This > That | Pastor Chris Kouba

Grab your Bibles, open them up with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 1, 1 Corinthians chapter 1.

1 Corinthians 1 · chapter mention 1 Corinthians 1 · chapter mention

I hope that you will get used to where the book of 1 Corinthians is.

We will be spending pretty much the entire fall walking through the book of 1 Corinthians.

So I hope that it is something that becomes super, super familiar to you in our time together.

But also, if you're looking for something to read for your own personal devotional time with the Lord, which I hope that you will do, uh, you could consider reading the book of 1 Corinthians.

You can kind of split it up.

You can do first seven chapters or so.

You can read it for 30 straight days, and then maybe get the next few chapters and you can read those for the next 30 days.

And I'm telling you, your life will be different as a result of just spending that much time in God's Word.

Let me just encourage you to consider doing something like that, but for sure being with us.

Let me take this opportunity to welcome the men and the women at our correctional facilities, those that are joining us online.

Let's give them a hand and celebrate so many that get to be a part of this with us.

I want to add my word of greeting to AJs earlier.

My name's Chris Cuba, the privilege of being the lead pastor, and man, it's just incredible.

I'm just gonna ask you, church, what our experience has been is this is that whenever we ask the church to pray for something, God typically answers bigger than we asked.

And so we are asking that God would allow us and ask you to join us with this prayer, that there would be eight to ten more AJs next fall.

That's what we're asking God to do.

And so I would ask that you pray with us and for us, and we can see God begin to bring more and more residents here to United City Church, uh, just like AJ.

And uh I would ask that you join with us in that.

And we just want to see how God decides to yet again answer our prayer.

We are just so thankful for how he has gone before us.

We're starting a brand new sermon series today that is called Red Flags.

Red Flags.

Let me give you the definition of red flag.

The red flag is associated with a warning signal or a sign indicating that danger is near or attempting to draw attention to a problem or an irregularity.

Whenever the armed forces is doing live firing drills, they will fly a red flag as a way to warn the public that they are doing that.

If you are in the mountains and you see a red flag, it's a signal that there is a high wildfire danger, and that means that you should be cautious or probably even evacuate.

If you were to go to a beach and you see a red flag, it means that there is uh dangerous water conditions, and a double red flag means that the beach has been closed.

If you go to an auto race, you see a green flag means go, a yellow flag means caution, a red flag means that the race has stopped.

Everyone needs to get off track.

Maybe you are in an interview process for a company or a school or medical school, and you are the one doing the interviewing, and something comes up in the midst of an application, or something comes up on a resume, and you might say this phrase, you know, this just feels like a red flag.

And you may tab it or you may indicate this is something that needs further investigation.

And instead of it being pushed through and on like the rest of the applications, you instead put it aside knowing that it has a red flag.

Maybe you're in that dating stage where you're in that spot where you don't really interact online, but you don't actually talk in person stage.

And so what you're doing is you're creeping on that person and you're looking up at all their posts and you're you're looking at all the things they've ever said and you're trying to figure out everything that you can about them without actually having a conversation with them.

And maybe you see some things that they posted previously online with some relationships that they had before, and you might say, This, you know, there's too many red flags there.

I'm not gonna keep going in this relationship that I never actually had in the first place, okay?

Let's say you're choosing a roommate to live with and you notice that they leave towels all over the bathroom floor, you notice they have a tendency to eat all of your food, you might say, This is a red flag.

I don't think they're gonna be a good roommate.

Red flags are problems that are observed and that have to be dealt with.

Or there are things that you see that you need to avoid ever happening.

We're beginning a new sermon series in the book of 1 Corinthians, and the apostle Paul is writing to a church located in Corinth that had plenty of problems, that had plenty of red flags.

Paul planted this church on his first missionary journey.

You can read more about that in Acts chapter 18.

Acts 18 · chapter mention

The city was strategically located in the Roman Empire as one of the up-and coming cities of the time.

The city was very diverse.

The city was very pluralistic, where people from all different backgrounds and all different religions and all different political persuasions all were coming together in a singular place.

I want you to think about Los Angeles meeting the entertainment of Las Vegas, meeting the diversity in the melting pot of the city of Houston.

