More Than Sunday: Resonance and Rootedness | Part 1

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

We have always said at Awakening that we're not just a Sunday church, but we're an everyday church.

Now, that's notice how we phrase that, not just a Sunday church.

Sunday's extremely important.

We just spent six weeks talking about how important Sunday is through that our last series called Not Your Ordinary Church Service.

Sundays are extremely important, but that's not where church ends for us at Awakening.

In fact, church begins on Sunday and extends through the rest of the week.

So that's why we're launching this series for the next two weeks called More Than Sunday.

So we are not just a Sunday church, we're an everyday church.

And what we want to think about for just two weeks is what does a good community look like?

What does a strong community look like?

Because all of us, you know, that's a buzzword today.

Like we want to be a part of a community.

We want to be part of a family that's not really our blood family, but is like this community, family, church is an extension of that that we want to feel a part of, that we want to be a part of.

Well, what does a strong one look like?

And as we've thought about this question, I want to give you this verse at the top of the message and at the top of the series from Romans 15, 7.

This is in your bulletin.

This is also in your Bible.

Okay, so open your Bible to Romans 15 and look at verse 7 of Romans 15.

It says this welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God.

Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you.

Here's something to consider.

What makes a strong community?

Well, could you welcome people into your life and your community with the same way in which Jesus welcomed you into his?

Or if you're just joining a community and stepping into our life here at Awakening, could you step in and join into community here at Awakening with the same attitude as Jesus Christ?

Let's pray, ask for God's help as we consider these questions and many more.

Heavenly Father, um, we seek you this morning uh for a word.

And we do want that.

We want something announced upon our life, something given to us from you.

So please, Holy Spirit, use my weaknesses uh and and my abilities and inabilities to communicate what what you desire and help us as your church have ears to hear, have minds to understand, have hearts to receive the word that you want to give to us.

And so we're leaning in right now, we're paying attention to what it is that you might have for us in the middle of this message.

So help us, Jesus.

We pray in Christ's name.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, you might not believe this um coming from a pastor, but I do know what it's like to be new to a church.

And I know what it's like to step into community.

I know what it's like kind of recently, uh, of what it means to kind of step in.

And I'm not, I'm not actually talking about awakening because I had like a cheat code coming to Awakening.

I was on staff when I came here.

So it's like, you know, but I I know what it's like for some of you who are stepping into church for the very first time.

It was actually right before I joined Awakening.

I had stepped out of a ministry position in San Francisco, and my wife and I, uh, I didn't have any any job lined up right away, and I was looking for what God would have for us next.

And, you know, when you're married to a pastor like my wife is, like when when I left the ministry, we were like without a church, you know?

Uh kind of comes with the package.

And for us, like for Ali and I, not being a part of community, not being a part of church was was not the option.

Uh it was just about where.

So we just kind of found this church in Menlo Park near where we were meeting.

And we went to like a startup kind of thing.

Like some of you just went to 50 plus of you were in a room over there, and you have a name tag and you show up and you're like, hi, I'm Chris.

And I remember that anxiety.

And especially as a pastor, as someone who's very used to organizing and running those spaces, to step in as a participant was humbling in some ways.

Just like, okay, I'm I'm here.

But this is what matters.

And it was really, I believe, what I know Allie and I really needed in that time was community.

And we stepped in and we sat at this table, and and sitting there, we're all strangers.

We had never met before and never known before.

And I remember at that table was Colin and Jen Meese, who we found out lived literally around the corner, like a three-minute walk from my apartment that we were living in at the time.

And we got to know them, and there we felt welcomed into a community and started a community.

And praise God, Colin and Jen are some of our good friends to this day.

And God used just, I was thinking about that time, I was to think about you guys, because I was like, stepping into community sometimes, right?

You have the anxieties about it, you're like, my schedule, like, man, how's this gonna work?

But God will reward it in really strange ways because God is using that step of faith to step into community uh to meet something deeper in you, to meet something uh beneath your articulated need of community is a need for kind of roots.

I think that when we think about community, sometimes we use that word and we don't understand the thing beneath the thing or the thing behind the thing.

Why be a part of a community?

Why be a part of a church?

We don't just want community, we don't just want church community.

We need two things, I think, that community give gives us, a strong community gives us, I should say.

