Doing Life Together

Hello, and welcome to the Kalamazoo church of Christ podcast.

Thank you so much for listening.

We're startup church.

We just planted in September, 2020 and at the Kalamazoo church, we believe that Christianity is done best when it is done together.

And so if you live in the Kalamazoo area, we would love to connect, be it coming to a Sunday service, one of our small groups, or even just grabbing coffee with a member to learn more.

You can visit kalamazoo.church in order to do that.

We pray that you are inspired by what you hear today.

Amen.

Well, it's good to see you all.

Thank you so much for the warm welcome.

I'm super grateful to, to be able to be here and to be able to preach to you all this morning.

I'm, I, I personally am really grateful for my father and Devin and Nisa.

I'm going to talk about them for a moment because I got, I got the stage.

You know, I, I, I think it's such a, so cool.

You know, the, the, one of the titles that I, that's an unexpected title.

That's been, that's just such a cool, one of the great joys of my life is to be able to be called my dad's brother in the prayer, right before the priest service.

The prayer was, you know, we're thankful for the Singh brothers.

And right away I was like, no, that's wrong.

And then I said, no, that's, that's right.

You know, it's, it's such a great blessing to be in the faith with my father, to be able to learn.

I learned so much from you over, over my 31 years on this earth.

And then to be able to see, to be able to see you at every, at every stage, come out loving God more is it's just, it's so cool.

It gives me a great inspiration.

It puts a face to, to Caleb who said, you know, I'm 85, my dad's not 85 yet.

But I'm 85 years old and I'm, I'm still as vigorous.

I'm still ready to fight.

You know, when I think about Devin and Nisa, I, I just, Nisa, firstly, I'm so impressed by you.

I, I feel, I feel that, that one, your joy for life, your laugh lights up a room.

There, nobody has, I'm laughing right now.

Whenever Nisa laughs, you have to laugh with her because it, because whatever, whatever was said, it might not even be that funny, but her laugh amplifies it though, right?

Nisa, you've gone through the ringer prior to becoming a Christian.

You, you, you've gone through though.

There's been so much growth that I've had the fortune of getting to have a front row seat over these last, over 10 years now, right?

Yeah.

It's so, it's just so cool to, to see your growth.

It's, it's, it's so, you're going to be such a great mom.

I, you've been such a great friend to my wife.

And so it's, it's, it's just fun as, as what I would say, Devin.

Devin is one of the, Devin's one of the most passionate people that, that I can, that I think about.

Devin is, he is the loyal friend.

If you think about who's going to be there for you, the answer is Devin.

I know that you guys have felt that and Devin's loyalty, it transcends age.

It transcends race.

It transcends, you know, sports takes.

We, you know, we have the same, the same teams we love, right?

We're Bucks fans, we're Packers fans, but the individual players, we, we don't always see eye to eye on, you know, but, but, but Devin's, Devin's loyalty spans all of that.

And you guys have felt that.

I, I, I really believe you guys are the people for Racine.

If you guys, you know, and so right now I just, if you guys can just give them a round of applause right now for the work they're doing.

You know, so, so here is, here's a picture of my family.

You guys, some of you have met Jordan already.

She's on the, the left.

And then my wife is in between both of my daughters, Madison.

She looks very tame there, but she's, she's, she's pretty wild most of the time.

That's a little bit of an old picture too.

So I mean old when, when you're a one feels crazy, the three, they're one.

It's, it's like the most fun time that we have.

Me and my wife, we've been married for nine years.

We got married when I was, when we were both 22 and, and I do have to say that we're, we're just, we're grateful for the church and discipling works is what I would say.

I think anybody who feels like I don't need people in my marriage, I don't need people in my life.

We are, we are a Testament that you absolutely do.

I believe that my marriage would either be totally on the rocks or gone entirely without the church.

I was too foolish, too selfish.

We, we just, we came from different backgrounds and upbringings and to be able to be married nine years in the world never would have happened.

And so we are grateful for the church.

We're grateful for counseling.

We're grateful for discipling.

We're especially grateful for it.

As we think about our daughters, the three year old and a one year old they're going to be, they're going to be older women.

Once your son, you know, becomes of age there, but, but who knows, right?

God, God can move.

Uh, you know, my, my daughter, this, uh, I, I want to brag on her just for a moment.

I was staying with one of my friends, uh, in Milwaukee who's agnostic and we were spending the night and this guy, you know, we, we were roommates growing up in college.

We've had great conversation.

We were roommates for one year in the dorms.

We've had great conversations about God and, and it's always landed where, you know, it's just not for me.

And so I don't know if you guys have been in this mode where sometimes, you know, when the food is served and there's somebody who's a nonbeliever or, you know, you just, you just, you know, pause a little bit, you take this moment and you pray to God, you connect with God.