That's what you had in the city of Corinth.

It was a world-class city that was an economic powerhouse, and it also was located right by an amazing, beautiful beach, which made it a vacation destination.

Little slide plug here.

I'm taking a trip to Greece in spring break of next year, and would love to have you come with me.

I got about a 30, 45-day window for you to still sign up.

And so if you want to go and see why, I would tell you Corinth was just an unbelievable place to go.

Come with me to Greece.

We're going to go to Philippi, we're going to go to Thessaloniki, we're going to go to Berea.

It's going to be an incredible time together.

Slide little plug.

Would love for you to go with me, okay?

We've got about 40 people signed up and would love to have you be a part of that.

But let me just tell you, because of all the activity, it was a place where young people were flocking to.

It was a place where you thought this could be a location that I could advance in my career.

This is a place that I could go and advance in my future.

This is a place relationally that I could meet someone and we could be able to be together forever, somebody successful.

If it were around today, Amazon and Apple would have headquarters in Corinth.

This is a place where every single big sports franchise would want to make sure that they have a team that is located in the city of Corinth.

They hosted the Isthmian Games where Greeks and Romans from all over the empire could come and not only compete in athletics, but also in drama and in music and in oratory.

Here's what you have.

Think about our modern day Olympics, combined with the spelling bee, combined with music festivals.

That's what you got in the city of Corinth.

It's got it all, literally everything you could ever want in this great city.

Had wealth, had luxury, had incredible architecture.

In fact, we'll see some of these when we go and visit the city.

We will begin to see some of the ruins of the multiple temples that they had to Greek and to Roman gods.

And here's what you also found.

In the midst of having everything that you could ever want in a world-class city, you also had everything that you could ever want in terms of the vices of a world-class city.

We're going to see this come up over and over again in the book of Corinthians.

There was sexual perversion that literally was ruling the day.

There was greed that existed in the midst of all of the people that began to change their priorities from what they should have done in order to what is going to get them most ahead.

What you found was there was a lot of competition because people were trying to advance themselves, and so they were trying to compare themselves and get ahead of the other person.

In light of that, there was constantly this kind of dog-eat dog mentality.

Everyone was out for themselves.

What you see is the Apostle Paul planted a church here and spent 18 months in the city working with this church.

Here's the journey that he took while he was on his first missionary journey.

He spent 18 months there.

He had great success when he planted the church.

He led a lot of people to Christ.

He loved the city, he loved the church, he loved the people, he loved the area.

But as Paul does on so many of his church plants, he gets it going, he establishes leaders, and then he exits and goes and plants another church.

It says that he goes on to Ephesus in Acts chapter 18.

Acts 18 · chapter mention

And while he's in Ephesus, he gets word that this congregation that he had planted that he loved in Corinth began to have some red flags.

Began to have some problems.

They began to do things that they shouldn't have been doing.

And so Paul actually writes three different letters to go and address all of the problems.

We don't have the first letter, but we have the second two letters, which are in our Bible represented as 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians.

And so as we look through this, what I want you to know is this the problems and the red flags that existed in the church at Corinth are eerily similar to the problems and the red flags that exist in the American church today.

What I want you to see is that Paul is going to be writing this both out of a place of brotherly concern, but also as a way to say, you guys better get your act together.

Like you guys had better figure this out.

And he writes them specific instructions on how to set the church up, on how to do things in orderly a fashion, about what you do with spiritual gifts, about love, about relationships, about marriage.

On and on and on, we're gonna see these topics that are addressed.

Let's begin reading in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, beginning in verse 1.

1 Corinthians 1 · chapter mention

Paul called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus and our brother Sosthenes.

Let me just give you a quick aside.

In our current day, when we write letters, we write who the letter is to.

We write a little greeting, we write the bulk of the letter, and then we sign off who it's from at the very end.

Biblical letters are opposite.

What you actually see is the author listed first, and then you begin to see some of all the things take place at the beginning.

That's what we have.

Verse 2 to the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who are in every place, call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

He then goes and gives a little verses four through nine, a little, a little a little Thanksgiving section where he's kind of nice and tells them, Hey, there's some things I'm really thankful about, that I've heard good things about you, really proud of you.

