Apocalypse Now: Part 6- A Big Big House

Welcome to the River City Church podcast and a message by our

lead pastor, Jason Powers. Our prayer is that this message

would inspire and encourage you, build your faith and point you

to the life changing love of Jesus.

May you enjoy the goodness of God as you follow Him today.

I'm glad that you're here. We begin each week with a

confession. Confession is just telling the

truth, right? Like we, we confess.

Maybe it's something that we've been hiding.

Maybe it's something that we're having a hard time wrapping our

brain around, but our confession is the truth that we believe and

it goes right along. It's like each week this the

kind of along with our series with Ephesians where we're

looking at what God is doing in his church and we've been in

some deep kind of theological waters as Paul is unpacked

things like identity, like who we are and and alienation and

separation, right? But it all kind of boils back

down ultimately to this confession that we make each

week. And so we stated each week so

that when we're then confronted by it in the word, when the word

shows us this reality, it's easy for us here to go.

Oh yeah, we've already talked about that.

That's fine. I can acknowledge that and then

see what's left. So we confess each week as a as

an exercise in submission to him, to each other and of grace.

And so our confession, as his church is we're badly broken.

Yes, you are. Grace and peace to you.

We saw last week as we're continuing kind of to slowly

move. Through.

Kind of Ephesians one and two, we saw last week how Jesus,

we've been kind of talking about these divisions, right?

And you know, the division that was in Paul's mind, the division

that would have been in the first listeners would have been

this division between Jewish person and Gentile person,

right? And the Jewish person had the

promises, they had the covenants, they had the temple,

they had all of that. And the Gentiles had not that.

Not those things. But.

Paul last week in his letter made this kind of crazy

assertion. Right like that the.

Things that divide the people have been torn down literally.

We saw a graphic and illustration of picture of the

temple and how you have the temple proper in the middle

where the holy of Holies and the altar is, where sacrifices made

for the forgiveness of sin, where the priests go in and

these kind of corresponding courts, right?

The court of the Israelites for the men, the court of the women.

And then finally the court of the Gentiles in the balustrade,

right. This little temple wall that

said, if you are a Gentile and you cross this line, the penalty

of death is on your own shoulders.

And we saw how systematically the Gentiles had been excluded.

But then last week, Paul tells us his revelation and his

revelation is his apocalypse is now the two have been made one.

Not like, hey, this is a table where, like, Packer fans and

Texans fans and Cowboy fans can get together and like, hate each

other across our jerseys, right? But then we get together and

we've been made one. And the word that Paul uses

there that he used last week, it shows up in his.

Letter to the. Corinthians, it shows up that

the word to describe that is reconciliation, to be

reconciled. Now I have 3 kids, right?

And so reconciliation is sometimes that your kids aren't

like this, I'm sure, but occasionally some of our kids

will have a disagreement about things, right?

And to reconcile is to come in and to make peace and to bring

them together again so that we can be one big happy powers

family. And that idea of one big happy

powers family is important for this idea of reconciliation,

because what Paul tells us is. That's actually how.

What happens it goes back to Ephesians chapter 1 and if you

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

read it the second the end of verse 4, it says this in love

God he predestined us and this was at the time just the Jewish

people. He predestined us to adoption.

He predestined us to adoption to be.

Part of Christ. And he goes on as sons and

daughters. The idea is an adoption.

It doesn't. It's not like like sons,

daughters and housemates. When someone is adopted, they

become part of the family. They become part of the

household through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the

good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his

grace with which he favored us in the beloved.

In the beloved is one of those words.

It shows up in different kind of forms throughout the book,

right? It says in him, in Christ, in

the beloved, it's all pointing back.

To. Jesus and our participation him.

So you're like, well, what does that mean to be in him?

It's similar to be saying, if I said my children Jackson and

Reagan and Madison and even my wife Natalie, they are in the

Powers family. They are part of what it means

to be a Powers. They get to experience all of

the manifold riches and blessings of being a Powers,

right? But here's the thing, some of

you in here have experience with adoption.

Either you have been adopted or you have adopted someone else.

But the thing about adoption is if I were to go out and adopt A

child, that child would come in and they would have all the

rights and privileges of my children.

That's why adoption is such a beautiful picture.

It's such a powerful story to tell.

