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The Bible Guys LIVE: The Importance of Our Habits

The Bible Guys

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  1. You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk

  2. about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Jeff and I would like

  3. to welcome you to another episode of The Bible Guys. Man. We have

  4. a great episode for you. A while back, we did a Bible Guys

  5. Live event in front of a live crowd, and it was all about the

  6. life that we're living is built around the habits that were prioritizing. Yeah,

  7. and because we ended our series sort of in the middle of the week,

  8. we have a couple bonus episodes this week. We hope you enjoyed them.

  9. I think you're going to enjoy today as well. So Jeff, Yes,

  10. they asked us to do a segment here tonight because this is sort of like

  11. a podcast taping, right, even though we're really not taping it, but

  12. it's supposed to be like one. So we normally do a segment, and

  13. today's segment is this. We're going to do a draft. Yes, we're

  14. rock Paper scissors, shoot at love first, and we're going to do what

  15. we think are the most over rated restaurants. They have to be national chain

  16. restaurants. Most of oh, I got plenty of those Okay, okay,

  17. okay, I've been to all of them. Ready, rock paper, Sis,

  18. there's one. I went, okay, always does that. So I

  19. want to apologize if you own this restaurant or if you work at this restaurant.

  20. Yeah, yeah, okay, okay. So we're picking, we're picking

  21. the top three, we're drafting. We're drafting, okay, and what you're

  22. gonna find is most people agree with my drafts. I just want you to

  23. know that right off the toctually I agree with your drafts after we do the

  24. draft. But here's my first one. Okay, it's it's the restaurant across

  25. the street. I've seen him in other cities, Black Rock. Let me

  26. tell you why, because I think it's overrated. It's way overpriced, and

  27. I and I don't think the steak it's it's, oh look it's cooking on

  28. a rock. Whatever, Well, if you knew how to cook, if

  29. you knew how to cook, you could get a good steak out of it.

  30. Never right, it's overpriced. He's like, it's on a rock.

  31. I'm like, okay, yeah, this feels I feel bad about this one

  32. this draft because overrated. This is probably borderline heresy. But I'm gonna say

  33. Red Lobster. Oh yeah, yeah, well you see what I'm saying.

  34. Everybody almost bowed you for yours, but the crowd was like, yes.

  35. The best thing at Red Lobster, though, is those biscuits? Right yet?

  36. See there you go? Why do iways feel inferior next to you?

  37. All right? Well, I grew up Italian, so I'm gonna say I

  38. think it's incredibly overrated. Don't say it. Don't say it is the Olive

  39. Garden. Oh sorry, heyes, Wipe to marry at the Olive Garden.

  40. That's where I proposed. I proposed at the Olive Garden. It's just it's

  41. overrated. It's not overrated if you knew it like I know it. I

  42. mean, you know, is that really the place to go for Italian food?

  43. I don't know. No, Hey, Luciano's is the place to go

  44. for Italian too. Okay, see that I can get people to cheer too.

  45. Okay, Okay, here's here's my next one. Overrated Chili's really,

  46. Yes, Chelis, I like Chili's. Okay, I'm just saying, yeah,

  47. you heard the crowd though, Yeah, well, the crowd agreed about

  48. to turn against you, all right, I didn't think is this your last

  49. one? Yeah? Last one making good? I hadn't think them through.

  50. Hang on, give me two seconds here. Uh yeah, that's probably okay.

  51. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. It's TGI Fridays.

  52. Oh yeah Friday. Let me tell you why. Okay. I went to

  53. sag it Off okay, and actually I ordered some fajitas and I got sick,

  54. didn't I with you? Guys? I got food poisoning. Do you

  55. go see John Christ? John Christ Excellent food poisoning, tjffod TJ Friday's.

  56. All right, so I was gonna say TGI Friday, so that yeah,

  57. yeah, yeah, yeah, so we were no no, no, oh

  58. man, I should have traded you for the second pick or the last pick.