Then he moves and the tone shifts in verse 10 to where you can tell he is upset.

He's gonna start dealing with some red flags.

Look at verse 10.

I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.

For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers.

What I mean is that each one of you says, I follow Paul, or I follow Apollos, or I follow Cephas, or I follow Christ.

Can you almost hear, if you were to read it the way that we probably hear it, the whining that goes along in that?

I follow Paul, I follow Apollos, I follow this.

It's just kind of tit for tat stuff, like this is my guy, this is my guy, this is my guy.

I love the last one that says, Well, some of them say at the very end, or I follow Christ.

I don't follow any of these people, I just follow Christ.

Right?

Look at what it says in verse 13.

Is Christ divided?

Was Paul crucified for you?

Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?

I thank God that I baptized none of you except Christmas and Gaius, so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name.

Parentheses, I did baptize also the household of Stephanus.

Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.

I love it that Paul has a senior moment.

He forgets who he baptized.

Oh, oh yeah, them too.

I forgot them.

Let's add them in there too.

Verse 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

Bottom line principle I want you to see from the text today is this the cross is superior to preferences.

The cross is superior to preferences.

The red flag at the time was the church was fighting over preferences.

Verse 10, it says there should be no divisions.

The original language is the word schisms.

The word schisms is where we get our modern English word scissors.

Literally, the picture is this: it means something that cuts, something that divides, something that separates two things that were previously put together.

I want you to see it's not wrong for you to have preferences.

It's actually normal and a part of God's good makeup of how he made you and how he made us to be able to have preferences.

The problem comes when we make our preferences into schisms.

When we make our preferences become so important to us that they lead to division.

In this case, the preference is regarding personality.

Like it's actually normal for you to go to a church and want to have to like the music as opposed to have to endure the music.

Maybe you want to make sure that there's a connection.

When you're choosing a group, you for sure want to go to a group that you can be like, I could see myself connecting with these people, relating to these people, having a relationship with these people.

Those are all very normal things.

The problem is when these preferences become identity.

This is what was happening here at the church at Corinth.

You had some, he said, Man, I want Paul to be my guy.

Paul is the guy who was once a persecutor of Christians.

He was once who had a radical testimony and God saved him, and he went from persecuting Christians to now he has trying to help other people become Christians.

We know Paul is really good at theologian.

He's got very good theology because we see so much of what we understand about the church and so much of what we understand about the gospel is as a result of the writing and the theology of Paul.

But what you also see with Paul is that Paul many times says he's not eloquent in speech or he's not eloquent with his words.

And in fact, there was one story in the book of Acts where Paul was so boring, there was a guy on the third floor who was sitting in the window seal who fell asleep, he fell down, and he died as a result of listening to Paul preach.

He was so boring, Paul killed a guy, right?

That's what you got when you got Paul, all right?

Good in theology, but he's just not a good speaker.

Then you got Apollos.

We love Apollos.

Apollos is found in chapter 18 of Acts chapter 18.

Acts 18 · chapter mention

And what you find is that the church began to grow when Apollos was in charge.

What that means is that Apollos was a really good preacher.

He was a really good communicator.

He had a way with his words that was winsome, and he had a way, the ability to connect with people.

And you kind of thought, man, this guy's talking just to me.

I gotta invite all my friends to come and hear him speak.

The problem was Apollos multiple times had to be pulled aside and corrected in this theology.

Meaning he was a really good speaker, but he wasn't really deep.

He didn't really have good background.

Other people say, I want Cephas.

Cephas is another name for Peter.

This means I want to go old school.

I want somebody who's gonna stand up there and they're gonna be able to quote all the Old Testament references, and I want somebody who's gonna tell me about the Jewish heritage, and I want to tell somebody that's gonna tell me about all the things that I'm supposed to do.

And then my favorite, well, I just follow Jesus.

It's just me and Jesus.

I don't really follow any of those guys.

I just follow Jesus.

Maybe some of you are in the same boat.

Maybe you've been burned by a preacher in the past, and so therefore, you'll say, I don't need a preacher, I don't need a church, I don't need a small group, it's just me and my Bible and Jesus.