And if you're in here and you've been adopted, you have a special

story. It's such a beautiful picture of

God's love for His people. It's this idea that He chose you

and brought you in to be a part of the family.

Whether you're adopted, whether you're natural, you are a part

of the family. And so here's what that means.

If I adopted a child and one day I walked in and this adopted

child, my son, my adopted son and my natural daughter were

fighting and my daughter said, well, you're just adopted,

you're outside. What I would do is immediately

step in and insert myself. And you know what I would say in

that moment, there's no difference between an adopted

child and a natural child. You are my children.

And if they didn't get it, well, they'll get it when it's time

to. Separate the will.

Not that my kids have any. There's no will, all right?

Like we don't get that right. But listen, this is an important

truth. Right.

Like this is the thing that and, and, and honestly, it's the

thing that we have to confess. We believe that those who are

different from me have every bit as much access and right and

privilege to the body as I do. And the reason it's so

important, we have to go over this over and over again.

When I see people who are obnoxious, who are, who are just

wrong or who or whatever, like I have to remind myself, it's not

just about me. And this is fundamental truth,

that the walls are down, the balustrade is gone.

The things that separated the Gentiles from the Holy of

Holies, from the place where God dwells has been removed.

It doesn't exist there anymore. And The thing is, that's true

whether we believe it or not. It falls in what philosophers

call untold logical reality. It is a truth, whether we feel

like it or agree with it or not. And here's why that's so

important. Are you listening?

Because everything in US and everything in our culture and

everything in our world draws us to build walls.

Everything that we see when we watch TV, the TV tells us where

to build the wall and who's on the outside of it.

The things that we do for our recreation, they tell us where

to build walls and who's on the outside of it.

We divide like I have kids in high school, right?

And we build our identities based on who we are and on what

we do. And what happens is when the

news or our social circle tells us, build a wall here and keep

them out. Who?

Whoever it is, left-handed people, tall people,

right-handed people, Republican people, smelly people, tall

people, whatever, it is the wall.

Says you're on the other side, you're excluded.

You don't get to get in. Now this is the part where I, as

a pastor, get to own something that I wish I had said

differently last week. OK, to illustrate this point, I

held up two signs, right. I showed a picture of a sign

from the Jim Crow era that said whites only waiting room.

And then I showed a sign of Augusta National Golf Course

that said members only. Let me make a distinction.

That's important. Being excluded from a Country

Club is not nearly remotely in the same universe as the kind of

violent generational exclusion that Jim Crow was.

I wish I had been more careful in setting up that illustration.

Being excluded from a Country Club is annoying.

It's dumb. I wish that it weren't the case,

but it's not the same as you're not allowed in there by virtue

and nature of who you are. I wish I'd said that

differently. I wish I'd set that up

differently to make that point, but the point that I was trying

to make in that moment is that we naturally devolved to that.

We naturally go to that place. We are.

By instinct, wall builders and the thing I just want to say

whether it is it is violent and generational and and whatever of

of Jim Crow that was terrible or it is something as seemingly

innocuous as Country Club membership.

Wall building is an instinct to us.

And what I want to say is wall building runs counter to the

heart and mission of Jesus. It is contrary to it when we

look at someone. Based on some external service,

say you don't get to be in here because people in here are like

that. And listen, here's the thing I

want you to know. I want you to be able to put

your finger on those things to go.

Those things are in me. I have those instincts.

I want to tell you. How can you be a Cowboys fan,

right? We talked about that week.

I'm not going to unpack my trauma here again.

But what we do want to say is we want to say like, how can it be

like that and do that? And the thing that we miss again

as we come to the book of Ephesians was this wasn't

written to us first. We have been joy and we have

been enjoying an invitation to a space that was not originally

created for us. We are given access by the love

and the grace and the peace of Jesus.

And so all the boundaries and all the tribal walls have

fallen. And so here's the thing I want

to tell you as much and as often as I can, whatever distinction

you think exists between us and them, between me and you, it's

probably not as distinct and as clear cut as you think.

And the point that I want to make, are you listening?

I love you. I hope like that thing that we

hold onto and justify that sets us at odds against the people.

It is certainly not from Jesus. The King who left heaven to

reconcile Gentiles to himself, tearing down the wall of

hostility, is now resident in US.

His Spirit is in US and we. Are.