  59. That's what I should have done. Okay, so, uh let me

  60. see my my least favorite or my number three, number three. I'm gonna

  61. say, don't be afraid I can't think of one. Yeah, well,

  62. I'm gonna go ahead and say Applebee's. Then, since I already picked Chili's,

  63. IM gonna say apple Bee's. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah,

  64. yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, okay, I think that's pretty

  65. good. That was good Hey, I don't know what your overrated restaurant might

  66. be, but I would love to hear one shout out. Somebody shout a

  67. lot of restaurants overrated. What chick for? Nobody have her taken out ushers.

  68. You can't talk bad about Jesus, enemy of Jesus chicken. Oh my

  69. goodness, that is Jesus chicken. Don't say that too loud. I'm like,

  70. you're gonna be able to get into heaven the lightning rod up. Oh

  71. my goodness, what is happening. We don't need that kind of negativity in

  72. this church. Hey, you know what's so funny. But so funny is

  73. like there were forty people that yelled and I only that's all. I heard

  74. the blasphemy for the second over here. It was like horrifying the audacity of

  75. that woman. Oh my goodness. Okay, So where we are going to

  76. actually read from Ephesians chapter four, that's probably a good idea we should bring.

  77. What's interesting about this reading is that actually, if you're following us live

  78. or you know, daily on our podcast, it's called the Bible Guys.

  79. The Bible guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was looking for the

  80. word daily, which is also in the titles. By the way, we

  81. are actually going to be doing Ephesians four in just a few days. Yeah.

  82. Yeah, it's coming up in just a couple of days. Yeah,

  83. So this is sort of like a preview. Yeah, this is bonus material

  84. that's behind the scenes. Yeah, this is extra. Yeah, this is

  85. you guys, get the bonus materials today. So we're going to read from

  86. Ephesians chapter four. We're going to go one through sixteen, so it's not

  87. the whole chapter. But I love the Book of Ephesians. I think if

  88. I could only pick two books, Romans and Ephesians be my two favorite books.

  89. Yeah, love it. And let me just give it a little context,

  90. just like we talked about yesterday actually on our taping. A lot of

  91. Paul's writings are the first half of the book is theology, and then the

  92. second half of the book is sort of behavior, right, Yeah, and

  93. he's telling us what to do, and so Ephesians gives us some good advice

  94. here in chapter four. Yeah. So the first three chapters are all about

  95. what you should believe about Jesus, and then the last three chapters are all

  96. about how you should live as a follower of Jesus. So that's why he

  97. starts it off with, Therefore, he just spent three chapters telling us what

  98. we should believe about Jesus, and now he's saying, because of this,

  99. therefore I a prisoner for serving the Lord. Beg you to lead a life

  100. worthy of your calling, for you've been called by God. Always be humble

  101. and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other's faults

  102. because of your love. Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the spirit,

  103. binding yourselves together with peace. For there's one body and one spirit,

  104. just as you've been called the one glorious hope for the future. There's one

  105. Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all,

  106. who's overall and in all and living through all. However, he has given

  107. each one of us a special gift through the generosity of Christ. That's why

  108. the scriptures say when he ascended to the heights, he led a crowd of

  109. captives and gave gifts to his people, not says he ascended. This clearly

  110. means that Christ also descended to our lowly world, and the same one who

  111. descended is the one who ascended higher than all the heavens, so that he

  112. might fill the entire universe with himself. Now, these are the gifts of

  113. Christ gave to the Church, the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists,

  114. the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God's people to do his

  115. work and to build up the Church, the body of Christ. And this

  116. will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of

  117. God's Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the

  118. full and complete standard of Christ. And then we will no longer be immature

  119. like children. We won't be tossed or blown about by every wind or new

  120. teaching, or think that Chick fil a is bad. We will not be

  121. influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the

  122. truth. Instead, we will speak the truth and love, growing in every

  123. way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body,

  124. the Church, and he makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each

  125. part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow so that

  126. the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love. Well, there

  127. you go. It's a great passage. And I hope that somebody over here

  128. heard that one spot, that one special spot in the Yes. But because

  129. we're speaking the truth in this that's true, that's true. It does you

  130. know, it does say it not to add a jot or to So this

  131. is this is a great passage. And by the way, a couple of

  132. hours those bad passages as that you said, this is a good one.