Sure.

But you're not a demonstrative maybe about it.

I don't, I, that's, that's, that's my life.

You know, my daughter doesn't understand that though.

And so we, we sat down and I, I did this.

I said, Jordan, let's pray.

She said, no, no, no, no.

Victor's not here.

I said, okay.

And so then he, she, she, she made Victor sit down and this agnostic, uh, she made him pray.

And then we had, you know, we had three meals.

So he prayed three times by the last time she said, no, dad, he's going to pray for us.

And so this guy, we've been friends for 13 years.

I don't, I've never seen him pray.

And my daughter made him pray.

I'm like, come on, Jordan.

Amen.

Uh, yeah.

What a, what a, what a great, uh, what a great blessing.

So these are my, these are my daughters, right?

So yeah, you've got, we just went sharing on campus.

They love each other.

Uh, yeah, they're a blast.

Um, this is, this is the, the church.

This is actually an old picture.

Um, and it's a little bit, it's a little bit bigger than our church is.

This was our second anniversary service.

Our third is coming up soon.

Uh, so the church was planted in October, 2020 with 14 faithful disciples from seven different churches, uh, who are just, we're just ordinary people.

Uh, you know, as I think about, uh, you know, we're, we're not, we weren't the brightest or the most talented.

We're still not.

Uh, it was, it was my first time leading a church and this is the first church that I've ever led.

Uh, we had a five month old when we first got to Kalamazoo and you know, what's going on in 2020.

It's the middle of the pandemic.

Um, right now we're a church of 32 disciples and there are more on the way in the next month.

Um, you know, I, I really believe that God is moving and you know what?

God's always moving, but it's, it's, it's so cool.

And we get to sit first row to see it.

Amen.

I, we, we understand that what we set out to accomplish is not finished, but we're just grateful for your prayers.

We're grateful for your thoughts.

We're grateful for your guidance, uh, and your love throughout this entire time.

If you, if you get a moment in your prayers, just, just shoot up Kalamazoo, Michigan, God love Kalamazoo, God, please pray for Kalamazoo, even just for 30 seconds, 30 seconds with, with, with 50 people that counts, you know what I'm saying?

Uh, you know, one, one of the, one of the things that we really set out to do, and we just said that our prayer going into the church and our prayer is just that God works in such powerful ways that we never received credit for it.

That he works in such an amazing way that nobody says you're doing an awesome job because you know what?

It's, it's not us doing it.

It's God moving that they don't, they'll say, I don't know how he's doing it, but he's doing it.

And we have a chance to give glory and honor to God every step of the way.

You guys can open up to Romans 12.

We're going to be there, uh, the, the entire time, uh, for the, this, this morning, you know, we, we said that going into this church, everyone just made a commitment that we're, we're gonna, we're gonna, we just want to sit front row to see God work and you understand how, how amazing it is.

And you have all experienced it when God has worked through you, right?

When whatever happened, I don't, I don't even know how you, you said the exact right thing to change this person's heart.

And we just give glory to God in that moment, right?

You say, I don't know.

I don't, it just came to me or you, you prayed something and, and then you texted the brother, you texted this sister and you said, wow, I really needed that.

I was, I just, I just had a difficult time at work or there's a sickness in my family or, or you guys have felt that.

And, and what an amazing feeling to be used by God.

This is, this is what we're, we're, we're trying to do.

I, I, I want to, uh, I want to share that the title of the lesson is the best way.

You know, we believe that a life lived walking with Jesus is the best way to live, right?

So, but if you believe that the walking with Jesus, if you believe it, that it's the best way to live, then, then let me, let me hear you say amen.

If you believe it, say amen.

That's right.

That's right.

This is, this is the best way.

This, and we're going to look at three, three different, uh, parts of this passage that I believe communicate a little bit why and a little bit how we can, we can, uh, continue to make this the best way and, uh, and, and show it in the, in the best possible way.

We, um, you know, in, in Kalamazoo, this passage of scripture gets brought up intermittently, probably about every, every few months, uh, there'll be a lesson on it, a communion on it.

There'll be a little discipling group or a little discipling prompt.

And we say, go ahead and, uh, you know, share this or pray through this.

And because I just, I, I, one, I love it and I'm, I'm leading the church.

So I have the opportunity to, to make people, uh, you know, learn, learn about it too.

So that's one, but I think the second way is that we want to keep this at the forefront of our minds, uh, as we're, as we're going about our day to day.

It just says, therefore in Romans 12, one, therefore I urge you brothers and sisters in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.

This is your true and proper worship.

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is his good, pleasing and perfect will.

And we, we understand, uh, this is saying that that means that worship is not exclusive to Sunday.