The first is that root, those roots I was talking about, a level of rootedness, and also something I want to call resonance.

Resonance and rootedness.

Resonance is like that experience you have with someone where they're nodding your head at their head and they're like, oh my gosh, same here.

Like I resonate with that.

And there's some kind of mutual frequency you guys meet up on and see, and it carries on to your life, right?

When you think about resonance, I mean, I immediately think about music.

I think about like a concert hall, for example, and a room that has resonance, right?

Or an instrument that has resonance, where you hit that piano key in a large concert hall, and that one note can kind of echo, we might say, or carry on.

It's amplified.

There's not a lot of work, the same amount of work is being done hitting a piano key outside as it is in a concert hall.

But when it comes into a concert hall, the resonance with which that instrument is uh brings it amplifies that sound as the space is made for that particular instrument or that particular note.

And I think we want that from community.

We want that tiny bit of effort, maybe, or that little, that two hours on a Thursday night, or that one and a half hours on a Monday night that you meet with somebody in a small group for it, that note to strike and it to resonate through your life as things go on.

I had to ask specific, um, smarter people than me in the church uh about resonance because the physics of it make no sense to me.

So I asked engineers, and oh, they all wrote back, and I didn't understand half of it.

But it's about applying a certain frequency of energy into a system or an object, and it happens to be at resonance with that system, a sharply increased amplitude of energy results from that, right?

So you're hitting that piano key.

It's like one of the guys wrote back to me, said, It's like when you're pushing Jude, my son, on a swing, right?

It's like a little bit of effort can go a long ways, and a little bit of effort by putting pushing that piano key in the right space when the frequency is right, can amplify.

It's like this with our relationships.

This is what we're looking for.

When we're looking for community, we want to be able to hang out with people and it to matter over time, for it to echo, for it to resonate with what it is that you and I need.

In other words, I think with resonance, it's about being accepted, like you feel right in the space, because it's a resonant space.

And it's also an amplified experience, right?

When you're sitting with those people in that room, you're like, you're looking for that.

And we're so busy today that it's hard to find resonance.

Resonance asks the question, is this worth my time?

Right?

Will I spend a little bit of time here and will it matter next week?

Or will it matter the next day?

Resonance asks the question, is this worth my time?

Rootedness, that asks the question, like, will this last?

Rootedness is also something we are looking for in community.

A consistent group of people who keep us grounded to our core values and commitments, right?

Uh maybe you're new to the Bay Area.

The Bay Area is famously an unrooted place.

We are not a rooted people here for the most part.

People come in, they come out.

And so oftentimes at awakening, people are looking for roots.

You know, my wife and I, for example, we don't have family here.

You guys are our family.

Without you, like we don't have rootedness here.

With you, we've got it, right?

We've got that consistency.

Healthy families, if you grew up in a healthy family, you had roots and you had resonance.

You felt like people understand you, understood you, and it was somewhat predictable that your mom and dad would be around.

If you grew up in an unhealthy family, you didn't have these things.

You lacked rootedness, things were always changing, things were never certain.

You never knew when mom or dad would be there or when you would receive love and affection and all this, and you lacked resonance.

You felt like nobody understood you in your family.

You felt so you see, healthy communities, strong communities, they have roots and they have resonance.

And this is where we pick up our text in Romans 15.

I gave you the last verse, Romans 15, 7.

Now look back at your Bibles, look in your bulletins, open your apps, and let's go to Romans 15, chapter 15, verse 1, and let's think about what makes a strong community.

Romans 15, verse 1 says this we who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.

Romans 15:1

Let us each please his neighbor for his good to build him up, for Christ did not please himself.

But as it is written, the reproaches or the insults of those who reproached or insulted, you fell on me.

Let's stop right here and just pick up one point of a healthy, rooted, and resonance community.

A strong community is one where everyone is always thinking about everyone else.

A strong community is one where everyone is always thinking about everybody else.

Look at this text, right?

It says, We who are strong, we have the obligation to not please ourselves.

Verse 2, let us please the neighbor, build up the neighbor, because this is what Christ has done.

This is very New Testament language.

Galatians chapter 6 says, to bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Galatians 6 · chapter mention

Philippians 2, Paul says, like, have this mind among yourselves that everyone ought to not please themselves, but to think of others more highly than themselves.

