WHY CHURCH? Part 2: Building a Beloved Community

My name is Ephraim Smith.

I am the co-senior, co-lead pastor here at Midtown Church.

So glad you are here in the room, in the overflow online.

However, you are in this experience of worship, we are so glad you have joined us.

This idea of like, who is the church and who are we to be in the church?

So we're just gonna sit in this idea of why church uh for a little while, uh, and then we might even you know call this next extension of it uh, you know, we are church.

And what does that mean?

What does that mean?

Uh so you heard me say part two, which means if you weren't here last Sunday, it's okay, but you should probably go back to our YouTube channel, our website, our podcast, and watch or listen to the sermon from last week in its entirety as I kind of kicked off this idea uh of why church?

Why does the church exist?

And who are we to be in the church?

What does the Bible have to say about this?

Now, I want to say to you, I'm I'm I I love preaching about this because I love the church.

I really do.

I love church.

You might say, well, of course, you're the pastor, you're you're supposed to, but no, it's it's possible.

You can be a pastor and not like the church.

You you you you can.

You could be a pastor and have seasons where, like, yeah, I mmm, mmm, mmm.

I love the Lord, but but but I love the church.

I I do.

Now, I've always felt this way.

Uh, there was a time when I didn't like church too much.

I was I was going because my family was going to church.

Uh, there were there was a time, you know, you couldn't say nothing if you felt this way, but there was a time when I thought church was too long.

You know, I I thought church was boring.

I I didn't think what was what was being talked about was relevant to me.

And so I didn't know my place in the church, where I fit in the church.

But as time went on, the church became the place of life transformation for me, a place of empowerment.

I learned how to sing, I learned how to lead, I learned how to serve, I learned how to be generous, I learned my history in the church.

And so over time, things began happening in my life in the community called the church that drew me deeper into understanding the true mission of the church.

So I love the church.

I've had the opportunity to be a youth pastor in the church.

I've had an opportunity to be an outreach pastor in the church.

I've had the opportunity to plant a church in Minneapolis that's still going today.

I've had an opportunity to be a superintendent, an overseer of churches.

Uh I my family and I we came to California 16 years ago and I served as superintendent uh in our denomination, and I oversaw 160 churches in California, uh Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii.

Uh there were only two churches in Hawaii, but I made up reasons to go over there and visit them.

And Donisha went with me.

For some reason, when I when I went to you know certain certain churches in Central California, she was like, I'll pray for you.

When I said, I'm going to Hawaii, she said, You need an assistant.

So I loved the church.

Before I came here, I was president of an urban missions organization called World Impact.

And we plant churches in under-resourced communities, even in prisons and around the world.

And so I enjoyed that that experience.

It just gave me more love for the church.

And believe it or not, this Sunday, this Sunday today, marks nine years that I've been co-lead pastor here at Midtown Church.

So I'm here because I love the church.

But what I'm realizing is my love for the church is connected to the love relationship I have with God.

And that's important for a couple reasons.

Because our love for the church should be deeply connected to the reality that God loves the church.

The church is the object of God's love.

It is a vehicle through which God wants to extend God's love into the world.

God loves the church so much that Jesus Christ died for the church.

Gave his life for the church.

Took on absorbed trauma and pain.

Which means if you love the church, if you're connected to the church, if you're a member of the church, you're gonna get the joyous experiences, hopefully, of seeing life change, life transformation.

But also, because the church is made up of imperfect human beings, sometimes it gets messy.

Sometimes there's conflict.

Sometimes you experience grief and pain and sorrow in the church.

The church is a place where there's a wedding, and the church is a place where there's a funeral.

So Frankie Beverly was right.

Joy and pain in the church.

But yet, what keeps the church flourishing, what ultimately sustains the church, is God's love.

With that in mind, go with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 13, beginning with verse 1.

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

I'm gonna read 13 verses from chapter 13 to 1 Corinthians, and I don't think we're gonna find no bad luck here.

1 Corinthians 13, beginning with verse 1.

If I speak in the tongues of men or angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind.

It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails, but where there are prophecies, they will cease, where there are tongues, they will be stilled, where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child, when I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.

For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face.

Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain faith, hope, and love.

But the greatest of these is love.

