Together - GOSPEL

Tia, go ahead and step right here.

All right.

We've been talking with Tia a lot about how baptism is such a special thing.

We get to share with our uh community that of an inward decision and an outward way.

And so it's a beautiful thing because this is our church family, and we love you all, and we're so excited to do this with you.

Um, man, Tia, as your mom and I stand here, we stand here both as your mom and dad, but also scripture tells us as your sister and brother in Christ.

And that's eternal.

And so we're super excited to take this moment and baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Emily.

Yeah.

Oh, I didn't ask you the questions.

I'm sorry, I was so excited.

Thank you, Emily.

Emily's better at this than I am.

Tia, do you believe that Jesus did everything necessary to save you?

Yes.

Jesus, uh, Tia, will you go wherever Jesus calls you to go and do whatever he calls you to do?

Then Tia, it is my pleasure to baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The kids, once they see the baptism, they don't always want to leave.

So thank you guys for joining us.

Thank you.

Hey, happy baptism weekend.

No, Avery, not right now.

It's my daughter, in case you're wondering.

It's okay.

All right.

Happy Baptism weekend.

All right.

I know it's hard to compete with like cute kids.

I get it.

Hey, I'm excited to be with you guys.

Um, we are kicking off a new series this week called Together.

And I'll tell you more about it here in a second.

Sounds like.

Um, hey, we are kicking off a new series of Together.

We are looking at really what does it mean to be the family of God?

Um, all right, little bit of interaction to get us started.

How many of you have ever had this happen to you?

All right.

You are eating a meal, your phone's on the table, and you see that you're getting a call from somebody, and it's somebody that you actually really like and care about.

And you just click the button that says send to voicemail.

How many of you have done that?

Anyone?

You've been there?

Um We are living in a unique time that one writer I was reading this week um calls the Lonely Century.

Um, where we are getting more and more opportunities to connect with other people.

But we're actually experiencing less and less relationship.

Okay, I think I'm stuck.

Um I think I've got to.

Let me tell you a little bit about what's going on uh culturally in not just the United States, but really all over the world.

Um we we are living in a time of increasing relational isolation.

Okay, and here's here's my fear.

My fear is that you and I are participating in the engineering of our own loneliness.

Oh my gosh.

Right?

Big idea.

Let's let's see how we got here.

Um, there's a guy named Jonathan Heid.

He has he wrote a book called The Anxious Generation.

Anybody heard about that book?

Some of you?

Okay.

It's uh about the interaction of technology, particularly with adolescents.

Um he he try he tracks some stats that are really interesting.

The first one um that I came across was this.

He he said back in 2012, the average adolescent spent 122 minutes a day with friends or other people.

122 minutes a day.

By 2019, that had dropped almost from half to 67 minutes a day.

And in the same vein, he's tracking the the increase in social media use, the increase in uh dependence on your phone.

And he's correlating that the more invested that we get in our use of technology, the less we need or finding that we need other people.

Really interesting.

In 2018, um, Noreena Hertz, she wrote a book called The The Lonely Century.

I told you about here a sec a second ago.

But in 2018, um the uh government in Great Britain appointed a minister for loneliness.

Now, minister is what they call like a department head, right?

We have like the Department of War and the Department, the Secretary of State.

Apparently, loneliness in in Great Britain reached such a concerning level that they had appointed a minister of loneliness at the highest level.

Um, here's something else.

Um again, I've been doing a bunch of reading in preparation for this series.

The U.S.

Surgeon General, Dr.

Vivek Murphy, wrote a book called Together, where he said he was um imagine this, like imagine you become the doctor for a nation, right?

I mean, I know some of you are in like medical programs or imagine you're responsible for the whole nation.

What do you do?

Well, he's like, well, you know, I thought I knew what Americans needed.

You know, we were gonna do diabetes prevention, we were going to talk about uh, you know, tr uh care for drug use, and we were going to engage like smoking.

Those are like the typical big health concerns for America.

But what they did is they did this giant listening tour all throughout America, and here's what they found that the number one health, the number one thing impacting Americans' health in two uh in uh back in the 2020s was loneliness.

Um he met with hospital administrator after hospital administrator that was saying the same thing.

People need medical care, but sometimes they don't have a single person to take them to an appointment.

Or people are not getting uh needed surgery because they couldn't find someone to drive them home from the hospital.