This is the entirety of our worship is not, is not just on Sunday, right?

There's 168 hours of the day.

And so that means if there's 168 hours of the day, if we're supposed to spend our lives, worshiping God throughout all of it, if giving our entirety is serving God, then I want to, I want to encourage you this morning and say that that means.

That when you sleep, you can actually be a holy sacrifice to God.

Right?

So if you're like, man, I'm so tired, it's been a long week.

I can't, I got so much to do.

You go ahead and you take a nap and understand that's holy and pleasing to God in that moment.

Now you can't live life, taking naps all the time.

You know, five hour nap, whatever.

But if you've got to do it, go ahead and do it.

That's pleasing to God.

It says, don't conform to the pattern of this world.

We're going to look a little bit about what the pattern of this world is in just in the scripture.

It says, be transformed, not by your actions, but by the renewing of your mind.

Then your actions are going to follow suit.

And it says, then you're going to be able to test and approve what God's will is.

And you'd say, how could I test?

How could I approve what God's will is?

Other translations just say, you'll be able to understand it.

Basically, you'll be able to, to prove it, to be true in, in your life and by how you live, you're going to show that what God says is the right way to live.

And so we're going to look at just three points for, for us this morning.

But the first is the best way is to give what you got.

The best way to live is to give what you've got.

It says in, uh, in, in verse three, we'll follow along here.

It says for by the grace given me, I say to every one of you, don't consider yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.

For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function.

So in Christ, we, though many form one body and each member belongs to all the others.

We have different gifts according to the grace given to each of us.

If your gift is prophesying and prophesy in accordance with your faith, if it's serving, then serve.

If it is teaching, then teach.

If it is to encourage, then give encouragement.

If it is giving, then give generously.

If it is to lead, do it diligently.

If it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.

We'll pause here.

And when Paul says to renew, he says, renew your minds.

And then he says, this is the next thing I'm going to talk about.

He says, don't think of yourself more highly than you are.

And so, so what this would be to say is that, is that the world is trying to convince us that we are better than we really are, right?

That's what the world, that's the world.

The world's trying to get us to say that, but he says, no, rather think of yourself with sober judgment in accordance with the faith God has distributed to you.

When I hear the word distributed, you realize we didn't earn what's been distributed to us, right?

It's, it seems in some ways, if it, if the word is distributed and it is, then it's just arbitrary.

You're better at something than some, than someone else.

That's, that's been given to you.

You know, this is, this is one of the things, this is one of the, the, really the tenants that we just, we're committed to and we have to go back to all the time that we have to die to our egos.

And I'll say in Kalamazoo, but I'll say it here as well.

We just got to die to thinking we're better than we, than we really are.

Now I was, I was praying this morning and I'm, God, I, I'm not, I'm not better than I, than I, I want to, I want to be humble.

I want to, to seek after you.

I want to remove myself entirely.

And so you can be lifted up because the limiting factor in God moving is me, right?

The limiting factor in God moving in your life is you, isn't it?

If, if somehow you could just remove all of your bad stuff and just, if Jesus was just walking a day in your life, wouldn't it be entirely different?

And so, so what that means though, is I'm the limiting factor in God moving.

He's not the limiting factor.

And so the more that I remove of myself, the more he's able to work powerfully through me, says, don't, don't think of yourself more highly than you want.

You know, the, the world says, well, you're a self-made person.

I've worked so hard for this.

Let me enjoy it.

This is the first comment that renewing of our minds is saying, no way.

It's, it's, it's not, I didn't earn it.

I didn't do anything to get it.

Certainly.

I have a strong work ethic.

Certainly.

I have business acumen.

Certainly.

I have fill in the blank or whatever you have.

I'm able to do this.

I'm able to do that.

I can work with my hands.

That's great.

That's been given to God.

Certainly.

Yeah.

You have you grown in it?

Absolutely.

Have you gotten better?

Absolutely.

But God gave that to you.

That's arbitrary.

This is, this is the point at what I'm studying the Bible with, with a guy.

He's, he's in college and I really believe he's going to make it.

Uh, this is, this is his hangup though.

He's, we, we had an hour and a half conversation talking about, I brought up the scripture and I said, you know what?

I don't, I don't think you really believe this.

I'm not, I'm not positive that you're, that you're, that you're really sure this is true.

He said, no way.

He said, I've worked for this.

I've done this.

He's a 19 year old.

You know, when you're 19, you haven't worked for an awful lot.

You know what I'm saying?

But, but I said, I said, I said, friend, you, you have a strong work ethic.

That's, that's, that's objective.

You, you're sharp.

You're able to talk to people, but I want you to know God's given that to you.

And he's like, I don't know if I can believe that yet.

