Why Church? Spiritual Growth

Well, Father God, thank You so much for the opportunity to be here once again.

And to sing songs and to pray and to read Your Word, God, it's a privilege to be here.

And Lord, I know that there might be some people in this room who may not necessarily want to be here,

but God, it is a privilege. Lord, as we think about people like Michelle B. Fisher and Ronald Graham

and Judy Smith, who are all in the hospital, Lord, to think about what they're going through and what

their bodies are enduring in these moments, God, it truly is a privilege to be healthy enough to

be here today. So Lord, we lift those people up to You and we ask that You would work and move

in their lives and in their bodies and that You would help the doctors and nurses to care for them

in the ways that they need it. We thank You for their surgeries and all the stuff that they've

had going on for going well. Father, we pray for Miss Tammy Scruggs this morning and we're just

very thankful that You were with her and have helped her to be able to go home. And Lord,

if she continues to recover, God, please be with her as she recovers. Lord, we pray for Lindsey and

her family today and Tucker with the loss of their grandpa. It's just been one of those

seasons around the church where it seems like every family has a little something going on,

losing a loved one or health issues or just various things going on. So God, we just pray that You

would be with us this morning as the weight of this life can be very distracting from the

things that You want to do in our hearts and minds. So we invite Your Holy Spirit here today,

Lord, to help us to focus on You, to help us to surrender ourselves to You, and that You would

help us to have the attitude to say, here I am, Lord, do with me whatever You want to do.

Help me to listen, help me to change, help me to be obedient to Your will and Your ways.

Father, we need that this morning. From the oldest to the youngest, from the spiritually mature to

the person who has yet to give their life to You. Lord, we all need You to move and work in our

lives. And Father, we come to You and we ask for that today. And we ask all this in the

hall of God's people said, Amen. You may be seated. We're going to be in Ephesians chapter 4 today.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

I'm going to read verses 11 through 16 to finish up our final sermon on the series. As Paul writes

to the church in Ephesus, he says, now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church. The

apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility

is to equip God's people to do His work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will

continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God's Son that we will

be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ. Then we will no

longer be immature like children. We won't be tossed and blown about by every wind of new

teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever, they sound

like the truth. And instead we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and

more like Christ, who is the head of His body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together

perfectly as each part does its own special work. It helps the other parts to grow so that the whole

body is healthy and growing and full of love. Now today, as we said, we're in our final

sermon for this series of why church. You know, it's a difficult question whenever we're

considering this ourselves. And also when we're talking to other people about church and why

church is so important. And, you know, while God, as we said the very first week that, you know,

God can speak to us personally, and you can never neglect or take away from what God does in

our lives in personal moments, whether it be in nature or somewhere else or apart from church,

but there's something that God does in our hearts and in our lives inside the body of Christ that

cannot be duplicated in other places. It just can't. And we have to be willing to come to a

point in our lives where we say, okay, God, I love you and I believe in you. I trust in you. I've

called on your name for salvation. I've called on you to be my Lord and Savior. And you have

set up, according to God's word, he has set up the body of Christ to be a vitally important part

of our walk with Jesus. And I'm willing to trust in that. And until we get to that point, we'll

never be able to understand, we'll never be able to understand the way that church can impact us

and help us to grow and inspire us and not just help us grow, but to also give us the opportunity

to help other people grow and their relationship with the Lord, because that's kind of what it is.