Right?

This is a very Paul, New Testament, Jesus kind of value, right?

To value other people.

This text, it raises this question, right?

If you look at it, it says, We who are strong have an obligation to bear it with the failings of the weak.

So it raises the question, well, who is strong and who is weak?

Well, look at the text, okay?

Get get get out of your notes for a little bit and just look at the text of scripture, these first seven verses in Romans 15.

And you'll see that a strong person, just by set in the context of it, a strong person is someone who is interested in pleasing their neighbor, verse 2.

A strong person is someone who allows the gospel to fuel that selflessness, verses four and five.

And it's also one that's just fiercely committed to Jesus and to other people.

That's verses two and three and verse seven, right?

If you just read the whole text, you'll see a strong person is just minded towards other people and not so minded towards themselves.

The context of this passage, Romans 15, is at the end of the letter.

There's 16 chapters in Romans.

It is history's theological masterpiece.

It's probably one of the greatest writings of pure theology that we have in any faith system.

It's largely regarded as a masterpiece.

At the end, Paul starts to unpack the implications of the theology that he has displayed and presented in Romans 1 through 11.

By the time we get to chapters 14 and 15, he's dealing with actually a specific issue, which Californians would have nothing uh to say about, but dietary issues.

Um that was a joke.

Okay, you get it on the way home.

Um the spiritual and religious significance of dietary issues.

I know no Californians know what this is about, but you know, I meet vegans who are like, it's my religion.

Um back then it actually was deeply, deeply, deeply a part of who they were.

Deeply a part of who they were, what they were all about as Jewish people, dietary restrictions were really big.

And when Paul starts to introduce what does it mean to be a strong community when you're disagreeing?

The point was people hadn't sorted out that theological issue yet.

Do they eat kosher, do they not?

What do they eat?

What do they not eat?

Do they eat food that was in a temple or not in a temple?

Do they meet food blessed by a Jewish uh you know rabbi, or do they not eat food that was blessed by anybody?

Do they just eat whatever they want?

And people hadn't sorted out that theological theological issue.

And Paul says this this is back in Romans, so you're in 15, now jump to 14, right before it.

14 verse 1 says this as for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions.

Welcome him, but don't quarrel over opinions.

Is this not a word for the 21st century?

To welcome someone and to do so with the intent purposes to not argue.

To welcome somebody not to quarrel over opinions.

Paul said, they don't have that theological issue sorted out yet.

Don't sort it out day one of your group.

Okay, they haven't figured that out yet.

Don't reorder their discipleship for them.

Don't take what God wants to build in them six years from now and try to shove it into this year.

Don't try to take what their journey will end up in and try to rearrange it and manipulate it so that you can prove your point, right?

Okay, now people haven't gotten there yet, is what Paul's saying.

So he says, welcome them and do it under the auspice of not arguing.

Make sure you are not arguing with people about specific issues.

Um, that this is this is an apologetic for us today.

Do you know what an apologetic is?

It's like a defense of the faith.

Like in the 90s and 2000s, we were like, case for Christ, like let's make a scientific argument for the resurrection.

And there's great stuff there.

It was so helpful.

But do you know what an apologetic or in a defense of the faith is right now, today?

People who disagree with each other meeting regularly and praying for one another.

That's a defense of the faith.

A defense of the faith is when people who articulate the gospel start acting like the gospel.

An apologetic of the faith is that Christians would actually do what they say they believe.

That Christians would not just preach the gospel, but that they would embody it.

That the same way Christ welcomed you, which was, he didn't ask you to sort out your opinions about him first.

He brought you in.

That's what grace is.

See, sometimes we're a Christian long enough we forget why we originally became a Christian.

You didn't originally became a Christian because you sorted your life out.

You didn't put everything up on a nice pedestal and start to go, okay, I'm gonna just pick Jesus.

No, Jesus came to you, saved you despite yourself, not because of it.

Despite your failings, despite your weaknesses, not get your weaknesses and failings back in order, and then you're accepted.

So the gospel implication is start thinking about other people that way.

You know, some of you guys know I started my doctoral studies this year, and when in we have this cohort now that I'm in that is crazy uh ecumenically diverse, meaning from different faith traditions.

