Building a Kingdom Culture | Ecclesia: The Church Can Change the World - Week 7

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Man, it is so good to be with you guys this morning and super excited.

A little about myself.

My name is Dustin Wes, and I uh I can serving on staff at Sozo at St.

Marcus for the past 11 years.

And uh from the beginning, uh it's been such a fun journey.

Uh for 10 years of that, I was doing college ministry at the University Campus, Texas State, and uh saw hundreds and hundreds of college shoots come through and see the lives transformed throughout the years, and it's been such an awesome experience.

And uh, as Chris and Natalie transitioned this past spring, from here, I moved into an associate pastor where there, so I'm serving in that capacity now, and uh really just learning how much Chris and Natalie did when they were there uh and trying to fill big shoes.

So um it's a bit of cool journey.

But I want to I want to do something really quick before we jump in.

I just want to honor Chris and Natalie.

Um, don't you love these guys?

Aren't they incredibly uh eastern?

Uh I uh I I genuinely love you guys.

You guys are incredible leaders.

Um I'll I'll share one quick story.

Um, well, when we as we work together in the office, uh, I've always given Natalie a hard time for giving Chris such a hard time.

She she's always picking on him about something.

She's like, you show up to the to the football games with the camera and the QR code and you're loud and and and uh and I'll be like, now listen, one of these days, those boys are young.

Like that specific line was was a word for Sozo Kyle this morning.

That with one hand they did their work, but they held a weapon in the other hand.

And as it relates to building and establishing, I really feel like this is a picture of what God wants to do.

Because if I'm if I've learned anything about culture, it's this the culture is a combination of both what we become and what we build, but it also includes what we allow and what we permit.

And the enemy would want nothing more forces O'Kyle than for us to be really good at saying what we want to be, but then allow divisiveness, allow things like that to come in and actually rob from the culture that God wants to throw.

And so, as we think about culture, I want you to think about it in this sense that culture is a combination of what we promote and what we allow.

This this can help you even in your business, even as you think about the culture and your personal life, uh, because oftentimes what we do is we think about what we're going to become.

And so culture statements are usually we are this or we want to be this.

And so we think about um, you know, we want to we want to have unity, we want to be passionate, we want to be excellent, we want to be vulnerable and all of those things.

But what I've learned is if we're not careful, the things that we allow or the things that we tolerate will undermine the things that we're trying to pick right.

So we could be like, yeah, we're building this culture where we're passionate and we love worship and all of those things, but if we allow division and apathy, those things will become the overriding thing of our knowledge.

So as we think about culture, I want you to think about it in the sense that I actually have a call to both build and to guard, to both build and to protect and establishing your culture of the kingdom.

And so, as we as we move into talking a little bit specifically about what does this culture look like, that's really the question is what kind of culture are we building?

And and reality is, is we uh we have a Lord whose name is Jesus, which means we don't really dictate uh what we do around here.

Jesus actually defines what we are to do, and um, and the reality is as I think about Chris and Natalie, and I'm such a big fan of them, they're awesome.

Um, but I I know in their hearts that their desire is not just to create a cool, trendy church.

Uh, I don't know about you, I'm just not interested in playing church.

I I really want to see God move and do something significant in this region.

Uh, and so as we talk about culture, it's not about church culture, it's not about sozo culture, even.

It's really about what is the culture of the kingdom of heaven, and how do we see that established here in our midst?

Amen.

It's a group of people who would say that we're gonna pray and also be the answer to the prayer that your kingdom come and your will be done here on earth as it is in heaven.

So we're gonna talk about the culture of the kingdom, and what does it look like to embody that as a people?

Uh, I love talking about the kingdom of God.

Um, I like to say the reason why is is because Jesus liked to talk about our kingdom of God.

Um, it's the message that he preached more than any other message.

Um, it is if it's really striking to me that the gospel that Jesus preached is actually somewhat different than the gospel that we're used to hearing most often.

And the reason why I say that is, is I think for most of us, when we think of the gospel, most of our understanding of the gospel is just simply the gospel of salvation, right?