Church is not one of those things that it was designed. Jesus didn't just set up church for

you to just come and receive and receive and receive and receive and receive. But it was

something that he set up so that we could all come together and that we could give and receive

and give and receive and give and receive and give and receive. And as we serve inside the body

of Christ, as we serve Christ, as we serve one another, that we also get to receive in these

moments. And we don't realize it many times because there might be moments where you got saved

in church or you were saved during a service or something like that. I know like some of the most

significant moments of my life spiritually happened personally, but I cannot deny the fact of all

the time that I've spent in church over the past 25 years, that it has been something that has added

up tremendously in my life. And it's something that happens in baby steps. It's something that

happens in powerful moments. And it may be inside actual church on a Sunday morning, but it may

be something organized in the church with youth camp or convention or something like that. But

it is the church working and moving and it's people who have been a part of the church, who have

received from the church and also are giving to the church, who play such a vitally important role

and impacting us in the name of Jesus Christ. It's so important for us to remember. So today

we're talking about spiritual growth. The church exists for us to grow spiritually. It is the

primary reason that Jesus Christ set the church. He birthed it into existence. He set it in motion.

He called his apostles. He called all these people to pour into this thing so that you and I could

grow together. So point number one this morning is, is that Jesus has given gifts to the church

to help with spiritual growth. And we see that we see this in this passage as Paul writes through

the church in Ephesus. And he's talking about growing in our relationship with the Lord, but

also growing with one another. And through the Holy Spirit, he gives us these gifts, but it's really

important to know that as he talks about this, that the gifts he gives are not just like these

things that we get to have, but rather they are people, which is quite unique. So his gifts to

the church in this passage that he identifies are specific people that he has called. Now these

people don't have a name because the truth is when you look at the first one, which are apostles,

there were multiple apostles. Now we know we have the 12 disciples originally. Judas betrayed Jesus.

He hung himself. They replaced him with Matthias. And then you have Paul who's later on called by

Jesus Christ. And the reason why Paul is considered an apostle is because Jesus Christ appeared to him

personally on the road to Damascus and called him personally to follow him and to do his ministry.

So we have the apostles, these men who specifically walked with Christ, met him in person,

but were also called by him in person to do his ministry. So you have these apostles who are

kind of helping this church get started. The Holy Spirit comes. He moves powerfully among them.

We read this four weeks ago when we started this series and 3,000 people were ushered into

the church that day. They got saved. They entered into the church and the church starts

miraculously in a moment in time when the Holy Spirit comes. And God used the apostles

to birth that into existence. So he used people, one of the first gifts. The second one that he

mentions are prophets. And most of you are probably more familiar with the prophets that

are mentioned in the Old Testament, but there are people who have the gift of prophecy who

are New Testament Christians. Like some people that the Lord just speaks to them and shows

them things and they can see what God's truth is and what God's will is for the coming future

or for what should be in this moment right now. So you have prophets who are an important part

of this, a gift for the church. Then you have evangelists who are men and women who

are called by God, not specifically to just lead a church, but to preach the message

of the gospel and their primary calling is to try to convert people to Jesus Christ.

There's a huge difference between an evangelist and a pastor. And when you look at Billy Graham,

Billy Graham was an evangelist. Now he was considered America's pastor, but if you look

at the message that he preached pretty much every time he stood behind that pulpit,

it was give your heart and life to Jesus Christ so that you can be saved.

That's what he preached. Turn from your sins so that you can receive Lord Jesus Christ

as your Lord and Savior and you can be saved. And then there are pastors, those who are called

to lead and oversee the church, both people and the organization part of the church.

And then you have teachers within the church. And these are people who are called to communicate

and explain God's word and his will that has been clearly laid out in scripture.

These are the people who are communicating the spiritual truths according to God's word within

the church. Sunday school teachers, small group leaders, youth pastors, children's pastors,

even the pastor of the church can partake in teaching. Some of these, especially when you get

into smaller churches, a lot of these things will overlap with one another. God may gift

certain people with multiple of these gifts. He may give certain people just one of these gifts.

And today, as we look at 2025 and what the church looks like today, I dared to say it's

probably vastly different than what it was somewhere in 50 to 70 AD when all the books

of the New Testament were being written. Anybody thankful for heating in air this morning?

It'd be real hot if we didn't have it. They didn't have it.

The instruments that we play today, they didn't have those instruments back then.

