Activate Spirit Growth Pt. 8 | 10/04/2026

When the music stops, quit being nice and go sit down.

That's how we do things here.

I'm just kidding, by the way.

Thank you, Jesus, for this day, Lord.

We just come and we thank you for what you've done and started at Generations Church, Lord, and these people, but I ask that you would continue it.

We ask for eyes to see and ears that hear, Lord.

We thank you for your word, Lord.

I ask for your grace and help today to communicate what you would desire to say to your people.

Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

We have been in this never-ending series on 2 Peter, was it chapter 1?

And we've been I've been trying to hit this message, I think, the last three or four weeks, and God just keeps having different plans, and I'm fine with that.

But I'm excited for what God is doing.

If I can get a little bit just ramble for a second.

Are y'all aware of like the idea of vision?

Like if you have a business or something, like you give your vision statement, mission statement.

Everyone, we're all aware of that.

We have a vision statement at this church, but I want to talk about this because I think it's good that we understand first thing, like what is our vision, but even the point of having it as a local church, because vision is think of it like this it's not, it's not who you are right now.

Vision is who you want to be.

Okay?

And so the Bible says without vision, the people perish.

Okay.

I want to add to this when you actually kind of look more further into that.

It's like the idea of prophetic vision.

When God is not showing you who you need to be.

Does that make sense?

I don't just think about who do I want to be.

I say, Lord, who have you created me to be?

Is that and that's how we get vision.

And without that, we just perish.

But in our life, and even in our church, if we don't have vision, it's like we can just we kind of come and it's like, what are we doing?

Where are we going?

The Bible talks about moving from glory to glory.

Paul would even describe it.

I'm running a race, I'm not staying in the same place I was yesterday.

Okay?

So the Bible gives a blueprint on church, okay?

We don't have to recreate the wheel.

But sometimes churches feel the need to do that.

Okay.

I've got I've got, I know God said this is how you do it, but I've got a better way.

So Generations Church, we're not looking to recreate the wheel by providing a vision statement, okay?

Now, if you actually look through the Word of God, there's like over 70 different light item differentiating things with multiple verses to provide them that gives what the church is meant to be, what the church is meant to do.

You could even say, What is the vision of the church?

The Bible defines that.

It's a lie, and you could break those down into multiple categories.

All right, being compassionate, caring for one another, fulfilling the mission of God, building up the church.

You could you could list all these things of what the church is meant to be.

We're meant to help people in need.

But the reason that we have a local church vision is not to replace the original one through God's counsel.

And it's not meant to reduce it.

The reason that we have a local church vision is because it's the prophetic assignment to our church based on the time and history we've been placed, the location, the region, what is going on in our world, and what God's assignment is.

Okay?

Has anyone ever been out of state and like seen homes in different regions with different weather and you notice the homes are different?

They're made out of different materials.

Like if you go to Arizona, the houses are way different than that house is made up in you know Alaska.

And so the idea is that a house, the point of a home is the same no matter where you are, but how the home is made is based upon where it's placed.

We have a local church vision because it's what God is calling us to be in a world where there's things fighting against these very things.

So our vision statement is that we're a church that's marked by revival.

Yes, yes, yeah.

And deep discipleship, joyful family, and the power of the Holy Spirit across generations.

Five things.

We didn't just make this up for a marketing scheme.

Yeah.

Just so you know.

Okay?

And one of the challenges is when we come together, God calls you is that this is our vision, this is where we're headed.

We feel an assignment from the Lord.

We're marked by revival, not to be braggy, and we're not saying that we have signs, wonders, and miracles left and right.

What we're saying is revival is that we live in a culture where people don't recognize their depravity and need for God.

And we believe that we're contending to put ourselves in a place saying, Lord, we need you.

And that's what brings revival.

Revival is coming back like resurrection power.

Okay?

Y'all have heard this term.

I'm I hope.

Resurrection power.

We want to experience resurrection.

Well, how do you do that?

You have to die.

And sometimes we're like, we're like, Lord, I just don't feel like I'm walking in power.

And maybe he's just saying you haven't learned to die to yourself.

You haven't learned to recognize your need for me.

That's why we're church marked by revival.