I mean, there's Roman Catholic priest in my cohort, there's a Lutheran, there's a Methodist, you know, there's men and women, all different ethnicities coming together and we're studying theology.

And we disagree about a lot, right?

There's a Catholic priest in the room, him and I have some differences, okay?

We have some differences.

But the amount of things we actually agree on and can study is amazing.

And there's actually kind of this freeing space I'm in right now where it's like we know we disagree with each other.

He's got a collar on, I don't.

It's like, all right, we've got differences.

Like we know we're different, but we can still welcome one another as Christ has welcomed us and study together, learn together, grow together.

Because, see, so many Christians they say, I'm all about Jesus.

But then when it comes down to it, they're also all about their opinions.

They're all about their political beliefs and thought processes, and they think that they cannot set those aside when Jesus Christ Himself set those aside for you.

Jesus set aside his own uh divinity, right?

He set that aside and said, I will die a human death as God.

I will not consider my equality with God a thing to be grasped.

That's Philippians 2.

But instead, I will die for you.

I will die for you.

The more committed you and I are to preferences, opinions, ideals, and ideologies, the less effective we will be with real human beings.

The more preferential you become about certain things, the less you'll actually be able to build friendships and have resonance and roots with people.

Some of you guys are distancing yourselves from people in this church because of something they posted.

And you're not wanting to hang out with them because of something they said or something they posted about the recall election or vaccines or masks, and you don't want to associate with them anymore, so you've kind of taken steps back from them because of something you saw.

Because you think that you cannot be friends with somebody because you have a disagreement about a particular social or civic issue.

Could it be that these social and civic issues are not beware of having them become blocks to your spiritual growth?

They are actually often invitations to it.

That that you would actually be able to learn to be more interested in others than interested in people agreeing with yourself.

And I am not saying this is easy.

I'm preaching this because this is stuff that I feel in me.

I sense in me when so when that when I see somebody post that, or I just want to, I don't know if I want to talk.

But that's my that's what?

That's me thinking about myself.

If I'm thinking about the other person, I'm taking a step in, not a step out.

Okay, and and beware not only of social and civic issues, but beware of just personal preferences, just lighter stuff than the the politics and things that are going on in our world right now.

Just take personal preferences, beware of personal preferences being a roadblock to stepping into community.

Now, at awakening, we work all the time with personal preferences.

We want to hear from you.

Like, you know, if you want a group that's co-ed or you want a young marriage group or you want this kind of group that meets on this, dude, we will work with you.

But I want to tell you, watch out for those personal preferences kind of pushing you away from actual human beings, you know?

Um, because it's weird.

When those preferences become the thing, you're just gonna miss out on the blessing of community.

It's weird.

Like, okay, the silly example that's actually real, and I this might convict some of you, but like you know, finding a group to find a spouse that's not a vibe.

That's not gonna work.

Like, you know, hear from hey, yeah, I'm 27-year-old dude single, I'm looking for 20s group, all women.

Like, do you guys have that at awakening?

Like, what can you like connect me?

Um, you know, we want to work with your preferences, but we also want to have you grow spiritually.

Like, I'm like, really?

That's what you need to grow spiritually?

Okay.

Um, or even like networking for a career, you know, like we can we can we can start to see relationships.

I think the Silicon Valley breeds this in this culture, is like seeing relationships as ways we can advance our career and stuff like that.

I would say this even beware of like the number one reason you wanna join a group or be a part of a community or come to church is to find friends.

Now here's the deal you come to awakening, you're gonna find friends.

You're gonna find friends, you absolutely will find friends.

But when the social aspect becomes the primary thing above the spiritual growth that God is inviting you into, it just is gonna backfire.

As your pastor, I care about you, I don't want it to backfire on you.

You've got to make the spiritual stuff the primacy, and you've got to make other people the focus, right?

You've got to look towards other people.

So a rooted practice, I have a rootedness and resonant practice for you.

The rooted practice, like how can I grow some roots?

Stick with your group.

Join a group, stick with your group, not for your sake, but for others.

Because see, with roots, man, other people need you to show up.

Like, you see how it works?

Like, other people need you to be there.

