Future Church: Temple + Temptation | Part 4

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.

Well, welcome to Awakening Church.

My name's Ryan.

We're absolutely thrilled to have you join us today.

And we're in a series uh called Future Church, studying the book of Acts.

And we're wrestling with this question: what is the future of the church?

And how do we return to God's design for his church?

And we've actually said this the last few weeks that what the church is, is that the church is the spirit-empowered community of Jesus that's on mission.

It's not a building, it's not a place, but a people living out the purposes of God to invite the entire world into new life, into the kingdom of God.

And we've been looking at how the church began.

And I was thinking about this this week of like, you know, if the church was a startup in Silicon Valley, right?

If if we just had that, you know, it was a startup at this point in time.

If it was a startup, it would be one of those amazing like success stories that we'd be talking about.

Like the first day they launched, uh, they grew 30x and they're going, like, oh my gosh, this is amazing.

Are you kidding me?

And then daily to their number uh were people being saved.

And then what's amazing is they had all this incredible momentum, and the move of the Spirit of God is just working, and not even persecution or opposition, that's what we studied last week, could even stop the momentum.

In fact, the early followers doubled down.

They said, they prayed, God, would you give us power and boldness?

And then they began to share boldly more so about Jesus.

But but there is something that's something that has the power to stop the momentum or the movement of the spirit in the church.

What is a momentum stopper for the church?

Have you ever thought of that?

Like, like what is the thing that as the church is on the move, it's this mission is moving.

It it is about God on the work, uh, God working.

What is the thing that will just stop the momentum of God's activity within the church?

Or said another way, what has the power to quench the move of the spirit in the church?

Isn't that so important right now?

As we're learning and redefining what kind of church we're gonna be, we don't want to step into any waters that are gonna quench the power of the spirit in our gatherings and our uh um time together as the church.

Well, last week we uh left off uh with the church praying and sharing boldly.

And today we pick up the story in Acts chapter 4, verse 32, and we get another one of those snapshots, another one of those summary statements from Luke as he's just zooming back and telling you what the church was like.

Acts 4:32

It's an overview, and it begins this way and all the believers were one in heart and mind.

Isn't that amazing?

I mean, wouldn't that be incredible?

Just think about it if we were all one in heart and mind.

Just the what God could do in and through us here in Silicon Valley.

I mean, just if Awakening Church was all one of heart and mind, or the church in the valley was all one of heart and mind, or the church in California, or imagine the church in the United States were of one heart and mind, or the church across the globe.

What an incredible statement of what was happening in their early gatherings.

It goes on to say no one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had with great power.

The apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And God's grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were, this is another incredible thing, no needy persons among them.

For from time to time, those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales, and put it in the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.

Now, this statement here, I just want to highlight something because Luke in the text has given us a key to what the church is about and what's happening.

Uh, and it says there were no needy persons, and from time to time they would sold what they had and bring to the money to the apostles' feet.

See, what Luke is saying is this activity is what the temple in Jerusalem was supposed to be.

It was supposed to be a peace, a place of peace, a place where those who are needy could come and get exactly what they need and be distributed.

And you remember in Jesus' time, Jesus called it a den of thieves.

And he's highlighting that now there is a new temple.

The temple uh is now in the people of God.

In fact, the apostle Paul would say it this way: don't you know that your body is the temple of God because the spirit dwells in you, that the temple is no longer a place, but a people.

And where you see the activity of God, you're seeing needs met, generosity overflowing.

Now, I want to take a moment because we've been studying the book of Acts together to help us think through of how do we study this book?

And we have to ask of this text right now, okay, Ryan, is this what I'm gonna be doing?

You know, is this descriptive or prescriptive?

When it says, you know, from time to time they sold their homes or property and brought it.

Do I need to sell my home and uh, you know, come to awakening and present it up the front?

No.

No, you don't, unless God, you know, moves you to do that.

See, there are things in the Bible that are descriptive or describing what's happening.