We are living in uh really an interesting era in human history where we are becoming more and more technologically connected and less and less relationally dependent.

This is happening to me.

Um 8 30 and I uh it my air conditioner up there broke.

Okay.

So the thing about this, um, for all history, when a man had a problem with his home, um, there is one thing that a man typically would do that to solve that problem.

You know what it is?

That's typically most of the history, that's what you know happens.

Um so you know, I I reached the microphone, I pulled it up and I did, called that and said how do we fix this?

Guess what?

Just one more connection.

We can wake up, um, head to work, you know, eat breakfast, up in our car, to our drive out of markets, or in the door see our neighbors.

Um that's where like uh some neighborhoods are designed to be front to live time and forest was the biggest thing.

Do we expect it to spend the time on the ports?

Why do we expect it to make this number the dependent of your papers in the books?

So Friday and like bring it into my life a little bit.

I'm I'm I'm in the mood that we're gonna go into the series and I've got a lot of stuff to do in a second that I've been reading and um I'm preparing the discernment, but there's so much here that I've gonna introduce my mind.

Friday's typically my day off, but I went to the gym and now it's up to the sermon.

The men in the room we talk to you, um, you know, if you're a man, you know that when you go to the stomach, there's etiquette, right?

Whether there's things that you do and there's things that you don't do.

Men is there you guys with me, I'm talking about the stomach etiquette.

Do it.

Um you walk into the stomach, one is you don't really make eye contact with the other men in the sauna, okay?

Um number two, one of the things most of you take your phone and you take your AirPods and they're listening to Facebook.

And so think about this.

We live in a world where men who are known for being the most traditional creatures face anyway, go side by side, just have a third experience, but we do it in our own little world.

We're together, but we're not together.

And so I was there on Friday, this guy came in and gets the pattern and broke the etiquette.

He came in, yes, he had his phone, and then uh his AirPods.

So you know what he did?

And uh let's just say it wasn't uh, you know, I wouldn't have put it on my phone that way.

Because I was listening to this music and looking pretty loud, and I'm over here, like over here my AirPods in, I have my phone, I'm following that thing, right?

I'm preparing to start non-community, and I'm secretly becoming secretly off this.

And I have to install when it's being around 34.

Every every emotion of the stats I know before because it's COVID-19 tells us something different.

It's not just that we didn't want to be around too because it's been getting pressed.

COVID-19 right now because you might carry a virus that I said as a little bit of note, and I've just got a long time written something very much online between the possibility approaching.

We went through this whole experience as a nation we had a new phrase in our social vernacular.

The phrase was social distance.

Between me and other people.

Now I'd like to tell you that coming out of the pandemic, life has rebounded and things have changed.

But again, I've been doing uh all the reading.

Look, economist, sociologist, pastors, they're all saying the political scientists, they're all writing books and saying the same thing that Americans, that the West is becoming more and more isolated.

And everybody's saying because of the acceleration of AI, that's just gonna get worse.

As we live in, again, to to use the term by Norina Hertz, we live in the loneliest century.

Have you felt it?

As we come to Acts chapter 2, what we discover is the opposite of loneliness.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

We discover a group of people who come from all over the world.

Who the text is going to describe with one word, it's the word that describes our series.

The text describes them as becoming together.

I hope you just kind of awaken a little bit of curiosity with me this Sunday morning.

What in the world can bring people from all different backgrounds together?

Now, before we read, we're in uh verse 42.

Before we read, let me give you a little bit of context so you understand where we're going, okay?

All right.

Harbor City, we have been on a nine-month series.

We looked at the message of the Gospel of Matthew.

The message of the Gospel of Matthew was that Jesus lived, that Jesus died, that Jesus rose again, and that he died to pay for the sin that stood between us and God.

And then he tells his disciples, you'll remember a few weeks back, to go into all the world and make disciples.

And the very first command he gives them is to not just go and make disciples, but to Acts chapter one, to wait.

Wait until the Holy Spirit comes.

And so we're 50 days after that event, and we're at this festival of Pentecost, Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Now, at the festival of Pentecost, 120 Christ followers, Christians have gathered in the upper room and they're beginning to pray.

They're beginning to wait on the Holy Spirit.