This is the, this is, this is what's standing in the way of so many of our friends, but this is what can be standing in the way of our, of our, of our faith as well, this is what can be standing in the way though of us, uh, being able to be used powerfully by God, because then we said that the best way is to give what you've got, and so if you're not going to think of yourself more highly, then, then what we do have to think of ourself is with sober judgment.

There's, there's talents and gifts that, that, that you all have that, that need to be employed for the church or deployed for the church, you know, that says if your gift is, is prophesying.

And so we can take, well, we, the prophecy doesn't happen.

I think it's just speaking the words of God into somebody's life, speaking thoughtfully into somebody's life.

You know, it's, it's, uh, if you say, well, service, what is serving this?

This could be, it could be serving like as far as giving, or it could just be this office of service, like, like actually it used the word Deacon in different, in different points as well.

There's a skill that you possess that the church needs.

Uh, it says, if your gift is teaching, that's, you know, comprehending difficult comprehending, excuse me, difficult concepts and explaining them in a way that actually helps people.

It's not just understanding concepts and gaining knowledge, uh, because if, if you're, if you're learning and you love to learn and you, and you're doing a great job with it, if you're learning, but if you, if your character doesn't change and you're not giving it to other people, that's actually selfish.

All right.

It says, uh, if your gift is encouraging, if you just have a way about you, Nisa, I think her, one of her gifts is encouraging, right?

That she just raises the spirit of everybody around her.

It says, if you're, if you're giving, so if you have the means you're giving without pretense or, or hypocrisy, I'm just going to give it, I don't expect anything in return and I'm not asking for it either.

Your gift is leading.

People want to follow you.

You got to be thoughtful about it.

If your gift, if you just have a natural tend towards, uh, compassion of others, all of these things ought to be fully deployed in our service of God's kingdom.

That means your best energy, the most you can possibly give.

Let it not be for your workplace.

Let it not be for your, your, your, uh, the afterschool club, or let it not be for just, I'm just going to do it because out of the goodness of my heart.

No, no, no.

It, your best, certainly this is what I'm not saying is don't, don't try hard.

The Bible's clear about that, but the best of what we, what we give, it ought to be used to glorify God and give entirely to him.

They're his, uh, you know, we, we, we did.

I feel like we realized this early on when we, when we set out to plant the church, when we were asked to plant the church, we said right away, you know, we, we're not really sure what to do.

We, we have no idea.

And we still, I still feel like I really don't know exactly what to do.

Uh, almost always I like, I think I have an inclination, but the inclinations ends up being wrong sometimes.

Uh, and, and sometimes that's okay.

Other times I'm like, well, I should have just followed what, what some wiser men, uh, said, or I should have sought the council of wiser men.

Um, but we realized our church right away was filled with those in their twenties, their thirties, their forties, their fifties, their sixties, and their seventies, uh, with the 14 people.

Then we had three more joined shortly after they were part of a traditional church of Christ and they, uh, they placed membership with us and we, we just realized this wasn't the, this wasn't the church planting that we expected to, to go into, we, we gave this, you know, this charge to a bunch of young college students, young professionals, and we thought, man, we are going to grab 30, 20 something year olds.

We're going to go and we are going to storm the campus.

We're going to storm the grocery stores.

We're going to make it happen.

Uh, we, we, we write that and less, less so of God.

And then COVID happened.

And then, and then a few people bailed.

They said, it's not the right time for my family.

I understand that.

I'm not, there's not, I'm not saying anything, but, but what happened pretty quickly is that we, we learned and everybody that joined, we just said, whatever skills we got with this team, we're giving them entirely to God.

Uh, you know, I, I, I had this written in my notes, but I'm, so I'm going to, I want to lift up actually Laura Doherty is, is one of the members of our, of our church in, uh, in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

And I remember, uh, we, we sat down and we had, uh, just a time.

We, I think we grabbed some lemonade when Laura thought, okay, maybe I could join this mission team.

She'd been a disciple for five years at the time.

Right.

And, and, uh, had just recently retired from, from teaching and she was willing to, she was single and willing to get up and to uproot her whole life from the suburbs of Chicago, all the way over to Kalamazoo and, uh, and, and that's inspiring in and of itself, but I think the, maybe the more inspiring part is that Laura's decided that her gifts, she's going to use entirely for God's kingdom.

She, she goes around and not because anybody asked her, but because she just decided to.

She goes and there's a bunch of young families in our church.

And so she contacts them.

She has a schedule where every week she's seeing almost, if not all of the, the under three-year-olds in our entire church, she goes to the house and watches them while mom or dad get, get other stuff done in the house.

She just decides I have free time.

This is my gift.

I'm going to use it for God's kingdom.

What an amazing Testament, right?