Here's the problem Paul says it's really dangerous.

I'm not telling you that you should blindly follow a leader, but I am telling you you gotta have one.

That's what the Bible suggests.

That in his way that he's designed this whole thing, he has designed not for you to have a fanboy that you're a favorite of, but he has designed for you to be under godly leadership.

The Bible, in fact, tells us that you're supposed to let God deal with the leadership, you're just supposed to be the one that follows.

And so even if it's a bad leadership, God will fix that.

Trust me, God's got his judgment upon that.

But what it does say is this I can't just be like, well, it's just me and Jesus and nobody else.

That's not true.

It's not at all how it should be.

It's interesting though, because today's modern world, there's this idea of a celebrity pastor, which is just so foreign to the Bible.

But you've got this idea now where you got podcasts and you've got little clips that are online, and you got all these different things, and followers, and whatever else.

You can basically have this is my preacher on Monday, and this is my preacher on Tuesday, and this is my preacher on Thursday, and you can have a buffet of all your favorite hits who basically can speak to you and become your quote pastor.

The problem is they're not your pastor, they're just somebody that you listen to.

Maybe you think about that in terms of your time at United City Church.

And you would say, Man, you know what?

PC's my guy.

I love PC.

I love when he speaks, I love when he preaches.

But honestly, you know, really, I love it.

I'm so really glad.

I would never tell PC this, but I really love it is when Pastor Dave gets up there and he preaches.

He's way better.

He yells at me the whole time and he gets all energetic.

But man, I just love it.

I connect with Pastor Dave in a special way.

Some of you may say, you know what?

Actually, Josh Thomas is my guy.

He sings and he preaches.

I mean, that's my guy.

Like he does them both.

I really like Josh Thomas.

Or maybe some of you, what you would say is, you know what?

I don't even know who any of those guys are.

I just know this.

I was in the hospital and David Humphrey showed up.

And he was there.

And he was at my hospital bed.

And I don't really care who speaks on stage.

All I know is this I love David Humphrey.

Or maybe I went to a funeral service and David Humphrey led in that funeral service, and man, it just felt like the way that he led connected with me.

Here's what I would tell you.

I could go on and on and on about our team.

And all of our team would simply tell you the same thing.

We're grateful that you connect with any or all of us, but all of us feel the same way.

We're on team Jesus.

He was here before we got here, and he's gonna be here when we leave.

And so at the end of the day, while you can connect with somebody, please don't worship somebody.

Because we are not the point.

At the end of the day, we are all here to make much of the person of Jesus.

And if we get to be the tool that God uses in a season of your life to connect you to the ultimate one who will be here long after all of us are gone, praise God that he chose to use us.

But please make sure that that preference never becomes something more than it should be.

The cross is superior to preferences.

Folks, here's the thing: there's still preference wars that happen in the church today.

I got some people who would say, you know, man, you just need to go deeper.

That's what we need.

We more than John Piper, more, more, uh, more John MacArthur.

Like, you need to go deeper.

Give me some meat.

Like, I feel like you don't do deep enough.

And all this fluff and the signage and the first impression, none of that stuff matters, all right?

All that matters is are you going deep and going really verse by verse, making sure that's the most important thing.

Other people would say this it's all about experience.

I want to go to a church where I feel goosebumps during the worship.

I want to go to a church where when the pastor preaches, man, the hair on my skin begins to raise, and I immediately begin to think, man, that's a that's I want to tweet that.

I want, I want to send that out.

Like I want to post that right there.

Like that was so good.

Here's the problem when it comes to you focusing on experiences, because a lot of times we may say, Man, I want to I want to be at a part of a church whenever the spirit is moving and God is there, and people come forward and they begin to pray.

You can experience your way straight to hell unless your experience is about Jesus.

We care about that, we think about that, but make no mistake, we don't worship our experiences.

We instead recognize that our experiences can mislead us.

We instead we don't make much about Jesus.

Other people say it's all about discipleship.

It's all about discipleship, it's all about going deeper, it's all about making sure that we're connected, it's all about making sure that we do life together and that we spend more time together and that we interact with each other and we're open and we're honest and we're transparent.