It's it's Jesus has done this so that if you believe in this, then you can go to heaven when you die.

There's nothing wrong with that, and that is very, very true, but it's it's not a full picture of the gospel that Jesus preached.

Jesus was not going around telling people how to go to heaven when they die.

He was actually announcing that the kingdom of God has come to you, has come near to you.

And so salvation and afterlife, it's included in that, yes, but it's much bigger than that.

And so the first message that Jesus preached, Mark chapter 1, verses 14 and 15, Jesus comes and it says this after John was put in the prison, Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the good news of God.

Mark 1:14

And this is what he said, verse 15 the time has come, the kingdom of God has come near to you, repent, and believe that it is.

It's this word kairos.

We've probably heard me share this if you've ever been uh in Sam Marcus, but this word kairos is is not time as we think of it in a chronological time.

It's not here's a start and here's an end.

Kairos time is this moment in history that is pregnant with meaning.

It's a moment where we're just going through life, and I like to call it God moments.

It's a moment where God breaks into history, and that's what Jesus says.

That kind of time is in our midst, and then he says this he says, The kingdom of God has come near to you, which is fascinating.

Like if we just stop and think about that.

This is the first time they would have ever heard anything like that.

They're sitting there, and he says, I'm gonna tell you something.

God's kingdom, it's here among people.

In other passages, he would say it this way: the the Pharisees would ask questions and they say, You've been talking about the kingdom of God.

Um, can you tell us when we're going to be able to see the kingdom of God?

How will we tell that it's come?

And he says, The kingdom of God cannot be observed by things that you see or by these times.

Behold, I tell you, the kingdom of God is within you.

Yeah, and so they're like, Wait a minute.

This is a totally different message.

God's kingdom is here.

What does that mean?

The rule and reign of God has come to you in a new way.

Jesus is essentially saying, There's a new king in town, there's a new way, not just of like, hey, you were once this and now you're gonna become a Christian.

No, it's it's there's an entire new way of life available to you.

There's a new king, and he is coming into his kingdom, and then he gives them this invitation.

He says, Repent and believe the good news.

Now, um, I don't know about you, but I remember growing up hearing the word repent quite often.

Um, I grew up Baptist in us, grow up Baptist, and uh we'd have these these old-time Baptist revivals, and you'd go to church for like 12 nights in a row, and the the loud evangelists would come through, right?

And uh you'd get saved like 47 times just to make sure that it really stuck right.

And you'd have to remember the pointing finger, like repent, right?

It's like it I was like terrified if the the word, oh my gosh, repentance is like uh is scary.

Um, and and one of the things I've I've come to to realize is repentance is a good word.

What Jesus tells them to repent, um, it doesn't actually mean what I thought it meant most of my life.

When I grew up hearing repent, I thought it just meant fix that, um, or God's gonna send you to hell, right?

Like you need to figure it out.

Um, and and and as you look at the word, the Greek word repentance, some of you guys, by the way, you're familiar with this, it's the word metanoia, which means to change the way that you think.

And so repentance includes turning and going in the other direction, but that's actually not what the word means.

Um, because if we become really good at turning and going in the other direction, but we never change the way we think, the Proverbs says this as a dog returns to its vomit, so fool returns to his folly, right?

Anyone ever tried to stop doing bad things?

It doesn't really work that well, right?

If we don't first change the way we think, right?

So the invitation that Jesus gives is not stop being bad, but it's changed the way you think about everything, about God, about life, about yourself, and believe the good news.

What is the good news?

He just told us God's kingdom is here, and you can enter into it, he tells us later, and the only way you could enter into it is if you become like a little child, right?

So we have to renew the way we think.

And so here's the invitation this morning, in the same way that Jesus gave it.

There is a king who's on the throne, and he has changed the way that everything operates.

If the cross everything changed, and the invitation is will we change the way we see everything?

Will we come under the alignment of God's kingdom and allow him to now rule and reign in our lives and through our lives?

That's the invitation that the kingdom of God is.