Other people need you to not just sign up for a group, but to actually show up for a group every week.

Or show up to your community every week.

Or however often you meet, right?

The resonance practice is this.

Go into your group.

How do you get resonance?

Well, don't think, what can I get from this group?

Think like, what can I give, right?

What can I give?

So when you're going there, don't be like, man, I really need, I really need encouragement from them.

Pray on your way there or as you're about to sign on to that Zoom and just go, God, what can I give to somebody in this room tonight?

It will change how you think about community.

Keep notes on what people are asking for for prayer.

Um, this is what it means to be a strong community, according to the text.

I love what the NIV translation says of verse three.

It says, even Christ did not please himself.

I love the even that the NIV throws in there.

Even Christ didn't please himself.

So if you're his follower, why would you?

This is from a sermon from like the year 380, John Chrysanthem.

He says this.

He, this is him preaching on this text in Constantinople in like 380, okay, years and years ago.

He says this he hadn't, uh he, Jesus, had power not to have been reproached, power not to have suffered what he did suffer, had he been minded to look to his own things.

But yet he was not so minded.

Look at this.

But through looking to our good, he neglected his own.

That is how Jesus has loved you.

He looked through his own needs to yours.

Could you do the same?

To welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you?

That's how Christ has welcomed you.

This is from a Middle Eastern church father from the night in the fourth century.

This is our faith.

You don't get to make it up.

This is it.

This is what the gospel requires of us.

And for how hard this is for me, how naturally I'm inclined to think of my own self, I must receive this word.

It's a word of life, it's a word for us as a church to grow, which is why the strong community doesn't just think of other people, the strong community is one where everyone is always thinking about Jesus.

So not only is everyone in a strong community always thinking about everyone else, but everyone in that strong community is always thinking about Jesus.

After Paul quotes in verse 3, he's quoting Psalm 69, 9, he then writes this in verse 4, Romans 15, 4.

For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.

So may the God of endurance and encouragement grant you all, that's a plural you, by the way, in the Greek, you all, to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Notice verse five.

Live in such harmony.

That's where I kind of thought about the resonance thing, right?

Like living in harmony with one another, in accord with Jesus Christ.

How a strong community operates is it is in accord with Jesus Christ.

It is living in a harmonious, uh, synchronous relationship with Jesus together, all of us thinking about Jesus together.

In fact, the live in such harmony, that Greek phrase in there uh is the Greek word froneo, which is does not mean harmony.

It actually expresses uh kind of what you would think about when you're um all thinking about the same thing.

In other places, it's translated having the same mind.

It literally can mean thinking on the same thing, thinking about Jesus together.

The verb's commonly used like to signify formulating and holding an opinion.

So Paul is saying, formulate your opinions, but make sure everyone in the community is formulating the opinion that Jesus Christ is Lord.

As that becomes the ingredient to the community, you not only are thinking about everybody else, but everyone is thinking about Jesus.

What does that mean?

Well, Jesus, his scriptures, the Bible, Old and New Testament, his teachings, his wisdom, his church, his Holy Spirit that operates in all of you.

Jesus and everything that that means is encompassed in the number one thing on the agenda of a healthy community.

Because it gets the community outside of its own self.

It gets the community focusing on a reservoir of love and grace that exists in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

That's on the agenda.

That's number one on the agenda.

That comes before everything else, your opinions, your even your emotions, how are you doing?

The first thing we do is we look towards Jesus in prayer.

We look towards Jesus in his words.

It's not saying those things don't matter, it's saying we inform everything else around the centrality of the person of Jesus Christ and who he is, right?

You know, I hear a lot, like, uh, you know, I they say people tell me, like, Chris, I just want somebody to love me without an agenda.

And I'm like, I don't.

I think when something matters, you put it on the agenda.

I think when someone matters, you put them on an agenda.

You say, I gotta reach out to that person.

Say, hey, we need to talk about this.

This is what something we need to address.

This is something we need to talk about.

Hey, I want to talk with you about this.

Like, that's how healthy marriages work.

Healthy marriages work with a level of planning and an agenda and priorities and values.

This is how relationships work, right?

And the church exists and works within the context of discipleship.

Discipleship is like learning to follow Jesus.

And discipleship has an agenda.