That's what it's all about.

Other people are gonna say this it's all about evangelism and it's all about missions, and your church is really only defined by how much money you give away and how many people that you send, and how many folks get to know about Jesus.

Other folks are gonna say it's all about social justice, it's all about those who are underprivileged, it's all about the poor, it's all about those who can't speak up for themselves.

That's what a church should be about.

Every single thing that I just told you, United City Church does and wants to do even greater things in those areas.

But make no mistake about it.

Whatever door you entered, it's a big room.

It's a really big room.

And what you can never do is allow your connection point to the church to become so sacred that it becomes the only thing.

That matters.

Instead, the beauty of God's church is that while you may have come because you see community efforts and helping out to the poor, you get to come in here and you realize, oh wow, there's a worship experience that also God begins to move.

And I've got a friend of mine who, guess what?

They're not going to come in that same door, but they'll come in on that door.

And so therefore, I'm going to go and I'm going to help get them in whatever door that I possibly can in order to see there is a big room, and all of us have this one thing in common.

We all lift our hands up to the same Jesus.

We all worship and praise the same Savior.

That is what we are defined by.

That is what we rally around.

The plea in 1 Corinthians, look at what it says in verse 10 is for unity around the cross.

He says, be united in the same mind in the same judgment.

I think we've got to define unity though.

I mean, I I I watched the debate this past week.

There's a whole lot of rhetoric about how we got to just come together as a country.

We've got to make sure to lay aside our differences and we got to come together.

The problem is you have two radically different understandings of what our country is and what our country needs.

And so it seems like trite of like, oh, oh, okay, I should just shut off all of the thinking that I have, and I should just put all these things down, and I should come along to another side, and that that should be how I achieve unity.

I think a lot of times, the same way that we would never do that with our politics, we try to act like we should do in our churches.

Oh, we should just all come together.

We should just all rally together.

All the churches should just have a joint meeting and have a joint group, and we should all just be together.

And it's like that sounds really, really good, but I don't want to achieve unity by checking what is non-negotiable for me at the door.

And so I realize that sometimes we can get so hung up on things that may be secondary issues, and we we miss the fact that there's a big tent that exists, but we can't forsake what's at the top of the tent.

I want to give you what I would call my big seven, okay?

These are big seven things that I would tell you.

These are not areas that I believe there's any room for negotiation.

I would tell you that if you don't agree with me on these, I think you're wrong, right?

And I think you're wrong because I believe that if you miss these things and you use the word Christian, you're not allowed to use that word because it's already taken.

It's taken with the people that believe these seven things.

If you don't believe one of these things, I believe it makes you not just like you think differently a little bit, I think you're out.

And I would pray and ask that God would lead you to come in.

So it's important that we rally around the same things.

Take your phones out.

I want you to take a picture of this.

These are the big seven, all right?

These are the big seven.

I think this is what unity has to be defined by.

These are non-negotiable things.

Number one, the Trinity.

This is the understanding of who God is.

We believe that there is one God who exists in three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Literally, if you if you mess this part up, the whole thing crumbles and falls apart.

So, therefore, it's vitally important that you have a correct understanding of who God is.

Look at the next one, number two, the spiritual lostness of the human race.

Let me tell you why that's important.

Because if you do not define the problem accurately, then you will never come up with the same solution.

I think that's a big part of the problem we have in our politics right now.

They're defining the problems differently.

I would tell you from all issues, politically, socially, relationally, every problem that you have stems from this fundamental problem, which is the fact that you are lost before holy God who created you.

Number three, the full deity and the humanity of Christ.

We believe that Jesus came as God's Son, He was 100% God, and He was 100% man.

Because of this, we believe that He was able to be the solution.

The Bible says in Philippians chapter 2 that he emptied himself.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

He didn't give away his deity, but he came and he dwelt among us, the most incredible reality of all.

Every other religion tells you what you have to do to get to God.

Christianity is the only one that tells you what God did to get to you.

Look at the next one: the full substitutionary atonement and bodily resurrection of Christ.

I do not believe that Jesus was just a good teacher, although I think he was a great teacher.