And then there are other times in the Bible that are prescriptive, they're prescribing how we are to live.

Much of Acts is descriptive, it is describing, Luke is describing what is taking place.

When you read the epistles of Paul, when you read the teachings of Jesus, those are prescriptive, prescribing how we are to live.

And he talks about generosity and what does it mean for us to be a generous church and giving and this tension or not tension per se, but he's describing what that early church looked like.

Well, what does it look like for us today?

Well, what was prescribed in the Old Testament was a percentage-based giving known as the tithe.

The tithe means you just gave 10% of what you had to God.

You'd bring it to the temple and you'd bring it in.

And this is what the old the foundation for everyone who was in the uh the early church was they understood the tithe.

We just bring the first 10% of all that we have to God.

In the New Testament, something changed.

It's really incredible, it's amazing.

We see it in this text.

It moved from percentage to proportional giving.

It moved from percentage giving, the tithe, 10%, to proportionally giving the total.

You remember they said all that they had was God's.

See, that's a radically different way to think about your stuff, to think about your home, to think about your car, to think about your finances, to think about your bank account, saying, everything that I have is God's.

It's all his.

And you give in proportion to what you have and have been given.

And so the early church, the tithe was the baseline.

It was just like, hey, I'm gonna give, you know, 10%.

That was just the foundation.

And people often gave way over and above as they had means.

And if you didn't have means, you didn't feel guilty.

You gave in proportion to what you had.

You know, and for many, this is the process for us of learning how to trust God.

Uh Jesus said it this way wherever your heart uh or treasure is, there your heart is also.

Whatever we treasure, whatever we value most.

And when we give to God, it it trains our heart to trust Him more and more.

That's why we have this habit and discipline of giving.

You know, the other day, Miles, this is awesome.

He came to me and he's like, Dad, he's got a deeper voice than me, even though he's 10, uh, almost 11.

Hey, Dad, I want to buy stock.

I'm like, what 10-year-old asked her dad to buy stock?

And so I'm like, okay, yeah, sure, let's buy some stock.

And Jenny's talking to him about, you know, what are you interested in?

You might look into some things that are closed now, they're going to be open later.

And she suggested, you know, movie theaters.

And so he goes and researches what's the you know biggest movie theater chain in the US?

Well, it's AMC.

So, you know, he buys AMC stock for$2 a share.

And, you know, I do it with him on Robin Hood and whatnot.

And and all of a sudden, you know, overnight, I get a text from his grandpa saying, you better sell the stock quick.

It just went on this run.

And I mean, he made out uh with$84.

Like he sold his stock out of, you know, a$20 investment, made$84 on top of that.

And it was just one of those, you know, crazy times where, as all of you know, the stuff that happened with AMC and GameStop and Reddit and all the rest, my 10-year-old just happened to be in on it ahead of me.

I needed to take investing tips from him.

Now, here's what we did, because this is how we we learn and grow.

And if your parents start at a young age, my parents started with me.

You give to God first, you save second, then you live on the rest.

Give first, at least the first 10%, then you save second, you're gonna put it away or you're gonna invest it, and then you're gonna live on the rest.

That's just good stewardship, uh, godly stewardship.

And so that's what we did with Miles.

So I said, All right, Miles, you made$8, uh, you know,$84, and so we're gonna give eight dollars and 40 cents and I love because he's like, he's already got the proportional thing.

He's like, Dad, I want to give$10 to the church.

I'm like, absolutely.

We'll just do$10.

That's awesome.

Because you have means to it.

And so he's he gave first$10 to awakening, and then he took half of it and put it away for future investment.

That's my 10-year-old.

That's insane.

And then he used half of it to buy a video game that he'd been wanting.

And it was awesome.

He's able to use it.

And this is what how the early church was responding to one another, that nothing that they had was their own, but it was all theirs.

And as the Lord led, they would say, you know what?

If I have it and someone's else in need, I'm gonna give it.