  133. Je that's gonna make a Bible forget it. So before we jump into sort

  134. of the main bones of the day, I just want to say I think

  135. it's really cool that Paul quotes Psalm chapter sixty eight. Here is what he

  136. was quoting, and then he actually sort of broke down Psalm sixty eight and

  137. he says, notice that he said ascended, which means he descended. And

  138. then he also connected it to Christ, which means like even back in the

  139. Book of Psalms, you know, you know, probably that song was written

  140. by David, most of them were. And he's actually connecting it to Christ.

  141. And it's the Bible breaking down the Yeah, which is really cool.

  142. It's actually it's a tangential statement, right, it's not what he's talking about.

  143. But Paul does all kinds of tangents. Man. He chases rabbits all

  144. the time, and this is one of them. What's what he's referring to

  145. here is you got to remember that the Book of Ephesians was written partly in

  146. the same way that he wrote the Book of Colausians, pushing against gnoscissism,

  147. which was really questioning who Jesus was right, whether or not he was human,

  148. or whether or not he was only a spiritual god that looked like a

  149. human or whatever. And so there was this false doctrine that was popping up

  150. that Jesus wasn't actually human. And so he's trying to really highlight that that

  151. he did this descend and that's why he was able to send back. That's

  152. the purpose behind him throwing in that little tangent theories. This is another opportunity

  153. for to reinforce that. Yeah, and narcissism is the collection of knowledge which

  154. they which they viewed it so important. And we have to remember too that

  155. back in the first century, you know, most people who weren't Jews and

  156. they were gentiles. Those who were non Jewish, they had multiple gods.

  157. So the emphasis saying there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

  158. one God, one Father of all, who is over all in all and

  159. living through all he you're sort of saying like, hey, this is it,

  160. right, Yeah, Jesus isn't a god among gods, he isn't the

  161. god among gods. He's the only God. And he's really kind of he's

  162. lays out at the beginning of the chapter, he's laying out theologically, this

  163. is what every Christian needs to believe, right, So he's kind of laying

  164. that out, and then at the back of the chapter the end of the

  165. chapter, after that kind of that tangential statement, the second half of the

  166. chapter, he's unpacking the idea of here's how you grow. This is why

  167. we go. You need the apostles and the evangelists and the pastors and the

  168. teachers, right, you need them, but it's for growing you up to

  169. do the work of the ministry. Right. We tend to think more in

  170. a clergy laity kind of mindset, where the laity has ministry done to them

  171. from the clergy. But that's not the way that God really the church that

  172. was supposed to be the church was supposed to be that the pastors and teachers

  173. prepared and developed the people to do the work of ministry. You do the

  174. work of the ministry. We are the ones that are supposed to be preparing.

  175. Yeah, And I read a book one time that talked about how those

  176. gifts were given to number one to describe the people in the church, not

  177. like you said, not like clergy, but the people. And then number

  178. two he gave them in order for a reason. Now I don't know whether

  179. it's in order for a reason or not, but the order is very cool

  180. in this book. I still remember the points. It says, the apostle

  181. is the one who goes, the prophet is the one who knows, The

  182. evangelist is the one who recruits, the teacher is the one who explains,

  183. and the pastor is the one who cares. And those describe the gifts.

  184. So, in other words, if an apostle were to say, hey,

  185. God's telling us to take that city for Christ, that's the one who goes.

  186. The prophet is the one who knows. He has discernment or she has

  187. discernment. That would say, I think God wants us start, wants us

  188. to start in that coffee shop. And then once you have a mission,

  189. and then you have discernment, then you need an evangelist to recruit some people.

  190. And then once you a bunch of people, Then what do you need

  191. once you have a bunch of people, Because the apostle, profit and evangelist,

  192. or the outward gifts look outside the wall. They're the mission gifts.