In him. So one of the things I know that

I do, and it's probably frustrating for you, I sometimes

just say, well. Stop like don't do that.

Like don't build walls like like don't separate, don't don't do.

That and what I don't often do well enough, I think, and this

is my fault I'm working on. I give you some grace right on

this. What I don't didn't tell is

enough tell you well what is going on?

If the walls been torn down, if I'm not a tribe, right,

left-handed people unite, right? Like if I'm not that, then what

am I If we're not defined by our walls, right?

Like that's a good thing about the Temple.

I could know who the Jewish men were because they were in the

gathering group that said Jewish men.

If we're not that, who are we? If we're not known by who we

don't invite into our meetings, then what are we known by?

What is it that defines us if it's not exclusion?

Well, I hope you know by the fact that I asked the question

in this context that Paul actually answers that question

for us. So that's good news, right?

So let's see what we can do. Let's see how we can resist that

instinct to build walls and just say you're not like me.

So you're dangerous, or you're scary or you're bad, or you're

unlovable or you're unkind, or you're just.

You're just. Terrible.

You're just wrong. Like what does he say?

So we go, we pick up where we left off in verse 19.

And what 19 does is kind of summarizes Paul's point from

above. So in verse 19 he says so then,

right? That's a great summary phrase

after verse one through 18. So then you are no longer now

listen to these words. Strangers.

Strangers to what right. Like we talked about last week,

the the Gentiles, they were strangers to all of it.

They were strangers to Christ. They were strangers to the

covenants. They were strangers to the

promises. They were excluded.

They're all and he says, well, Paul says you're no longer like

that. You're no longer a stranger.

You're no longer a foreigner. That's a word that just shows up

a lot just kind of in our natural going around.

It's a thing that we put a lot of weight in a lot.

And what Paul says is the most fundamental foreigner, non

foreigner distinction maybe that ever lived between Jew and

Gentile. He says that's not who you are

anymore. You're not known by primarily by

being excluded from all those things.

He says you're not a stranger, you're a foreigner.

You are a fellow citizen, an adopted child of the Risen King,

just like the. Rest fellow citizens with the

Saints, and you are of God's household.

You are a part of family. And So what Paul is saying is

the things that we look at, the things that we look at, the side

of the person is in or out, good or bad, right or wrong, or all

external things, things that the Jewish people use the law to

tell them, circumcision, dietary restrictions, ritual purity.

Oh, you haven't washed your hands a certain way.

You don't get to answer. You don't get to do that.

And that's how we know who is in and who.

Is out who is good, who is bad, who is right is wrong.

And let me just say something important important here, right,

like the physical isn't bad. I believe that God intentionally

One of the things we're going to talk about when we see about how

God is building this up is the specific and personal nature and

way that God has created each of us.

I want you to know that God has created you as you are.

It was well within his capacity to make us all some kind of

Gray, homogeneous kind of. But he didn't.

He created us black and white, tall and short, rich and poor,

left-handed and right hand, cowboy fan and Packer fan,

right? Like these things that are deep

in US, He created us. The physical is good.

It's just not ultimate. It's good.

It's just not the most important thing.

And so as I sit and I look at my high school friends over here,

your entire world tells you that you are what you look like.

The real world tells you that you are if you are beautiful or

tall or blonde or whatever. And we all know that and we've

all experienced. And what I want to tell you is

there's a truth that is deeper than that.

And that's what Paul is getting, that in the same way, that is,

if we're family, the walls have been torn down.

You're part of the household of God.

Now that household is an important thing.

My neighbor if my neighbor comes across the street and has dinner

to me at the put dinner with me at the same place where my

family has dinner, that doesn't mean that they're that they're

my family. Oh, well, we, you know, shared

macaroni and cheese. So you're you're in the will.

In the same way, if my daughter Reagan doesn't come home, if she

skips dinner one time and doesn't well, that doesn't mean

that she's she's out of the family.

This is an ontological reality. Ontological that there's a lot

going on in there, man I. Got to like, slow down and let

it get out. Ontology is true regardless of

what we believe about it. The fact is, you may not feel

like the walls have been torn down, but I think as we walk

with Jesus, what we find is war. Walls haven't been torn down.

