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God's Gifts To The Church // Ephesians 4 // Jeff Rudder

The Movement Church CO

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  1. Welcome to the Movement Church podcast. We want you to know that God is

  2. for you and so are we. You're about to hear a sermon from one

  3. of our weekend services in Palmer Lake, Colorado. We pray that your faith

  4. is provoked, your mind is renewed, and your heart is awakened as you

  5. engage the Word of God. Stay tuned. That's the message for ways to

  6. get connected with us. God bless you. Thanks for tuning in. Today.

  7. We're going to look at Ephesians chapter four, verses one through seven,

  8. and eleven through fourteen. But before we do, let's take a moment and

  9. review where we've been. So in the last few weeks, we've been in

  10. the first part of Ephesian sort of off and on. We had a little

  11. break there for a minute, but let's review. In the first three chapters,

  12. Paul uses this very poetic language to remind the Christians in Ephesus, the

  13. new Christians in Ephesus, about the Gospel and about the sacrifice of Jesus and

  14. what he did. And then he goes on to remind them of the promise

  15. that God had earlier made to the nation of Israel that they would be His

  16. children. They would be his family, his people, Okay, and so

  17. then through the sacrifice of Jesus, now we're all together in one family.

  18. Started with the Israelites, and now the Gentiles. There's just people who aren't

  19. Jewish, right, And so now we're all in that family as his children.

  20. And then he goes on to talk about God's plan that we would all

  21. live in the unified family group together, and the things that tended to separate

  22. us and years gone by, would that those things would go by the wayside.

  23. We're now going to be one big family, right. And so what

  24. God began with the Jewish nation, the Jewish people through Abraham, was now

  25. extended to all of us through the sacrifice of Christ and the work of the

  26. Holy Spirit. And the Book of Acts is all about how this gospel message

  27. that he's reminded the Ephesians of began to spread around the world. That's what

  28. the whole Book of Acts is all about. It's called the Acts of the

  29. Apostles. It's how the Gospel began to spread. And then Paul prays for

  30. the Ephesians before we get to Chepter four. He praised that they would experience

  31. this power that raised Jesus from the Dead. We talked about that several weeks

  32. ago, this power, and he noted how the culture of Ephesus had been

  33. consumed really by the demands of false gods and the demands of the leaders of

  34. Rome who said to the people, yeah, we're God's too, so you

  35. have to worship us. All of this was consuming. He's reminding them that

  36. the power and the authority of Jesus is really second to none. None of

  37. what has going on in Ephesus has any power at all other than the power

  38. of Jesus. And then in chapter three, while Paul is in prison,

  39. right, he's writing this from prison, he prais a prayer of gratitude,

  40. if you can believe that, he's grateful that the work of the Holy Spirit

  41. has been leading so many people around the ancient world into this place of faith,

  42. right, people from different backgrounds all over the place. And that leads

  43. us to chapter four. Okay, and in chapter four we're going to go

  44. through verses one through seven and eleven and through fourteen to get started, So

  45. let's jump in. Therefore, I, a prisoner for serving the Lord,

  46. beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, For you have been

  47. called by God always be humble and gentle, Be patient with each other,

  48. making allowance for each other's faults because of your love. Make every effort to

  49. keep yourselves united in the spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. For there's

  50. one body and one spirit, just as you've been called to one glorious hope

  51. for the future. There's one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one

  52. God and Father of all, who is overall, in all and living through

  53. all. However, He's given each one of us a special gift through the

  54. generosity of Christ and to Verse eleven. Now these are the gifts Christ gave

  55. to the Church, the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors,

  56. and the teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God's people to do his

  57. work and build up the Church, the Body of Christ. And this will

  58. continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God's

  59. Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full

  60. and complete standard of Christ. Then will no longer be immature like children.