In Acts chapter 2, God sends the Holy Spirit onto his people, the church.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

And the sign of the Holy Spirit is that they're all one, they're all praying, and they all begin to speak in tongues, and then people from all over the Roman Empire who are gathered in Jerusalem because of this festival begin to hear the word of God, the message of the gospel in their own language.

And what happens is an astounding response.

They they they say, What should we do?

So the apostle Peter, who's never been shy, right, gets up and he preaches a sermon and basically tells them what this is what happened.

Jesus lived, and you, you you Jews, you put him to death.

And the text tells us that it cut them to the the the heart.

The Holy Spirit convicted them, and they say that they said their response was this, what must we do to be saved?

If we have put to death God's not just God's messenger, but God's Son, what can we do to be saved?

And Peter replies, Repent and be baptized.

And then the text tells us three thousand people did that, and they were added to the church that day.

And that brings us to verse 42.

Now listen, this is what you're listening for as we read this scripture, okay?

You're listening for what was true of the community, what were their relationships like?

Okay, that's what we're listening for.

Ready?

Acts 2, verse 42.

Acts 2:42

And they, that's these 3,000 people, right?

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship.

All right.

They devoted themselves to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and their prayers.

And all came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.

And all who believed were together and had all things in common.

By the way, look everybody read with me, verse 44, okay?

Ready?

And all who believed were together.

Ready?

And all who believed were together.

And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need.

Listen to a description of their life right here, verse 46.

And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people.

And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

This series is the story of what happens when the Holy Spirit comes on a group of people and brings them together through their belief in Jesus.

So here's our outline for our time together, okay?

The first thing that we're gonna see is that they've received the grace of Jesus, that they received the people of Jesus, and then they shared their life with each other.

I'm gonna actually make that face towards you, okay?

If you're like, what do I do if I want to apply what God's word is telling me?

Here's what you do, number one.

You receive his grace.

You receive his grace.

Go back one verse, uh Acts 2, 41.

So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about 3,000 souls.

Where did these 3,000 people come from?

Remember, Pentecost is a Jewish festival.

There are a bunch of people gathered from all over the world, all in one place, okay?

And where did they come from?

Look, look back if you're looking in your Bible at Acts chapter 2, go all the way to verse 9, okay, and it says this Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians, we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

In other words, this 3,000 people were from all over the Roman Empire, but something amazing brought them together.

What brought them together?

One, they received the grace of God and believing in Jesus, and number two, they surrendered to Jesus' authority.

All right, well, what what when you say Jesus' authority, what does that mean?

They they did you see that they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching.

They had, in other words, I heard one said this way, a shared word about a shared Lord.

Listen, if you have 3,000 people from all over and you bring them to one place and they all want their own way, that is not a recipe for community.

That's a recipe for disaster.

If you want a uh exhibit of that, you can go around four o'clock to I-26 and you will see what it's like when 3,000 people all wanting their own way are all in the same place.

But something different happened with this community.

Even though they were so different.

I mean, people from Africa and from Europe and from the Middle East and people from the islands like like like Crete all came together and all experienced this amazing community, this life together.

How?

It's because they all submitted to the same thing.

They all put themselves under the authority, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching.

Now, let me back up a little bit.

What you might ask the question, what is the apostles' teaching?

Well, what we know from the immediate context, the apostles' teaching is at least the content of Acts chapter 2, the content of Peter's sermon, right?

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Make sense?

What was Peter's sermon?

If you read through Peter's sermon, it's basically the message of the book of Matthew that we've been through.

It is that Jesus came, that he lived according to the scriptures, that he died, was buried, and rose again, and that there's a response demanded on people to believe in that.

In other words, it's the message of the gospel, the good news about what Jesus has done.

That was the apostles' teaching.

You and I, when we hold the New Testament in our hands, we hold the apostles' teaching.

And so you and I, when we devote ourselves to God's word, when we devote ourselves, we are doing the same thing that this early church did.

We are devoting ourselves to the apostles' teaching.

And listen, when we do that, here's the thing.

We say this at the weekender.

When we approach the word of God, we do not stand over it, we stand under it.

Does that make sense?

What I mean by that is like we don't read God's word like as one voice among many, uh like like our favorite podcast or our friend or our mentor, and they're all gonna give us advice.

I get podcast advice, I get friend advice, I get mentor advice, and I get Bible advice, and then from this buffet of advice, I decide what to do.

That would be putting yourself over the word of God.