From this text, I want to preach to you on why church part two, the building of the beloved community.

Why church part two, the building of the beloved community?

God, I pray this would be your message.

God, you speak.

You are love.

So I pray that your love would ring strong through this message to these your beloved children.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Why church, the building of a beloved community?

Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr., when describing the vision, the ultimate goals of the civil rights movement, used the term, the phrase, the beloved community.

This for him was the end game of the civil rights movement.

Not just political change, not just a better realization of democracy for all, but the beloved community.

I believe when he was talking about the beloved community, he was talking about the kingdom of God.

Why would I say that?

Because in a writing called An Experiment in Love, which would later become a book by King called Stride Toward Freedom, he said the end of all this is love, the radical love found in Jesus Christ, the beloved community, a a redeeming, reconciling love.

He also said we must meet the forces of hate with the power of this love.

So King, a civil rights leader, a theologian, and most importantly, a churchman and pastor, often talked about the beloved community.

The church is supposed to be in some way a picture of God's beloved community.

The church should be a place, ideally, where you relearn how to love, live, and give.

Or maybe for some of us, the church is the place for for the first time you learn how to love, live, and give.

This happens when the church is committed in some meaningful way to be a new community, counter-cultural community from the one we navigate out here in the world.

A community that is a preview of heaven.

This is what Paul is trying to get at when he's writing this letter to the church at Corinth.

Ah, 1 Corinthians, uh, if you want to nerd out just a little bit, it really should be called 2 Corinthians, and 2 Corinthians should be called 3 Corinthians.

And the reason is because in chapter 5, verse 9 of 1 Corinthians, Paul basically says, I thought we we dealt with this already.

When I wrote to you before, I was trying to deal with this issue with you.

And so there's another letter that he must have wrote to them, but that letter has been lost in history.

So because 1 Corinthians was the first one that the scholars, that the historians found, they called that one 1 Corinthians and the next one 2 Corinthians.

But this is really the second writing of Paul to this church, an urban church, a multicultural, multi-ethnic church, a church in the heart of a city, a church very much influenced by the marketplace and by politics.

Man, this should be relevant for a church like Midtown, a diverse church in the heart of a city, in the shadow of the state capitol, in its own marketplace.

Paul is writing a love letter to the church.

Now, I need to warn you, he's he seems a little agitated when he's writing this letter.

So if there's any agitation, it's not coming from me.

I'm just trying to convey to you the spirit and the emotion in which Paul writes this letter.

But have you ever fussed, but your fussing was coming from love?

But to the person that you were trying to love, it sounded like you were just fussing.

You have you ever tried to convey love to somebody, but to the person you were trying to say something loving to, it just sounded like you were just irritated.

So this is Paul.

If you ever felt like that, you can identify with Paul because Paul is deeply concerned about this church.

And the reason he's deeply concerned is because this church is struggling in three areas.

One, they're struggling with spiritual immaturity and they don't want to admit it.

And the reason they don't want to admit that they're spiritually immature is because there's a segment of this church that's highly educated, that has a good government job.

They've been trained.

Some of them have money, some of them own land and own a house.

How are you gonna tell a homeowner who's making good money, who's highly educated, that has a good job, have people reporting to them at work every day, they in charge?

How are you gonna tell them they need to grow spiritually?

Take somebody that already went to school, already has their degree, already has their certifications, already been trained, they in charge.

How are you gonna tell them that they're spiritually immature?

But that's their problem.

And when you're spiritually immature, you can't discern what is God's will from what is something wicked, evil, and satanic.

Because you don't have the spiritual strength to absorb it, to dissect it, and discern it.

And so when you're spiritually immature corporately, then immorality can have its way among you.

Satan can get a foothold.

The world can hijack your agenda and your mission.

So when there's spiritual immaturity and immorality, now you have division.

Because people aren't walking into the church based on their identity as the beloved children of God.

They're walking in the church based on their identity, based on their skin color, their physical features, their slang, their education level, their economic level, and so forth.

So Paul is writing out a concern for this church, but he's also trying to give clarity to say uh you can't operate in spiritual immaturity, you can't operate in immorality, you can't operate in division.

Let me clarify what the church is supposed to be.

That's why he wrote this letter.

Here in chapter 13, he's specifically trying to convince them that biblically the members of the church are to operate in God's love.