  61. We won't be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We

  62. will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies, so clever,

  63. they sound like the truth, and there's a lot of that out there

  64. today. Lies so clever they sound like the truth. So as we look

  65. at this scripture, several things kind of stand out to me, But before

  66. we look at those, I wanted to give you a little bit of an

  67. outline today of how I think all of this fits together. To me,

  68. this passage is just a little bit complicated. Paul tends to pack in as

  69. much theology as he can possibly get into everything that he writes, and so

  70. it gets a little confusing to me at least, So I want you to

  71. see how this is gonna flow. So here's the outline. Number One,

  72. God came to save us and bring us into his family before we even knew

  73. we needed it. Okay. Number two, we should live worthy of our

  74. calling, but calling has to go beyond the what we do and extend into

  75. the how we do it. Number Three, living this way is not easy,

  76. so he gave us guides to help us as we go toward both unity

  77. and maturity. And then number four that unity and maturity are meant to help

  78. protect us from the lies and the enemy. So that's a little bit of

  79. an outline, and we're gonna work our way systematically through this. So stick

  80. with me, Okay. As we read this, unity and maturity are front

  81. and center in this chapter, and we're gonna talk a lot about that today.

  82. But before we talk about this unity and maturity that were after, I

  83. thought we might look at some examples of where unity and maturity were not really

  84. present. Anybody ever heard of the hat Fills and McCoy's. This is for

  85. the older guys among us, right, I love this stuff, right,

  86. the hat fills in McCoy's. You know, here's a photo of Ants Hatfield

  87. and Randall McCoy. There are two families feuded in West Virginia for years in

  88. the late eighteen hundreds. About twelve people were killed and dozens were wounded in

  89. this battle. The federal government actually had to step in at one point and

  90. put an end to it. And you know what started this, this fight

  91. that lasted for years and took the lives of a dozen people. A pig.

  92. It started over a pig that got loose and wandered into the wrong field

  93. and began to graze. That's what started this. Old jealousies came to the

  94. surface over a pig. Maybe we can move to the twentieth century. Now

  95. do you remember these two ladies, Tanya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. Right before

  96. the nineteen ninety four Olympics, three people on Tanya Harding's team conspired to go

  97. after their main competitor, Nancy Kerrigan, And so right after a practice session,

  98. as Kerrigan was leaving the ice and walking through the tunnel back to the

  99. training room, a man ran up to her with a police baton and whacked

  100. her in the knee. You probably remember this incredible image of Nancy on the

  101. ground crying, why why? Why? Why me? There's a great question,

  102. right, there was supposed to be teammates. There's no unity and certainly

  103. no maturity in this example, right, And then let's look at this famous

  104. display of immaturity. That's Kanye and Taylor Swift for the swifty among us here,

  105. right, she was receiving an award for some musical thing, and in

  106. the middle of her acceptance speech, Kanye ran up and grabbed the mic and

  107. went on some kind of a rant. I don't even know what it was

  108. about. I just there. You go, be honest. They should have

  109. won. So it's just another example, and she probably should have won.

  110. It's just another example of immaturity and lack of unity that boils over and causes

  111. a big problem. Right, But it's not just famous people who are susceptible

  112. to this kind of thing. There's plenty of examples inside the church of that.

  113. So let's look at a few examples from actual church folks on disagreements that

  114. they've had. These examples were taking from a survey of church people about disagreements

  115. that nearly brought down their churches. So here's the first one. One church

  116. had an argument about the appropriate length of the worship pastor's beard. Where's Jeremiah.

  117. He's clean shaven. Thank you for that. We can avoid that argument

  118. right by the way, This is David Crowder, and David Crowder has written

  119. so many songs that are sung in churches around the world, so anyway,

  120. say what you want about his beard. He's a great songwriter. And then

  121. there was the church that had an incredible near fistfight over which picture of Jesus

  122. to hang in the foyer. I don't think this was the right choice,

  123. but they were fighting over which picture to put in the foyer. Number three

  124. on our list, and I'm pretty passionate about this one. There was a

  125. church that had a big argument over whether or not it was okay to use

  126. cran grape in the communion cups versus one hundred percent pure grape juice. Now

  127. I'm a purist. I love one hundred percent pure grape jews. I don't

  128. want crane grape anytime, much less in a communion cup. A number four,

  129. some people actually left a church because the free coffee that was served on

  130. Sunday mornings was too strong. Maybe they didn't like death Wish coffee. I

  131. have a feeling that's pretty strong stuff. But they left the church because the