Instead, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, they put themselves under God's word, which made them one.

So when they read in the apostles' teachings that Jesus taught us to forgive our enemies, they said, I need to forgive my enemies.

What about you?

When you come across some sort of teaching in God's word that tells you take that example, to forgive.

What do you do?

Oh, oh, um God, you I know that's a good general rule for most people, right?

But I happen to be the exception here.

If you knew what they did to me, you would never ask me to forgive them.

You you you must not have been you must not have seen what they did to me.

That's putting ourselves over the word of God, isn't it?

It's reading God's word as if it's advice.

This group of people heard that and they said, No, the word of Jesus, the one who has forgiven us, commands us to turn around and forgive other people.

So that's what we're gonna do.

You know what a community of forgiveness feels like?

It feels like a place of belonging.

You know what a community is like that doesn't forgive?

It's not a community very long, is it?

Here, because all three thousand people who became part of the early church here received the grace of Jesus.

They became one together.

So listen, if you're here and you like man, Pastor Jonathan, I feel like you're reading my mail here, like you're talking about this isolation.

That we experience.

I feel that.

And you like, what do I do to be a part of this community?

You do more than come to church.

The first thing you do is receive the grace that's offered right here in the scriptures.

You surrender to Jesus as your Savior and Lord.

You turn away from your sin.

You do exactly what we talk about in baptism, which we go public with our faith.

We repent and we are baptized.

That's how we enter into this new covenant family, the church.

By the way, just like in the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Matthew, all the all over the book, Matthew, the author, is trying to tell us that everything that is happening was in accordance with the scriptures.

You remember that?

All right.

In the same way in Acts chapter 2, this event that's being recorded here was to fulfill the scriptures.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

I can actually take you multiple places to prove it.

We go to Ezekiel 36 or Ezekiel 37 or Jeremiah 31.

I'm just going to go to Jeremiah 31 here.

All right.

I didn't put this up on the screen, but listen to this.

This is what God said he was going to do in Israel.

Jeremiah 31, beginning in verse 31.

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord.

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days.

I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

This is the new covenant prophesied by Jeremiah that is fulfilled right here in the New Testament community of God, the church in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

This is a work of God.

Did you catch those words added?

In in Acts 2, verse 41, it says, And there were added to the church that day about 3,000.

Acts 2:41

Who's the one doing the adding?

Do you and I, when we believe in Jesus, do we do we add ourselves to the church?

Well, look at verse 47.

Everybody look at Acts 2, 47.

Who does the adding?

The Lord.

And the Lord, you see it, added to their number those who are being saved.

You see it?

So in other words, the church becomes a community not just of people who have believed in Jesus, but it becomes a community of people Jesus is bringing together.

Do you see it?

Do you see it?

The church is not just people who believe in Jesus.

The church is actually brought together by people that Jesus Himself, the Lord, is adding together.

Everybody take a second and look around this room.

I'll wait.

You can look behind you, you can look in front of you.

You don't have to look at the back of the person.

Everybody do it.

Look around.

All right.

This is the community of faith.

If you're here and you've trusted in Jesus, this is the community of faith that the Lord has added together.

He has brought them together.

He has brought us together.

And he uses his spirit in this community to create an amazing sense of belonging.

Again, we're going to be in these same five verses for the next four weeks, or same six verses rather, for the next four weeks.

So we're going to get deeper into this.

But do you just see the type of community life here?

Right?

They're learning together.

They devote themselves to the apostles' teaching.

There's this great bond, something called fellowship, that they're they're they're they're committed to praying for one another.

There's this sense of awe that God is doing something unique in human history.

There's wonders and signs being done through the apostles.

There's this shared sense of belonging and believing, and they all believed, what's that word again, together.

So much so that the people here, the people in this community rather, begin to care more about each other than they begin to care about their stuff.

And so they begin to be generous to each other.

All who believed were together had all things in common.

They were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any I need.

And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts.

Just take a minute.

Don't you want to live in a community like that?

Had a chance to lead a mission trip a number of years ago of students.

And we went to South Africa, Johannesburg, and the work was great.

But what was even better is the place, the region of South Africa that we were doing the work, guess what?

It didn't have a cell phone signal.

It just didn't have it.

This was, I mean, I'm kind of dating myself.

There were places in the world before Elon Musk put satellites everywhere that didn't have a cell phone signal.