  193. Right. Once you have a bunch of people, then you need a teacher

  194. and a pastor, one who explains and cares. And I've always thought that

  195. was really cool the way that it sort of is. And by the way,

  196. let me say one other thing too, and that is I believe one

  197. of the reasons why a church is inward focused. And let's just say a

  198. church has trouble growing, a church has you know, And there's nothing wrong

  199. with different styles of churches. I believe that God has all different kinds of

  200. churches for all different kinds of people. But when a church is small and

  201. it's not growing, and chances are it's inward focused. They care about like,

  202. teach us new things, feed us, take care of us, and

  203. meet our needs. It's the inward focused gifts. There's nothing wrong with that,

  204. But pastors and teachers, if you only focus on that without the mission,

  205. then you're not going to grow. So then he says that the purpose

  206. then behind all of those gifts are so that we will do collectively, the

  207. people of the church will do the work of God's ministry. Ministry just means

  208. serving right and taking the gospel. And then he says, then we will

  209. no longer be immature like children. That's what verse fourteen says, coming right

  210. out of thirteen. Will live will start to when we begin to serve Christ,

  211. when we begin to serve each other in the ministry of the church,

  212. when we begin to bond together, then we will be living up to the

  213. full measure or standard of Christ. And then will no longer be immature.

  214. Right, So his goal is that we would grow up to become like Jesus.

  215. And then this is the point because we're going to talk about all that

  216. stuff in the next podcast that we do. But he says, so he

  217. makes the whole body fit together perfectly as each part does its own special work,

  218. and it helps the other parts grow so that the whole body is healthy

  219. and growing and full of love. So each of you are a part of

  220. this body, right. It's one of God's favorite descriptions of the church was

  221. the Church is a body, and each of you are a part of the

  222. body, and one of your jobs. This isn't optional. This isn't like,

  223. wouldn't it be nice if one of our jobs as part of the body

  224. of crisis to help all the other parts grow, right, And the only

  225. way we can do that is by being connected. When you take a body

  226. part away from the body, what happens to it? Cut your little finger

  227. off, just leave it on the table, come back a week from now.

  228. What's going to happen to it? It's gonna get rotten and stinky,

  229. right, just oozing all over the place, making a mess. Right.

  230. That's what happens is when we when we take a part away from the body,

  231. it doesn't thrive, it begins to die. And that's natural spiritually for

  232. us. But we need to be together and together as the body we grow.

  233. That's why I connect night matters so much. And Jesus would say in

  234. John he talks about the vine and the branch, and the branches being disconnected

  235. to the vine spiritually in some of the same ways. So this is a

  236. probably good time to lay up the truth for today. And the truth is

  237. this is that the life we're experiencing is often a reflection of the habits that

  238. we're prioritizing. Right, Because one of the things that we're supposed to do

  239. is help each other grow. And one of the things we need. We

  240. used to call them spiritual disciplines, right, but I don't think anybody likes

  241. the word discipline, so we call them habits now. But it's the same.

  242. There are a few things that we need to be doing in order for

  243. us to develop the habits that will help us grow. And the best way

  244. to do that is in the context of other friendships being connected to the body

  245. it goes. You know, there's an African proverb that says, if you

  246. want to go fast, go along. If you want to go far,

  247. go together, and that's true. How many of you do better? And

  248. if you have to work out, how many of you do better in a

  249. workout class than you do just working out in your basement. How many of

  250. you do better in a class most people? The research on that is approven

  251. research. Most people do way better if they have a workout buddy than if

  252. they're just trying to work out on their own, right, And that's true

  253. in so many areas. We need one another. If you want to go

  254. far, you got to go together. So here's habit number one. Habit

  255. number one is this is that we believe, and of course the Bible supports

  256. and teachers that a daily time with God would be the first in you know,

  257. the biggest habit that you could develop. So daily time with God in

  258. his word and also in prayer. It's the importance of prayer in Bible reading.

  259. And you could do that in a lot of different ways. One way

  260. is a very small way is to watch the podcast or podcasts like ours,

  261. because there are there are so many resources available to people you know that they

  262. could do it. Another way would be to join the two on one class.

  263. Yeah, and you've taught the two on I've never taught it. Yes,

  264. So the two one class we really unpack not just what you should know

  265. about reading your Bible and praying in the various habits. We really unpack all

  266. the main habits of how to grow spiritually, but not just what you should

  267. know about it, but how, how should how can you read your Bible

  268. in an effective way? What is a model maybe to use to pray effectively?