And it was a generous church, it was a generous church.

And then Luke then gives us an example of this generosity.

He goes on to say, Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostle called Barnabas, which means son of encouragement, sold a field he owned, and brought the money and put it at the apostle's feet.

Now, this is amazing.

This is the introduction of Barnabas.

We're going to hear a lot about him later on because Barnabas comes alongside Paul and his traveling companion and in fact mentor for Paul and encourager for him in the faith.

Now, this is so incredible.

What I don't know if you have a nickname.

I tried to make a nickname for myself uh in high school.

I didn't have a nickname, and so I I literally, it doesn't work, by the way.

It just I was like, I'm gonna make I, you know, there's this old-time basketball player named Bob Kuzi.

I'm like, Koozie's kind of cool, and he's a great basketball player.

Maybe they can call me Koozie or Kooz, and I step in freshman year, I go by Koozie.

One, it's dumb, and two, nobody bought into it.

You don't give yourself a nickname, but it's amazing when somebody gives you a nickname and is connected to your character.

Joseph, his name's Joseph, a Levite for Cyprus, but they gave him the nickname Barnabas.

Like what the apostle saw in him.

It's like you are an encourager.

Everything you do encourages it in your words, in your life, in the way you spend your money, obviously.

You leverage it for the good of others.

And I just want to encourage us, church, that that maybe we start giving good nicknames to our friends, speaking life.

There's been so much that has been spoken out against things of like where this just not life.

It's it's life-sucking, isn't it?

And and don't we need to hear from other people?

Just like, no, God's placed this in you.

You're an encourager.

Man, you're joy-filled.

I'm so proud of the way you live out your convictions.

Or we just speak life and it gives this example of one person who is living out this snapshot of this generous one heart and one mind.

And then the text takes a turn.

Here's what I love I love that the Bible tells it as it is, and you can read from the beginning to end.

It tells all the bad, the ugly, the good, the hard.

It doesn't cover up, it just tells it how it is.

And we see the first sin of the church that threatens the momentum of the church.

It goes on this way.

Now, a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property, just like Barney did.

He sold it, they saw, they're looking around, seeing all these people, and they're like, hey, we got properties, we're wealthy.

We don't want anybody to think we're stingy, we're not being apart.

So they sold a piece of property and we want a nickname.

We want the apostles to give us a nickname.

You know what would we want?

Oh, generous, generous person or something.

I don't know.

That's a terrible nickname.

That's the reason I never got one.

With his wife's full knowledge, he kept back, and we're gonna hang on to that.

Circle that in your Bible.

We're gonna come back to that in a little bit.

He kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles' feet.

So they're both in full knowledge.

And think about this: the first sin of the church was wanting to look good without really fully doing good, was wanting to look the part without really living the part.

Perhaps comparison or envy set in that eventually, as we're gonna see, moved to lying, deceit, and hypocrisy.

The text goes on.

Says, then Peter said, Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit?

You didn't just lie to me, by the way.

You lied to the Spirit of God and have kept for yourself some of the money you receive for the land.

And then didn't it just belong to you before it was sold?

Wasn't all of this yours?

You didn't have to give all of it, say this was the total price.

And after it was sold, wasn't the money at your disposal?

You can do what you want to do.

What made you think of doing such a thing?

You have not lied just to human beings, but to God.

And he goes on.

When Ananias heard this, and this is intense, he fell down and died.

And great fear seized all who heard what had happened.

Then some of the young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.

What happened to the wife?

Text goes on and says, About three hours later, his wife came in, not knowing what had happened.

Peter asked her the same thing.

Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?

She's like, Unbeknownst to her.

Yes, she said, that is the price.

And Peter said to her, How could you conspire to test?

And who is he testing?

Not the church, not Peter, not the apostles, but the Spirit of the Lord.

Listen, the feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.

At that moment she fell down at his feet and died.

Then the young men came in and finding her dead.

These guys had a strange day.

Let's just say that.