You know, the, the, the next thing that, that, you know, so we said right away, we said that, uh, the, the best way is to give what you got.

And then the best way is realizing it's not about you says, uh, love must be sincere, hate what is evil, cling to what is good, be devoted to one another in love, honor one another above yourselves, never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor serving the Lord, be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer, share with the Lord's people who are in need, practice hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you bless and do not curse rejoice with those who rejoice mourn with those who mourn live in harmony with one another.

Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position, do not be conceited.

No, this, this scripture, if I bet you, if we had a conversation or if we just talked and we said, why did you, why were you intrigued to, to come to, to this church, maybe you got intrigued by God in a different way, but if I asked why, why did you want to come to this church or the church that you were converted into, why did you want to, to do that?

I bet you, you could point to some of the stuff in here, right?

I just saw the people decided they were going to honor one another above themselves.

I saw that it was genuine too.

I saw that they, that they were going through difficult times, but they decided, you know what, although these times are difficult, I still have joy in the Lord.

I bet you somebody early on invited you over to their house, practice hospitality, showed you, Hey, this is, this is what we're all about.

We are trying to follow what the Bible teaches.

These are, these are things then that we realize when we say it's not about us, that, that it's, it doesn't, it doesn't, in some ways it doesn't matter what we do, but if we totally remove ourselves, then this is going to be out of the overflow is what we're going to do.

Uh, Bible says to be devoted to one another, despite the differences, we're still going to connect with one another.

It says to, to honor one another above yourselves.

Other, other passages say to outdo one another in showing honor, uh, or other rather other translations.

This is trying to lift one another up.

Like it's a competition that, you know, I'm, and we'd understand you can only lift somebody up so high.

So what does that mean?

We actually have to put ourselves under that person, right?

You're, you're good at this.

And I want to learn from you in this way, but then it says this that I, I, I really appreciate.

It says, do not be conceited.

Um, you know, I think there's, there's a few things that, a few, a few ways that we can become conceited, but being conceited is just thinking about ourselves a lot.

That's, uh, you know, maybe there's other connotations in, um, you know, in, in the English, but from what I understand, I don't know a lot, but, but from what I understand is looking at the Greek word, it's basically, it's just thinking and considering yourself a first, second, and third, and making that the lens through which you view everything else.

Uh, it says, do not be conceited.

And so there's a couple of ways I think we can be conceited then in this way.

I think we can say, well, this is beneath me, so I'm not going to do it.

This is, I'm, I'm too good for this.

I'm too good for this church.

How come this person tried to tell me to do this one thing?

No way.

I, I, I, I'm not going to listen to them.

That that's, that's one way.

Uh, they don't know what they're talking about.

Whatever the other way, I think this weighs a little, it's much, it's much more deceitful actually, but it's still thinking of yourself too much as that.

You know what?

I'm not good enough.

So I'm, I, I'm not going to do this.

I, I'm not good enough.

And understand that when you say you're not good enough one, uh, I think the answer is usually you're right.

Um, I, I feel, I stick with me.

I feel that, I feel that for myself.

I feel like the leading in Kalamazoo.

I just so frequently feel like, I, I don't, I don't know what, how am I going to lead this, this group of people?

What I get, I get, I get stressed.

I'm like, Oh, what if the group grows?

I don't know how we can help this many Christians be stay faithful.

And I'm like, well, what if the group shrinks?

I don't know how we can bring people back to a space of encouragement.

And there's at every point, at every point we're like, I'm just, I don't feel like I'm good enough, but you know what that is though, that's thinking of yourself a lot.

And that's, that's a form of conceit because you're not focused on God.

It's not about you.

So we, we, we said that there's, there's these skills that you have, and maybe you saw that list and you thought, I don't fit any of those.

Well, absolutely.

You absolutely do.

Uh, talk to somebody, uh, talk to somebody and just ask, what do you think my gift is?

Uh, what do you think I'm, what do you think I'm good at?

Which of these, or is there another one?

I want to, I want to honor God.

I want to serve God.

I just don't know how to do it the best way.

What do you think?

And I, I, when I, when I think about, uh, the idea that this is not be conceited, this isn't about you.

I actually think about a couple who started coming out.

The picture that you saw was in October of 2022, and that was their first, uh, Sunday service coming out.

Uh, but their name are Mark and Ruth McFannan.

Um, so there, there's a, there's some pictures of them.

Uh, they're people who, for, we studied the Bible for three months and every Bible study, they were, they were really vulnerable from the beginning.

They're like, Hey, we're not, uh, everything you see, everything you see, that's who we are and the stuff that you don't see, ask us and we'll tell you.

Their, their intention early on was we want to honor God.

We want to serve God.

And we're so impressed with what you guys are doing.