I know it's like harder to find today, you know, but it wasn't even that we didn't buy the plan.

Like we literally couldn't get a signal with the it was so remote.

Um we went, it was a group of 14, and you know what was so characteristic about the trip, which just sticks out to me even more than the type of ministry that we did.

The amount of conversations we had together.

I I went with, you know, I kind of knew some of the people on the team, but I didn't really know them.

And we came back and like it was just amazing the type of relationship that had been built over just simple time together.

Now I remember there was this one moment on the trip where we got into Johannesburg Proper, the city, um, and we went to a cafe that had Wi-Fi.

And you know what happened?

Like, it was almost like a when the Wi-Fi switch got turned on, the community got turned off.

I'm serious.

We we we walked into this cafe or whatever, and people were like FaceTiming, you know, friends or whatever, they were catching up.

And it was literally like everyone went into their own world.

You and I today, we live in a world where the Wi-Fi is on.

We we live in a world where it's all about us.

We live in a world where we have self-facing cameras.

I want you just to think for a second about that.

Cameras were designed to help capture how beautiful the world out there was.

Right?

Just think about the history of the camera.

Somebody went to the Grand Canyon and was like, man, I wish I could capture this and I can't paint.

Therefore, the camera was invented.

A camera is supposed to make you engage with the world out there.

But thank you, millennials, and I'm one of them.

We said, you know what we really need?

A camera.

The world out there is great, but you know what else is even better?

The world in here.

We live in a world that's all about ourselves.

And yet, when we come to the message of the gospel, it begins to change us and move us from not just receiving Jesus as our Savior, but receiving his people.

That's the next point.

We don't just receive Jesus.

We don't just receive his grace, we receive his people.

Number two, if you're taking notes, receive his people, Acts 2.47.

And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

Listen, I know most of you are like, um, Pastor Jonathan, I'm with you.

I love this message of forgiveness of sin.

I love the fact that Jesus, you know, saves me, helps me live.

And I'm I'm all about receiving a personal relationship with Jesus.

I just don't like this teaching about receiving relationships with other people.

Well, listen, here's what I gotta tell you.

They're one and the same.

All right.

Bold statement alert.

Um, if you have God as your father, you have other Christians as your brothers and sisters.

God's not like the uh father who's had has his one single child homes.

You know what I'm saying?

Everybody tracking with me?

If you have God as Father, he brings you into relationship with other people.

Listen, here's the here's the through line of this series.

Jesus did not just die to save you from sin, he died to bring you into a family, his family.

This is why this message is so relevant today.

It's because if you're here and you're in Christ, the question isn't whether you have a family or a community.

The question is how are you operating inside of that family and in that community?

Because again, Jesus added to their number day by day those who are being saved.

If Jesus is the one who is doing the adding, he is bringing you into relationships with other people.

Um now, let me tell you what in a church environment is going to keep you from building relationships with other people.

This is true on the college campus too.

Okay?

This is the number one thing that's going to keep you from building meaningful relationships with other people, at least in my opinion, okay?

Ready?

It's comparison.

You know what comparison is?

Okay, well, I'll tell you what it is because sometimes I struggle with it.

It doesn't look like any of you struggle with it, okay?

This is comparison.

Comparison is when you have an inner scorecard in your mind and you meet somebody and you think, oh are they doing as good as I'm doing?

Is their house nicer?

Is their car nicer?

They have a better marriage.

Oh, they have a better marriage than we do.

Oh, their marriage isn't as good as ours.

How about their kids?

What about our what's their net worth?

Are they wealthier than we are?

Are they not as wealthy as we are?

Don't we do that?

We meet other people and we begin to see anchor, see how we are doing compared to how they are doing.

And whenever we compare, we always lose.

This is why.

Because if you compare yourself to someone else and you respond favorably, oh, I'm smarter, I'm whatever, guess what?

You become proud.

You want to know the number one ingredient to isolation?

Pride.

Because this is what this is how pride will play out in your life.

It's like, ugh, I don't want to go spend time with those people this week.

You know why?

There's nothing that they can teach me.

Why do I need to go?

The opposite, by the way, is also a problem.

If you compare yourself to other people and you compare yourself unfavorably, oh, they're just so much smarter, they're so much wealthier, they're so much this, they know the Bible, they what whatever it is.