And we're not saying that we've gotten there.

That's our vision.

And so I, you know, sometimes the people look at our website and they're expecting everything's gonna be perfect, and like, no, we're working on these things.

The next thing is deep discipleship.

Well, how do you how do you how do you how do you disciple people deeply?

Let me give you the first tip.

You have to be a disciple of Jesus in order to disciple someone.

You have to do the work, you have to be an example.

I am so over people that are great at talking and bad at walking.

That's how you be a disciple.

Most people don't care as much what you say, they're gonna watch what you do.

Okay?

And let me just go ahead and hit another thing because we're talking about brotherly affection.

You can disciple people on how to be an individual that walks with Jesus, but you also have to disciple them on how to be someone who's part of a church family.

It's not just you and God.

I'm sorry.

The moment you say yes to Jesus, you're baptized in the church family, but your willingness to be a good disciple is your willingness to devote yourself to that reality.

But we're a church of deep discipleship according to the word of God.

Next, we're a joyful family.

We're not just social, we're not a social club, we're not just friends that just hang out every once in a while for Starbucks and coffee.

We're a family.

The Bible says, brothers and sisters, because God wants us to understand something.

This is not a this is not a relationship that you get to choose.

You can choose your family your friends.

You don't choose your family.

Look to the person left and say, You're stuck with me.

Look to the other person and say, You're welcome.

There's joy in family, but that doesn't make family easy.

But that's the heart that we have.

That's what we're striving for.

We don't want to just have shallow relationships, okay?

We want to be people that link arms, we do life together, and we live in a culture where that is not easy.

I would say it's the hardest it's ever been.

It is.

So we're contending.

Think of it like this: we're fighting against a current.

And so I want you to understand if you feel called here, it's not like church is normal.

And it's not because we're any more like special than anybody.

We're just recognizing something, there something more is needed, and we're willing to fight against the current of the world around us, to fight against what feels normal, but also to fight against what feels comfortable.

And then finally, the power of the Holy Spirit.

This is something our world, the church doesn't need the Holy Spirit because they have amazing plans, they have amazing productions, they can fill up a church with them their amazing ideas, and this idea of the Holy Spirit has been booted out the door.

Because the Holy Spirit shows up to lead, not to support your leading, to lead you, not to support your services, to lead your services, to manifest Himself.

So we we come in, and that's why we have plans.

We work hard, we bring excellence as much as we can to everything that we do.

But at the end of the day, when the Holy Spirit shows up, we say, What do you want to do?

We have wonderful people in the room that work very hard and will show up to church, and all of a sudden we don't do what they've worked hard towards because we're following the Holy Spirit, and I'm grateful for that.

I'm grateful for that heart.

And then finally, across generations, is that the the gen the church was meant to be a generational church, mothers and fathers, mothering and fathering sons and daughters, and sons and daughters honoring mothers and fathers.

There's a divide.

There's a lack of honor, there's a lack of respect, there's a lack of a need for.

God is healing that.

Okay.

He's not done, but this is what we're contending for.

It's very tempting to want to dishonor older people.

They're not they're not as quick with technology.

It's like trying to watch them open an email.

I get it.

But you gotta understand is that the Bible tells us treat the older men as fathers.

Treat the older women as mothers.

Treat the younger men as brothers, and the younger women with all purity as sisters.

This is how we're meant to be as a family.

God's healing that.

There's times I mess up with that stuff.

There's times that the Lord's had to rebuke me.

I've had to repent where I don't always handle things right.

But understand, we're contending for this.

It's our vision.

So brotherly affection is an expectation.

Think of it like a vision of who God wants us to be.

It's not just people that are just working together.

We're not co-workers.

We're family.

That that has to mean something.

That has to mean something more than just mere friendships.

That has to mean it's not transactional.

We can have really awesome marriages that are transactional.

And the idea is that and it works, and you've done it for years, and your marriage is healthy because of this.

That you do something for her and she does something for you.

And you do something for her, and she does something in all your years and everything.

You're doing some, she's doing some.

It's transactional, it works.

It what the problem is what happens when they go through a crisis and they're not able to do their things for you anymore.