So the reality when we talk about a kingdom culture, it's it's a culture that says God is king and he dictates everything that we do around.

Amen?

So we've been talking, you guys have been talking about the church at Antioch over the past few weeks.

And uh I'm loving uh reading through this and just learning more about the church at Antioch.

And I want to read a familiar passage.

I think you guys have probably referenced this a few times throughout the series, but in Acts chapter 13, uh verses 1 through 3, this is uh right before Paul and Barnabas are sent out.

Acts 13 · chapter mention

I want to look at this passage one more time.

Um, and the reason we're gonna look at this passage is is I feel like there are a few things that we could learn about what a kingdom culture looks like and the way that the Antioch church uh operated.

And so we're gonna look at a few of those things uh here this morning.

And so Acts chapter 13, starting in verse 1, it says, now in the church at Antioch, there were prophets and teachers.

Acts 13 · chapter mention

Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, uh Menae, it's a good name for the one for your kid, um, who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch and Saul of love.

Uh while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.

And so after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and they sensed them off.

I want to point out five things that I think we see in this small little portion of scripture that show us a glimpse of the culture of Antioch.

And like we said earlier, uh culture could be defined as what has become normal among us.

And we learned just a second ago that culture uh can happen on accident, but the best culture is created through intentionality.

And I think even in these first three verses of Acts 13, we get a glimpse of something that they weren't just doing for the first time, but we get a glimpse of the culture of Antioch, meaning this is who they become, and now this is who they are now, organic.

Does that make sense?

So starting in verse 1, it says, uh, now in Antioch uh there were prophets and teachers.

Now, this is very simple, and I feel like we could fly past this if we're not careful.

But the first thing we see about your kingdom culture at Antioch is they had a five-fold culture.

Now, I don't know if you guys have talked extensively about five-fold ministry gifts from Ephesians 4 yet.

I know uh in discovery class, uh, that that's something that we talk about often.

We we actually taught um on this last week at Sozo.

Um, and uh the reality is is Paul Ephesians 4 tells the church uh Jesus has given uh apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and he said the purpose of these gifts is for the equipping of the saints until we all reach the unity and the maturity, measuring up to the full stature of Christ, right?

So the purpose of these gifts is not just so that you can have a business card that says, Hi, my name's Prophet Dustin.

Yeah, uh, please don't do that.

Actually, that's really weird.

Um but so that God would actually use the gift that He's given you to rub off on other people, right?

And uh we talk about this often at St.

Marcus.

The the purpose of the gift of the prophetic ministry is not just so that a select few people would learn to hear God, but it's that good, but it's that each and every one of us would learn to become, there we go, uh, prophetic.

The goal is not just for one person to be prophetic, the goal is that we as the church would learn to hear God's voice.

Yeah, and so at at any time, they started establishing this five-fold culture, and we realize this because they didn't just have pastors there, they actually had teachers, they had prophets, and we learned that they sent Paul and Barnabas who became apostles.

So we actually see this present among them.

Paul and Barnabas are listed here among the prophets and teachers, but after they are sent out, Acts 14 refers to them as apostles.

That's how we know Paul now.

There seems to be this environment in Antioch where different gifts were recognized, developed, and given room to grow.

Now, this is really, really important as we think about the culture that we want to build, this kingdom culture.

Um, because like I said a second ago, as we think about these five different gifts and how they operate in the church, the five-fold industry is not just about selecting five special people who do all the ministry, but it's that through these gifts the church is equipped to do the ministry of Jesus.

Um, as we as we look at Ephesians 4, I won't have us go there today, but uh I actually love this about that passage.

Um, because oftentimes we we we just think of gifts.

Um, there are multiple different places in the New Testament where we're given a list of gifts, right?

Uh 1 Corinthians chapter 12, uh, where we talk about what we would we would call the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

You're familiar with those, right?

Those are the weird ones, right?

Tongues, tongues, and interpretation, those kinds of things, healing, prophecy, all that.

Now it's interesting.