Those are walls that we've been building, walls that we've been

tending to and nurturing. And what Paul said is he had

this apocalypse. And remember apocalypse, it's

not like war. It's not like bombs and and

napalm and all that. Apocalypse is just a pulling

back, a revelation from like the scales are falling off.

And Paul's awareness was in the church.

We're one the same Jews and Gentiles, those who went to the

temple and those who didn't go to temple, those who were raised

in the promises and those who weren't raised in the promises,

equal access to the throne now with God.

And so Paul is kind of hammered us with this illustration.

You're part of the family. Now.

One of the things that Paul does a lot as you read him, and you

may have been frustrated by it and not even know, but one of

the things that Paul does a lot is switch metaphors, right?

Like he gets in and he gets going.

You're like. You're like.

Right. I'm a like, I'm the, I'm the

body of the body of Christ. And then he starts talking about

foundations and you're like, what?

What? What?

Why? Right.

Whole different thing. So now Paul is being, he's

talked about this household, this family, the walls.

Are torn down and he's all these pictures of of Jewish imagery

that would have made the Jewish people the Jewish people he's

talking about now Gentiles have access to it and now he switches

the metaphor and he starts talking about a building an

edifice a thing and again what's he talking about What's he

talking about the temple where we draw near to God where

sacrifice has been made right and so we build start talking

about a temple verse 20 now you're of God's household family

metaphor having been built on building are we good are we

tracking so now he's going to talk about this building right

having built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets

right Jesus himself being the cornerstone so now there's good

construction analogy here right when do you build the foundation

of your house after the walls are up after the roof is all

dried in or first the picture that we.

Have is of the apostles and prophets, right?

And there's some question we read, I read some commentaries,

right? Is this the Old Testament

prophets? Are we talking about like

Jeremiah and Isaiah and Ezekiel? Or are we?

Talking about like the New Testament prophets, right, like

we read in Antioch, there was there was some the prophets and

the answer is yes. Point of the prophets wasn't

telling the future. The prophets weren't just like,

oh, it's gonna rain hail. The point of the prophets was to

call his people back to repentance, to say God's desire

is to bless you and to give you a hope and a future, But your

life and your tendency in your direction and the house that

you're building and the walls that you're building are keeping

you from that. So turn away from those

divisions and lean into the family.

What he says is. The.

Foundation was the apostles and the prophets, right?

Here's the thing about the apostles and the prophets.

Side note, I brought it up, the fact that it talks about the

apostles and then the prophets indicates kind of a lot of the

commentaries kind of to me he's talking about the New Testament

prophets, right And here's why that's important.

The apostles and the prophets eyewitness testimony was we have

seen the man Jesus, we. Saw.

Him dead, resurrected and ascended.

So what we're. Told is the foundation of this.

Divisionless reality. The foundation of this building

is the testimony of the apostles and prophets.

That's why it's trustworthy. This, you know, where we have

the words of the apostles and the prophets today and here.

That's why this is trustworthy. It says, right in the New

Testament, people saw Jesus. The apostle Paul says in First

Corinthians 15 he appeared to 500 people at once resurrected.

There were plenty of people who could have said, no, that wasn't

real, no, that didn't really happen.

No, that was just a myth. That was an allegory.

But they didn't say that. They said we've seen the man.

So this is the foundation that we stand on what the people said

about Jesus. So real quick.

What we don't get to do as. Christians is to kind of like.

Trump Jesus with Leviticus, right?

Like we don't get to say, well, I know Jesus said this, but I

get Leviticus, man, you got to fuck.

Yeah, we don't get to like Trump Jesus with the apostle Paul and

be like, well, I know Jesus did this, but the apostle Paul said

this, you can't do that and you can't have that.

And I'm like, Jesus is the one. It says he's the cornerstone,

right? So the foundation goes before

the walls, before the roof, before the plumbing, before all

of that. And you know what comes before

the foundation? The.

Cornerstone. The cornerstone is what you

said, and you put it in place so that it aligns, so that it faces

the direction that it's supposed to go so that it is stable, so

that now we have the level where it's going to be.

Everything's going to reach this height.

It's not going to be lower. It's not going to be higher.

We're going to set the cornerstone going this way.

That means the building's not going to go this way.

So the foundation is the apostles and the prophets, their

lives, their teachings, their ministries, their testimony,

their good word about who Jesus was and what he has done.

