Built, Together

Really was a special Sunday. Five more folks made their faith in Jesus Christ public through baptism with us, and just made God just pouring His grace out on them and pouring His grace out on us. What’s cool about that, too, is that each of those five folks represents someone that someone has been praying for for a long time. To use kind of new, newer language, those five someone’s used to be somebody’s one. What I mean is we all know one person. We all have a one in our life that either is far from God or far from the church. Somebody that is yet to give their life to Jesus and salvation. Each of those five folks used to be somebody’s one.

So this morning we’re going to continue to pray and continue to pray because we all still have a one. We all still have somebody in our life that is far from the Lord. That may or may not go to church. That may or may not have grown up knowing about Jesus. But we believe that they do not yet have a relationship of love and trust with Him. So, for the next few moments, we’re just going to pray. Pray for your one. It might be a barista at Starbucks, somebody that you just randomly met there. It might be a neighbor, a family member, a co-worker, whoever it is, you pray for them or pray for some other local churches here in our area. We, there’s a bunch of other churches that we all went through the process of doing Easter like Adam’s Run and Calvary and so forth. And we want to pray that God continues to show His kindness and His face to shine on them as well.

So for the next few moments as we take it away with congregational prayer, if you are new to our church and praying out loud is a little weird or it’s totally new to you, may you’re totally off the hook. You don’t have to worry at all. You just kind of sit back and watch. But if you have been here for any length of time, you know that we take this part of our service just to pray and offer our requests to the Lord. So I trust you take it away, grab a neighbor, pray for your one or pray for another church in our area that God would either save that one or continue to fill and bless that church. Y’all take it away. I’ll put a bow on it here in a moment.

Thank Heavenly Father, thank you. Father, thank you for this morning. Just a few minutes that we get to gather with you, Father. 22 people across the last two years. You have graced our church with 22 salvations and baptisms over the last two years. What else do you want to do here? God, we sit here with open hands, ready to receive whatever assignment it is that you have for us. Lord, we want to be a blessing to this community. We want to make some tangible impact on it. God, I pray that you would help us to do that. Lord, I think about my buddy that I met at the coffee shop. God, he knows so much about you. He knows I’m a pastor and he’s not weirded out by that. God, he used to help lead his church and Lord has just totally deconstructed all of that. Doesn’t believe any of it anymore. Lord, that just breaks my heart for him. He is far from you. God, please save my one.

Father, I pray one week out from Easter, God, all the other churches in our area, God, I pray that you’d just give them a really sweet morning with you, God. There’s so much energy and attention and just stuff that goes into an Easter Sunday. God, it’s a special Sunday, Jesus, because of what you’ve done, not because of anything we have to do. But nevertheless, God, there’s a lot of tired pastors, a lot of tired church leaders, and I pray that you just refresh them. Lord, as we look at your Word for a few minutes, Holy Spirit, please fill this. Please get a hold of this sermon and do something with it that we need you to do. I pray that for the person that came in this morning that tired spiritually on the inside, you would refresh them. I pray for the person that came in worrying about a family member, they’d have a little more confidence because of you. I pray for the person that came in that does not know you yet, that they this morning would give their lives to you.

Please, God, for all of us that we’d walk out of here with a renewed sense of purpose and meaning because of what You’ve done for us. God, we love You. We trust You. And it’s in Your great name that we pray. Amen. Amen.

I came across a Lifeway Research Report this past week. Lifeway, if you’re not familiar, is an entity of the Southern Baptist Convention. It used to, I think, be referred to as the Sunday School Board. Is that right? Yeah, I think that’s right. I’m getting some hesitant head nods. They’re much more than that now. It’s kind of like the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, and they do a lot to try to equip and help pastors and church leaders. So, they do a lot of research, a lot of online and in-person surveys to just get an idea of the state of the church or the state of culture.

I came across this research article this past week, and it had a pie graph on it. It says 23% never, 21% daily, 21% weekly, 15% not sure, 6% yearly, there’s another slice, 15% monthly. I’m curious, just looking at this, what question do you think people were asked to give a response that they consider this or they think about this? Basically split all the way across. A fifth or a fourth of the responders said they never think about it, and another fifth said they think about it weekly. 15% said they think about this thing monthly. Another fifth, 21%, say they think about this thing daily.

What do you think? What question do you think they were asked? I really want some audience feedback here. What do you think? What were these people asked? Say that again. Prayer. Prayer. They think about prayer. Maybe. Okay. What else? That’s not the answer I’m looking for. What else? Ma’am, Kitty. Death. Yes, death. That’s a great one. That probably has the same metrics, but it wasn’t asked about that. Kitty. God. Maybe. Let’s get one more. It’s not God. One more. Bible. Read your Bible. No.

