available to me, and God wants me.

But most of all, I need God.

I love how the book of 2 Corinthians helps us understand this when in chapter 5 it says this.

All this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

That God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them.

And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

We are therefore Christ's ambassadors.

Peep this, as though God were making his appeal through us.

As Christ's ambassadors, God is making his appeal to the world through me and you.

So when we stand up here and we say serve, understand that we're asking you to serve because God is making his appeal through multiplied church and through all the churches in the city to save people.

And if we don't have enough people to serve in children's, then people bringing their kids don't have a place to take their kids.

And that carries weight.

So what's the application?

To be a royal priest is to be reconciled with God while working to reconcile others.

How are you reconciling others?

Some of you are doing an amazing job, but this was some of us probably hadn't even thought about this before.

Three practical ways to figure it out is where am I serving?

What mission am I engaged in?

What image am I portraying to the world so that they know God is good?

What does my Twitter feed say and my Facebook say?

Do people know that I represent a political party more than I represent the kingdom of heaven?

Do people know that I'm more frustrated about what's happening in the schools than about what's happening in people's homes because they don't know Christ Jesus?

Let's be walking ambassadors.

People who display the beauty and the grace and the mercy of Jesus every day in every way in every place that we go.

The final two titles I want to speak on together.

The Bible says we are a holy nation and that we are God's possession.

As I mentioned earlier, Peter is using Old Testament language and imagery here in our passage.

In these two titles, he is referencing the fact that throughout the Bible, God has always kept for himself a people of his own, a remnant, who were called to be set apart and to live righteously, and that's the case for us.

I love the way Dr.

Tony Evans explains it this way.

If you never read or heard Dr.

Evans, he's an amazing preacher and teacher of God's word.

And here's what he says in his commentary about this passage it says, The people of God are a holy nation, not a perfect people.

But a people set apart with a passion to live corporately to please God.

And we are a people of his possession.

We're not special because of who we are, but because of the one to whom we belong.

In this commentary, I think there are two major takeaways for us today.

Number one, God's people are to be a people of passion.

And number two, God's people no longer belong to themselves.

Sometimes we Christians can use language that makes it sound like walking with Jesus is a burden.

I hear people say, I have to go to church this morning.

Oh man, I gotta serve in children today.

Man, I just I just can't go out like that anymore.

I hear people say, man, I've tithe this month, so I can't go out with y'all.

I gotta go to Bible study today, so I can't watch the football game.

Uh uh, maybe that's just me.

Maybe that's not you.

Maybe you can't but let me remind us just in case we get to thinking that way, that every journey should be sure that God, as our verse says, into his marvelous light.

Maybe I'm talking to myself this morning, but no mercy.

So you are whose people?

God's people.

Once you received no mercy, but now you have received God's mercy, not man's mercy, God's mercy.

So every time we walk into the church, we can say, That's God's mercy.

Every time we walk into the church and we see a sibling in Christ, we can say, That's God.

Every time we walk into the offering, we can say that we're not when we when we give God's ministry rather than being his enemy, we can say how about this one?

When you wake up in the morning and you realize that God has kept you, that's coming being in his possession means that even if you were to wake up on the other side of this life, you would wake up and that everything about our life is a reason to praise God because it says no matter what it is, he is working it for our mercy.

Because I don't know about y'all, but he could have left us to ourselves.

Where would you be?

I know what I would be.

I would be in a Georgia State penitentiary right now, probably fearing for my life and wondering what happened.

Because I did some things that if it wasn't for the grace of God, slowing the police down just a little bit, or if it wasn't for God's mercy and God's conviction, restraining me at the point I didn't know where I would be, but I would not be here preaching to you this morning.

And I just want to say that is God's mercy.

So, what's the application?

To be a holy nation and in God's possession is to be set apart for the display of God's mercy and the receiving of God's mercy.

To be a holy nation and to be in God's possession means that our chief purpose in this world is to walk and to be a living display of God's mercy.

Your testimony and your story is meant to be shared, not locked in a closet.

There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

I don't care what you did, God has redeemed it.

That is your testimony to save other people.

Give it away, Jesus.

Because as we display God's mercy, other people begin to see that God's mercy is tangible for them.

Because your story might just be the key to unlock somebody else's story.

There's somebody you know that went through what you went through, and they think God is evil, distant, and unloving.

And your testimony is a testimony that says, God ain't the one who did it.

Man did it, but God redeemed it.

And they just might need to hear and have their perspective shift by the mercy of God.

You know, uh, I was telling Pastor Ford this morning uh about the story, about the situation that happened for us around Christmas.

Uh, me and my boys, we went and we were bell ringers for the salvation army.

We had our red aprons on.

I brought my speaker, we had our music on, and we were out there ringing bells outside of Hobby Lobby.