Uh if you were to look closer at that text, what you would find is it's not as much that they are specific gifts given to specific individuals, but it's one spirit given to all of us, and the Holy Spirit manifests himself in and through us through those different gifts.

This is why I think it's actually not correct for us to say, I have the gift of blank, but I don't have the gift of blank.

Because the reality is, is you have the gift of the spirit who can manifest himself however he wants to.

This is beautiful.

We have to be careful, we don't limit ourselves.

Well, that's gifts from the spirit.

Romans 12, there are other gifts where it talks about service and works and hospitality and prophecy as well, and administration and all of these things.

I would say these are gifts given from the Father, and in Ephesians 4, it's it specifically says these are gifts given by Jesus.

It's beautiful if you were to look at at verse 9.

It's actually let's do this.

Let's go here really quick.

Turn with me to Ephesians chapter 4.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

I didn't intend to do this, but I think it would be helpful.

Ephesians 4.

Look with me at Ephesians 4, uh, verse 7.

We'll start there.

It says, Each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift.

Therefore, he says, When he ascended on high, he led captivity captive, and he gave gifts to pen.

Now, I I have to be honest, I'm sure about this last week, but I feel like this portion has always confused me as it relates to the five-fold ministry.

But it says, When he ascended on high, he led captivity captive, and he gave gifts to men.

Now, this he ascended, what does it mean?

But that he also first descended into the lower parts of the earth.

He who descended is the one who ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.

And then it says this in the next verse, and he himself, talking about Jesus, gave some of the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers.

Now, it's interesting because it kind of paints this picture of Jesus and what he's doing in his ascension.

Jesus dies, he resurrects, he spends 40 days with his disciples, and at the very end of that 40 days, we know Jesus ascends to the right hand of the Father, right?

And it says here in verse 8 that as he ascended on high, he led captivity captive, and he gave gifts to his church.

And so it's this picture of when Jesus is ascending to the Father, as he's ascending to heaven, he's actually distributing gifts to the church.

And the church has always kind of seen it as this way that the fivefold ministry is one of the beautiful ways in which Jesus gives himself back to us.

Right?

Jesus was an apostle, he was sent from heaven to earth, he's obviously a prophet, he's a pastor, he's all of these things.

And the fivefold is Jesus giving himself to his church.

And so as we operate in these things, they're not just random gifts.

These are the ways that we demonstrate Jesus to the world around us, right?

When we're prophetic, we're being like Jesus.

When we're apostolically minded, when we live on mission, we're living like Jesus.

When we're pastoral, we are like our Bridge Shepherd.

It's how he gives himself to us.

So as we think about this, the kingdom culture both it knows the call of God on my life, it and it also positions myself in a way to allow myself to receive from the different gifts that realize throughout the church.

And we see this in operation in Antioch.

It had pastors, they had teachers, they had prophets, and then Paul and Barnabas are equipped in their sent as apostles.

The second thing that we see here, and this is probably my favorite out of all of these, is they had a culture of worship and prayer.

In Acts chapter 13, it says, While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, while they were going about their business just worshiping God, the Holy Spirit spoke to them.

Acts 13 · chapter mention

You see, I I really believe that there they had this culture, and we we see it because later on we see glimpses of it in Paul's ministry, which we'll look at here in a second in Acts chapter 16.

Acts 16 · chapter mention

But before Antioch was a sending church, it was a worshiping church.

It was a church that prayed, it was a church that fasted, it was a it was a church that said, Hey, before strategy and mission and all the things that we want to do, we want to first have a value for God's presence.

And I truly believe this that a kingdom culture is one that puts a high value on God's presence.

That I know many of us have the same story.

Um I grew up in church my entire life, and this is not a knock on any church that I grew up in, but it wasn't the church, it wasn't teaching, it wasn't preaching, none of that changed my life.

The presence of God is what marked and transformed my life.

And I know many of us carry that same testimony that it's it's it's God and present among us that really makes the difference.

You know, I think of the passage in Exodus 33.