  132. coffee was too strong. In number five, last, but not least,

  133. a major argument ensued over whether or not it was okay to serve deviled eggs

  134. at the church picnic. All of these examples are real, they are real

  135. examples. They are examples of immaturity and lack of unity. And that's what

  136. Paul is addressing in this passage. And so the first part of our outline,

  137. our number one point is Jesus came to save us and bring us into

  138. his family before we knew we needed. So let's think through this first point

  139. just a bit. We'll work our way through, right The very first word

  140. in the chapter is therefore. Right, this is a unique word. Therefore,

  141. technically it's called a conjunctive adverb. I had to look this up.

  142. Okay, young people, you might want to write this down. It might

  143. show up on your SATs. Conjunctive adverbs. Essentially, their purpose is to

  144. show that the idea that comes after the therefore is the result of everything that

  145. comes before the therefore. So chapter four starts out with therefore. And remember,

  146. I think we all understand this, but it's it's important to get this

  147. concept right. And remember that Paul spends the first three chapters focusing on the

  148. idea that because of what Jesus did, we're now connected to this large family

  149. group. We're not tribes, we're not bands of individual people. We're connected

  150. to a family group. And family's got to understand how to get along,

  151. and that doesn't always happen. I know that I do love this picture.

  152. I think it's from the eighties because Jesus has a mullet his picture. So,

  153. but we're all part of this family group, right, because Jesus and

  154. his mullet. So, By the way, Jesus in this picture, he

  155. does not refer to us as subjects. Right. He didn't call us his

  156. subjects, he didn't call us servants. No, we're referred to as the

  157. children of God, right, and that means that we're invited to share in

  158. the work, the business, the blessings of God, and that one day

  159. will receive an inheritance that comes through the family line. Right, We're going

  160. to receive an inheritance that is due to family members. My good friend Chuck

  161. Scott and I really do think it's important that we think about in this appointment.

  162. My good friend Chuck Scott has spent the better part of five years thinking

  163. about out the Lord's Prayer. Do you remember how the Lord's Prayer starts.

  164. It starts with these amazing words, our Father. These may be the two

  165. most important words in the whole of scripture because they cement the idea that we're

  166. God's children, not his playthings. If you ever felt like you were just

  167. a plaything for God, you're not. You're a child of God, if

  168. you're a follower of Christ, and so we're not tossed about at his whim.

  169. Really we're the object of his deepest affection. And so that idea of

  170. this incredible adoption by God into his family is summed up when Jesus said to

  171. the disciples, I'm going to teach you how to pray. Start it this

  172. way. Our father didn't say, My father said our father. That's amazing

  173. when you stop and think about it. This is the point that Paul is

  174. really trying to get across to people. He goes on to say in verse

  175. one that because of this, because of this incredible adoption and all that God

  176. has done for this, I beg you to live a life worthy of your

  177. calling. And this brings us to the second part of our outline. Our

  178. calling goes beyond what it is that we do and extends into how we do

  179. it. So I'm gonna make a suggestion that we're gonna have to understand this

  180. word of calling just a little bit differently than we typically most of us think

  181. of it in terms of what it is that we do. Are you a

  182. nurse, are you a fireman? Are you a builder? Or are you

  183. a teacher? Right, it's one of one hundred different professions you could be.

  184. And this is certainly how our culture views the concept of call, that

  185. it's about what you do, how you spend your time. But Paul is

  186. telling us that because God loved us and provided a way back to him even

  187. as we live in ways that were offensive to him, that perhaps we should

  188. extend that same mercy to those who offend us. Let me read that again.

  189. Because God loved us and provided a way back to himself even as we

  190. were living in ways that were offensive to him, maybe we should extend that

  191. same mercy to those who offend us. Romans five says it this way.

  192. God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while

  193. we were still sinners. The kid idea here is that that God didn't wait

  194. for us to apologize to get it right, you know, to He didn't

  195. wait for us to come back and say, oh, gee, Lord,

  196. I'm really sorry. And then he said, okay, you're sorry, so

  197. now I can figure out a way for you to be part of this family.