That just was a rough day for these guys.

Harder for Ananias and Sapphira for sure, but rough day for these guys.

Carried her out and buried her beside her husband.

And then great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.

No kidding.

It's intense.

It's big time.

Why?

Because something was going on in the in the startup mode.

When the Spirit of God's working, when they see the movement of God, the momentum of God working and moving that threaten to hinder, to stop, to quench.

And actually, in this text, we see two momentum stoppers that are so important for us today as the church.

This is a word for us, awakening.

Two momentum stoppers that threaten to quench the spirit's move and power in our lives and in the church, which threatens the impact of the gospel here in the valley.

The first momentum start stopper is simply this: a house divided.

The first thing that has the power to quench the work of the spirit is a house divided.

Remember at the beginning, we see we sat there for a little bit.

All the believers were one in heart and mind.

And Ananias and Sapphira's sin divided the oneness of heart and mind.

Falsehood ruins fellowship.

It does every time.

Deceitfulness ultimately divides people.

I want to get the credit, but I don't necessarily want to do the work behind it.

And I want to posture, I want to pose, I want to fake it till I make it.

I want to present a filtered reality.

We don't do this today, right?

We never present a filtered reality, a picture that looks good, that has, you know, the filter on it, so it looks amazing, but but the reality is it's not amazing.

Or, you know, what's amazing is there's apps, and you guys know this.

You have some of these, it's not a bad deal or anything like that, but you there's apps that take away the blemishes, right?

They take away the things.

So when you look at your picture or look at someone's picture, it's like that's not truly who they are.

And we cover up and we hide.

And it kills the unity.

Division in the house is a momentum stopper.

In fact, Jesus said it this way: if a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.

If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.

And by the way, do you know the context for this?

Jesus is confronting the religious leaders who are trying to accuse him that he's doing all these good miracles in the power of Beelzebub, in the power of demonic, hellish things.

And he says, Satan, if he's divided against himself, cannot stand.

Even Satan understands that house divided is a momentum stopper.

And then Jesus then thinks this is such a big deal on the night he's betrayed what's known as his high priestly prayer, where he's praying for his disciples.

The moments that they're gonna go through after he goes to the cross.

And then something's amazing is he doesn't just pray for his disciples, he prays for you and me.

Like this prayer is for you and me.

This prayer is like right now in this moment, like you and me, Jesus is praying, and it's and it's towards you, it's towards me and the church.

And he says, My prayer is not for them alone, I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message.

Isn't it amazing?

Jesus is praying for you that all of them may be one.

Father, just as you are in me and I am in you, that there's this oneness.

Then the apostle Paul in Ephesians chapter four would say it this way.

As a prisoner of the Lord, then I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.

How do you live worthy?

Be completely humble, gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love.

And I said this in our reset series the reason you have to bear with one another in love is because some people are a bear.

It's just they're just hard to love, Ryan.

I get it.

Bear with one another in love.

And then it goes on to this make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace.

Make every effort.

And you're like, you're right, Ryan.

I can't believe that so and so hasn't made every effort.

Like they really need to get their act together.

They're not making every effort.

And I'm gonna go tell them that they I got a verse.

I got a verse.

Hey, you're not making every effort.

This verse is for me.

And this verse is for you.

Let the spirit convict that other person.

You don't need to correct them.

But allow the spirit of God to work in you and go, okay, how do I make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace?

And then he goes on to say that what we have in common in Christ is greater than any differences that we had.

There is one body, one spirit, just as you're called to one hope when you're called one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Do you think unity is a big deal?

Do you think oneness is a big deal?

That that there's this reality that that Jesus understands this.

The demonic world understands this.

Shoot.

Anybody, any team understands this.

A house divided will not stand.

It is a momentum stopper.

And so, how do we practice unity?

How do we begin to put this into practice?

The first thing I want you to uh see is elevate Jesus above everything else.

How do we put this into practice?

Elevate Jesus above everything else.