And Jesus himself is the cornerstone and the foundation

and what what Paul says is that's what we're being built

on. And in Ephesians, who is you?

Oh y'all? What God is doing here is being

built on what the apostles and the prophets said was going to

happen. So here's what that means for

us. Here's what that means for you

and for us. We build our lives on the solid

foundation of God's word revealed in Jesus.

This is the body of Christ, not just this place, but God's

church, the church, the body of Christ around New Braunfels,

around the San Antonio, Austin metro.

But about all of that stuff. It's all a.

Picture of Jesus, which means that what we do in this place in

His name should look like Him. It should reflect him because

here's the thing, if it's not built on this, if we don't come

to this to talk about our money, if.

We don't come to this to talk about our identity if we don't

come to this to talk about who we are.

Then what that just means is that I am just whatever I think

and feel in a moment, you know? The problem with that is I don't

think or feel the same as I did when I got here this morning.

My mind changes all the time. Sometimes I feel neat, sometimes

I feel angry. One of the great.

It's hard to be a pastor's kid because you're always like a

sermon illustration, right? And so, but I, I want to say

like, I want to hold my kids up as a celebration right now.

Like I've watched my kids this year deal with difficult growth

things. And underneath all of these

growth things that I see my girls wrestling with is this

question, who am I like, like what?

What am I about? What is it?

What is it that defines me and and my daughter Reagan in

particular has had to make some difficult choices about who she

is this year and what she is. And So what I want continually

to point my daughter Reagan back and you is to this because what

this tells you is you were chosen before you were a

cheerleader or an accountant or tall or handsome or wealthy.

You were seen, you were included, you were given a name

and a place and a hope and a reality in him and with Him.

If what Jesus says about you isn't true, then nothing's true

because everything is changing. Everything is trying to tell you

that you are different, something that you're not.

And so when? Jesus tells you who your

identity is as you walk through life.

You pick this stuff. I remember being in college and

I went to college and I played baseball and dude, that was all

I did. That's.

That's who I. Was it was my whole identity.

I felt great. I felt better than most people.

I was like, oh, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?

And then I quit. And then what?

Disaster. Because I didn't know who I was.

I didn't know what was real about me.

And here's the thing about you, Whatever it is that you do for

your identity, it's going to go away, going to go away, and then

you're going to be left to figure out who you are.

And so he's building this, God's building this church.

And I just also want to acknowledge there's a lot of

questions about the Scripture with Genesis 16 literal days.

I don't know what do I do with science?

I don't know what this means to build your life on the

foundation. What it means is to come to his

people with your questions. It means bring your doubts and

your fears and your concerns and your weaknesses and your sins

and all of those things that you think you've got to hide.

And you've got to keep out all those things that you think keep

you behind the wall, that keep you from pressing into that holy

place. You bring them all, but you

bring them to His people gathered around His word.

Animated by His Spirit and we say, what does this say about me

and what do I do in response? Because your boss will tell you

what you got to do and it'll ultimately be about His bottom

line. Your neighbors will tell you

what to do, and it will be about their own property values.

Everybody's got an agenda for you, but Jesus is the one who

wants to make you most you. So Paul talks about a building

he's calling a family. He's building a building.

And now in the next verses, he tells us what that building is.

And this is where it gets good news.

I spent all week trying to find an analogy that would

communicate the weight and the substance of what Paul is

communicating with. And I I don't, I don't know that

there's one that would carry the same kind of emotional weight is

what Paul describes here. But he goes on in verse 20,

right? So he's building, having been

built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, verse

21, in whom the whole building being fitted together.

Here's that deliberate, specific, intentional, right?

Like he knows the parts, he knows the pieces.

You don't have to worry about, like, you don't have to get

worried about being misfit in this building.

You don't have to get worried about being typecast in the

wrong place, right? Like, like that's where it is.

That's why we cling to things that don't fit us anymore,

because we're so worried. But what we're?

Told is God is putting the pieces together with an eye

towards fitness with what matters he so he says the whole

being being fitted together is growing into a what a temple in

whom you also all y'all are being built together into a

dwelling of God. So he's talking about this form

being fitted, this relational sense, right?

Being put together again like this, this picture of a family

and of a household being crafted.

It's this picture of God's intentional delight in bringing

his things together, of putting together, he says.