You know, I say it a lot. It always kind of makes me question like what we do as a church because

I think it's important we say, God is what we do at church, what you meant the church to do.

Is this what you started it for? And when we look at scripture

and we look at what the early church did, well, they met together and they prayed.

They met together and they sang songs together. They met together and read God's Word and then

they preached and they taught one another. And so when we meet on Sunday morning, while the

buildings may look different, the clothes may look different, the chairs or the instruments

or whatever, we pray, we sing, we preach God's Word, we teach God's Word.

And that's about all that we can do to make sure we maintain the integrity of the body of Christ.

And the church is not perfect, right?

Yeah, it's not. As soon as we walked in the door, we disqualified it from perfection.

Every one of us, even myself included, because we are a part of the church, we disqualify it

from perfection because we ourselves are not perfect and the church is made up of people.

And so you can go to a church and you can hunt for the perfect church and you're not

going to find it because there is no perfect church. And you look at what Christ did,

He gave these gifts of these people to help lead in the church for us all to grow spiritually

because perfection is not from a worldly sense, it's not here. But we all have to grow.

We're all called to grow. Christ wants us to grow. And this is why He set it up.

In 1 Timothy 4, verses 14-15, Paul writes to Timothy and he is encouraging Timothy because

1 Timothy 4:14–15

Timothy is this young man and he's been called as a pastor to lead the church of Ephesus, which was

our focus passage. So he's writing to Timothy, he's encouraging Timothy.

And he tells him, he says, do not neglect the spiritual gift that you received

through the prophecy spoken over you when the elders of the church laid their hands on you.

You kind of see the overlap in it. Don't neglect the gift because you have a gift

that the elders spoke over you the prophecy when they laid their hands on you. Give your complete

attention to these matters, throw yourself into your task so that everyone will see your progress.

And so this morning, it's really important to see that whenever we talk about the need for church,

the need for church doesn't just lie into congregants like people who just show up on Sunday

morning and come and attend and we expect to receive and then the pastor just yells at you

and says, you need to do better because that's fun, isn't it? But it's also for the pastors

and the teachers and the prophets and the apostles that as we all come, that we all grow together,

that we all serve together, that we all do this together. Because as he says to Timothy,

who's the pastor of this church in Ephesus, he says, throw yourself into your task so that

everyone will see your progress. That it's not just a matter of if you attend that you need to

be progressing in your relationship with Christ, but even for me as a pastor, that I'm progressing

in my relationship with Christ. That our teachers are progressing, that everyone, our elders,

our LBA, everyone, that we're all progressing together in our relationship with Christ.

And I can tell you this morning, being a pastor is a very different calling as a Christian

than just being a Christian. It's just different and you can't explain it. There's no way to like,

and even as a youth pastor, I thought I understood and as a pastor, you just don't know until you

know, until you walk in the moccasins that somebody walks in, you just don't know what it's like.

And so it's just different. But what's amazing is, is that in this walk that I'm doing right now,

it is so humbling because there's been nothing more revealing to me of the shortcomings

and the spiritual immaturity in my life than being a pastor. It puts me in so many situations

and circumstances and it brings things to the surface in my life that are just inadequate

in my walk with Jesus that I was unaware of before. And so as we talk about this idea of,

okay, well, God's given you these gifts as a church and the gifts just happen to be people.

And because I just happened to be one of those people that is supposed to be a gift for the

church, then that puts me up on this pedestal. No, it doesn't put me up on a pedestal.

What it does is, is it absolutely reveals the complete inadequacy we have as Christians

and that for the body of Christ, we are all called to be in this thing together.

To give to the church together, to receive from the church together, and that we grow together.