Jesus, you are the center of my life.

Holy Spirit, you have full control of my life.

Jesus, you are elevated above my work.

Jesus, you are elevated above my family.

Jesus, you are elevated above my uh, you know, boyfriend or girlfriend.

Uh Jesus, you're elevated above my schooling.

You're elevated above my politics, you're elevated above my preferences.

Jesus, you are the supreme, like king of the universe.

In you, all things hold together and exist for you.

And so I am going to turn my attention and my affection and my life and resound with all of creation.

You are worthy and you are glorious and you're amazing, and everything, everything, everything is subordinate to you.

That's where we find unity.

And so when that happens, we can have oneness despite differences.

We can have oneness despite the differences in our political persuasions.

I mean, I've said this before, so I'm sure you know this, but um, remember that there was Simon the Zealot, disciple, apostle, Matthew the text, tax collector, a disciple, apostle, that were the followers of Christ.

They were complete opposite.

One was a revolutionary against Rome, the other was a corroborator with Rome.

In their politics, they had nothing in common and in fact were enemies, but because they elevated Jesus above everything else, they had oneness.

How about your personal preference?

You know what's funny about personal preferences is we tend, we tend to make those moral things.

We have to be careful that our personal preferences don't shift into moral things.

We do that with God's word, we do that with different things in our world where we just go, this is yeah, you can prefer that.

That's wonderful.

And sometimes it's just personality differences, isn't it?

We just don't mix, we just clash.

Elevate Jesus above everything else.

What about pandemic practices?

I want to hit a little close to home, I know.

We look at how different people are navigating in this season.

It's so easy to judge, it's so easy to say, why are you doing that?

Why are you doing this?

Why, why don't you do this?

Why don't you do that?

And and we feel like we need to correct everyone and and make sure they know, or at least, you know, put them in their place and just go, okay, oneness despite differences, because we're gonna elevate Jesus above everything else.

Yeah, but but I said, but but then how do I respond?

What do I do?

Be a dispenser of generosity.

Be a dispenser of generosity.

That you remember in the text, it just was they were generous.

They were generous.

When we are generous, God does something in our hearts.

When we just give generously, and and I'm not even talking about financially, that is important.

We were talking about that earlier, but I'm just talking about be generous with your words, be generous with your thoughts, be generous with your responses.

Where you give the benefit of the doubt, think about this.

What if we begin to give others the benefit of the doubt that we give ourselves?

See, we know our heart, we know our intentions, we know our motives, and so we give ourselves the benefit of the doubt.

What if not knowing their heart, what if not knowing their intentions, what if not knowing their motives, you still give them the benefit of the doubt?

Question I've asked for a long time, and many of you know it, to help apply this.

Is what is the most generous explanation for their behavior?

How do we lean towards oneness and unity instead of division?

Just start asking this question.

What's the most generous explanation for their behavior?

What's the most generous?

I'm not gonna go to we go to the worst explanation.

We go to that how could they and just go, what's the most generous explanation you can have?

Practicing unity, elevate Jesus above everything else, be a dispenser of generosity, and then agree to disagree for Christ's sake.

Agree to disagree for Christ's sake.

You don't have to correct them, let the Holy Spirit convict them and go, you know what?

We just don't.

We may not get it all and agree on all of it, but we can agree on Jesus, and that's good enough.

Two momentum stoppers.

The first one, a house divided, the second one is sin in the camp.

Remember, I had you pay attention to that word kept back.

Uh, in the Greek, it's the same Greek word that's used for another Old Testament story in Joshua chapter seven, when Achan kept back treasure for himself.

And Luke is pointing for those early followers of Jesus, they would have immediately seen this little textual signpost that would have brought their minds all the way back to that story, seeing the parallels of what's happening here as Joshua was starting and they had momentum into Jericho and into the promised land.

And then uh then all of a sudden it was stopped them.