God is leading the children of Israel uh through Moses, and Moses is having this argument with God, and he says, God, if if your presence doesn't go with us, please don't take us from this place.

I I love Moses' cry.

He says, If your presence doesn't go, we don't want to go.

And then he he makes this statement that is so marked my life that he says, How else will they know that we're the people of God unless you go with us?

See, for Moses, he had this understanding hey, the only thing that makes us different is you, God.

Like you're the only thing that sets us apart.

And I think this is how a kingdom church operates, is to say the the main thing is that God is with us.

This presence with us is the thing that sets us apart.

It's the it's our secret weapon, it's our secret sauce, whatever you want to call it.

Like it's the thing, his presence transforming lives.

And Paul had had learned, he had grown up in this in Antioch, he had he had partaken of this, and we see it come out in his life later at Acts 13, Acts 16, as he's going on this missionary journey that they're sending him out on here.

Uh I love this story.

I encourage you to read uh really all of the book of Acts.

The book of Acts is wild, it's also hilarious.

Like Paul cracks me up, right?

Paul's on this missionary journey.

Imagine this, he's just out preaching the gospel, doing his name, and there's this sorcerer girl that's following him around, right?

And she's just bugging him, and she's like saying things like Jesus is like, she's not saying bad things, but she's just praising God and all this stuff.

And it says at some point, the scripture says Paul gets us, he gets annoyed with her, so he turns around and just casts the demon out of her.

I was like, wait, there was a demon in there?

I didn't realize there was a demon.

And he's like, Yeah, so he's annoyed, he turns around, he casts the demon out of her.

It causes a huge uproar because this girl was a sorcerer, and she Was making a lot of money for the people that owned her, and so now they're angry, and they cause this huge scene.

And Paul ends up in prison because of it, which is fascinating.

After he did severely flogged, he got annoyed with the girl, and then now he's getting beaten and thrown to prison.

They threw him in prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard it carefully.

And when he received these orders, they put him in the inner cell and they fastened his feet in chains.

And about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening.

I love this because what it doesn't say is that Paul was praying and asking God to deliver them.

Just as they were praying and they were singing songs.

Like it's almost as if this is just what we do.

Whether we're in a home, whether we're out, whether we're in a prison cell, this is just what we do.

And they're singing songs to God.

And I love that it says other people can hear them.

So they're singing loudly, other people can hear.

And suddenly there was a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and at once all the prison doors flew open.

And listen to this, everyone's chains came loose.

And you get this picture that Paul and Silas are doing nothing but just worshiping the Lord.

And in response to their worship, God shows up and he shakes the prison cell.

And I love, I love that it's not just Paul and Silas that get free, but everyone else in the prison gets free as a response to their worship, which is beautiful as it relates to culture.

Because as we create a culture of worship and prayer, you guys being attentionalists say, Hey, I don't care about anyone else in the room, we're gonna be people who worship Jesus, we're gonna be people who pray with faith.

Other people who don't have that kind of faith come into environments like that and they get to benefit from your faith.

They get to benefit.

Man, I can remember walking into rooms when I first started following Jesus, and you just walk in and you're like, Man, God's presence is here.

And it's almost like you're stepping into other people's history with God.

There's something about you guys building that kind of culture that other people get to experience your history, which is beautiful.

You see it all throughout the book of Acts.

I won't read other examples, but in Acts 12, Peter gets set free in prison as the church prays for him.

I love that.

Joel, we talked about this a few weeks ago.

It's like they they get set free, and then they show up to the house.

Peter shows up to the house of the people that have been praying for him to be set free, and they think he's a ghost.

They're like, There's no way.

You're supposed to be in prison.

It's like, yeah, but you're praying.

God answered your prayers, and it's like they're surprised, right?

A praying church is a powerful church.

So as we think about kingdom culture, it establishes this culture of worship around God's presence or prayer, a passionate response and worship is our natural response to Jesus.

We've got just a few more for you.

The next thing we see in verse 2 is it says, the Holy Spirit said, Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul.

So they had a culture who both listened and obeyed the Spirit of God.