These people were asked, “How often do you wonder if there’s any meaning to life? How often do you wonder about your life’s purpose?” This is a question that’s extremely pertinent for folks of my generation. The mid-20s to the upper 30s, we are constantly wondering what is the purpose of everything? What’s the purpose of my life? Am I accomplishing all the right things? Am I living my life for the right stuff? But this is a question that’s not just asked of 20- and 30-year-olds.

Across the board, let’s say 23% of people say they never think about their life purpose. I’m not sure that’s a great thing. 21% say they think daily about it. Another 21% say they think weekly. So at least 42% of everybody you ever encounter is thinking at least once out of every seven days, “Is there any meaning to anything?” Another 15%, which would put it over the halfway threshold, they do that monthly. That’s a question that people around you are wondering, whether they are honest on a survey or not.

This survey itself was 2,000 people across a cross-section, statistically verifiable. You roll that one out. So basically, you talk to 10 people this week and you ask them, “Do you ever think about does life have a meaning or purpose?” A fifth of them are going to say, “Absolutely. I think about that every day.” Another fifth of them will say, “I never think about that.” And everybody else will fall in between.

Well, here’s the deal. The Bible addresses that topic in particular. The Bible is extremely relevant for every dynamic of our lives, especially the purpose of your life. And what people need to hear you say when you are talking with them is they need to hear you say the God of the universe does have a purpose and a meaning for you. They need to hear you say that there is more to this world than what meets the eye. They need to hear you say that when death comes, there is something beyond that final breath.

So, are we ready to talk about that this morning? Open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 2 because we’re going to talk about it regardless. Ephesians chapter 2, 19 through 22. We are continuing our series through the book of Ephesians. If you’re still learning how to navigate your Bible, you go halfway. You probably open up into the Psalms. I want you to take a right. Eventually, you get to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. You pass a few other odd names. You get to Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 2. We’re going to be rounding out the end of chapter 2 this morning. I’m going to read our passage. It’ll be on the screens. If it’s not already in your hands, I’m going to make a few observations along the way before I kind of give the main point and we unpack that. So, Ephesians chapter 2:19 through 22.

It starts off this way. So then, and I’m going to pause right there. So then, that’s a loaded so then. Paul has made some extremely powerful arguments already across the last few chapters. In chapter one, Paul tells us what our new identity is in Christ. For every Christ follower, we have all these spiritual blessings. We’re adopted by God. We’ve been given this incredible inheritance in God. We are sealed by the Holy Spirit. So, we have this new identity in Jesus. And all of that was made possible by God’s grace to rescue us from sin and death. But not only does God rescue individuals, God also rescues His people. And that same power to save us is also God’s power to transform us from enemies into a unified family. And the ultimate expression of that power was Jesus dying on the cross and rising three days later. What we celebrated last week.

So then in light of all of that, because of everything I have said otherwise until this point, verse 19, so then you are no longer foreigners and strangers. No, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone. I’ll stop there again. Foundation and cornerstone. Man, I’m not huge into the masonry business. No one would ever confuse me for a construction guy, I don’t think. But I know enough to know that every building, for it to stand tall, needs both a foundation and a cornerstone. For a building to be square and strong, it needs those things.

For us as Christians, our foundation is not in us. It’s not in our wisdom or our insights. Our foundation as Christians is on the teaching of the apostles and the prophets. Simply put, as a church, we are built on God’s word. We are built on the collective unified story of God redeeming a people for Himself. Which means Sauldam Baptist Church and the members of our church will only be as strong as God’s word and our fidelity to it. We will not stand strong in the tossing tide and the winds and the waves of our culture and the difficulties of your life unless you have a strong foundation. And this is our foundation.

Now our cornerstone again it’s not us. Our cornerstone is no person. Our cornerstone is not a guiding document like a set of bylaws. Our cornerstone is Jesus Christ. You see, a foundation is what a house is built on. A cornerstone is what holds everything together. A cornerstone sets the dimensions of a house. It holds everything together. Without a cornerstone, your foundation might be strong, but the building would crumble and collapse on top of it. Jesus is our cornerstone. Jesus is the one who holds us together. Jesus is the one who decides what we do. He decides how we act. He decides what we can and can’t say. He decides who plays what role at what time in His church. Our foundation is the teaching of the apostles and prophets. Our cornerstone is Jesus Christ.

All of this in Him, verse 21, in Him the whole building being put together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. Man, that word put together is fascinating because we are reading an English translation of an original Greek language document. Oftentimes, we miss the nuances of what’s going on right here. It’d be the same thing as somebody taking your family group text, translating it into a different language, and giving it to somebody else 50 years from now, and them trying to understand the inside jokes that you might use in that group text. All right. That’d be a little difficult, right? Right, Becky? Yes. Okay.