The members of the church are to operate in God's love.

Now, this kind of love that he's talking about is a love that builds up, a love that uplifts people, which means you can't come to church, this kind of church, just based on your individual preferences.

You have to at some point be able to give a little and sacrifice a little and give up a little for the building up of the whole, the upliftment and the empowerment of the whole.

This kind of love, a love that builds up others.

Now, before I really uh parse this out, I want to take a little bit of a detour to talk about what it means to be a member of this church.

Because what I want you to do with me is wrestle with how we define what it means to be a member at Midtown Church.

Does it align with what the Bible says about being a member of a church?

Because if it doesn't, we need to rewrite this.

So here we go.

This this is how we define membership at Midtown Church.

A member of Midtown Church is a lover and follower of Christ who has chosen to covenant with this local body by committing to spiritual growth, serving, generosity, and accountability.

Let's just break this down just a little bit.

So a member of Midtown Church, first and foremost, a lover and follower of Christ.

Your intimate relationship with Christ is at the center of this, it's core to this.

A lover and follower of Christ who has chosen to covenant with this local body, which means there's all kinds of churches out here you could choose.

We're not the only one.

You want to choose the one that you feel God has is called you to, has drawn you into.

And this is important that this happens.

And then when you commit to this, you're this is specifically you're committing to spiritual growth, which means all of us are still growing.

All of us are still learning.

Let me start with me.

I've been a pastor for 30 plus years.

I have two doctorate degrees, I've written books, I'm still growing.

There's still things from this book that God is doing surgery on my soul, maturing me, developing me, getting me right.

So if I'm still growing, we all still growing.

Pastor Susie's still growing.

I mean, she might be a little more righteous than me, a little bit more, you know, you know.

Maybe I got a little more ratchet than she has.

I don't know.

But we all growing.

So we none of us can operate like we have arrived spiritually, and you need to get where I am.

So we're all committed to spiritual growth, committed to serving, committed to generosity, and committed to accountability, which means I need people around me that will tell me the truth about me, who love me enough to not to not just follow me blindly, but love me enough to tell me about me.

And all of us need this.

You need somebody that spiritually will tell you your fly is open, your slip is showing, your wig crooked.

Somebody to tell you the truth about where you are spiritually.

Now, now that I've said that, when the Bible talks about the church, sometimes it uses images or metaphors.

Images or metaphors to help us in our culture practically understand church.

So one of the metaphors in the Bible is that the church is an expression of the kingdom of God.

That the church is an embassy of the kingdom of God.

This means that the church, the members of the church, are sp we're supposed to put more weight on being citizens of the kingdom of God than citizens of the nation we're in on earth.

We are citizens of the kingdom of God.

And we have family members, brothers, and sisters around the world who also carry this citizenship because they have claimed Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

We, our, our kingdom, God's reign is over the entirety of the planet, and all of those who have committed to Christ Jesus, who are a lover and follower of Jesus, we are under the reign of God and we are citizens of God's kingdom.

We have brothers and sisters all over the world that have that have claimed Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior.

They could be in Ukraine, they could be in Russia, they could be in Palestine, they could be in Israel, they could be underground in Iran, they could be in China, they could be in Canada.

We cannot afford to have a nationalistic mindset when it comes to Christianity, because if you become a Christian nationalist, you'll never realize what it means to be under the reign of God.

So some people limit their Christianity to a nation, to an earthly government, to a Roman Empire, to a Babylonian Empire, to an Assyrian Empire.

And even if you live in what you would consider a relatively good nation, it's not the kingdom of God.

I'm glad I live in the United States, but the United States is not the kingdom of God.

It's not the kingdom of God.

And I know that we want to create these narratives about America to make America the kingdom of God.

That like we're innocent and we're pure.

And all you gotta do is keep your nose clean and stay in school and get a good job, and you'll make it, and you'll never have no conflict.

I don't know, I don't know, but I know this.

I know that the kingdom of God there's nothing higher, there's nothing greater.

It is God's reign, and we are citizens of it.

So we live here as people of peace and people of love and people of reconciliation and people of justice and people of righteousness, giving people a preview of the kingdom of God.

Okay, another image is the body of Christ.

We are the body of Christ.