And we can't do that without one another. I mean, being a Christian by yourself would be one

of the loneliest and most frustrating things that I could ever imagine in my life. For me

as a person, I'm very visual. And if I had not had the people in my life when I got saved

to come to church with, and to see the way that they lived and see how they handled themselves,

the way that they talked, if I did not have that physical example lived out before me,

I would have never made it. The things that people did inside of the church for me as a

Christian were so instrumental in my walk with Christ, I cannot replace the importance of

my relationship with Jesus Christ of how the church impacted me personally.

And so I'm not saying it as, this is what you need. I'm saying that this is what I needed

and it is still what I need today. But it's what we all need. It doesn't nullify any of us.

It includes all of us. And as believers, we're called to give our hearts and lives to Christ

to submit to him. And in essence, to also submit to the body of Christ. So point number two,

God's people are called to do his work and build up the church.

Now we brought attention to these people who are specifically called in point number one,

but no mistake about it that you are sitting here today. And if you claim Jesus Christ as

the Lord and savior, if you've called on his name to have eternal life, you are also called

to build up the body of Christ and to help other believers in their walks with Christ.

And in doing that, what we find is, is that we ourselves receive the more that we give.

Now that doesn't make sense because in a worldly perspective of things, if we give and we give

and we give, eventually we're depleted because we're finite. We don't have enough within us to give,

but thankfully we serve a savior who is infinite. There is no limit of resources that he has. And

so as we serve and do what Christ has called us to do, the amazing thing is, is that he gives

and gives and gives that allows us to continue to give and give and give. So as we give to the body,

which Christ has called us to do, we also receive because Christ is pouring into us

as we're being obedient and pouring into his body.

Notice in verse 12 of our focus passage in Ephesians that it says that the people of God

have a specific job. The people we talked about earlier, their job are to equip God's people.

We serve and attend church, not to just come to get something out of it, but to be equipped

to do God's will, both here and out there. You're not here this morning just to receive a blessing

and to feel good and to go out energized. I hope you do, but that's not all it's for.

You're here to be equipped to do the things that God has called all of us to do.

And in doing that, we have this call in our lives to submit ourselves to the church,

to submit ourselves to the body of Christ. And I don't say that in a way this morning,

it's like, Oh, now you all have to submit yourself under my authority

because that's not it at all. Like submitting yourself to the body of Christ is not submitting

yourself to a person's authority. You're just submitting yourself to the thing

that Jesus has called us all to do. And I have submitted myself to the body of Christ because

that's what I have been called to do. And so how I serve in the church may look a little

differently from every one of you. We're all called to serve and submit to the body of Christ.

And it's a weird thing. Don't feel like I'm trying to put you under my thumb because in like,

I think it's like three years y'all can vote me out. You know, it's like, I'm not trying to

like say, well, you got to be under my control at any time. You guys can ask me to leave.

But we're all called to submit to the body of Christ because we're all called to serve

the body of Christ. We're all called to give to the body of Christ.

And it's really funny because sometimes it's easier and sometimes it's more difficult.

And some of you don't know any better. Like it's easy to see what's here at Graham chapel

because you didn't come years past. And so you may be more willing to step in. And for some of

you here, you may, you've changed my diapers. You know, some of you remember what I was like when

I was a teenager and me and Jody stole Ms. Donna's snowman and put it in pastor Edmund's office.

And all the crazy stuff that we used to do. And it's like, and it's, it's different to come to

terms with this idea of man, it's so hard to submit myself to the body of Christ because

I've been let down by the body of Christ. I've been hurt. Somebody did something or said something

and I don't really trust people. And I understand that because like I said,

we're not perfect. And when you submit yourself to the body of Christ, you open yourself up

and you make yourself vulnerable for things to happen. And as a pastor and being in the

church for 25 years, I can tell you, if you stay around long enough, eventually you will be

hurt by somebody. Something will happen because we're not perfect. And the sad truth is, is if

you stay around long enough, not only will you get hurt, but you'll end up hurting somebody else too.