Uh, they had, they had read the Bible.

They had spent some time in the faith, but they weren't, uh, they were, they were struggling.

I would say, uh, they, they weren't Christians at the time.

Um, and so, but, but, but through this, this, these studies, uh, it started out and it was really cool.

It started out because his statement was, you know, I want to be a great, I want to be a great leader.

And then after a few, uh, you know, after a few times we sat down, he said, you know, this leadership stuff, I think I can use it to honor God.

I think I can actually lead people to do what we're doing early on in the Bible.

So they said, we want to do exactly what you guys are doing, but we don't know how to teach.

And then, and then after a little bit, they said, Hey, I brought up the scripture with my sister.

The same, the same Bible study I went through, I did it with my sister and, and she was actually excited about it too.

He said, you know what?

Our house is quite small.

Uh, right now we have our sister living with us.

There's no way we can host.

And now if you were to go to church in Kalamazoo, you would see that they frequently have people over just about every Sunday they're inviting people and there's times when, uh, Mark, he'll go from person to person.

Hey, you want to come over?

No, I got plans.

Okay.

Hey, you want to come over?

No, I got plans.

And he's like, bro, somebody needs, somebody needs some fellowship.

I know, I don't know who they are, but somebody needs it.

And they're going to come to my house to do it.

Uh, it's they, they realized early on.

It's just not, it's not about them.

It's not about, I don't have the, I'm not the smartest.

That's okay.

I, you can still teach.

I don't have the biggest house.

That's okay.

You can still practice, practice hospitality.

You can still serve.

You can still encourage.

Uh, you know, you know what, what's happened over this last year, uh, with them though, is that Mark decided I'm going to reach out to somebody in the gym, uh, Mark reached out to somebody in the gym and you can see on the far left.

There, uh, that's his friend, Tony and Tony got baptized and he's your brother in Christ.

Tony now is holding an impromptu.

We didn't even know about it.

Then he started, he just shared.

He said, Hey, I had some people over at my house.

There's this deep convictions packet.

I just been doing this deep convictions packet with some other people in the gym.

And so, so Tony's Tony's already leading the Bible talk.

I'm like, I don't, amen.

Uh, so right there in the middle, right there, you see Laura, you see there's a sister named Andrea and you see Ruth on the far right.

But then on the, the far left, there's a, there's a sister named the, the right, that's the, whatever, right in between them is Natalia.

And that's there, uh, she's 21 years old.

It's Ruth's one of Ruth's sisters who became a disciple the day after ICMC.

Um, initial Ruth, I think I'm going to share my faith with her.

And then you can see on the far right is another one of Ruth's sisters who, uh, her name is Sarah and, uh, and, and she just, uh, saw Ruth saw Natalia, her younger sister living for God and was entirely inspiring and so cool Ruth.

Uh, Ruth shared that she was in some ways, she was the sister that was never very spiritual.

And so when she got spiritual, her entire family has taken notice.

Uh, I think what a great Testament that I, I don't know that much, but I know enough to give to somebody else, right?

Cause it's not about us.

The, uh, the, the, the last point for us is that the best way we'll overcome.

It says, do not repay anyone evil for evil.

Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone.

If it is possible, as far as it depends on you live at peace with everyone.

Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath.

For it is written, it is mine to avenge.

I will repay, says the Lord.

On the contrary.

If your enemy is hungry, feed him.

If he's thirsty, give him something to drink in doing this, you will heat burning coals on his head.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

This passage is also about renewing our minds, right?

And it says that there is more going on than, than we can see that there's, there's more that's going on.

There's, there's a spiritual realm that, that we, that, that we can't see, but it's there.

The world says, Hey, focus on the here and now.

If somebody wrongs you go ahead and get them back.

Or if somebody wrongs you, you know what, this is what the, the, the really smart people in the world, the really wise people in the world.

Let's say someone wrongs you.

Let's cut them off.

What's the point?

Don't know.

Don't, don't retaliate, but just cut them off.

You don't, you don't need that.

You don't need that in your life.

Certainly.

I, again, there's a time and place for, for all of this.

And there's, there's wisdom in it, but what the Bible says is if it's possible, as far as it depends on you live at peace with everyone.

Sometimes it's not possible for us.

Uh, sometimes it doesn't depend on us to live at peace with people, but if it's possible, as far as it depends on us, our call is to live at peace with everyone.

And then, and then it, but because it says there's, there's more going on that we don't understand and we don't see there's a spiritual realm that is, that is, there's a spiritual battle in a war that's taking place that we can't see.

This is what, what's so powerful.

It says, uh, that we have the opportunity to overcome evil with good because there's a spiritual battle that's taking place that you understand and I understand.

And, and it can feel like, I don't know if you, you feel like this.