You see, the story of Achan is this that uh Joshua was supposed to lead the people into the promised land, and God said, I'll go with you and I'll go before you, and your enemies will fall before you.

And so they they go to Jericho, the mighty, mighty town, mighty warriors, and and they march around, very odd way to go to battle, and the walls fall down and they have victory.

But God said, Guess what?

The spoils are mine, dedicate them to me.

Do not hold anything back, give it all the first fruits, all of it to me.

And then uh Achan, he looks around, sees some things.

He's like, I like this, I like that.

That's good.

I'm gonna take it, I'm gonna hide it, I'm gonna bury it.

Well, Joshua sees the next uh horizon of enemies, uh, and he goes, It's this uh uh citadel AI, and they they're smaller than Jericho.

He's like, We got this.

I'm only gonna send a few men.

And he sends a few men, and by the way, the Israelites get whooped.

And Joshua's like, Oh my gosh, God, you said you're gonna be with us.

What's going on?

And God says, There's sin in the camp.

There's sin in the camp.

See, you can't ask God for his blessing and to pour out his favor and to go with you if you're not following God's will in your life.

Church, we can't do that as a church, as a leadership.

It says if there's sin in the camp, it hinders and it stops the movement and the uh the momentum of God.

So I want to talk just a little bit about sin.

We don't talk much about it.

But the truth about sin is that sin is serious.

Romans 6 23 says, for the wages of sin is death.

Like the end result of the choices we make that are uh in rebellion or in opposition to the ways of God brings about death or separation spiritually, physically.

It's a big deal.

And we say thing is uh it's not that big of a deal.

It's not hurting anyone.

Uh that's so antiquated.

We're enlightened now.

I just want to live my life how I choose.

And we have to recognize that sin is serious.

God takes it seriously.

And the other thing is that there is no sliding scale.

See, we kind of think there's there's really bad sins, and then there's like, yeah, it's not that big a deal.

There's, you know, white lies, and then there's, you know, uh lies that are that was bad, that was deceitful.

You know, there's big S sins and then there's little S sins.

And like, no, God just says there's sins.

Matthew 5 is Jesus teaching on the Sermon on the Mountain, and he says, you know what?

You think like there's murder and then there's hate.

And by the way, if you hate your brother, it's the same as murder.

You think there's adultery and there's lust.

He's like, but if you have lust in your heart, it's the same as adultery.

There isn't a sliding scale.

Sin is serious.

There isn't a sliding scale, and by the way, it quenches the spirit of God in our life.

It quenches it.

First Thessalonians 5.19 says, do not quench the spirit of God.

It cuts off the active work of the spirit of God in our life.

And in a church, it cuts off the active work of the spirit and the move of God in the church.

I have a um uh a fire pit in my backyard.

I love it.

And I, you know, I'm not a purist like many of you.

Uh I like gas.

And so I you know, I like to be able to go out there, open up the gas thing, ignite it, the flame goes up, and I'm like, oh, this is amazing.

And then I get to turn it off and walk away, and I don't smell like fire.

And it's amazing.

And I sit by that so many times a week and just enjoy sitting by the fire.

Now, here's what's amazing about my gas tank and fire pit, and you guys know this, you get this, is when I turn that knob to close it, it cuts off the supply line of gas to the fire pit.

And so even though the gas tank is connected to it, even though the gas tank is filled with gas, because that is turned off, it will not supply the fire pit with gas to ignite a fire.

See, when we sin and we have habitual sin, unrepentant sin in our life, and you're a follower of Jesus, you don't lose the Spirit of God.

Listen to me, you do not lose the Spirit of God.

The Spirit of God's still connected and dwelling in you, but what you have done is you've turned off the flow of the Spirit of God in your life.

You've turned that thing off.

And so the question for you and for me is if that's where we're at, how do we reopen that flow?

How do we break free maybe of some cycles that we're in?

I just want to give you one thing to practice daily.

It's powerful.

It'll change your life.

Would you embrace a daily habit of confession?