I don't believe that Jesus was just a good example, although I believe he was a great example.

I believe that Jesus instead gave a substitutionary, sacrificial death on a cross.

He died, he took away, took on our sins upon himself.

He rose from the dead three days later, defeating the power of sin and death.

And because of that, I'm able to give my life to him, and he is able to be the substitutionary atonement for our sins.

Number five, salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone.

Pope Francis this past week came out in Singapore and he was speaking to a group of children.

And he said basically this He said that all religions lead to the same place to God.

He said, whether you're Sikh, whether you're Muslim, whether you're Buddhist, whether you're Hindu, whether you're Christian, all different religions ultimately lead to God.

Every one of those different religions are different languages that people speak in order to go and to get to God.

That is heretical at the core of everything that's been said.

And no way do we believe that.

And we will never unify around a false gospel.

Because the gospel says this Jesus says, I am the way and the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me.

Which I say that not with the spirit of trying to be mean.

I say that with instead, that is what drives our heart for evangelism.

Because ultimately, we don't want people to build wells and go to hell.

We want people instead to have clean water and know the living water that comes with it.

We want people to know Jesus.

And so, therefore, it would be non-loving in any way for us to tell them a gospel that is not true.

But instead, we believe that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, and in Christ alone.

Look at the next one, number six, the physical return of Christ.

We believe Jesus is coming back and he's gonna judge the earth.

And so, in light of that, we believe that what we do right now matters.

And so, therefore, we want to be active and pursuing, trying to do everything we can to usher the kingdom of God in right now, but also recognizing this, God one day is gonna come, he's gonna judge.

We talked about this in our taboo series.

He's gonna come back, and when he does, he's gonna judge both the living and the dead.

And so, therefore, we live in light of his return.

Last thing is this the authority and the inerity of scripture.

It is so very obvious that you, if you cannot take the Republican platform or the Democratic platform, and that be your way of understanding what truth is.

Because there's a lot of what both platforms suggest that is wrong.

And so, therefore, we must not take our cues from the culture by what is most politically expedient.

We must take instead our truth coming from allowing the Bible to speak louder than every other thing that's out there.

And so, in light of that, we want to make sure, even if it disagrees with the mainstream movement of culture, we know, yeah, but it says it here.

And so, because of that, this wins.

This is more important, this is louder, this is what I'm gonna bank my life on.

Folks, I would tell you, I'm all about unity.

I want us to be united.

But make no mistake about it, we're never gonna achieve unity unless you agree with these things.

You can come to United City and we would love for you to be here.

You're just not gonna like it a whole lot.

Because at the end of the day, this is what we're gonna constantly be pointing ourselves to.

I want you to notice there's a number of things that are not on this list that you're like, well, what about that?

And I would tell you, you could maybe believe differently than I do on that, and you can still attend United City and love it.

So I want you to know we don't want to make every issue primary, but we do want to make sure that we don't define unity in a way that forsakes what is absolutely non-negotiable.

Let me mention this as well.

I don't think unity is uniformity.

Unity isn't accomplished when everyone looks the same, dresses the same, cheers for the same team, attends the same schools, likes all the same music.

Unity is not accomplished when we are all from the same backgrounds, from the same generation, we vote for the same candidates on everything.

My prayer for the first three years when I was here, the pastor of United City was for unity and diversity.

I pray that we would be unified in our mission, but we would be diversified in how that mission was accomplished, both in terms of what we did and who we did it with.

It is my prayer that we would be a place that makes Jesus the focus, and that everyone and every day would cross every divide to live united in Christ.

That we would look like our community and that we would grow in diversity, in race, in socioeconomic background, in language, and in look.

Not that we would celebrate diversity for diversity's sake, but that we would achieve unity around the thing that can actually bring people together, and that is the worship and the praise and the honor of Jesus.

Last week I had the opportunity to sit right over there in a seat during the midst of a service of a Spanish service at one o'clock.

I couldn't understand one single word that took place, but guess what?

I got the opportunity to be able to take the cup, and I got to be able to take the fruit of the vine, and I got to drink from that cup, and I got to be able to eat of that bread, and I got to join these folks, so we don't speak the same language, but we lift our hands to the same God.