  269. And how to put together maybe a prayer to or something. How to

  270. grow in your faith not just the what's but the house and I think that's

  271. really important. So the twol one class I think is really powerful. We've

  272. got another one coming up here. When is it? I think I hit

  273. somebody knows? Oh, this this Sunday? I think it is? Is

  274. it March twelfth? Kyle? Is it this Sunday? Is it this Sunday?

  275. Yes? Yes, he said, yes, it's the Sunday. Yeah.

  276. We weren't paying attention in our previous meetings, so we don't know.

  277. We have a hard time paying attention. Anytime we do anything, we get

  278. the cutting up, don't we Yeah, we do so. Anyways, that's

  279. coming up March second. And you guys are here. You can get signed

  280. up online March twelve. What I say? Second? Whatever? I just

  281. work here, man, I don't know what's going on. You want to

  282. take number two? Sure? Are you trying to move me along? I

  283. am so These habits, these habits that we're prioritizing. One is this idea

  284. of a daily time with God. The second one is learning to give back

  285. regularly, giving back a tithe to God. Right, and so our second

  286. point is giving back to God through tithing. And this is incredibly important when

  287. we begin to prioritize our resources for Christ, because we don't give. Because

  288. God is saying you must give we give because Jesus said, where your heart

  289. is or where your treasure is, that's where your heart is. Jesus isn't

  290. after your money. Jesus is after your heart. But why do we fight

  291. so hard to hang on to that part of God? We'll give you everything

  292. else, make all of our wildest dreams come true, answer all our prayers.

  293. But we're not going to obey you in this tithing thing, right,

  294. But we still want him to bless us. And God says, listen,

  295. I'll pour open the windows of heaven, pour out a blessing on you when

  296. you tithe. And so this isn't about what we can get from you.

  297. This is about what God's offering to you. But it really is a heart

  298. issue and maybe one of the hardest things. So when we're talking about this,

  299. it's always easier when we are growing in this together with other believers,

  300. right, and then collectively we're able to accomplish a lot more with our resources

  301. for the Kingdom of God together than we can any one of us individually.

  302. Yeah, for certain and then problems, we have two tools. They have

  303. two tools. I'm supposed to tell the tools we already said to it.

  304. One. Yeah, there's there's more tools. You see that says tool.

  305. On the next one there one yes, right underneath that, it says,

  306. I said, Jeff, check out our Rich Living series that we did in

  307. November. Also use the push pay is a great tool we have. It

  308. says it right there on this sheet. So you just wasted the twenty seconds

  309. I tried to say. I'm just trying to do what Kyle told us to

  310. do. That's so linly. So what want't you go on with number three

  311. real quick? If you can finish that, well, if you're gonna do

  312. it, hey, since forgive me each other hard time? Push pay I

  313. did, says pay. You weren't listening. Have you ever seen Guardians of

  314. the Galaxy? Who's wasting time? Now? Hey, but he says what

  315. he says, He goes, I'm too fast. It would just fly over

  316. my head. That's what it was, Okay. And then finally number three,

  317. which is probably the most important part of the night in terms of it's

  318. why we're here here tonight. That's why we're here, which is connecting with

  319. others. Right, So there's a story that actually, in fact, you

  320. want to tell us, Yeah, let me tell you a story. So

  321. Nevey is a guy that got baptized here just a while ago. He's a

  322. fairly new attendee, began at attending in January. And the reason he's here

  323. is that Jason Wallace, he's one of our security team guys. And thank

  324. God for our security team. And so Jason Wallace a part of that.

  325. And he saw Nevy walking or riding his bike down the road and he was

  326. carrying some furniture on his bicycle, which you don't see that every day,

  327. right, And so Jason pulled over and said, dude, I don't see

  328. this all the time. Let me help you and hooked him up with a

  329. ride and got this furniture delivered and all this stuff struck up a friendship and

  330. then invited him to come to Heritage Church. He winds up given his life

  331. to Jesus. They wind up developing this amazing friendship. And it was all

  332. because Jason felt like God said, hey, you should help, and he

  333. just followed that nudge, right, He followed that leading from God and it

  334. opened up. This began this relationship that form Nevy's life. They actually had

  335. him over for Christmas, Right, isn't that so great? And this is

  336. what it's all about. Right. Nevey was recently baptized and then joined our

  337. security team, so began volunteering on the security team. And this happened because

  338. one person decided to connect with another person in a meaningful way. We need

  339. each other and we grow. We grow when we're helping other people grow.