I hope you don't stay feeling like this, but there's times when you feel like.

That what is going good.

Have you ever felt that you're like, well, there's, I, you sit down and you're like, well, you know, I don't, I don't even know what, what good is happening right now.

My, my children aren't listening to me and my, my, me and my, my wife, we're in a little bit of a bump and this Bible study went so poorly.

And when I went to go share my faith, they weren't, nobody was interested.

So I got laughed at by, by an 18 year old that had, you know, ugly facial hair.

And I'm like, what, what, this is me.

Maybe it's not you.

Okay.

But what, what am I doing with my life?

Why, why am I subjecting myself to this?

You know, maybe, maybe it's at work and you feel like there's nothing that's gone well for this series of time, or there's always something, or whenever you feel like I've got to that spot, it's going to be good.

I don't know if you've ever felt like, well, life's going to slow down right now.

And then it never slows down.

I feel like there's nothing, there's nothing, what good is going on?

There's nothing good happening.

The Bible says we have the opportunity to overcome evil with good.

And so understand in those, even in those moments, mourn in those moments, talk to people in those moments that you don't have to live there forever.

Uh, no, I just want to share just a couple of things in Kalamazoo, uh, that, that, that we are doing and have done and are just committed to engaging to in order to overcome evil with good.

This has helped us to, uh, to just see the spiritual battle.

I think I really believe that, that I know you guys love God.

I believe if you guys see the spiritual battle, if we could see the spiritual battle, we would just run towards righteousness, right?

If we could see the spiritual battle in its entirety and it made sense to us in some way, we would run away from sin.

If we saw the depth and how evil sin is, we wouldn't want to create discord with anybody.

Right.

We're doing everything we possibly can to love God if we can see it.

And so this is, this is a couple of things we've done.

You know, when we started the church for the first, we planted in, we got, we touched down in August and we, we had our inaugural service in October, that whole 2020 up until March, there were no conversions in this entire time.

Uh, we, we were, we were just, we were just there and it just felt like, what, what are we, what are we doing here?

You know, is this, is this right?

I've started, am I the right person?

Is it, maybe I should just bail out.

Maybe I'll just start, I'll just get a job, a secular job and stay here.

And, uh, but I'm like, man, these people, like they, they entrusted themselves to God, but in some ways they entrusted themselves, uh, for me to walk close to God and so God could work in this church and I, I know, again, I'm like, it's not about me, but I just got to feeling like I'm, I must be doing something wrong.

Uh, one, uh, uh, one of my great friends, his name is Spencer Scholls.

He moved from Milwaukee.

He gave up a, uh, it was in his perfect career path, man.

This guy was on, on track to be the head coach at a, at a college basketball team.

One of his great, uh, head basketball coach, one of the great dreams of his life.

He was working hard.

He was, he was sharing his faith.

He was bringing people and I had asked him to come on the mission team and he said, no, I can't come.

And then round about November, he came and visited us and he said, Hey, I'm just so you know, I'm going to quit my job and I'm going to move here.

I just need, I just need a job.

And I thought, I don't know how he's going to get a college coaching job.

There's no way it's going to happen.

And then he, uh, he, he sent me this job application.

He said, Hey, I just sent it in.

And it was a job for, to be a janitor.

Uh, he decided I'm giving up my entire career, whatever dream, and I'm going to become a janitor in Kalamazoo, Michigan, uh, in order to, uh, to, to build up the church and, and I, I find that inspiring.

What I find more inspiring is this overcoming evil with good is that he, he noticed early on, he said, Hey, Jay, we got to do something.

If we're going to be inspired for God, if we're going to really see fruit, we got to do something radical for God.

Um, and so we, we talked to a couple of people and then we went on this, uh, well, we can talk about it.

We went on this pretty intense month long fast, uh, and, and.

Throughout the whole time.

Again, there's no conversions.

We're not seeing any fruit.

I'll be honest with you.

We barely had anybody that was even studying the Bible.

There was like, there was virtually nothing happening.

Um, we're calling out to God.

We, me and him in the middle of this, he's living with me at the time.

And so we got into, you understand, maybe you, maybe you do when, when you're fasting, sometimes you feel very close to God.

Other times you feel like.

I just see more of my sin than I ever did before.

And I feel more angry than I ever have before.

And so we, we butted heads a couple of times in the middle of our fast.

And we're calling, we just apologized.

We gave each other a hug.

We're like, we're fighting.

And I believe from this fast, uh, what happened was somebody actually messaged, uh, somebody that had already been reached out to decided the message, the, the Facebook, uh, rather a text, a text that somebody got a phone number and said, Hey, I really need to follow God.

I need to give up my entire life for God.

Um, and he was at the low of the low.