Go talk to some divorce lawyers and see.

We've been married and things were great for 10 years, and all of a sudden he changed.

Well, how did he change?

He stopped doing these things.

Well, what did you do?

I stopped doing these things.

It's transactional.

That is not Christian love.

Christian love is the opposite.

Even when they're doing hurtful things to me, I'm still doing good things for them.

That takes some thick spiritual skin, doesn't it, Miss Tina?

That takes something that we just, you know what, we're not able to do that on our own.

So I love it because the Bible says you don't have to do it on your own.

The power of God is working inside of you, changing your heart, making you into a new creation that was created for good works.

Cleansing your heart, giving you a love beyond yourself.

Brotherly affection, what God calls us to be as a church is very hard.

This convicts me, and I see my inadequacy in this.

I want to put up a verse real quick.

This verse convicts me.

It's 1 Peter 3:8.

1 Peter 3:8

In 1 Peter, we've been, you know how we talked about godliness, that godliness is what's produced when we behold him.

If you want some homework this week, it's not very long.

I think it's five or six chapters.

1 Peter is some great homework.

Because a lot of what he goes over is the idea of godliness.

It's not just mere sin and you know morality, it goes beyond like this extra mile thing.

And Peter hits all the hard stuff in 1 Peter.

Go and try reading that every morning this week.

It takes about 30 minutes.

Wow.

Okay?

And he hits all these different things, these little different relational structures.

He goes into marriages, he gives husband and wives some very difficult advice of what to do.

He gives slaves some very difficult advice of what to do.

He gives all of us.

You know, you know what he says?

He says, you need to respect and pray for your rulers.

This is what Peter says.

Do you know who the ruler was at the time that he wrote this and who he's talking about?

Let me just go ahead and tell you.

This guy who was the ruler when Peter writes this to the church, I mean, he was horrible.

His health benefit plan was awful.

And people were having to pay such high taxes, you wouldn't believe what was going on.

No, this was Nero who was the leader who was burning Christians alive.

That's who Peter is writing to the church.

Can you imagine being attending church that day and the pastor comes up and the ruler who has just taken your brother or sister and burned them at the stake allowed lions to eat them?

And he says, Hey, I want you loving this person and praying for them.

And the context of what he says is he says, Why do you want, why do you want, why does God want you to do this?

Because God does not want anyone to perish.

Even the evil rulers who you who have hurt you and hurt your lives.

So we have 1 Peter 3.8, and now he's hitting all these things, and now he comes to all Christians.

So this is for all of us.

He says, Finally, all of you should be of one mind, sympathize with each other, love each other as brothers and sisters, be tenderhearted, and keep a humble attitude.

I have I have really been wrestling with this verse.

This one has really got me tripped up.

Really wrestling with it, really feeling convicted.

Even certain aspects where this, you know, ever read the Bible and you're like, I wish that wasn't in there.

This verse has been doing that for me.

Like, man, you got me.

Peter, this is genius how he does this.

Peter's talking to all Christians.

I want to I want to show something.

He shows five things.

What he does is the way you can look at this is that we have one mind, sympathy, love, tenderheartedness, and humility.

The first and the last thing is something that we do with our mind.

And then the second and fourth thing, the things sandwiched in between those, are something that's felt.

And then finally, the very center, brotherly love, is a mixture of the both.

Brotherly love is a devotion, a thing I decide to make myself do, but it's also an affection, a thing I feel.

It's not a cold, distant, I'm just obeying God, but I don't care.

I want you to capture this.

We cannot force ourselves to feel certain things.

We can like act like we're happy, we can act like we're joyful.

When David prays to God, he says, Restore unto me the joy of my salvation.

Peace is not something that you can just snap your fingers and all of a sudden we have peace.

But what's interesting is that the Bible shows us something that we actually have the ability to control what we think.

We demolish arguments of every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought.

We take captive every thought to make it be obedient to Christ.

The Bible shows us, and I've got more verses, that what happens up here, not only do we have the ability, but we have the responsibility to do so accordingly.

When Peter opens up 1 Peter in the first chapter, he says this in verse 13.

He says, So prepare your minds for action and exercise self-control.