And this is why Jesus calls us to submit to him and to love one another and be unified with one

another and to work towards that unity and that camaraderie. It's not an easy thing. It's, it's,

it's so difficult to have, but it's attainable through the power of the Holy Spirit and the

help of Jesus Christ in our lives. And the great thing about it is, is if you have a church full

of people who are seeking Christ, they'll also seek the unity and the peace and the love

with one another and love will cover a multitude of sins. That love will cover other people's sins,

but the great thing is it also covers your sins and it covers my sins. But we're called to build

the church. We're called to pour into the church, but we have to submit to the church and put

ourselves in the understanding that Lord, I don't understand all of this. I don't get all this,

but if this is what you want, I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll do whatever you want me to do

because that's where we have to be. And point number three is know what Christ's goal is for

the church. I think we miss this a lot as people because we get to this point where we

are coming to church a lot for what we can get out of it.

And I say that hesitantly because I'm not picking on you. There are times that I show up to church

even as a pastor as to what I'm expecting and what I want to happen and what goals I have.

And in a sense, I'm receiving from those things from what I want. And so I'm not picking on you,

but I think as people we have to be very careful of. We don't approach church as this thing of

this is what I want to happen today. This is what I want to get or what I want to receive or

Lord, this is what I need. But to approach church in a way that whenever we are talking

about growing spiritually with the Lord, that we're very in tune with the understanding

that Jesus Christ has a goal for his church, for his body. And it's not just for Graham Chapel,

it's for every church that exists. It's for every body of Christ that exists out there.

And he has a goal. He has a purpose. And there are 11 things that he mentioned specifically in

this passage that Christ wants for his body. The first thing is is unity.

You look at everyone around you this morning, and I want you to look at one another around.

We have some very different people here. You're all different from one another.

That's a good thing. You all think differently, you dress differently, you act differently,

you talk differently, you're different. It's good. But Christ wants us to be unified in him.

He doesn't want us all to look exactly the same. He doesn't want us all to be robots and just

repeat the same things. He wants us to be unified in him. The second thing is,

is he wants us to have maturity. There's a big difference between people who run around

and profess faith in Christ, but yet have no spiritual maturity or understanding of who Jesus

is and what he expects from a person who says that they're a Christian. He wants us to be mature.

The third thing is, is that he wants his church to measure up to the standard of Christ.

This morning, it's really important to understand that while we go visit different churches and we

go look at different churches, and even for me as a pastor, this is important to remember this,

that while we consider all these things and what other people are doing, and they may be seeing

success and all this stuff, that we do not compare ourselves to other places or other things

or other churches or anyone else, that we are very much understanding what Jesus Christ has called us

as a church to be, who he's called us to minister to, and if we are being obedient in that

right now in this moment, because what it is right now in 2025 may be very different in 2030.

I can tell you it's a lot different than what it was in 2000 whenever I got saved,

and it just is, and that's okay, but Jesus wants us to measure up to the standard of Christ.

We're not comparing ourselves. We're not trying to compete. We are trying to do simply what God

has called us to do, and then the fourth, fifth, and sixth thing, he kind of changes it up a little

bit, and he starts mentioning things that we shouldn't be. He says, so that we won't be

immature children. He said, I wanted you to be immature earlier, but there's a difference between

being immature and then being immature like children. You can be an immature adult,

but if you're immature like a child, it's worse, especially if you're an adult,

and you're immature like a child, so he doesn't want us to be like immature children.