He had already been reached out to with my whole heart.

I really believe that, that because of our fast in some way, shape or form, God decided to move.

This is, I think, overcoming evil with good.

Uh, this guy studied the Bible and in about three weeks or in about a month, maybe, or I think it was about a month.

He became a, your brother, he became a disciple.

Um, this guy has, uh, now he's moved to Springfield, Illinois to, uh, he's, he's the interim preacher basically in Springfield, Illinois.

Uh, but he's, he's, his desire is to serve on staff.

He's desires to go overseas and to, and to really love God.

And I, I, I really believe that that stuff that no, we don't receive any credit for it.

Right.

That that's just God moving powerfully.

This is overcoming evil with good as a church.

Uh, this, this last, uh, it was, it was in April that we just, we said, there's not much, again, there's not much going on.

There's not much, there's not much movement or activity.

And I feel like what's, what's happening.

And so we said, as a church, we just have to do something radical for God.

It was Holy week coming up.

And we said for this Holy week, everybody let's, let's go ahead and add something spiritual and let's take away something.

Uh, that's, that's just an, an auxiliary thing.

And some, some people took away media and they said, you know what?

I'm not going to, uh, I'm not going to watch any TV or any, listen to anything.

I'm just, if it's not spiritual, I'm not consuming it for a whole week.

And other people decided, well, if, if I'm going to, you know, fast from food and other people decided, I'm going to take this away or I'm going to do this, or I'm going to give a little bit additionally in this way and then add something, I'm going to call more people.

We just decided as a church, that's what we're going to do.

Again, there's no movement.

There's no activity.

And, um, and our prayer though, was God let something happen.

And that's my God, let something happen so that we can just point to you and say, you, you get all the glory for it and stuff that we didn't say we're going to go storm the campus and share out to share it to a hundred people a day.

And we didn't say, get everybody in your text message.

No, no.

We just said, we're going to call out and try to be the people who God wants us to be and try to be, try to grow in our spirituality.

And, and from that is, is where these baptisms have occurred and two more have occurred as well.

And we just, this summer post that, that fast, there have been five baptisms in the Kalamazoo church.

And, and, and we, we clap, we clap for God.

I, I don't mean to say that, uh, that, that, that conversions is the metric of if God, if you're walking with God or not, that's not at all what I'm saying, but what we are saying is we want to be able to point to God and say, you did something that we never could have imagined.

Um, so I, I want to, I want to challenge, I want to challenge you all this morning.

Uh, I, I want you to, to take a moment and to assess, uh, just think for yourself.

And maybe this is going to be a, you know, a Monday thing or a Sunday evening thing is, is what you can do to overcome evil with good in your life.

Maybe, maybe what, what, what practically can you do to overcome evil with good?

Uh, certainly I think it might be valuable to, uh, to use some of these gifts that God has given you, but, but, but maybe not, this can be any number of things, but if our mission is to overcome evil with good, uh, then you know, what's going to happen is God's going to work through us because that's, that's his ultimate plan, right?

What we just talked about is, is Jesus in, in his entirety.

At every point he decided I'm going to overcome evil with good.

I'm not going to consider myself.

Well, you know, this is the crazy thing.

He considered himself lower than he actually was.

Right.

That he, he was way bigger, way higher.

Wait, I was just considering for communion this, this morning when we, when we, I'm like, man, why think about at first, this is my thought.

And I said, man, to think about Jesus, to say, Hey, think about me every week.

That sounds like he, he deserves the praise.

That sounds a little bit like if he's not God, that can be really arrogant.

And then when I started to think, cause I was like, wait, if he's God, why would he just say, just think about me once a week?

Shouldn't it be all the time every day?

And he decided, no, just take this moment to consider me.

Uh, you know, take the, and so I think Jesus considered himself way lower.

He, he did all of these things perfectly.

And so I would even challenge you in your personal Bible study this week to just look at where, where does Jesus perfectly emulate Romans 12?

You know, if we do this, uh, you guys, whatever season of life this, this church is in, I understand.

I listened to the sermon last Sunday, wherever you guys are at.

I know again, there's, there's good.

There's bad.

I don't know the details of all of it, but I understand.

And you guys do too, that you have an opportunity to overcome evil with good.

You have an opportunity to partner with Jesus in, in his working and restoring of humanity.

Let's do that with our entire hearts.

Let's do that with our entire beings and just give all the glory and all the praise to God.

Amen.

Awesome.

I don't want to turn it off.

Thank you so much for listening to the Kalamazoo church of Christ podcast.

If you're in the Kalamazoo area, we'd love to get connected.

Please go to kalamazoo.church and fill in your information to come to a Sunday service or any other event that we have going on in any case, you'll be hearing from us next week.