He's about to go into all this really hard stuff.

He says, I want you to prepare your mind for action.

Romans 12 2, do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Okay.

Philippians 4 8.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.

You choose what you think about.

You can't always choose what you feel.

You can't just make the feelings of love happen.

I wish we could.

It would make this whole church and Christian thing a lot easier.

You hit a button, boom, love.

So Peter does this, is he packages this with the first and last thing that this we're gonna we're we're we're diving into this really hard verse starting here.

What am I thinking on?

There's a woman named Jane Hunt from the book, she writes a book called Critical Spirit Confronting the Heart of a Critic.

The reason I read this book is because I preached on it, but also I struggle with it, if I'm being honest.

But I want to show you a graph that she posts.

The idea of this, can everyone see it?

Am I blocking?

The idea of this is this is what happens in a person who is not, doesn't know the Lord, I'll put it that way.

Who's not following the Spirit of God, the Word of God.

And she describes this.

She's going to she says this, she goes, This is what the natural, think of it like this, our human nature.

When we're not being directed by and governed by the word of God, when we're not taking our thoughts captive, this is what happens.

A negative situation happens.

Could be anything.

But what it has to do is it has to go through the mind because our mind is like that net that catches everything that our senses send in.

Your eyes, your ears, your touch, all this stuff.

Your mind captures it and then it has to perceive and define what that is.

Is this a threat?

Is this good?

Is this bad?

Is this a reason to be joyful?

You know, how am I feeling about what I'm perceiving?

And the reason that the mind is so powerful is that you can have two people experience the exact same thing, and one is happy and one is sad because it's what's going on up here.

A great example is fireworks.

You have a kid that loves the fireworks, another one's freaking out because they think they're getting bong or something.

Because it's how they perceive it.

We experience things in life and what how we're perceiving it and defining it.

Is this a blessing?

And so the Bible is seeking to renew our mind the way we perceive people and life and circumstances and ourselves.

But when someone's not doing this, this is what's going to happen.

Negative situation, they're going to perceive it, and then what it's going to do, it's going to go directly to how does this make me feel.

And then how this makes me feel is going to determine what I do to what I choose to do.

This a lot of and I and I believe this, if you look at it a lot of serious, real Christian mothers and fathers, I think that a lot of them would agree that one of the things that is plaguing the young generation, I'm saying millennials, Gen Z, Gen Alpha, Gen Omega, whatever other gens there are, they would say this is that they're feelings-based Christians.

Spiritual mother over there.

I've had to deal with my kids and their feelings for enough.

We are defining what is right and wrong based on how we feel.

And we're not taking our thoughts captive.

We're being governed by our emotions, and what we're choosing to do is based on how we feel.

Now, she also puts this chart up.

This is what happens when someone is spirit-led, spirit-filled.

The word of God governs them, not their own will.

Again, we're learning to die to self, right?

That's the whole point.

It's not it's not I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

Amen.

That's the goal.

So check this out.

Negative situation happens, it hits our mind.

But instead, we have spirit-led thinking.

I am taking my thoughts captive.

Do you know what this is?

I love this.

This is what Romans 12 2 says.

Do not conform to the power of this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.

Listen to what this says.

Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is.

When I get a thought, wait a second, stop.

Let me check your credentials.

What are you saying?

No, that doesn't line up with God.

Get out of here.

Don't you ever come back?

That's what we do with our thoughts.

We got a thought that's like, no, I want to come in.

No, you can't.

Back up.

No, I want to come in.

No, you can't.

I'm gonna wrestle you down.

Make you be obedient to Christ.

Kick him.

Kick him again.

We take our thoughts captive.

Don't call those things.

I'm thinking that's a shirt idea.

I'm just trying to make sure I remember it for later.

Negative situation happens, it hits our mind.

We go to the Word of God.

We go to the Spirit of God.

And then instead of going to our emotions, what do we do?

We choose what is the right thing to do.

Sometimes you're gonna feel like being a jerk.

Sometimes you're gonna feel like being mean.

Sometimes you're gonna feel like getting retaliation.

Sometimes you're gonna feel like withholding love.

The thing that's plaguing the church today is not outright war, it's all the coldness and this it's the passive retaliation.