  198. Now. God figured out the way with the hope that we would one

  199. day recognize that our lives in many ways were offensive to him, and that

  200. we would turn from that lifestyle and come back to him. He didn't wait

  201. for us to do that. You know, too often it seems like our

  202. love, our forgiveness hinges on the other person. Whatever squabble. We're in

  203. it hinges on the other person's willingness to accept blame for whatever it is they've

  204. done that has offended us. That is not how God operates, and we

  205. have to understand that. So I would ask us this question, Do people

  206. see Jesus loving us when we've been offended by them? What are they seeing

  207. us when they've done something to offend us? Is it his love that's working

  208. toward reconciliation, working toward trying to figure this out, or is it I'm

  209. not calling her until she calls me first. I'm not talking to him anymore.

  210. I'm not hanging out with that dude, forget about it. What are

  211. they seeing us? Because what God did was not that right. We have

  212. to understand it's not just God's grace that we need to extend to people.

  213. We have to understand the timing of God's grace. And that's why I'm sort

  214. of drilling on this point a little bit. That God's grace was extended before

  215. we ever were contrite enough to say we need it. Everything he did for

  216. us he did with no guarantees that we would ever acknowledge, ever receive it.

  217. And this is not how our modern society operates at all went too far

  218. right. We're more of a lookout for number one kind of people. And

  219. I think we've come to believe that we have the right to never be offended

  220. by anybody. Isn't that true of us? But Jesus addressed this really directly

  221. in Luke chapter six, when he gave the most perhaps what I think is

  222. the most radical teaching in all of Scripture. Here's here's what he said.

  223. And this is kind of ridiculous to you who are willing to listen. Now,

  224. that ought to get your attention right there, meaning some of us I

  225. know are not gonna listen. But to you who are willing to listen,

  226. I say this, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,

  227. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you. If

  228. someone slaps you on one cheek, off or the other as well, someone

  229. demand your coat, give him your shirt. Also, love your enemies,

  230. do good to them, lend to them without expecting to be repaid. Then

  231. your reward from heaven will be very great, and you'll be truly acting as

  232. children of the most High, For he is kind to those who are unthankful

  233. and wicked better lett that sink in that God is kind to those who are

  234. unthankful and wicked. I tend to look at things sometimes on TV and go,

  235. man, I can't wait till God strikes that person down for what they've

  236. done. They deserve huge punishment. But this says something different, that God

  237. is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked. That might be the most

  238. radical statement in the whole Bible. At least it is to me right.

  239. So I really do have a highest sense of justice. I kind of think

  240. that I can't stand to see wrongs go unchecked. I think I'm more like

  241. James and John. Remember they were journeying with Jesus through Sameria and they weren't

  242. well coming into a town, and they said, Lord, should we call

  243. down fire from heaven and burn the place up because they don't welcome us.

  244. I'm kind of like that. That's sort of how I think the world might

  245. be a better place if we operated that way. I don't know, but

  246. God has a different plan. That's obvious. Forgiveness is one thing, right,

  247. but actively looking for the benefit of those who offend us that is not

  248. natural right. That is not natural. It can only come from God.

  249. And because Paul was addressing the church at Ephesus about all these things about how

  250. to live a life worthy of their calling, which Jesus explained, right,

  251. he was because he was addressed in the church at Ephesus. I want to

  252. address the movement church just for a minute, if I could. If Ike

  253. mentioned the last week that it's okay if there are people here who aren't yet

  254. convinced of God's truth, It's okay if we have people who are still working

  255. out their salvation with fear and trembling, who want to come and be with

  256. us on Sunday mornings. Right, the church should be a place where the

  257. lost feel more welcomed, not less welcome. A few weeks ago, someone

  258. on next door started a thread if it was you, as one of you

  259. in this room, I apologize and evance, but I'm calling it out.

  260. Somebody started a thread on next door about people like me who occasionally wear hats

  261. in church and like this guy. By the way, that's why I The

  262. conversation got nasty pretty quickly. There was over a hundred responses to this particular

  263. particular thread, right, But it wasn't a discussion about doctrine or absolute truth.