We need to grow. We need to be mature. We need to be thinking of others above ourselves. We need

to be sacrificial in that way. The fifth thing is that we won't be tossed and blown about by new

teachings. Now, this is really important because we live in a day and time where people put stuff

all over social media. Everybody has a platform now, every teacher, everything, and so Hannah and

I, we listen to a lot of podcasts and we listen to a lot of stuff because we try to grow on a

personal level spiritually and stuff like that, and so Hannah will be listening to stuff and she'll

say, hey, so-and-so said this, what do you think about this? I've never heard it before,

and a lot of times I'm like, uh, I've never heard that, and so we've got to be really careful as

Christians that just because we've never heard it before, we're like, no, like we accept nothing new

because that's not a good attitude to have, but we approach it with caution

because typically, especially if you've been in the church a long time and you've said

under a lot of pastors, a lot of teachers, you've read a lot of scripture, you've read books,

and you've been like growing and maturing in your faith. If you hear something new

that you don't just nix it automatically, but you approach it with caution and you research it

and you check it out because there's some things that are said that are like, oh, that's really

good. I've never heard that before. We check it, it pans out, and it's really good, and it becomes

future sermon illustrations for me. There's other things it's like, it doesn't check out.

And people say things, and it could be something really simple, and it could be something really

big. And one of the things that the apostles talked about constantly were false teachers.

There would be false teachers coming, wolves in sheep's clothing. They would be coming trying to

change the gospel, trying to change everything, teach new things, and it still happens today.

And the sixth thing is, is that we won't be influenced by people trying to trick us. There

are people out there who teach stuff that may not be true accidentally, just because they

didn't check it. They didn't, they didn't fact check it. And so they're relaying the information

they heard, and it's not true. And then there are people out there who will intentionally

try to trick you. There will be wolves in sheep's clothing who are trying to devour you

and lead you astray. And from the very beginning of the early church, they said,

be aware of false teachers, of false doctrines, false people who are going to try to lead you

away from God. So in seven, the seventh thing, he goes back to what we should be.

We should be speaking truth and love, that we don't beat around the bush and we don't butter

questions or hard topics, but we look at people and we love them enough to tell them the truth,

which is not a popular thing to do today. But I can tell you as a 40 year old person,

I would a whole lot rather you be honest with me than to fudge it. I would a whole lot rather know

where you stand. I will respect you a lot more as a person if I know where you are

and how you feel about something that if you just dance around and you

don't say what's on your mind or how you feel.

We have to be able to speak truth in love. We don't have to be hateful about it. We don't have to

tear other people down with it. We just speak truth in love because that's what

Christ has called us to do. The eighth thing that Paul talked about was growing in every way.

That as a Christian, we're not just satisfied with learning more about the Bible or maybe

we prayed a little more or maybe we did this or we did that, but in every way as a believer,

we're growing. We're growing in maturity. We're growing in all aspects of our work with Christ.

The ninth thing is that we will be more like Christ.

And when you think about what Jesus did in his life and what we read about in the Gospels,

I think we could all say we all need to be a little more like Jesus

because he lived life very differently from the way all of us do.

The tenth thing is that we will fit together perfectly.

And I really like that because, you know, as people, we're not perfect. The church isn't

going to be perfect because we make up the church. And while we may not be perfect,

we can all fit together perfectly. If we're seeking Christ in our life, if we're following him,

if we're trying to be unified, if we're loving one another, if where some of us are weak,

other of us are picking up the slack and doing things that Christ has called us to do,

we're not trying to elevate ourselves above one another.

But we're trying to make Christ the thing that we're all striving for.

We can fit together perfectly in that sense.

And the eleventh thing that he talks about is finally that we will grow.

We just grow. I mean, when you look at the church and you look at what Jesus intended for it to be,

it's intended to have people that feel it and make it up. They're growing.

That we just grow. Jesus Christ did not call you into salvation

so that you would be dead and floating around until you get called home to heaven.

He called you so that you can grow and thrive in your relationship with him so that when you

stand before the Lord one day, you are ready to do that. Not with this prideful confidence,

but with confidence to know that you have allowed the Lord to work and move in your life and to

help you to grow. You know, living for Jesus is, like I said, it's one of the hardest things

in life that we're going to do. And on our own, we can't do it.

We need the Holy Spirit to help us, but we also need other people to help us.

I cannot tell you how many times simply being around other Christians

has helped me grow in my own personal relationship with God.