Let me pull away affection.

I was serving and I was very plugged in, but now I'm not because I've got to show you if you don't treat me right, I'm gonna have to make you pay.

Because we're too afraid to go to the person.

Privately and talk it out in gentleness and humility.

So we have press passive aggressiveness.

Let me let me just pull away.

Let me just talk about them behind the scenes because I'm honestly an emotional coward.

So let me just do this.

But see, when someone's led with the mind of Christ, they're gonna say thoughts get in line with the word of God, and then will choose the will of God.

Prepare your minds for action and exercise self-control.

If it was, we wouldn't need God.

What he's calling you to is supernatural.

This brotherly affection is not a naturally occurring thing in our world.

We have a fallen world full of sin, death, and destruction.

What is he calling us to be?

The light in the world, the salt of the earth.

Amen?

Not easy assignment.

You want to be my disciple?

Jesus is Jesus talking.

Take up your cross.

That's not an easy assignment.

I've come to terms with this.

My idea of church is that I've been dramatically wrong, and I'm allowing God to revive that.

One mind.

This is the first thing that Peter talks about.

He says Philippians 2.2 says, They make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose.

This is the first thing Peter talks about.

One mind.

What does this mean?

This is it's to be like-minded, united in spirit, but it also carries a meaning of harmony.

Yeah.

Is everyone familiar to harmony, like in the musical term?

It's different notes played together to make a pleasing sound.

You have different notes.

The idea is it's not that we're all the same.

We're not little robots all looking the same, talking the same, dressing the same.

It's in the diversity and the beauty and the uniqueness that God says is working and going the same direction.

But really at the heart of this is saying, out apart from ourselves, if we can find purpose that is greater than our own personal agendas and desires, this is going to be the glue that links us in unity.

Is there, if we when we go through the Word of God, is there something that we can grab onto that is bigger than ourself that will keep us united when everything inside of us wants to divide?

I'll give you an example.

Jesus in John 17, right before he's about to go to the cross, the whole chapter is devoted to him praying to his heavenly father.

This is like the last big prayer before he goes to the cross.

The whole chapter, and he's praying, he's pleading, he's interceding for his disciples.

But in John 17, 23, he says, I am in them and you are in me.

May they experience such perfect unity.

He's talking about the church.

May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.

I want you, do you hear what has just happened here?

He's saying that our ability to be united is going to show the world that Jesus is who he said he was, and that God loves us.

That our ability to be united is going to be one of the greatest tools for witnessing.

So when when me and Joe, whoever, have an issue, and we're about to divide, we say, wait a second, is this worth worth breaking the witness that we have to a lost world for the sake of Jesus?

That's a one-mindedness.

And when we're stuck in our own world, in our own selfishness, in our own desires, in our own comfort, we're not going to care about that.

We're going to think, no, I got offended.

Unity doesn't matter because I matter.

If you want a social club, go to a social club.

In fact, I'll get our administrator to get a list of social clubs and we can send them to you.

When you come to church here, you're coming into devotion and family with a call for unity that is bigger than ourselves, but we're also stepping into warfare.

Unity and peace are not naturally occurring things.

They're things that you have to contend for.

You have to be a peacemaker.

If you're not willing to fight for it, this is not going to be the house for you.

Ephesians 4, 11 through 13.

Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church, the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and the teachers.

These are gifts, the five-fold ministry.

The ordained leaders.

Leadership in the Bible is one of servitude.

It's not because anyone of the ordained people are better than the church.

It's because they're called to lower themselves and they are responsible for the Lord.

I want you to hear this, and I want to make sure I say this very clearly.

When you say yes to an official five-fold leadership role, leader to be, if you're going to be an elder, a deacon, an ordained role, what that means is that you are now held to a higher standard before God.

You're going to be judged more intensely, to whom much is given, much is required.

To the level you empower, you almost must be willing to confront.

Okay.

Your life is on display.

Okay?

It's not because they're better than the church people.

They're called to go lower.

In the world, it's different.

They're better, they're the best at business, they're the most talented, the best looking, the most popular.

It's like that in the world.

Jesus tells his disciples, this is how the world does it.