Jesus, when he was on earth in human form, was a visible human representation of God.

God embodied, God in human form.

Until Jesus returns, the church now is the body of Christ.

Collectively, our gifts, our abilities, our service, our generosity, our living together, we are the members of Christ's body until he returns.

But what I want to focus on briefly today is the image of the church as the bride of Christ.

Ephesians chapter 5, beginning with verse 21.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

It gives us this image, this metaphor of the church as the bride of Christ.

It says in verse 21 of Ephesians 5 submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.

For the husband is the head of the wife.

Now keep going with me now.

Husbands, if I was you, I wouldn't turn to your wife right now and say, Pastor Ephraim said, I'm the head.

I wouldn't do that.

I'd just be quiet.

Just just shh.

And let me keep reading.

For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church, his body.

See that?

See that metaphor?

The church is his body, of which he is the savior.

Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

Let me keep reading.

Husbands love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

So Paul is saying, if you want to use marriage as a metaphor of what this looks like, just know I'm turning upside down what it means to be the head.

What it means to be the head is to die.

Because that's what it means for Jesus to be the head of the church.

He died.

He gave his entire life.

And what does that look like?

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.

He who loves his wife loves himself.

After all, no one has ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church, for we are members of his body.

For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.

This is a profound mystery, but I'm talking about Christ in the church.

So he's saying, I'm not really talking about marriage.

I'm trying to make a point about the relationship between God, between Christ and the church.

That's what I'm trying to talk about here.

But if you want to make it about marriage, okay, let's make it about marriage.

God it turns upside down how the world exercises power and authority.

God, who has all power, came down here in the form of Jesus and out of love died.

Died so that the church could be holy and pure and cleansed and radiant.

What that's telling us, sisters and brothers, is I don't care how much education we have in here, how many gifts we have in here, in our own human power, we can't make the church glorious and holy and perfect and without blemish and without stain and radiant.

Only the love of God can do that.

Only a sacrificial radical death can do that.

But if you want to make it about marriage, a husband is one who dies so that his wife can be radiant and pure and beautiful.

To be the head, according to God, is a sacrificial love.

A love that's killing you softly, strumming my pain with his fingers, telling my life with his words, killing me softly with his song, killing me softly with his words, telling my whole life with his words, killing me softly.

Husbands dumb husbands.

That's what it means to be the head.

Okay, now I gotta get to the three main points of the sermon.

Okay, here the three points of the sermon for real.

How do we operate in that kind of love?

Sacrificial love.

How?

How does the church operate in this kind of love?

How do we participate in it?

This is gonna go by so fast.

One, how is love prioritized?

The church has to focus on how love is prioritized in the church.

That's what Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians 13, verse 1.

1 Corinthians 13:1

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but I do not have love, I gain nothing.

Paul is saying, look, I know Cor Corinth, Corinth Christian church, I know Corinth church.

I you're you you you are gifted, you are educated, you are talented, but if those talents and those gifts and that generosity is not rooted in God's love, it means nothing.

It will if if you have an immature focus on these things, it will just lead to noise and division.

Giftedness, service, generosity, and leadership in the church has to be rooted in God's love.

Paul's like, you don't want to talk about speaking in tongues?

He's like, I speak in tongues.

Okay, I speak in tongues.

Prophecy, I prophesy.

But prophecy, speaking in tongues, preaching, singing, all of these religious, spiritual exercises of the church mean nothing if they're not rooted and directed and driven by God's love, which is to be driven and guided by the Holy Spirit.

If the church through the Holy Spirit is not being led and driven and guided by the Holy Spirit, all that preaching is just noise.

All the tongues, all the prophecy, all the charisma, all the behind the pulpit, all the potentate, pastor, reverend, doctor, bishop, apostle, all of that is noise.

Who wants to go to a church like that?

There's a lot of noisy churches in the world.

And when the church is noisy, it can justify slavery, colonization, war, sexism, homophobia, child abuse, human trafficking, the abuse of women.

You can go on and on and on.

You can drop bombs on innocent children in the name of Jesus because the church is full of noise and not full of the Holy Ghost.

So we have to prioritize love.

One of my mentors and friends, Pastor Dr.

Greg Boyd, a biblical scholar, says this in his book, The Myth of a Christian Religion.