He's talking about the form, a building, a family, these

relationships. But now he's talking about

function. Here's why he's talking about

function. Are you listening?

Because what's the point of the temple?

Why did we talk about the temple last week?

Because we talked about being drawn near, right?

Like we talked about those doors of the temple where the priest

stood with the altar behind. That's where reconciliation was

made. That's where forgiveness has.

And what he's saying is now you're the temple.

You're where forgiveness is made.

You know how people get forgiven in this place?

Unless we don't, unless we keep building walls and go, you can't

get in here. You don't look right, you don't

have enough. You don't come from the right

place. You don't vote right, you don't

believe right. And what he's saying is this

form this thing, look around the room, look at us, a motley crew

from all over the place in the world.

He's like, that's where they're going to experience what the

Jewish people had to go to the temple to experience the the

whole thing that he's building. We are the we're the temple of

Christ. We are where Christ's spirit

dwelt. I grew up man, right in my

little bed like this is the, this is God's house, as if we

like locked the door and left the Holy Spirit on the inside,

right? No, you're the house and not

just you all y'all. So when you go to target and you

run into somebody and you ask somebody, hey, how can I pray

for you? Dwelling of the Holy Spirit is

in your presence. When you send a text message to

someone, you just say, hey, you crossed my mind and I want you

to know that I love you and I'm thinking of you.

I don't need a response. I just want you to know that

you're like you. You're the church.

You're the body of Christ doing the things that Jesus did.

When we stand against injustice, are you listening?

When we stand against injustice by embracing those who have been

marginalized by oppression, we are.

Doing the things. That Jesus did.

That's what this is. Jesus put his Spirit into us so

that his Spirit. Could love the people that he

loves. But if we come here and meet

anger or suspicion or rejection or fear or danger or whatever,

we'll naturally assume that's what Jesus feels too.

And so he has called us together.

He's torn down the walls. He has put his Spirit in it.

Do you realize what that means last?

Week we, we, we. This is me and you now, right?

Like in all of our like Christian stuff last week we

weren't allowed across the balustrade.

Last week we were hundreds of feet from the presence of God

under penalty of death. Are you listening today?

You're the holy of Holies. One person don't.

Cry, don't cry, don't cry. Listen, I'm not not like fishing

for it, but I'm telling you like that's a reality we need to go

home and meditate on. Last week we couldn't get close

enough to smell it. This week it indwells us.

It lives in US. It moves in US.

What that means is that the spiritual connection is realer

than any kind of external physical thing that should keep

us apart. We don't like people who vote

different from us or who have a different color skin than us, or

who live in a different part of town, or maybe they smell

different or they believe different, or they have these

different things right. Whatever being, we look at these

external things and we go, you're too different from me to

be with me and to be like me. And what Jesus says is you're

just looking at the stuff you need to get in to the heart

because the spiritual connection, it's realer than the

external one. You have more in common with a

4th century peasant who was a follower of Jesus than with your

neighbor across the street who doesn't follow Jesus.

Because the Spirit of God that is in you is real and it is

alive. So here's what that means for us

who live in and are dwell. You know, the Spirit of God

dwells in US. That means that our gatherings

should have a distinct quality. There's no other building like

the temple man. You can walk up.

You'd see it for miles around. You'd see this on the hill.

You. There was no.

There was no. You.

Couldn't miss the temple of Artemis, right?

Gold is one of the seven wonders of world.

It was the whole point. Then what Paul is saying is

like, it's not Aaron's temple, it's not Solomon's temple, it's

not Artemis temple, it's you. Our gathering should be as

unique as those temples, and what that means is there should

be a distinct sense of otherness about us when we gather.

And it doesn't mean that we don't talk politics.

What it? Means is there is no issue.

Yeah, none. No, there is no issue.

That is a wedge between the. People of God.

It means, I mean, I like, have an opinion.

I don't care. The problem isn't that we have

opinions. The problem is that we take our

opinions and we make judgments out of them.

And we believe that the people who are different from us can't

be different from us. And So what it means is I begin

with the fundamental assumption we're the same.

We're the same. What's in US is greater than

what's outside of us and what distinguishes us.

So sure, we may talk politics, but we talk more about who you

are in Christ as and who I am in Christ and what Christ is doing

in our neighborhood. And we don't, and we need to

find some who can we go be Jesus to That doesn't look like us.