It was cold, but it was fun.

You know, it was one of those things I say, you know, I always talk to my boys about doing the right thing, but but I need to start giving them more tangible experiences with doing the right thing.

So I made time for it.

And over and over again, as people walked up, they would number one exude a sense of joy that we were out there ringing the bell.

They would say, Oh, thank you so much for ringing the bell.

Thank you so much for ringing the bell.

When I come back out, I'm gonna donate.

Y'all are so cute.

Look at those boys.

Oh, they're so handsome, all the things.

And after they would say that, I felt like every person would say, but man, I haven't seen anybody ringing bells this year.

It is just so frustrating.

I don't know what's going on with our society.

Nobody is ringing bells this year.

Every store I went to, nobody's ringing bells.

And they would go into the store and they would come out filled with joy and they would drop a dollar, five dollars, Merry Christmas, and they would keep rolling.

And at first, as I stood there, I enjoyed that.

It was my pride welling up, thinking you're right.

And you also don't realize that I am a pastor full time, so I served my whole life.

And here I am in my free time ringing a bell for the salvation army.

And so I kind of stood up a little bit taller and kind of felt proud with my boys.

But as the Holy Spirit does, the Holy Spirit convicted.

And I began to just think about those interactions.

Now I do want to say, we were out there for two hours, and the Termin Boys made$370 for the salvation army.

$370, I mean.

Multiply, y'all need to get some X aprons and get out there ringing.

I'm just telling you, uh change some things around the city.

Uh but but what I began to think about, especially in context of coming here and knowing what I was talking about, was that the humans' psycha's uh psyche works in this way.

That those people had a maybe in their heart a righteous indignation that people weren't serving the mission of the salvation woman around the Christmas season because they knew that that money goes to helping homeless people and helping people get back on their feet.

But not one of those people who complained about not seeing ringers asked me, how can I become a bell ringer?

There was just something intoxicating about going in the store and asking for a cash back.

Can I get that in ones though?

And coming and dropping your one or two dollars into the red bucket that felt like they were a part of the movement.

It made them feel like they were a part of the mission.

But but a better and a bigger opportunity for them was to say, what is the website so that I can sign up?

So instead of me dropping$2, I can collect$370 as well.

And I think sometimes, this is a word, especially for you all, I think sometimes, because I've been there before, sometimes being a part of a church plant can feel like you're a part of the movement.

You know, just coming and saying I attend a church plant can make you feel like you're doing something extraordinary.

But can I tell you that the leadership of this church would much rather you jump in and and and ring the bell with them rather than dropping uh$2 into the bucket?

What am I saying?

What I'm saying is your one seat, your one butt in the seat is helping a movement.

But your butt for the movement multiplies.

And so the charge and the challenge here is number one, if you know who you are and you know what you've been called to do, then that's an easy ask.

Here's what I hope.

I hope that this is the last serving push multiply church has to do because the DNA of this church just exudes.

You can't be a part of this church without serving in this church.

But the only way that happens is if you all make it that way.

And so don't make your pastor beg.

He's already interceding in the early morning for y'all's lives, he's covering you in prayer to and from in his car drives, he's thinking strategically for how he can shepherd and lead you all spiritually, while also trying to shepherd and lead his family, while also trying to sustain uh the viability of this church in this city.

The least that you can do is say, let me pick up some of the weight from the launch team.

And let's see how what we can do to make this place a hospital for sick people.

So the question I asked, what does that look like?

Not just as individuals, but as a body of believers, what does it look like for you as a church?

What does it look like to be a place a place that displays God's radical love when people walk in your doors?

What does it look like and what does it take for a multiplied church logo to mean safe place and refuge in this city?

As you continue to grow, what will it require for this church to remain God's special possession and not your personal preference?

What are the practical implications of embracing your identity as a church, but also as the members that make up this body as God continues his work here in Frankfurt?

I know Pastor Force and the team, they have some wonderful ideas at what that might look like.

And whatever it is, I call you to trust them and to lean in.

Because if you do, I think the fruit, the spirit, and the legacy of this place will be one that encompasses the goal of our passage.

That whether in the movie theater or in the old save a lot, you all would be a place that through your hospitality, that through your service, that through your mission will proclaim the praises of the one who saved you and be a place that calls people out of darkness into his marvelous light and love.

Let us pray.

God, we thank you.

As we sang earlier, you're so good.

You're so good.

All our lives, God, you have been faithful.

And we just thank you.

So, God, would your spirit do only what your spirit can do?

Would you ignite a fire in our spirit?

Would you fan the flame of the gift that we've received from Christ Jesus?

And God, would you convict us where we are stagnant?

May none of us be like the slugger, but may we be like the ant.

And on the day you return, may we be found working to the praise of your glory.

Pray that in the mighty name of Jesus.

Amen.