He says, nothing is more central to the kingdom than agreeing with God about every person's unsurpassable worth, and reflecting this in how we act towards them.

Nothing is more important than living in Christ-like love for all people at all times.

In fact, compared to love, nothing else really matters in the kingdom.

In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul says that all the most impressive religious and humanitarian activity in the world is completely worthless except insofar as it expresses love.

Love is prioritized.

Point two, how love is clarified.

Paul says in chapter 13, verse 4 love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.

Paul is doing two things here.

One he is presenting a love that human beings can't manufacture and sustain over the long haul in our own power.

We need God to love this way.

When I officiate weddings, I wait till the couple get to the altar and I look at at the groom to be and I say, Brother, I gotta, I gotta tell you, you you do not have it in and of yourself to love this woman the way God wants her to be loved.

And if the sister's charamatic, she's like, tell them, Pastor, that's right.

And I say, But hey, I gotta bust your bubble, sister.

You do not have it in and of yourself, you do not have the power in your own human effort to love this man the way God wants him to be loved.

The best you can do is wake up every day and give God permission to love your spouse through you.

Give God permission to love through you.

Because on your own, you will run out of love fuel.

There are some people right now, I'm not picking on you, this is life, this is real.

Some of us came.

If if if if love was a gas tank in our soul, some of us came here half full.

Some of us came here almost on empty, like the yellow light is on.

You got like 11 more miles to go, and somebody getting cussed out.

Well, you're not cuss, y'all Christians, y'all don't cuss.

You need the Holy Spirit to refuel your ability to love.

You need to spend time with God, praying, fasting, prayer walks, journaling in the Bible, having your own worship service at home without this.

So God can refuel your tank to love.

You can't do all that on your own.

Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it's not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs, it does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth.

Now, what this is also revealing, sisters and brothers, is this is how Christians operate when they won't acknowledge their trauma.

When we don't think therapy is for us and we just gonna pray it out.

When we don't want to take our medicine, when we don't need spiritual direction, when we don't need accountability, because even people that say they believe in Jesus, even people like me, I've had to come to terms with envy and jealousy and comparison and unforgiveness and anger that can rise up in me as a pastor if Ephraim Smith doesn't acknowledge his trauma, doesn't acknowledge the stuff I'm still acting like.

Eight-year-old Ephraim.

Push me against the wall and see how I act.

I need the Holy Spirit to refuel me every single day so I can shepherd and pastor and love the way I'm supposed to, and so do you.

Oh, I gotta get to point three.

Here it is.

Well, I'm still in point two.

Hold on a second.

So this love is clarified in that it comes from God.

So Paul is saying we gotta prioritize love in the church, but we have to clarify what kind of love we're talking about.

It's a love that should cause us to be desperate for God.

I it to love my wife, to love my kids, to love my neighbors, to love my enemies, to love church folks.

Well, I should have put y'all before enemies.

I didn't mean to do that.

I meant the order wasn't supposed to be enemies, then y'all.

It was supposed to go my wife, my kids, y'all, neighbors, enemies.

That was the order, okay?

So just to get that straight.

But to do that, you need a hunger and thirst for God.

Or you can just keep on trying to love your kids in your own power and see how that goes.

Keep trying to love your husband in your own power, see how that goes.

I don't know why, I didn't mean to pick on the wife.

Husbands, too.

I know, I don't know why I said it like that.

Honey, you love me great, Donisha.

I just want you to know, don't nobody love me like you love me.

Anyway, point three.

How love is fortified.

How love is fortified.

First Corinthians 13, beginning with verse 8.

Love never fails.

But where there are prophecies, they will cease.

Where there are tongues, they will be stilled, where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

I'm gonna skip down to verse 11.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.

When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.

This love from God can fortify the church.

That means it can strengthen the church.

That means it's a love that can protect the church against attacks.

We need a love that matures us and grows us up so we're strong enough to defend the gospel.

This is not a time to be spiritually immature.

This is not a time to have a surface understanding of Christianity.

There are people doing non-Jesus things in the name of Jesus out here, and we need a church that is so mature, so spirit-filled, and so fortified that we can defend and represent the real gospel of Jesus Christ that includes justice and diversity and righteousness and equality, that includes the empowerment of women, that includes care for the poor and the undocumented, the foreigner, the refugee, the incarcerated, the widow.