It does to help you and I become more like Jesus Christ.

And discipleship is not limited to you and your Bible alone in the morning.

That's a small part of it.

A massive part of it is learning to live together with other Christians.

We need Jesus on the agenda.

That's why in verse 4, look at why do we need him on the agenda?

Like, why, just to be religious?

Just to have like our own priorities of religious that religious people have.

No, no, no.

Look at the text.

Verse four.

Why pay attention to what was written before?

That through the endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope.

You and I need hope and we need endurance and encouragement.

That's the rootedness and resonance that can come in.

The rooted practice is that word endurance, right?

You know endurance, that's what that means, right?

To keep things going.

And that's what rootedness is asking.

Will this last?

Like we all need endurance.

I I'm telling you, it's nearly uh it's it's nearly impossible to think about somebody constantly following Jesus for 20 years without a community.

It's almost impossible to think about.

The biblical writers would have no idea what we mean when we say personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

That's not a phrase from your New Testament, that's a phrase from church language.

Now, it's not untrue, it's just interesting to note that it's not in the Bible.

Because the Bible understood your relationship with Jesus as inextricably linked with your relationships with other people.

You cannot bifurcate it.

They stay this together.

So goes your relationship with Jesus, your relationships with other people.

Those things are interconnected.

That's why bitterness and unforgiveness is one of the hardest strongholds to overcome.

That's another sermon.

Okay.

Um rootedness, your endurance through the scriptures.

Here's my question for you.

Who are you regularly reading the Bible with?

Who are you regularly reading the Bible with?

I know you go to coffee with people all the time.

I know you hang out with people all the time.

I know you have barbecues with people all the time.

But who are you regularly reading the Bible with?

Because if you're reading the Bible by yourself, there's gonna come days where you just don't want to read the Bible.

And you don't get anything from Bible reading.

So you need someone to read scripture to you, with you, alongside you.

That creates endurance from the scriptures.

So who are you reading the Bible with?

Who are you reading the Bible with?

And then the encouragement, the resonance practice.

Who is praying for you and encouraging you regularly?

Who is praying for you and encouraging you regularly?

It's quite often that I meet with some of you guys in like pastoral counseling one-on-one or something like that, and you're going through a hard time, and it is a question I often ask.

I ask, who is praying for you?

Because I, at some level, I'm interested in what you are praying, but when you're struggling, man, even when things are good, you need people who are regularly praying for you on your behalf.

It's called intercession to be able to ask the Lord for something on your behalf.

So who is praying for you regularly?

That's resonance when you share.

My wife and I are struggling, or I'm really, really stressed at work, and my boss is, I cannot find be on the same page with my boss.

It's driving me crazy.

I hate my job.

Someone needs to pray for you.

Your marriage is in trouble, somebody needs to pray for you.

You're worried about one of your kids, somebody needs to pray for you.

You're stressed about graduation, somebody needs to pray for you.

Yes, you need to pray, but who's praying for you?

Who's encouraging you?

Who's speaking life into your life?

Who's just saying, dude, keep going, you're doing great, right?

Some of us walk around and join groups and we're just like, hey, will somebody encourage me?

Will somebody encourage me?

And we also forget we need to be an encouragement to other people.

Maybe one of the reasons you lack encouragement in your life is you're not bringing in it to other people.

Maybe.

Like, how are you speaking encouragement and how are how are people speaking encouragement to you?

I I've just found if I am encouraging to other people and I'm sending those text messages and speaking those words of life to other people, encouragement comes back to me.

Encouragement comes back to me.

Strong community, you're thinking of other people, everyone's always thinking about Jesus.

And finally, a strong community is one where everyone is always receiving the gospel.

And that's our final verse in verse 7, which I started this whole sermon with.

Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you.

Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you.

You just started to receive Jesus, you just started to receive the gospel, the good news that Jesus Christ came, died for our sins, buried, rose in victory to provide us new life, to give us freedom, that God has loved you not for what you will do, but God has loved you because of who he is and what he has done.

That God has welcomed you without having you sort through your life, but has brought you in simply because he has sorted his life to you, that he has given his life for you, that God loves you not because you one day will give your life to Jesus, but because Jesus gave his life for you.

This good news should wake you up every morning.