Now I wrestled with this wording because I was like, daily, is that too much?

No, because in the Lord's Prayer, you know, Jesus says, pray this way.

And he says, one of us, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

And many of you know the acronym Acts, you know, it's not connected to the book of Acts, but adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication, to be able to shape your prayer life so that you're not just praying, God help me, God give me prayers.

Those are good too, but you want to go deeper in your prayer life.

Would you embrace a daily habit of confession?

Well, what is confession?

It just means to agree with God.

It just means to go, God, I agree with your estimation and how you frame this is right and this is wrong.

See, we argue with God.

Instead of, we got, that's not that big of a don't.

God, you're come on.

And so many times instead of confessing, we conceal.

See, the reason many haven't experienced healing is we're hiding.

Nothing good grows in the dark.

And secrets keep you stuck.

We have to embrace confession.

Well, who do we confess to?

Vertically and then horizontally.

Vertically, we confess to God.

Remember, Peter was like, You didn't just lie to me, you lied to the Spirit of God.

1 John 1 9 says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

And too many are walking around with guilt and shame that Jesus died for, and the uh gasp uh is turned off, and you just go, God, would you forgive me?

I confess, I I've broken uh your heart and your ways.

Would you cleanse me?

And he says, I'm faithful and just, and I will cleanse you vertically and then horizontally with others.

James 5, 16 says, Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other that you may be healed.

See, you don't have to, and I wouldn't advise this, share everything with everyone.

You've been around over shares and you're just like, wow, that was a lot.

I don't even know you, but I know everything now.

And that's not healthy or good.

And there's people that aren't safe to share for sure.

But you need to share, have a space where you can share everything with someone or someone, a group of someone.

See, I have that in my life, a group of guys that I sit down weekly that I can share and do share, and we have a commitment.

We're gonna share it all.

Confess your sins, a daily habit before God with others to break free.

The momentum stoppers, there's two: a divided camp or a divided house and sin in the camp.

And the inverse is true as well.

The power of the church is unity and purity.

You're like, wow, that's that's pretty heavy, Ryan.

I I this this is this the weight of this is starting to sink in.

And I want to I realize in even in my life, I've been a bit divisive or antagonistic, and and then even as you're talking, I I I've dismissed things and the weight of the sin, unity and and purity.

I want to be that, but I'm not that.

And here's the amazing thing: the ground is absolutely level at the foot of the cross, and we all come and we all experience grace.

And he meets us right there.

And there's a practice that the church has uh been given by Jesus that helps form this in all of us, that helps safeguard us from these momentum stoppers, spirit quenchers, but also draws us to unity and purity.

It's the practice or the of communion or the Lord's Supper, where Jesus said, This is my body broken for you, and he broke bread.

And then he said, This is the cup of the new covenant, my blood poured out for you, and that and that we would take this together, that we would elevate Jesus above everything else, that we would remember that you, Jesus, it's all about you, it's all for you.

And I'm not somehow trying to earn or get better, but I am forgiven by you, and your spirit indwells me to live out this new life.

And the practice always comes with confession.

I just want to invite you right now just to take that moment and go, Holy Spirit, would you search my heart and show me anything in me that's not of you?

And he will.

And then you just confess it.

God, I give to you that I'm sorry.

Would you please forgive me?

Would you wash me clean and make me new?

Thank you for forgiving me.

It starts with confession and then it moves us, and we do this in community, and I know we're doing this virtually in community to remind us of our unity that we have in Christ.

And so, whatever elements you have, and I know it looks different than these, but would you take your piece of bread with me?

And you say, This is his body broken for you, that you might have life.

I do this in remembrance of him.

And then with you take the cup of the new covenant, his blood poured out for you.

And as we do this, we remind ourselves that we are in a new family, there's a unity because of his sacrifice.

We do this in remembrance of him.

Lord Jesus, we invite you to have your way in us, to meet us right where we're at, to mold and shape us into your church for your name's sake.

Amen.

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