Listen, when you do that, you're rejecting the grounds by which you are have been added into the family of God.

Because the way that we're added into the family of God is not because of our work at all.

It's only because it's Jesus' work on our behalf.

There's there's not a front door and a back door to the church.

There's one door, and that door is called grace.

The only way we become part of the family of God is that we are all sinners in need of a savior.

Look back to Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

You look at the very beginning.

Who gets up to preach this sermon?

Who gets up to preach this sermon?

Who?

Peter.

Right?

What do we know about Peter?

What did he do to Jesus?

He abandoned him, he betrayed him.

Peter is a redeemed sinner telling other sinners where they can find the same redemption that he has received, not because of anything he did, but by grace alone.

Isn't that amazing?

It's amazing on the community of God.

It is a grace-filled community.

You know what it means?

Is that there is no hierarchy in the kingdom of God.

There's not some people on some levels and other people, it doesn't matter if you've been a Christian for years and other people just became a Christian.

There's no distinction.

We all get in through the same door called grace, which allows us what?

It's not just that we have a shared authority, the word of God, we have a shared experience, salvation by Jesus, but we also relate to each other as peers.

Because the church is the only organization on the planet where none of us deserve to be here.

And so the church put the gospel puts to death any type of pride we would have as we relate to other people.

So we don't just receive his grace, we receive his people.

Number three, this is the hard one.

Share your life.

We share our lives with other people.

Again, I can go back to this passage over and over again, right?

The description of the early church was all about how the early church shared their lives with each other.

Now we have a myth, and I talk about this at the weekender.

We have a myth that we often believe in our American culture, which is a me and my God and my Bible faith.

Well, the Bible is the highest authority, and nobody can tell me about my relationship with Jesus.

It's me and my God, and me and my faith, and me and my Bible.

Um, a pastor friend in um Denver, he says this.

His name's JT English.

He says that the Bible knows nothing of a solitary religion.

Christianity may be personal, but it is not private.

It is personal.

It's not just a corporate faith where a bunch of people believe and God relates to us all as a giant unit.

There is a personal element that we personally believe in Jesus.

He personally has saved us.

We are personally brought into the family of God, but it's not private.

I mean, even monks, right?

If you think about the most spiritual people that you think in your, you know, you might think of somebody who's like a monk, a Christian monk.

Even monks gather in monasteries with other monks because they need community.

Even Jesus, who was the perfect God man, the perfect person, chose to be in community.

You need other people in your life.

You need people to share your life with, even when sharing your life is inconvenient.

You know, and um let me tell you why um isolation is kind of our natural bent.

It really goes back to the whole story of the Bible.

The story of the Bible says, Genesis chapter 2, I think it's verse 18 or 19, but God says about man, the man that he created, it is not good for man to be alone.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

Now, that's not just a comment on men in general, though it's true of us men in general.

That's true of mankind.

It's not good for us to be alone.

You're actually made for other people, you're made in the image of a triune God who is eternally resisted in relationship.

So you were made for community, okay?

Genesis chapter 3 comes.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

Sin enters the scene, Adam and Eve rebel against God, and what happens?

First, the relationship with God is broken, a vertical relationship is broken, and they hide from God.

But it's not soon after they hide from God that they begin to hide from each other.

Very next chapter, we have the story of one brother murdering another brother, thus the death of the very first community.

Sin makes us know because we're all born sinners, we're sinners by birth and choice.

Sin makes us realize that we're not okay before a holy God.

And because we're not okay before God, it feels like in our relationships with other people that we've got to do what our first parents did, Adam and Eve, we've got to hide.

And that's what we're trying to do in our isolation.

We're trying to hide.

Um, Norina Hertz again tells the story of a um service in New York City where you can rent a friend.

$40 an hour.

You just have somebody who's gonna come and spend an hour with you, you grab coffee or lunch, and they just ask you how things are going.

That's it.

So she actually does this.

She goes and travels to Manhattan, she rent, she rents a friend, her friend's name's Britney, and she's just so curious.

What in the world, Britney?

People are paying you$40 an hour just to sit across the table and be their friend?

And she's like, Yeah.

Um, and she's like, Why do you think they do that?

And she's like, Well, I think that when people sit across from me, they want me to like be engaged and ask them how things are going and be concerned like a friend to them, but they don't want the responsibility of having to care for me.

Isn't that what we do?