  264. It was kind of a discussion about tradition and preference, and I was

  265. just shocked at how we all adamant people were about their side of the argument,

  266. whichever one it was. And so Paul, you know, he often

  267. reminded his readers that we don't have to get hung up on things inside the

  268. church, inside the body of Christ that ultimately don't really matter. So let's

  269. make let's do this, Let's make it a hallmark of the Movement Church that

  270. we will simultaneously stand for biblical truth unwaveringly. We will not back down from

  271. what the Bible says, and we will also welcome people here who aren't quite

  272. convinced of what they believe. They're not quite there yet. Amen. Right.

  273. And by the way, I've already seen lots of examples among this congregation

  274. of welcoming people who wanted to come and find out a little bit more about

  275. God. In this group of people, I've seen tons of examples of you

  276. welcoming people. So this is not a lecture. This is a thank you.

  277. Thank you for being welcoming to people who aren't sure yet what they believe

  278. about God. Let's keep moving. Point number three, living this way is

  279. not easy. So God gave us some guides to help lead us into both

  280. maturity and to unity. Let's look at verse eleven. Now, these are

  281. the gifts Christ gave to the church. The apostles, the prophets, the

  282. evangelists, the pastors, and the teachers. Now, if you're anything like

  283. me, I kind of look at this list and go, well, you

  284. know, Paul sort of singling out the leadership has something special. But I

  285. don't really think that is the point of this, right. I think he's

  286. saying that as you grow in your faith, as you mature, it's natural

  287. for you to start thinking at some point about stepping into a role that leads

  288. others closer to faith or to mature in their faith. Right that it would

  289. be a natural progression to go from immature and learning and growing to mature where

  290. you're actually stepping into a role of leadership inside the church. Right, So

  291. maybe some of you are ready to step in to that kind of role and

  292. help others join this family of God. Now I would ask you to think

  293. about what that looks like for you. You know, what we're really talking

  294. about here a situation where, again, the more mature members of our body

  295. of the family begin to help the newer members of God's family grow to reach

  296. that maturity. And if you don't think you're qualified to do that, I

  297. want to just remind you that about half the disciples were uneducated. Fisherman Peter

  298. was a guy who was temperamental, wishy washy and had a bad case of

  299. adhd I think, who was called by God to lead the Israelite people out

  300. of Egypt. He was like, wait a minute, I'm not good in

  301. front of a crowd like Charlton Heston is, so send somebody else. He

  302. didn't want to do it. It's not what you can do, it's what

  303. God plus you can do. Okay, all right, and so think about

  304. how you can begin too mature. I think their only qualification was they were

  305. willing to do it. So here's a question for you. How might God

  306. use you help the loss come to faith and the new believer grow? Think

  307. about that. You know, I certainly have never thought of myself as a

  308. teacher, and I'm pretty sure most of you don't think about me that way

  309. either. But when Fike asked me to consider doing this, I literally said,

  310. I'll do it one time and then we'll review. And I have the

  311. right to say no, and you have the right to say no more,

  312. and we'll still be friends after. But as I have kind of stepped into

  313. this, I do feel called to do this, and I'm grateful that he

  314. asked me to do it. Right, What might you be called into?

  315. Some of you have hearts that bleed for the lost John and Christine Wilson in

  316. Peru for years leading people leading the church there. Maybe you're an evangelist,

  317. right. You don't have to be like Billy Graham preaching in front of thousands

  318. of people in front of at a stadium to care about the lost. Right.

  319. And some of you may feel called to help plant churches, right,

  320. isn't that the best picture of Some of you may feel called to help plant

  321. churches like what's been going on here, And then some of you are maybe

  322. called to think of being pastors. Now, I hear people calling pastor fight,

  323. using that term pastor fight a lot, But I wonder if we really

  324. understand how that word is really best translated. And it's not the guy who

  325. stands up front and teaches and then shakes hands with people as they accept the

  326. building. That's not what the word means. In fact, every other time

  327. this particular word is used in scripture, it's translated as shepherd, right that

  328. that is the word that we sort of associate with pastor. Historically, shepherds

  329. were the lowest on the totem pole in the Bible. The duty of tending

  330. the sheep always fell to the youngest. Remember when David's brothers were off at

  331. war, where was he? He was taking care of the sheep. The

  332. family, the family sheep. And the job is shepherd is really an interesting

  333. job because you have to be a protector, a surgeon, a night watchman,

  334. and obg y n at times. There are a lot of things that

  335. with being a shepherd. You have to completely take care of the sheep.