Folks, that is the goal.

That is the picture.

That is what we want more and more and more of.

And whenever we have the same mind and the same judgment, allowing the cross of Jesus Christ to be superior to our preferences, it leads to life change.

What does this look like?

Two weeks ago, we had a group of serve team members from United City who went and packed 2,200 bags with toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, and deodorant.

They went back a few days later and they gave them away to prisoners and told them about our services that they could find by watching on the Pando app.

Paul Smith, one of our key serve team members in the prison ministry, said this.

I don't think I've ever been in a church where so many people are willing to step outside their comfort zone and serve the Lord.

This is what unity around the cross leads to.

Mike and Caitlin Laughlin are new members here at United City.

They joined earlier this year.

They got a seventh grader, fourth grader, kindergartner all plugged into United City.

Caitlin started serving in preschool, which certainly can present some challenges along the way.

Dave Kinney celebrated last month, his five years on our staff.

Their families are very close.

And she sent this text message that perfectly captures her experience here at United City.

I hope Dave knows the impact that he has on people's lives.

Because his impact on our family is incredibly significant.

I know y'all couldn't see me, but I was bawling my eyes out during service when everyone was praying over you guys.

I don't think that he, you, or your family as a whole will ever fully understand how much y'all have changed our lives.

We were longing for a change a year ago, longing for God for so very much, and because of you guys, we found it at United City.

Dave's prayers for us, Baptizing Abbey, and now coaching with Michael, helping influence these boys, it all just overwhelms me.

A fire is in our hearts, and now in our home, we constantly talk about giving back to the church, the community, and more so that people can feel the life-changing feeling that we felt through this church.

As I was getting pooped on multiple times today in one of our blue classrooms while serving, just keeping it real, folks, that's what you get to deal with whenever you work in preschool.

It's awesome.

Here's our response.

I felt so much joy for being able to give back to a place that's given me and my family so much.

This is what unity around the cross leads to.

Sam Tollison.

I met Sam and his wife Caitlin a few weeks after they started attending here at United City, and this was the email that he sent me.

I first want to thank God for guiding my family to United City.

We were all overcome with so much love, and we welcomed in on the first Sunday service that we attended on July 14th.

We are excited to be taking our next steps with God and your congregation.

I was raised in a church, but I completely rescinded any belief that I had not long after my father passed away in 2004 from cancer.

I was 14 in ninth grade when that happened, and that time I turned to drinking and hard drugs.

My mother, out of desperation, moved us to New Orleans two weeks before Hurricane Katrina hit.

That was wild.

When that happened, I dropped out of high school, quit drugs, started working labor jobs, which was vastly more available in the wake of the hurricane.

2008, I decided to join the Marine Corps.

I served five years as an infantry machine gunner.

A few years ago, I met my wife Caitlin, the most wonderful and caring soul that I'd ever met.

We fell in love quickly and were married two years later.

She's a devout Catholic, and I was a rather staunch atheist, and we made it work perfectly with respect.

In the last year, I've started questioning the validity of my claims to atheism.

Two months ago, I talked to my wife about looking for a church with my children.

We started looking around and went to three different churches in the area until we found United City.

And we planned two other churches after and did not feel the need to try them out.

Needless to say, we found our home in United City.

My daughter Danny asked me to buy her a Bible the Sunday that we attended the first time, and it looks forward to every Sunday in the four or five group.

She was never raised religious and is yearning to learn and take our next steps.

My son Kyle is getting there, and we're having a great time in his classes and enjoys the worship service.

The core values speak to us more than any other church that we've attended.

I feel as though God led us to United City, and I could not be more excited for my family's future in the church.

August 11th, Sam was baptized here at United City.

This is what unity.

God is moving in our church in significant ways.

We baptize someone almost every single Sunday.

We have people making decisions and taking next steps.

We had multiple decisions at our 8:30 as well as our 10 o'clock service today.

We see folks that are engaging in service, and that is because of all the entry points and connection points into this place.

We met AJ earlier, guys raising up residents in our midst.

We pray it's even more in the days of mistake about it.

We have one main message.