That's not how I'm calling you to do it.

But when God anoints and appoints someone, that is for them, that's between them and the Lord.

And I need you to hear this.

We live in a culture where it's a consumer-driven culture where it's, hey, if I put in a bad review, I can control them and get them to do what I want them to do.

That's not how the church is.

And because we've had generations of fearful pastors who don't know how to hold the ground, they give in and fold.

And what they've done is they taught you that your voice actually matters in directing the church when it doesn't.

It's God's voice because he's the head leading this church.

And he puts people in place who are responsible for him to listen and lead and use the wisdom of counsel, but lead.

And that does not mean that we as leaders don't care about your voice and we don't want to hear and we don't want feedback.

But at the end of the day, if you're not called, anointed, appointed, you're not the one responsible.

And this is where people get so offended.

They don't have the the role because God has not put them in that role, but they want to call the shots like they do.

The vision of the house comes from the pastors of the house.

I appreciate if you think you have good ideas.

I appreciate that you recognize that we don't have all of our stuff in order.

And maybe God has brought you to help us, but you're not creating the vision of the house.

You're not determining what is important and which direction we're headed.

I'm sorry.

And I understand there's a million things and needs that we could go after and do.

But we're not following you.

We're following the Lord.

Not only do we have a local church vision, we have a seasonal church vision.

And the seasonal church vision is saying, I want the when the God says I want to focus on this now.

And this is what he does in our hearts.

If God came to us with the list of everything that we had wrong, we would be overwhelmed.

This is everything wrong in your life that I need you to fix by tomorrow.

We would be like, I can't do that.

But he's gentle and kind and patient.

So what does he do?

He comes to us and he starts pointing at one or two things.

Hey, I want to work on this.

He's a good shepherd.

He's a good father.

He's patient and kind.

I'm not coming up to my little son Hayden who's 20 months saying, hey, we need to start working on your driver's license.

I'm like, let's learn how to use a spoon.

This is how this is how the father is with us.

And so that's how he is with our church.

So I understand when you come in, I understand you've got business experience.

I appreciate that.

I do too.

I understand that you have good ideas.

I appreciate that.

I think I do too.

But here's the thing: there's a difference between what is the Holy Spirit saying to us and leading us versus what is a good idea.

And what people do is they come in and they've got great intentions, but they'll lead the church astray with personal agendas instead of yielding to the vision of the house.

I've already had to deal with it.

They're no longer here at this church.

We've had to deal with this multiple times over multiple years.

I'm sorry.

You're coming into this house, you need to yield and submit to the vision of this house because we're submitting and yield to the head of the church.

And if you're not called, anointed, and point to that role, you don't have the grace or the anointing to make those calls.

David, why are you saying this?

Because as God is awakening your hearts, He's going to awaken passion and callings, and you may get feel called, and you may want to define the call, and you may want to do certain things, and you may be told no.

And I need you to not get offended and leave the church when you have to be told no.

I need you when you want us to go and start some ministry because you really care about it and we say no, to not think that we're evil people.

We are just trying to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.

And if you don't like the vision of this house, I'm sure there's like a thousand churches in this area.

Go find a vision you like.

If God's going to revive the church, then he has to be the head of his church.

Amen.

Christ gives gave the church the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and the teachers.

Their responsibility is to equip God's people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.

Their job is to equip and build up the church.

We're to equip you and build you up.

Okay?

This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of Christ, of God's Son, that we will be mature in the Lord.

This will continue until we all come to such unity.

What's the goal?

How will the world know that the Father sent his son?

Unity.

It's going, you know what God has done to me?

And he's still doing?

He's destroying my pride because I have a lot of it.

He's destroying my self-sufficiency because I rely on self.

And he's doing that in all of us.

Because he's wanting to revive us, he's wanting to heal our lives, our marriages, he's wanting to heal you.

But we have to understand this that if you want to experience resurrection power, you have to die.

There's no getting around that.

And if we quit fighting God and we just say, Lord, here's my life.

You're not here at church to be recognized, and it's not about you.

You're here to die to yourself and learn to give to others.

That's the point of brotherly affection.