We want people to be there for us.

But we're kind of like don't like the inconvenience of having other people when they need us.

Listen, here's here's the a truth about real relationships.

Real relationships are always going to be inconvenient to some degree.

Your friend who needs to move the couch, it's never at a time where you have a free block.

Right?

If you jump in a community group, here's this is like a law.

If you jump in a community group, I guarantee that the people's the kids' birthdays in your community group are not gonna find a time when you don't have anything else going on.

When people need a ride or people need help, it's never convenient.

But it's also just so humanly necessary.

We have um I can't tell you how important I think this is, what I'm about to say.

We have somewhere in our deepest psyche this understanding that real friendship, real relationship can can can save the world.

Okay.

Let me point this out.

Our our greatest and what I think some of our most beloved stories, they're all teaching us the same thing.

That if friends, that if people can come together, they can save the world.

I think about it in some of my like most favorite stories.

I think about the story of Harry Potter.

What's the story of Harry Potter?

The friendship can save the world.

They can't do it alone.

They've got to have other people in their lives.

Harry needs Hermione, Hermione needs Ron.

They all need each other.

What's what's you know, go back a little bit, the the you know, the the first trilogy of Star Wars, episode four.

What's what's the plot line?

Friendship can save the world.

Luke, if Han bails, doesn't come back, Luke dies.

The world's lost.

What about in like Marvel, the Marvel cycle?

Avengers, not even friends, like people don't even really like each other.

But we have this kind of idea that they you gotta come together.

And if people come together, say the world, my my favorite you know, story, Lord of the Rings.

Lord of the Rings is a friendship can save the world.

Listen, here's the thing.

Again, I don't want you to miss this.

Whatever challenge you're going through in your life right now, friendship, relationship can help you overcome it.

I really mean that.

How much in your life would be better if your relationships were better?

I I think about this like let's go like to an extreme example here.

I think about this with like somebody who's battling cancer.

If you read the accounts of somebody who's struggling, even with a terminal diagnosis of cancer, it is amazing typically that they all say the same thing.

The disease is terrible, we hate it, the treatment was awful, but the community that came around me while I fought the battle made all the difference.

If you don't, you know, sharing your life with other people is always gonna be inconvenient.

But if you don't, what type of life do you think you're gonna have?

What's so amazing about the gospel is the gospel gives us the ability to meaningfully share our lives with other people in a way that nothing else does.

What do you mean?

I mean this.

It means like if I understand that even though I'm a sinner, that Jesus has died and covers my sin, he's taken it away, that he's given me his very righteousness.

Do you know what that means?

That means I don't have to hide from God anymore.

And you know what it means psychologically when you don't have to hide from God, it means you don't have to hide from other people.

It means you can have a conversation that's beyond, hey, how you doing?

Good, busy, you, good, busy?

It can sound like, hey, how you doing?

I'm not good.

Let me tell you about it.

Listen, it's only when we get to that place when we realize that Jesus is taking care of our greatest need, that he enables us to engage with other people to help take care of these other needs around us, that we can become a true community together.

So here's some things I want to do to challenge you this week.

By the way, we'll be talking about this all this series.

First, next four weeks of this series, bold statement alert.

Here it is.

Uh, if you have plans the next four Sundays, cancel them.

I want you to be here.

We're going on this journey together.

Unless you're in a wedding or getting married, be here.

Okay.

You're supposed to laugh.

Okay.

Some of you might be in a wedding.

I don't know.

Um, I want you to be here because we're gonna go on this journey together.

All right.

Um, number two, um, we very recently have launched community groups here at Harbor City.

And um, it's one of the practical application steps coming out of the sermon is engage in a community group.

Now, listen, here's some things I can promise to you about trying to connect to a community group.

Number one, it will be awkward a little bit.

Hopefully, not unnecessarily awkward, but it will be a little bit awkward, and it's gonna be worth it.

All right, so I want you to engage in a community group.

You can Scan the QR code in the front of the seat and sign up.

Pastor Tyler will help get you connected to different community groups.

Number two, I want you to come to the weekender.

The weekender is your next best step of becoming a part of Harbor City Church for learning more about what we do, helping you get connected in a variety of different ways.

We have one coming up October 2nd, 3rd.

We share a meal together, actually, two meals, and um we spend some time around the table for you to get to know other people in the church.