There's a fresh reception of such congratulatory news for you to receive every morning when you wake up.

You and I will not live in a healthy community unless we realize we are profoundly loved.

Because, you know, I've noticed in myself that when I show up to places and really desire that people want that that I really want people to like me, when I show up to places I really want people to love me, I realize the option and the solution is not that I should try to generate to be more loving or to be more self-confident or something.

I actually realize at the bottom of that is my inability to receive love from other people and from God.

That at the end of the day, I am most unloving because I don't believe myself to be lovable.

And when we are loved by God, and when we know that through the gospel, we start to love other people with wild abandon.

Because we're not insecure anymore.

At least on our better days.

When the gospel has deeply rooted in us, uh we we we no longer look for love, right?

Because we have it.

Because it's sitting here in this room, God's presence, God's word on your life, God's gospel is not, hey, clean up your act and then you'll get the blessings.

The gospel says, come and eat.

It's been provided through the character and work of Jesus Christ.

Therefore, welcome other people as Christ has welcomed you.

How has Christ welcomed you?

Let's open our theological imaginations for a second and look at some of the words that God has used.

When God saves us, some of the metaphors in Scripture are that He has adopted us as children.

We get a new name.

We have belonging, love, acceptance.

We are adopted as his kids, right?

You know, some of the language God has welcomed us in, he's ordained us as priests and priestesses in his kingdom.

Ordained.

He's given us purpose and a mission.

Not because you've got something good to offer, but you have a good God who you offer other people.

Not because of some talent that you have, but because of some treasure that you hold in the gospel.

And God commissions you as someone who can be a priest and priestess, a minister of God for other people.

You know, oftentimes ministers are, you know, they say, I'm doing the work of the Lord.

The Lord's doing the work through you, though, right?

It's really more that way.

God has adopted us, God has ordained us, God has installed us as heirs, provision and a future.

Heirs meaning the inheritance is yours.

The inheritance is yours.

There's nothing you need to be concerned about or worry about in earth or in heaven because God has made you his heir.

He's put you on the will.

All things have been given to us and given for us in Christ.

It is with this kind of honor, this kind of intimacy, this kind of love, this kind of affection that Christ has welcomed you.

And so now you are to welcome others likewise, to treat them as the adopted ones, to treat them as the ordained ones, to treat them as they receive Christ, as those installed as heirs.

And that means you can humble yourself because you and they have been so loved by God.

There's much to do together when you believe this.

This is all completely undeserved and completely out of the grace of God.

To be regularly humbled by this gospel is to be the greatest asset to any community you're a part of.

Your family, your work, your church, your small group.

To be this humble, that person, the one who like regularly receives that congratulatory news from God in Christ, they are always the most present, available, generous, courageous, and humble people in the room.

And they're the people whom I admire.

Many of you are that person to me.

They lack insecurity, they lack selfishness, and they're there to give.

And they're only there to give and love with such profound, with such a profound nature, because they have been loved and they've received love.

This is why Colossians 2, 6 says this.

Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him.

Rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

See you received Christ once, but it's time to receive him again, and to receive him again, because it says, just as you received Christ, walk in him the same way you received him.

Continually receive the love of Jesus Christ.

And that's here at communion.

Here at communion is the ability to receive God's love, to repent of our self-focused nature, to turn away from our proclivity, to have people think about us first, and to realize that God in Christ has thought of us and he's died for us and he's given his life.

And in our brokenness, we receive his broken body.

And when we feel empty, we receive his shed blood for us.

And so may we be a community that receives the gospel today so that we can live the gospel to other people in our communities.

At communion, Christ welcomes you to the table.

Let's pray.

I pray that there would be a reception this morning from all of us of your love.

And I'm aware of the various places people are coming from here.

And God, would you meet them at the communion table?

Um for those of us that are have trouble realizing we are so loved, uh give us your love through the elements this morning, through the worship this morning this morning.

We are here as recipients.

We are bringing nothing.

And that's really the best place to be.

And so as we bring nothing, we we we are counting on you to give us everything.

Everything that we need for life, for godliness, righteousness, to be people of justice, humility, and hospitality.

That comes from you, not from us.

We need this.

We need you.

Fill us, love us, show us, guide us, God, and pray in Christ's name.

Amen.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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