That is the kind of gospel we need to defend.

And so you got to be strong and courageous and humble and mature to represent that kind of gospel in this foreign, broken land.

And that's why we need that kind of love to fortify us, to defend against attacks.

Because as I come to my close, Satan wants to attack the entire church.

And Satan has a specific strategy for this church.

Satan and forces of wickedness and evil want to use vulnerable people to destroy the church.

And unfortunately, Satan has a plan for this one.

Satan would love to use vulnerable people to sabotage, destroy, divide, and put an end to what God wants to do through Midtown.

But I want to say with everything I have, I know that God is not done with Midtown church.

I know the hand of God is on.

I've seen too many people baptized at this church.

I've seen too many people healed at this church.

I've seen too many people reconciled at this church.

I've seen too many people delivered.

I've seen too many people liberated.

I've seen homeless people go from sleeping in their car to getting employed because there was a job there at this church in partnership with the Health Education Council.

I have seen God do wondrous, liberating deliverance in this church.

I've seen the Holy Spirit move in this church.

I ain't going nowhere because I know that God is right up in here.

I wish I had a witness of somebody that said, I came to Christ in Midtown.

I was healed in Midtown.

I experienced the Spirit moving in Midtown.

I know it's messy.

I know we ain't perfect.

I know we have issues, but the spirit of God is moving up in here, up in here.

Yes, he is.

Yes, he is.

Yes, he is.

It might get messy sometimes, but the Messiah is still here.

The Holy Ghost is still moving.

And so I do believe this is a place that you should be a part of if God has called you.

I do believe this is a place worth serving in.

I do believe this is a place worth being generous to.

And when it comes to generosity, tithing is just a baseline.

Tithing is just like the beginning point, the 10%.

It's really about a radical generosity of saying, God, what do you want me to do?

How can I give?

How can I serve?

How can I give of my talents and my abilities so that one more person can come to Christ?

One more person can experience empowerment and uplift because of the love of God.

So, yeah, we're gonna keep going.

We're gonna keep reaching the lost.

We're gonna keep partnering with Health Education Council, we're gonna partner with the Urban League in Sacramento, we're gonna, we gonna we we're gonna we're gonna do all that.

We're gonna adopt schools, we're gonna partner with it, be encouraged, we're gonna do all that.

But it's rooted in God's love, it's rooted in Jesus Christ.

We ain't doing this for political purposes and for some sociological experiment.

We're doing this for redemption and restoration.

So I we all had this much time, but at least I got through the points.

I got through the points.

Um the altar's open.

This is gonna be this is gonna be a different kind of ask.

Usually I ask you to come to the altar based on what you're going through.

But I'm actually gonna ask you to come to the altar based on what Mittel's going through.

Based on if I can be a little selfish this Sunday, based on what the pastors are going through.

And so I'm asking if you wouldn't mind coming to the altar today as an intercessor.

Is there anybody that would come to the altar and you would come to pray for this church, for these pastors, for this staff, for the ministries of this place, for the financial stability of this church, for the future of this church?

I'm just asking for a few intercessors that will come and say, God, I'm praying for Midtown, I'm praying for Pastor Ephraim, I'm praying for Pastor Susie, I'm praying for their families, I'm praying for the board, I'm I'm praying for the staff, I'm praying for the finances, I'm praying for the budget, I'm I'm praying for what God, what you want to do, and I'm praying against Satan and his plans.

I'm just I'm just thank you for letting me be selfish today.

It's not always easy for pastors to admit I need prayer, and I and I it's good to know that you know, as a pastor, that there's a congregation like I'm walking with you, Pastor.

I'm walking with you, Pastor Susie.

I'm walking with you, Pastor Krista, I'm walking with you, Pastor Tyrone, I'm walking with you, Pastor Otis, I'm walking with you, children's ministry, I'm walking with you, prayer team.

Because I believe God has great plans for this church, for this house, for this place.

So, God, please have your will, your way, in this church, in this place, your will be done.

Ugh, can I be selfish and say, your will be done at Midtown?

As it is in heaven.

Liberate people in this place, save people in this place, deliverance in this place, in this place, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.