We talk about lost people. We talk about however we want to

break it up, foreign people outside, right?

Jesus calls them the people that I miss the most.

I just want to go get them. Will you go get them?

Oh, but there, listen, it doesn't mean that we don't have

money. It doesn't mean that Jesus wants

you poor. It just means that if you do

have money, his desire is that your money would be given to the

flourishment of the community, not just yourself.

It doesn't mean that we all have to have more education or less

education. It just means that whether you

have more education or less education, you don't have more

or less value. You know why you're valuable?

Because that moment in your life when it all fell apart and the

tears were coming in, that self loathing and hatred in you was

just deep and rich and you thought you were excluded your

love. Because in that moment Jesus sat

with you. You didn't feel it maybe, or you

didn't know it, but he was there.

And his point for you was I love you.

This was the apocalypse. This was what Paul saw when the

scales fell off, when the curtain came up and the veil was

torn. The wall is down.

The temple is US. And God lives here, here, here

now. That's what this is about.

This is not about sermons or songs or uncomfortable chairs

and tight rows. This is about the Kingdom being

birthed inside of us. This is about people who walk

outside of this world and the world says you shouldn't be

together, you don't belong together.

Y'all don't? And we just say, Nah, I don't

really believe that. I believe that the wall of

hostility has been torn down. And the danger in this and what

I listen, there's a temptation and I want to wrap up every

sermon with like, go do this, right?

But here's the danger. We call it moralism.

The danger of moralism is we take this truth that God says is

real. And the truth is that the wall

is down, right? And then we tried to just like.

OK, now go do it. Now go out and and be in the

water. And it's not always that easy,

right? Moralism say go do this so that

you can have the. Presence of God.

Here's the reality. If you fall in Jesus, you have

the presence of God. You have a spirit that wants to

lead you into all truth, and you're going to screw it up.

You're not going to listen to the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit's going to want to tell you to forgive

something. And you're like, Nah, I would

rather fight them. Holy Spirit's going to say get

on your social media space and be a voice of life and goodness.

And you're going to be like, yeah, I'd.

Rather just burn some stuff down or I'm mad or I like, like, I

get it. I know I'm me too, right?

Like like, like like that's. That's all of this, right?

So what I don't want you to do is just go give you a handful of

things that you can go out and now start practicing and

working, right? Like what I want to do is I want

to paint you a picture of what it looks like when the Holy

Spirit dwells richly in a group of people, when people who,

because the point is it's supposed to overflow, right?

Like my kids look like me. They talk like me.

And guess what? What that means is they look

like my dad and they talk like my mom because it flows out.

And who they are, they can't, they can't escape that.

And what I want to say is who you are as you follow Jesus, You

can't escape that. It's going to leak out.

And so if you don't have love and you just go, oh, I gotta go

love people no more. No, you got to be loved.

You got to let the wall come down.

You got to stop and back up and look at Jesus and go, could you

love this? This is terrible.

And he's like, brother, brother. See, that's the thing.

When I look at my kids, right? And I know where they are and I

know the identity struggles that they're wrestling with.

And I know the identity struggles that where they come

and listen, what I want to tell my kids who are in the room for

sure talking to you, even though I'm not looking at you.

Like here's the thing. What you don't understand is

this identity marker that you've got right now.

It's not done. And the thing that it's easy

with your kids because you see how wonderful they are, right?

And the thing that I want to tell my kids is that God sees

you here, here. You're so worried that that this

isn't it. Like, of course it's not.

You don't even see yourself there.

And what I want to tell you is God is fully able to love you

there. And so we don't lose ourselves

in this middle, right? We don't try to go run and

figure it all out. We just simply let ourselves be

loved. We tear down the walls between

people when we see people and listen.

I drive cars with apparently the worst people in the world.

I want to yell at them. I want like you're.

The reason, right? Like it's, it's you.

You're like, like. You're the one, right?

And I but I know that that's not coming from the place.

That's not what what Jesus has for me or says for me, right?

And So what I need to do is pause and stop and rest and

meditate on the reality that that guy who just cut me off in

traffic is every bit as welcome in the presence of God as Zion.

And I begin to let that spirit fill and fill until it begins to

leak out. Here's what it looks like when

it leaks out. Those who had received His word

were baptized and that day they were added about 3000 souls.