This is this is huge.

I was reading this this week, and it just struck me uh how how significant those three words are.

The whole well, I guess it's four words, the Holy Spirit said to them.

Like we just take that for granted sometimes.

That the Holy Spirit is speaking, like God is speaking to them.

And I could just imagine they're just like worshiping and they're just like, Yeah, we don't really know what we're doing, we're just doing what we know to do, and then all of a sudden God stats and he's like, send Paul and Barnabas.

And they're like, Cool, now we know what to do, right?

Like, we we we we we really have postured ourselves in a way that if we don't hear God's voice, we don't really know where to go next.

And this is this is beautiful.

This is what God desires in a church, a church that would say, God, we desire to both hear and respond to what you're saying.

Jesus defines for us in the Great Commission in Matthew chapter 28, when he says, Go and make disciples of all nations, he says, I want you to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

And then he says, Teach them to obey all that I've commanded you.

So when Jesus sends us to go and make disciples, he actually gives us a good definition of what discipleship is, and it's this discipleship is helping people to hear and respond to the voice of Jesus.

What does God say, and how do I respond to it?

And see, Jesus is building this goal.

This is kingdom culture, people who can hear the voice of God, but also desire to respond to it.

Now I want to say this.

I was telling uh the group and pre-service prayer this morning.

I really feel like um God wants to give some people an upgrade this morning and hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit for yourself, like in a personal way.

Uh, one of the things that I've learned uh as a key to hearing God is it's very simple, but it's this it's to expect God to speak to you.

You see, God's desire is that we would be his sheep, that hear his voice.

It's a spominess of John 10.

My sheep will hear my voice.

And I think sometimes we be it so wrapped up in shame and our own insecurities that we think maybe God's really not interested in talking with me.

I don't know about you, uh, but if you're a father in the room or you're a mother in the room, there's nothing more than you that you desire than to speak to your children.

Like it's his heart to speak to us.

And my friend Richie Seltzer, who's with Global Awakening now, he used to say it this way.

He says, You know, the problem is many of us say things like this it could be God, but it's probably just me.

How many of you ever said that?

Ah, it may be God, but it's probably just me.

He said, What if we started saying it could be me, but it's probably God?

Right?

What if we changed the way we thought we're like, man, I really think God is trying to speak to me.

Am I expectant in how I'm hearing his voice?

So listening to Jesus and responding and an emphasis on the obedience peace.

I think a mature prophetic culture is not just people who know how to hear God's voice, but it's people who are eager to obey what God has said.

See, anything that grows in the kingdom, it only grows by one way, it grows through stewardship.

What have you done with the thing that God has given you?

What are you doing with the thing that God has entrusted to you?

Sometimes, remember someone told me this years ago when I was struggling to hear God's voice, he said, What was the last thing God said to you?

I had to go back and think about what was the last thing God said.

He said, What have you done with the last thing he said to you?

Because we actually grow our ability to hear God's voice by saying, God, I want to be a really good steward of your voice.

And being a steward of God's voice is not just saying, I just want to hear, I want to hear, I want to hear, but it's God, I want your voice to become sustenance for my soul.

Meaning, whatever you say, I'll do.

Wherever you lead, I'll go, right?

It's it's people who posture themselves in dependence to say, I want to hear and respond to the voice of God.

All right, two more.

You guys good?

Yeah.

Verse three, this is where we see the action take place.

It says they place their hands on Paul and Barnabas.

This is where we see a picture of an empowering culture.

And the kingdom, a kingdom culture is an empowering culture.

Laying hands on Paul and Barnabas, it was an act of recognition, of blessing, of agreeing with the call of God on their life, and of commissioning.

They recognized what God was doing in them, and then they released them into their purpose.

You see, Antioch didn't have this culture of professional ministry leadership.

It was actually just normal people who play into this church.

And then we talked about this a few weeks ago, the the revolution of the ordinary man.

I love that idea that it specifically doesn't tell us who played into the church.