It wasn't a time where I read the Bible or I was praying and God just revealed this to me.

I mean, it was times like I can remember being on a youth trip and the first time something

confrontational happened and watching Greg Edmunds handle it. And I remember thinking,

like, dude, I would be so mad right now and I know, like, how I would have handled that

and watching him take a confrontational heated situation and handle it in such a godly,

just amazing way. And then by the time that it was over, like, no one was mad at each other.

No one was like, it was just, it was done like the Lord used that in my life because I know how

I would have handled it. And typically the outcome of the way that I was handling things

the way that I did were nothing like what just happened. So many situations like that,

so many situations of watching other people and having those examples lived out my life,

spending time with other believers, that impact my life so much more than just realizing it for

myself. And it wasn't that people were like telling me, hey, you need to do this better.

Hey, you're doing this wrong. They simply lived the way Christ called them to live.

And it spoke to me. And for us as believers to try to do Christianity alone,

you're going to be miserable. You're going to be lonely. You're going to be frustrated.

It's really important to have fellowship with other brothers and sisters in Christ

to where you know that when you do fail spiritually,

there are other people who are having the same struggle with you.

They're dealing with it right now and to pray for one another. It's very,

it's really important to see that why you think, man, I can't do this.

I don't even think it's possible for somebody to live this way or to act this way.

And then you see it with your own eyes. It is the most challenging and amazing thing to actually

see somebody live it out because while we're questioning it,

we think it's not possible to do. And when you watch someone else do it,

it ends the argument within your own heart, within your own mind.

It reveals that there's something better, a better way in Hebrews 10 verse 24 to 25.

Hebrews 10:24–25

The author says, let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.

And let us not neglect our meeting together as some people do,

but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.

This is a very popular passage. A lot of people use this passage where they talk about church

and why you should come and all this stuff. But even more than just being at church,

just look at the aspect of, let us find ways to motivate one another.

You look beside you, behind you, in front of you this morning, you look at the people around you.

You are called as believers to find ways to motivate one another to serve the Lord.

You are called as believers to encourage one another to serve the Lord.

It's not something you were called to do on your own.

And I believe if you're sitting here this morning,

there is something within you that already knows that this is true.

Because you don't just come to church unless you're a kid because somebody makes you.

If you are old enough to choose, like for whatever reason,

you may not necessarily want to be here, but you're here.

And there's something within you that knows that these are all true things.

In 2 Peter chapter 3 verses 17 through 18, as Peter is writing to people,

2 Peter 3:17–18

he says, you already know these things, dear friends. You already know them.

There's something inside of you you know. He says, so be on guard.

Then you will not be carried away by the errors of these wicked people

and lose your own secure footing.

Rather, you must grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

We're called to grow.

We're called to submit to Christ, our Lord and Savior.

We're called to submit to his body.

It's important enough that he left to go to the Father to send us his Holy Spirit

and to birth the church into existence.

It was all part of his plan for all believers to follow him

and the body of Christ is an intricate part of that plan.

The question is whether or not we'll be obedient

or whether or not we'll just say, no, I'm going to do it my way.

That's the choice we have to make. Let's pray.

Father, thank you for another beautiful day

and another opportunity to break open your word

and to read it and another opportunity to trust in you.

And Lord, I know that so many people may be sitting here thinking,

well, I don't know if I trust this guy.

And Lord, I'm not asking them to put their trust in me today

because if they put their trust in me, I'll mess it up.

But Lord, this is a matter of putting their trust in you,

of putting our trust in your word, of putting our trust in your church,

your body, this thing that you have claimed to be a part of who you are.

So Lord, help us to come to the point where even if we don't understand,

that we would say, Lord, I don't get it.

But through faith, I will step out and I will follow you

and I will do whatever you call me to.

Well, we love you today and we ask that you go with us in Jesus name.

Amen. You're dismissed. Thank you, guys.