And it's in the beauty of this that something beautiful and amazing happens.

It's the atmosphere and it's the family of God.

That's more fulfilling and more loving than we could ever possibly imagine.

It's better than the best country club.

It's better than going to Starbucks every day and getting Frappuccinos with your best friend and talking about your favorite books.

When God's spirit fell in the purity of the Acts 2 church, it was so it impacted them so much that they just started selling everything they owned and just started giving the money for the sake of the others.

They didn't have to be told to do that.

That wasn't a rule.

That was the natural response.

God is bringing revival here, and He's gonna bring revival because I believe that God is bringing people from the north, south, east, and west who are willing to die.

I just oh thank you, honey.

Like the last three times I preached, we're like promoting like new members' classes.

I'm like, you're gonna get hurt.

Welcome to chaos.

You've gotta die.

I've really got to work on my marketing.

If we have any marketing specialists, be like, hey Dave, we could probably work on your uh PR a little bit.

I think we should just make that like a slogan, you know?

Come here, you're gonna get hurt.

It's chaotic, and you you gotta die.

That's a good shirt idea, right?

You like that?

And on the back, it's gonna say, we're not a cult.

Y'all stand up.

Is everyone okay with that?

I don't have I'm not even gonna try to unpack the rest.

The next one, sympathize.

That's a hard one for me.

It's complex.

We'll probably hit that when we hit it.

Church, I take I just want you to know that myself, Pastor Catherine, Dr.

Randy, Miss Kim, Apostle Pete, Pastor Sharon, all of our other leaders, we take this very serious, and God has sent us really wonderful people who legitimately care about others, and they they pour out their lives for others.

Okay.

Our hearts are to see you encounter and worship and walk with your Creator.

Our hearts are to see you fully engulfed with the love of a church family.

This is not easy.

Nothing good in life is ever easy.

Would you all agree with that?

Raise your hand if you agree with that.

Almost everything good in life is gonna have a cost.

Discipleship has a cost, family has a cost, the power of the Holy Spirit has a cost.

Generational unity has a cost.

This is gonna require us to lay down our personal agendas.

God is sending wonderful, I do not have all the answers.

God is sending people that are seeing problems and they're filling in the gaps of those problems and providing solutions better than I ever could have.

It's awesome.

It is awesome.

We just have to understand the balance is that when you come in, you can't force that.

You can't force us to conform.

Come.

Oh, hey, we want the feedback, but at the same time, if it's a no right now, then understand it's a no.

We're just trying to follow the Lord the best we can.

I'm not the perfect leader.

I don't have all wisdom.

There's things that people have told me, and then a year later I'm like, you know what?

I think they were right.

Plant the seed in love, serve where you can, go to life groups.

One of the reasons people feel disconnected, you're just not in a life group.

And a life group is a decision.

I'm gonna devote myself to fellowship, coin and eat.

And also remember this, I think it's so funny because we try to create life groups with everyone that we can like I I I understand it.

We can want to connect with people in similar life, what's it called?

Life seasons.

Everyone who has, you know, two-year-olds wants to get with other parents that have two year olds and they can have play dates.

That's beautiful.

But we also need to be a church that reaches out to the stranger, maybe the person that's not like us.

Maybe we need to reach out to the older person who's alone and invite them into community.

This is not about your comfort to just find people that you click with well.

That's the opposite of hospitality.

And James would actually say that shows the evil in your own heart.

Join a life group.

Life group leaders reach out to people, reach out to the strangers, reach out to the older people, reach out to the younger people.

We're Generations Church.

Read out to people, reach out to people that are different color than you.

Where's the amens?

I'm not saying you're not racist, by the way.

Catherine just reached out to Pastor.

That was beautiful, honey.

I'm so proud of you.

And Maddox, we started Anna Tramp, and she was like, Chip, did that.

Lord Jesus, I thank you for your faithfulness, Lord.

Lord, burn our hearts up with everything that is not of you, God.

We need you, we need you, we need you.

Come, Father, just help us.

We're all weak.

We all need your help in certain areas.

Father, please help us.

Help us, help us.

In your name we pray.

Church, we love you.

Go have a wonderful day, okay?

All right, see you later.