  340. Do you know who grows the most the host? The host grows the most

  341. in a group, the people who are working to help other people grow grow

  342. the most. So I'm not trying to tell you guys to be selfish,

  343. but I'm telling you, if you want to grow spiritually, get it and

  344. be the one that's engaging with the others, helping the others grow, and

  345. you grow more. It just happens. And so Jason grows even while he's

  346. helping Nevee take these steps. So iron sharpens iron. We need these friendships.

  347. That's what happens. Yeah, and you referenced that verse. It's one

  348. of my favorite verses. You know, you think about especially in the context

  349. in which it's written. You know where swords were number one weapon and everything

  350. like this, and it says iron sharpens iron. So one person sharpens another,

  351. or the countenance of a friend I make you so much more sharp you

  352. there's a joke in there somewhere, but I'm gonna go out with my spiritual

  353. point. So so the yes, I know you do, and hopefully the

  354. other way around. But the bottom line is is that the Bible, the

  355. Bible talks about how we need one another. And listen, you know,

  356. it's it's very appropriate that we're having connected night because you know, for me,

  357. I always think about these things. I know you do too when the

  358. church grows. I don't know if you know this or not, but if

  359. you've attended on a weekend here at Heritage, I think just in twenty twenty

  360. three, we have broken a non holiday weekend record and all time Heritage weekend

  361. record I think four or five, five times. Five times. Since since

  362. January, we've broken five records, right, So and that's that's with only

  363. three services. I mean, had we gone to four services, you know,

  364. we would have probably done more about you know, we're just having all

  365. these you know, problems with space and chairs and things. We just had

  366. one hundred and fifty new chairs delivered, we did. Yeah, we're setting

  367. them up for Sunday. Yeah, yeah, that's really really cool. So

  368. we're we're gonna be squeezing chairs in here. But here's the point. As

  369. the church grows bigger, there's a need for it to be smaller. And

  370. you can only survive coming to a church and not being known. You can

  371. only survive for so long. So what's the average, what's the statistic if

  372. somebody doesn't get connected. Yeah, so a new person coming in the door.

  373. The research says that a person needs to know or be known by seven

  374. people in six months or they have If they don't, they have an eighty

  375. percent chance of disappearing, never connecting. But if they know or are known

  376. by seven people in the first six months, they have eighty five percent chance

  377. of staying for five years or longer. So, believe it or not,

  378. it's not how amazing Chris's messages are. They're amazing, it's not incredible,

  379. you know. It's not about how high the note that Trey hits, you

  380. know, on Sunday. Those things capture people's attention for a little while.

  381. But the reality is, real life transformation doesn't happen from what we do on

  382. the stage. Real life transformation happens in the context of friendships. That's what

  383. happens, right, You're the ones who help set the hook. You're the

  384. ones who help everybody else grow. That's why he says the body needs to

  385. be together, and we help each other grow together, because it's silly to

  386. think that clergy or staff can do all the work of the church, right

  387. right, And that's the reason why we all know a church where the speaker

  388. is a wonderful speaker, but he's terrible one on one, or maybe he's

  389. a really great counselor one on one, but it's like he can't lead out

  390. of himself out of a paper back. Right. We all know people,

  391. we know, we know people like that. We know churches where the congregation

  392. members put that expectation on the clergy to be all things to all people.