You need to do that.

If you haven't done that, what are you waiting on?

Like it's time.

Um, this is too important.

And the the cost of relational isolation is too high for you to miss.

Um last thing I want to encourage you to do is this week, I want to give you a little homework assignment.

I want you to take one relational risk.

What that means is reaching out to somebody to grab coffee, maybe to grab lunch.

And when they ask, hey, how are things are going, or you ask how things are going, be honest.

You need other people in your life.

You weren't created to do it alone.

Jesus did not just die to take away your sin.

He died to bring you into a community.

Let's pray.

Father, I know that this is hard.

This is real.

This is everyday life.

But I'm grateful for your living word that speaks to us right in our situation.

God, I know there's somebody here who's struggling with relational isolation that they did not choose.

Father, I pray that you would meet them, that you would send people to be a part of their lives in a meaningful way.

Father, for the person who has been, I mean, maybe they would say, Yeah, I have reached, I have reached out, I have tried to engage, I've tried to do all the things, but maybe there's experience in their past that's keeping them from wanting to take the next step.

Father, I pray that you would give them courage.

If it's fear, God, I pray that you bring them healing, if it's pain.

I pray that you would give them a sense of your presence with them if it's just they're just paralyzed by their own loneliness.

Bring us, Father, through this series, bring us into relationships with each other.

God, I pray, man, I see the day in a world that is continuing to run headlong in this age of AI towards isolation, that we would become a community of people that knows you, that knows each other, and that demonstrates our love for each other and our love for you to a watching world.

Holy Spirit, come right now in this moment.

Come right now.

Do the work that only you can do.

Holy Spirit, you're called the Spirit of Unity.

Bring unity in this church.

Father, for the person here who needs to trust you as their savior and Lord, I pray that you would give them the courage to do so.

Jesus, you're a healer.

You would regularly see people's needs and you would ask, what can I do for you?

Jesus, we ask you, won't you heal us from our loneliness?

Heal us from our isolation.

Bring us into rich and deep community for your glory and for our good.

Amen.

Well, church family, right now, we're going to do something else.

At the end of every week, this uh series, we're going to go to the Lord's table together.

And it's fitting that we do this.

It's fitting because the passage that we read that we're basing this whole series around is a passage that celebrates the breaking of bread and fellowship.

In the early church, the the church would share a meal, and at the apex of that meal, they would celebrate what we call communion or the Lord's table together.

That they would break bread, they would drink from the cup of wine, and they would remember what Jesus told them to remember.

Now, I do want to say this before we go to this meal together.

Um if you're here and you're not yet a Christian, a Christ follower, you haven't surrendered your life to Jesus, maybe you're new.

Look, first of all, we're just so glad that you're here.

Um I wouldn't encourage you not to not to take from this cup or um eat of this bread because they're not they're not for you.

Um what is for you is what they point to.

What what the bread and the cup point to is the the body of Jesus broken for us and his blood poured out for the forgiveness of our sin.

And if you want to know what that means, I'd love to talk to you, and I'll be I'll be up front at the end of the service.

Church, when we, I don't know if you thought about this.

Um, the Apostle Paul writes that when we take a you know the the the Lord's table together, we remind ourselves that we are one body.

You grab this little cup, and if you haven't done it already, there's the bottom, there's a little wafer of bread at the bottom.

The night that Jesus was betrayed, he took bread, he broke it, and he said, This is my body which is broken for you.

When you, church, you hold this little piece of bread, this little wafer, you remember that Jesus died again, not just to forgive you of your sin, but to bring you into a family.

This, you know what this means?

This is to be a reminder that you are not alone.

And so take this and eat and remember his body given for you.

As you hold this little cup, this is way too small to be a meal, right?

It's because it's only ever really meant to be an appetizer of a great meal that is coming.

Revelation 21, we talk about the wedding feast of the Lamb.

There's a day coming where there will be a great meal in Jesus' new kingdom.

It actually is a call back to the passage we just read, Acts 2, 42 through 47.

You ever realize that?

So, this this little meal that we participate in is a foretaste of a great meal that is coming, where the community of the king will be a perfect, forever community.

And so as we take this cup and we drink it, we remember that Jesus' blood was spilled for the forgiveness of our sin.

Take church and drink and do this in remembrance of him.

I ask if you will to stand and let's sing together.

And the more than I behold.