  336. Why well, it's because the sheep really don't do a good job of taking

  337. care of themselves. In three point fifty BC, Aristotle wrote this in his

  338. book The History of Animals. The sheep is said to be naturally dull and

  339. stupid. Of all quadrupeds, it is the most foolish. It will saunter

  340. away to lonely places with no object in view. Oftentimes in stormy weather,

  341. it will stray away from shelter if it be overtaken by a snowstorm, it

  342. will stand still unless the shepherd sets it in motion. It will stay behind

  343. and perish. Unless the shepherd brings up the rams, it will then follow

  344. home. This is what he said about the sheep. Does that not sound

  345. a little bit like us when we're doing things on our own, like we

  346. need a shepherd? And in Luke fifteen, Jesus was being criticized for who

  347. he was hanging out with, and so he had this response to sort of

  348. set the record straight. He told this story. If a man has a

  349. hundred sheep and one wanders away, one of them gets lost, what will

  350. he do? Won't he leave the ninety nine others in the wilderness and go

  351. and search for the one that's lost until he finds it. And when he

  352. has found it, he'll joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. Some of

  353. us here, and not just those up front, are called to be shepherds,

  354. right is that you? Are you called to be a shepherd? Are

  355. you called to be the shepherd on your cul de sac? Are you called

  356. to be the shepherd of your friends at school or some of the people you

  357. work with. Some of you are called to take care of a group of

  358. people that God's put in your lives. And why do we need shepherds and

  359. teachers and all these different parts of the church. Well, it's because the

  360. enemy is trying to trick the sheep. There is a very real enemy.

  361. This is not just sheep and shepherds. When you tell the story of the

  362. sheep and the shepherds, there's also a third player in this. Who is

  363. it? It's the wolf, right, There's always a wolf around the sheep,

  364. and so the enemy is trying to trick the sheep. And that leads

  365. us to the final part of our outline today. Unity and maturity are really

  366. meant to help protect us from the smooth lies of the enemy. And this

  367. is what Paul meant in verse fourteen when he said this, there will no

  368. longer be immature. Then we will no longer be immature like children. We

  369. won't be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching, will not

  370. be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like

  371. the truth. What Jesus understands is that the enemy is is really clever.

  372. He's a smooth talker, right. He mixes in just enough truth for people

  373. to fall for it. Do you remember when he took Jesus out to tempt

  374. him after forty days in the wilderness, what did he use to tempt him?

  375. He used scripture to tempt him. Right, that's what the devil does.

  376. He mixes in just enough truth with his lie that it gets confusing.

  377. And that's why some of the more mature folks spiritually in the room can help

  378. some of the less mature folks to grow and navigate through that. Right.

  379. It's these lies that approximate the truth that are so damaging because of how they

  380. lead people astray. And in John ten, Jesus says this, I tell

  381. you the truth. Anyone who sneaks over the wall of a sheepfold rather than

  382. going through the gate must surely be a thief and a robber. But the

  383. one who enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper

  384. opens the gate for him, and the sheep recognize his voice and they come

  385. to him. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

  386. After he's gathered his own flock, he walks ahead of them and they follow

  387. him because they know his voice. Do you know that Jesus is ahead of

  388. you? Today. Wherever you're at, whatever you're wrestling with, he's ahead

  389. of you today. Listen to his voice. They won't follow a stranger.

  390. They will run from him because they don't know his voice. Those who heard

  391. Jesus use this illustration didn't understand what he meant, so he explained it to

  392. them. I tell you the truth. I am the gate for the for

  393. the sheep. All who come before me were thieves and robbers, but the

  394. true sheep did not listen to them. Yes, I am the gate.