Because it wasn't any no-name, it wasn't one of the apostles from Jerusalem, it was just regular people, which makes me feel really good because I'm just a regular guy, right?

Like all of us can participate in what God is doing.

When we talked about this a few weeks ago, we highlighted uh the two things.

One is the priesthood of ordinary believers, that every single person has the same access to God.

This is a beautiful thing, and this is something that shifted in Jesus.

The old covenant, it was very exclusive.

If you read the old covenant, it is it is crazy the things that you had to do in order to get close to God, like the clothes you had to wear, and only one person can go into the holy of holies one time a year on behalf of the other people.

And even that person had to wear these ropes and bells and ropes, and like the ropes as that they could drag him out if he died.

Like it's crazy.

What had to be done to get close to God?

Jesus in his blood sanctifies us, purifies our hearts, and now he's made you the holy of holy.

That's amazing, right?

Which means this that you told me Moses to get to God in me.

You have Jesus, right?

And I'm not gonna go down this rabbit trail, but I think in many ways in the West, one of the things we've we've gotten really, really good at is we see whoever's up here as our Moses.

And we depend on this person to help us get close to God.

And so even when we think about church, and as we think about how we do church, it's like, man, I need my friend to hear the gospel.

So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna get them here and introduce them to my Moses because my Moses is really gifted to share the gospel, and God's like, no, you're really good at sharing the gospel, man.

Like, I want to impart to you, I want to see you equipped so that you don't actually need to introduce your friend to your Moses, but you can actually introduce your friend to your Jesus because we all have the same access to God, so every person has the same access, and every person has been empowered by God's spirit.

I love this in the old the old testament.

There's this this passage uh where God's speaking to Elijah, and he says, I'm gonna put my spirit, I'm gonna take some of the spirit that was on Elijah, and I'm gonna put it on 70 elders to prophesy, uh, which is interesting.

And they start to prophesy.

And uh one of the guys that was with him, uh uh Joshua, this is actually I can't remember if it's Elijah or Moses, but Joshua comes in and he says, Hey, uh, there are these two men who were not in the room, and they're prophesying, like the rest of these guys, you need to do something to stop them.

And uh the prophet says, He says, I actually wish that all of you would prophesy.

It was Moses.

He's like, I wish that all of you would prophesy, and he says, This, I wish that God would put his spirit in every single one of you.

Um, because he's like, Man, God's getting ready to do something where this is not just limited to a few of us, and then Joel prophesies uh in what becomes true in Acts chapter 2, where he says, I will pour my spirit out on all flesh, where sons and daughters prophesy, old men will drink dreams, young people will have vision.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

This is God's desire that each and every one of us would be empowered by the Spirit to see God move in and through our lives.

The same Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is on the inside of each and every one of us.

He wants to speak to you, he wants to speak through you, he wants to use you, he wants to demonstrate his power through your life.

Raven?

Kingdom culture recognizes that we've been empowered by God's Spirit to live out his mission in our everyday lives.

The last one that I'll share with you before we close is a kingdom culture is an apostolic culture.

We use this word often, but at verse 3, the last thing that happens is that they sit then, they sent Paul at Barteras.

I just want to notice this.

I've really just been studying about Antioch.

Antioch became known for sending but also receiving missionaries.

All of Paul's missionary journeys, they began in Antioch, and so Antioch was the place that Paul was sent from, but it was also the place where he came back to in order to be refreshed and encouraged before being sent out again.

If there's one way that I would define the church of Antioch, the DNA that they had, it was this that Antioch was a church that existed not for themselves, but for the world.

Just beautiful.

Like they're like, we we exist to see the world, the nations of the earth transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And so we we know this because they they leverage their very best resources, not to impact their culture, but to send them out to change the world.

Like, I don't know about you, but uh I I've been around churches a long time, and uh the thing you do when you get someone really, really gifted is you don't send them off, right?

Or most of the time you go like, no, no, no, stay here, stay here.

Like we we like the teachings, it's really good, stay here.

You really get and they said, No, the Holy Spirit said to send Paul, we're gonna send our best.