The reason we're going to baptize after this service is as

a way of demonstrating I'm with Jesus.

I'm immersed into the life that Jesus wants.

So what is that? To be immersed in that?

To be immersed in the life of Jesus is to say, I will not tend

any walls any longer because the life of Jesus is wall destroyer.

He destroys the hostility. And so he said they were

baptized into him 3000 that day. So what does this baptized body

look like? What do they do well?

They were continually devoting themselves to what?

Listen what we talked about the apostles teaching, and to

fellowship and to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

If you don't think they were annoying, codependent boundary

issue people in the 1st century Ephesus, you're crazy.

What they said is over and over and over again.

They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching to figure out

what it looks like to live boundaryless in this world.

And what did it look like as they did that all the believers

were together and they had all things in common.

It doesn't say that. Peter came up and said, all

right, everybody sell. All your stuff and give it to me

and I'll divvy it up as we have needs.

What it says is this church was so consumed with the love and

the unity that they looked around and if somebody that they

saw didn't have enough, they gave what they had to that

person. There was no mandate.

There was no government mandate apart from the Spirit of God and

just saying that person shouldn't have less than you

just because whatever we read in chapter. 4IN in Acts.

We read about the people that they sold fields.

The guy had an inheritance, a family piece of property, and he

saw people that didn't have enough food, they didn't have a

place to live. And somebody said, well, I'll

sell my. Field so that they can have it.

Whoever was among them had enough.

They had in common. They would sell their property

and their possessions and share them to the extent that anyone

had need day by day, continuing with one mind in the temple.

So let's talk about one mind real quick.

One mind doesn't mean that we agree on everything.

One mind means that we agree that whatever we disagree on, we

agree on Jesus more. Oh, you don't like the tax

structure in our country? Wonderful.

Good. We both agree that the solution

is Jesus. Great.

Let's build on that. They together with one mind and

what did it look like? They were taking their meals

together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God

and having favor with all the people.

And into that context of community and life and building,

temple building, the Lord added day by day, those who are being

saved. In the same way that people

flocked to the temple in Jerusalem for what they needed,

that first church and acts, people flocked day by day.

That's what a temple does. It draws people to Jesus.

It reveals what his character is like.

It makes atonement. So how do people get forgiven

today? We forgive them.

You forgive them. How do you get forgiven today?

I forgive you, I forgive you, and I need your forgiveness.

I need your grace. That's what this is.

That is the Apocalypse. And Paul prayed that his

Ephesian brothers and sisters would receive it.

So I want to pray that you would receive it.

Will you pray with me? Jesus, remove the scale and the

covering from our eyes so that we could see the beauty of this

thing that you are creating and doing in US and around us and

through US, Lord, is unbelievable and spectacular as

it is that You have torn down the wall and given us access to

Your presence. I needed that and I didn't have

that. And you gave that to me.

And as astounding as that is, what's even more astounding,

Jesus, is that you didn't just give me access to the temple,

that you made me a temple. And not just me, all of us.

And so Jesus is your church. I confess that we get wrapped up

with walls and boundaries and divisions and separations.

And so I pray, Father, that this reconciliation thing would be

heavy in our hearts and on our tongues and in our moves.

And I pray that this would be a place that just seems different

because of your presence in US and with us.

I pray, Jesus, I pray Holy Spirit, that you would just leak

out of us, not in a sense of emptying, but in a sense of

overflowing. And I truly do pray that this

community would be different, that they would step back in awe

at what you're doing here. So Jesus, we ask in your name,

we thank you for your spirit. And Father, we thank you that

you loved us so much, that you adopted us, called us children

and heirs and citizens, the household of God, may it be so

forever. We ask Jesus, in your name and

for your glory, Amen. Today, River City Church is all

about experiencing and expressing God's love in our

lives and community, and we hope that you've been able to

experience that today. As grateful as I am that you've

spent this time listening in this morning, this podcast is no

substitute for full participation in a local church.

I love it when River City people listen to other pastors, but it

is those who show up week after week faithfully giving their

support and time and resources that make all of this possible.

If we can help you get connected to a local church, pray for you,

or support you in any way, click the link in the description and

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Thanks so much for listening. May the Lord bless and keep you

in all grace and peace.