  393. And that's why churches are run poorly. And that's why preachers get burnt out,

  394. right, because that's why Ephesians tells us, no, no, no,

  395. it's us. We're the priesthood of the believer. He has gifted something

  396. to be apostles, something to be some to be evangelists, them to be

  397. pastors, some to be teachers, for the working of together, for the

  398. sharpening, for the building up of the congregation, for each other. So

  399. all that to say, as the church gets bigger, we get to know

  400. one another smaller. And then it's very appropriate that our group study with the

  401. Andy Stanley group study that we're doing starts, and this is the last week

  402. to sign up. So I would just say, if you're coming here to

  403. connect it and you've not yet signed up for a group, it's the absolute

  404. perfect opportunity, and just jump in and just say, you know, I'm

  405. gonna give it a run, because I believe at the end of that experience

  406. you're gonna say I'm glad I did it. I also think one other benefit

  407. as we wrap up, one other benefit to this. A lot of Christians

  408. feel like they you know, if you just come and you consume, you

  409. consume what Jeff and Chris are producing, you consume what Trey and his team

  410. are producing. You come and consume what the youth group is producing, or

  411. the children's mystery. After a while, your faith starts to feel empty because

  412. you don't know it, but subconsciously you're aware that you have a consumer oriented

  413. faith. And after a while, we all get bored with the things we

  414. consume. That's why you know, the new car smell is gone and you're

  415. already thinking about your next lease, right, is because consuming doesn't satisfy.

  416. So many of us have this sense that there's got to be more to this

  417. faith thing. And where it really happens is when you are fulfilling the purpose

  418. God has for you. And a big part of that purpose is in connection

  419. with other believers. Very quickly, I'll tell the story and then we will

  420. finish up, because we want you guys to spend some time talking. I

  421. had a pastor as part of a very very large church at one point a

  422. number of years ago, and about twenty thousand people, and a woman came

  423. in to meet with a senior pastor, and he had just come from a

  424. meeting where they had several hundred shut in seniors who couldn't get out they had

  425. different sicknesses or whatever, and so he had the whole stack of cards of

  426. names of shut ins and he was trying to figure out how can we minister

  427. to them. This lady came in and she sat down. Her husband had

  428. passed away and they had one of those relationships where he did all of the

  429. business of the family and he wasn't really aware of the banking and all that.

  430. Next thing, you know, she's trying to figure out how to navigate

  431. through this life became too heavy, and so she felt like she was on

  432. the verge of a nervous breakdown. And he said, listen, we have

  433. some people that can help you, help counsel you on the financial side,

  434. but this nervous breakdown thing. He said, I'd like to come back and

  435. talk to you in just a few days, but would you do me a

  436. favor. And he just took the top five cards and he said, here's

  437. some shut ins in our church. You make amazing pies. Would you go

  438. bake a pie for each one of these people, Just drop one off each

  439. day for them and just tell them that we love them and pray with them

  440. real quick. And she went, yeah, sure, that's kind of weird.

  441. She stakes those five. Then he came back in about two weeks later

  442. and all the cards on his desk were gone, and then he didn't see

  443. her for months. Then he runs into her like three months later, and

  444. he says, hey, how's that nervous breakdown going, And she said,

  445. oh, I don't have time for a nervous breakdown. We have so many

  446. shut in people. I'm busy baking pies. So when it was all about

  447. her and she was just consuming from the church. The weight of life was

  448. heavy, and her faith wasn't very strong. But when she began to realize

  449. it wasn't just about her, and she began to serve other people and begin

  450. to help others grow in their faith, she grew stronger and stronger. Right,

  451. So I'm not saying that's the only solution for a nervous breakdown. But

  452. what I am saying is the importance of living outside of our lives instead of

  453. only just for ourselves. So this idea of being connected is incredibly important groups

  454. as the first step. So let me write this down. The solution for

  455. breakdown pies pies, yes, pis yes yes. And by the way,

  456. in reference to what you said about like not being a consumer, just like

  457. taking what the pestor gives you, you could say that our job then is

  458. not to feed you. Our job is to make you hungry. Yes,

  459. So it's to make you hungry and prepare you. Yeah yeah, yeah.

  460. So Father, we thank you for today. We thank you Lord for this

  461. time together, for your word and your truths. Thank you for a time

  462. of laughter and fun and connectivity. And I pray Lord that these following discussions

  463. that happened just right now, that you would just be with us and help

  464. us connect and praise you in Jesus name, we pray Amen Amen m hm m