And they do this and they establish a culture of sending and receiving and sending and receiving, and we see this apostolic culture that's getting built.

And apostolic, when we say that, I know Christians probably defined this, but the Greek word apostle is the word apostolos.

It literally just means a sit one, one who is sit by God.

This is the truth about the church.

The church is apostolic by nature, meaning Jesus has commissioned his church.

In the Great Commission of Matthew 28, he says, Go and make disciples of all nations, meaning the church has been sent.

So here's here's the reality of this point.

You are on mission, whether you realize it or not.

Wherever you are, like we could we could choose to look at it this way, man.

I just so happen to work this job, I just so happened to be a part of this family, or we could recognize God has sent me here.

I wherever I work, God has sent me there on assignment for a purpose.

Whatever family I'm a part of, God sent me there, and I'm on mission and I'm on assignment by God.

Everything we do has purpose because we're apostolic.

Meaning Jesus has sent us into the world.

Now, some of you may have a desire to be sent like Paul across the world, and that's amazing, and that's beautiful.

But if that's not you, it doesn't exclude you from the call of being missionary or apostolic.

That wherever you are, we live with this purpose of I am here on assignment by God, sent by God, apostolic.

Every one of us in this room are called to ministry.

Not all of us are called to vocational church ministry, but to believe that that is more significant than what you're called to is a huge mistake.

Jesus has a call on each and every one of us.

So kingdom called to buzz it simply mean we build a church that people want to come to, although that's not a bad idea.

Build a church where people are sent from.

I think that's the hard here, is to build a culture where it's like, hey, we're ever the the highlight of our week is not even this gathering.

Right.

It's like we very quickly they will experience what kind of culture you've created.

Like this is the power of intentionality and created culture.

People will look in and around this space and they will recognize how you treat other people.

They will hear what's spoken from this stage and they will they will see how you respond when people are earning.

They will watch what you do when people make mistakes, they will recognize what happens when the Holy Spirit begins to speak, they will watch how you respond when people begin to recognize and discover their calling.

They will sense how you respond to people who don't know Jesus.

Something like we just shared about.

They'll watch how you celebrate when someone is called to go and you send them.

And like I said earlier, they won't primarily know these things just because they read them on your wall or they know them in your mission statement, but because of how you embody the kingdom of God culture.

I just want I want to leave us with this charge this morning to really ask the Lord, what does it look like for me to play my cart and building what God's up to here and says Rachel?

One of the things we talk often about is this idea of kingdom calling, that every single person has a call from God.

It's unique to your person, but also unique to your season of life and where you are.

And I just want to encourage you, every person in the room this morning has a kingdom calling, something that God has called you to, but also something that is He's He's stirring in you for this season.

And my prayer this morning is that you would lean into that.

Say, God, what does it look like for me to play a part in what you're building here, not just in this church, but in this region and seeing your kingdom advance?

Amen.

Why don't we stand together?

I want to pray for us.

Um I I I feel like it would be right to maybe have some of our uh the ministry team come uh and be available to pray.

And uh I I want to invite you this morning, if you're in the room and you're like, man, I I'm really just wrestling with purpose and like what my part to play in this looks like.

I'd love to have uh some people partner with you and pray for you so that you could receive think of some clarity on what God's saying to you in this season and why you are where you are or you're up to what you're up to.

Um, and then also if you have need for anything else, I know they would love to pray for you.

But can I pray for you really quick as we close, Jesus?

We thank you that you are building your church, that we get to play a part in building your church, God.

And I pray for this church, God, for these people, for all these faces that I see this morning.

I thank you that you're knitting together something beautiful.

And I thank you for the people that are not connected here yet that will get connected and experience the transforming power of your presence, God, because people said yes to hosting you well.

God, I just bless Suzokayo, I bless each specific person in this room, God, to discover at a greater level, God, what you're calling them to in this season and to activate that thing, to give them courage and the power of your Holy Spirit to accomplish the very thing you speak to them.

So Lord, we thank you that you're really good and you're faithful to your church.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

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