  395. Those who come in through me will be saved. They will come and go

  396. freely, and we'll find good pastor. Now they remind you of the twenty

  397. third song that David wrote, they'll find good pastors. He's not leading you

  398. into bad places. He's leading you to good pastors. That doesn't mean you

  399. might not have to walk through the desert to get to the oasis, but

  400. he's leading you to good pastors. The thieves purpose is to still kill and

  401. destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life. We

  402. always quote that verse, right, That gets read a lot, but we

  403. don't read what comes before it. And what comes before it is so important,

  404. so we keep on saying that God is on the move, and at

  405. least part of his movement in this world of ours is in pursuit of the

  406. lost sheep. So I want to ask you this, are you all sheep?

  407. Are you trying to find God? Are you seeking after him? And

  408. you're just not sure where he is? We'll maybe turn around from where you're

  409. headed and realize that He is in pursuit of a lost sheep, the little

  410. sheep stuck in the mud. Right, He's trying to find you. He

  411. leaves the ninety nine and goes after the one. We want to be about

  412. that here at the Movement Church. Right. So if you're here, Dan,

  413. you're not sure about all this Jesus talk, right, you're not sure

  414. what all this means for you? Then let me tell you this. First

  415. of all, as we said earlier, you're welcome here. You are welcome

  416. here. It's a place where you can ask real questions about God, and

  417. we'll do our best to give you honest answers. Right, but not from

  418. our human wisdom. We're not gonna counsel you. We're gonna look at the

  419. source. We're gonna look at the book. Call that the Bible. It's

  420. the roadmap, and that's what we're gonna stick to. We're gonna look at

  421. that as a source for the answers that you might be asking, and we're

  422. gonna see what that has to say. Right. And God's also moving to

  423. bring those of you, those of us who are already believers, into both

  424. unity with each other and into full maturity, why so that we can help

  425. lead others there. That's the whole point of it. The point is not

  426. just to grow up and be mature and then never leave your house. The

  427. point is to grow up and be mature and help others get there. That's

  428. what we want to do here. So are you a mature Christian who maybe

  429. is ready to help others go in their faith? If so, then I

  430. would just ask you to pray about how God might be calling you to step

  431. in and to do just that very thing right to be involved in His kingdom.

  432. Whether that's right here in this church, the Movement Church, or maybe

  433. he wants you somewhere else. That's fine. We're not building our own little

  434. kingdom here. We're building the Kingdom of God. That's what we want to

  435. be about. Right. He may be calling you somewhere else in the world

  436. you just don't ever know. But the question is how is he calling you?

  437. You know, God made a way for us to come to him even

  438. when we were still living in ways that were absolutely offensive to him. We

  439. have to remember that. Understanding that God, you know, treated us in

  440. this way, it really should cause us to be so welcoming and so inviting

  441. to people who walk through those doors that those don't, who don't have a

  442. relationship with Jesus yet would would go. Man, I want to know more

  443. Like I don't understand this God thing yet, but I understand that when I

  444. walk through those doors, I feel welcome and I feel like this is the

  445. place I belong. That we can do right. And part of what is

  446. going to attract people to this place and to God is that we as church

  447. people are mature, meaning we don't squabble over petty differences. We're not gonna

  448. squabble over what kind of cupcakes are in the back, or the coffee or

  449. the deviled eggs or any of those things. We're just not gonna do that.

  450. Right, we can let go of some of these petty differences that cause

  451. division, and instead we're gonna focus on the incredible sacrifice that God May in

  452. sending the original member of his family, his son, so that all of

  453. us could now be part of his family as well. Jesus did that before

  454. we were ever inclined to want it, and that, to me is amazing.

  455. So what's God leading you to do next? And how can we help?

  456. Would you send us an email to info at Movementchurch dot co and tell

  457. us how we can pray for you and help you take the next step in

  458. your spiritual journey. If you'd like to contribute financially to our ministry, text

  459. the amount you like to give to the number eight four three two one,

  460. or look us up online at Movementchurch dot c. You can find the Movement

  461. Church on all social media platforms, and we hope that you'll give us a

  462. follow God bless you, and remember God is for you and so are we