And we want to do everything that we can to make my question, Jesus.

That is Jesus.

Would you come forward today?

Would you let us pray with you so that you can know for sure you've got a relationship with Jesus?

I'm gonna ask our team to go ahead and come up front if you would.

If you're here today and you need a relationship with Jesus, our team is gonna be in the front of the aisles.

We're gonna be on the side.

What I'm gonna ask you to do right now, no one looking around.

That's you.

Maybe you have questions.

Maybe you're ready.

You just need somebody to guide you.

I just want you to look up and I want you to see who the nearest person is to you that's standing in front.

Once you do that, you're welcome to bow your heads again.

It's up to you.

What's gonna happen here is in just a moment.

I'm gonna pray.

When I say amen, we're all gonna stand up.

That's gonna be your cue.

This is what I'm supposed to go.

And I just want you to walk straight up to the person that you looked at who is closest to you.

Whether they're on the front or they're on the sides.

There are other people that are here that need to join United City Church.

We are not a perfect church, I would tell you that up front.

But we're a church that's gonna do everything in our power to make much of Jesus.

We want so badly for people to know about Jesus here in Northeast Houston and beyond.

So if God is leading you to come be a part of United City, would you lead the way today?

By your coming, you're gonna be an encouragement and inspiration to other people that are here that need to make that same decision.

Others of you need to come and be baptized, like these two that we saw today.

These two high schoolers giving their life to Jesus, now making their testimony public through believers' baptism.

If that's you, would you come and let us schedule your baptism?

We'd love nothing more than to celebrate that with you.

Others of you need prayer today.

Maybe you've got a medical need, maybe you've got a financial need, maybe you've got a relational need.

Maybe you find yourself with these preferences and you're just frustrated because this is not what they used to do, and they took away this program, or this person left, or whatever, and you're you're kind of just hung up on it.

Instead of allowing yourself to be about the person of Jesus, what he's doing and what he wants to do in the midst of his church.

If you need to pray with somebody, we don't want you to feel like you're all alone.

We instead would love nothing more than the opportunity to pray with and to pray for you.

Father, I pray you'd move in these moments we have left.

Thank you, Lord, for public next steps.

Give boldness, give courage, Lord, today for people to respond to you as you lead.

It's in the name of Jesus that I pray.

Amen.

Would you stand that as you stand?

You come forward right now as God is leading you to respond.

Come on.

Come on, away from you.

Philippians chapter two.

It says that the name of Jesus, every name of Baal, and every tongue you confess.

Jesus Christ is Lord.

I hope you'll be back next week as we continue in our series in the book of Red Flags and the Book of 1 Corinthians.

We're gonna be looking at the end of chapter 1, and up to chapter 2, invite someone to come and be a part of this, folks.

We are getting close! We're just a few weeks away from basically all the places that you sit disrupting all of it.

Alright, I just want you to know that.

Get ready for it.

We're about to move into the middle section, it's gonna be exciting, and as we head in that direction, I just wanna encourage you to continue to be faithful to invite me and include other people.

AJ, would you come and would you close our service?

United States Church, can we give Pastor Chris a hand for that word today?

Unbelievable.

Unbelievable word.

I don't know where your background is, I don't know where you're coming from, I don't know where you're coming just before you walked in these doors, but I do know that what PC said is true.

We've got one thing, one message that we hold on to and that we cling to, and that is Christ is crucified and risen.

That He is Savior and Lord, amen?

Amen.

Well, hey, we're a church that believes in next steps, and maybe your next step is to come and look like what unity looks like being a part of us, the United City Church.

I just encourage you to invite me to Girl Track.

We have it every Sunday in the Girl Track room at the 10am service to just come a little bit earlier than you normally do.

You'll still be able to sleep in some months, okay?

Um, and check this out.

It's a really good opportunity for us just to get to know you and you to get to know us a little better every week.

Now with that, I mean I'm I'm telling you I'm a little amped right now.

Peace is gonna be ready to run through a wall, but go this week, and don't just be excited about it, but ask the little what he might wanna do in your life to speak with the messages that you just heard.

With that, you guys do this mess.

We love you, see you.

Have a great day.