All right. That word put together, it’s the same root word not just of built but also of household, alien verse 19, and dwelling. It’s the same root words. If we were reading Greek, we’d see the same squiggles over and over and over again. What Paul is telling us is that God is taking diverse and disconnected souls and He’s joining them together into a new unified whole. That’s what the Jews were experiencing at the time that this letter was written. The Jews were the original tribe, the original family, the original household for God. But the Gentiles were being brought in. That’s who the Ephesians were. That’s who these people were. These people are being brought in to make a new unified thing. That’s what they were experiencing at this point and that’s what we are experiencing today too. God continues to see fit to grow our church and bring more and more new people in. We are like a building that God is adding more bricks and blocks to. And each new person is a new brick, a new block that God is bringing in together. Or to use a more beautiful metaphor, we are like a stained glass window that God is constructing as we’re going along. God’s bringing new shapes and new colors and new hues into a new unified whole.

In Him, verse 22, in Him, y’all, y’all are being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit. Man, if you put on your Trinity goggles, you would notice that all three members of the Trinity have been mentioned in this passage. Jesus is the cornerstone of this house, this dwelling that’s meant for God. And it’s all being put together in the Spirit. I want you to think about this, marvel about this. The God of the universe from before time began made a plan to include you in His church. A plan that was not just devised in secret by the Father or it wasn’t just dreamed of by the Son. It was a plan made by the community of the Trinity to include you in God’s family, in His household.

All of this to say, verses 19-22 makes one major truth. If you’re a notetaker, I want you to write this down. It’s this: In Christ, we are a transformed people with a transformed purpose. In Christ, we are a transformed people with a transformed purpose. You see, it was very interesting, that article that I mentioned, the research study that Lifeway conducted where it was asking people if there’s any meaning to life, if they live for any sort of higher purpose. Folks that self-reported as being born again Christians, all of them absolutely said, “I have got a meaning and a purpose to my life.” The folks that could not make that claim were the ones that said they never think about it or they rarely think about it. You see, in Christ, we are given a new purpose because we’ve been given a new identity. We are transformed people with a transformed purpose.

So let’s just take that one statement by statement. In Christ, we are a transformed people. That’s what verses 19 and 20 tell us. I’ll read it again for us all together. “So then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone.” We are a transformed people. The first transformation this passage mentions is that God places us into a new kingdom. Did you catch it? We’re no longer foreigners and aliens, but we are fellow citizens with the saints. That term alien, I don’t think Paul was talking about Martians. I don’t think he was talking about ET going home. What he, I believe, was talking about was a political term. Folks that aren’t from here. Those, those are the comears. In Christ, we’re no longer come here and been hearers. In Christ, we’re no longer like that. In Christ, we are all members of a new kingdom.

Again, you have to remember this letter written to the Ephesians was written to a group of people that at that time lived in a place that they called Asia, southwest coast of Turkey. This is a group of people that were not of Jewish ethnicity. They did not have the Old Testament as their heritage. They didn’t have Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as their patriarchs. According to the Jews, they were outsiders. They were foreigners. But God’s original purpose for Israel was to draw the outsiders in. His original purpose was for them to be a light to the nations, to bring them into God’s family. But that didn’t exactly happen. But now in Christ, God’s original purpose for His people is being fulfilled. God is making Gentiles full participants in His kingdom. God is bringing foreigners and aliens and making them full-fledged citizens in the kingdom of God. That’s exceedingly good news for you and me and anybody else that does not have Jewish ethnicity and ancestry. According to the Old Testament laws, at least some of them, we should not be able to gather in a place for the corporate worship of Yahweh because there Are things about us that would make us unfit and unholy for the Jewish people. But praise be to the Lord. Praise be to Jesus Christ who fulfilled all righteousness on our behalf. He made a way for us to be fully included in God’s kingdom. Now God is our God. Abraham is our father in the faith. We are full-fledged citizens in God’s kingdom. We are a transformed people.

It’s not just that God has placed us in a new kingdom. God has also placed us in a new family. It says we’re members of God’s household. Anyone can become a member of God’s household. I’m not sure what sort of baggage you may have come in here with. I’m not sure what sort of messages any other church folks or any other pastors may have given you. I’m not sure what sort of past you may have lived, what sort of things you may have done, what sort of things you haven’t done. But the the good news of the gospel is that God loves to take anybody, anyone that we prayed for earlier. Anybody, any person can come into God’s family.

Before Jesus, there’s no Jew or Greek. There’s no rich, there’s no poor, there’s no free, there’s no slave, there’s no white, there’s no black, there’s no church, there’s no unchurched. Before Jesus, we are all equal before God, which means we are all equal opportunity offenders of God’s holiness. And because of that, we are all equal recipients of God’s grace if we place our faith and trust in Jesus Christ for our forgiveness of sins and the rescue of our souls from what we deserve.

Ephesians 1 says this, “Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ. Every every every for God chose us in Him in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in love before Him. He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for Himself according to the good pleasure of His will to the praise of His glorious grace that He lavished on us in the beloved one.”

Anybody could be adopted into God’s family. Anybody can become a member of God’s household. Man, I encourage you this morning, right now to think, do you think you are too bad off? I’ve done too much. I’ve lived too dark of a life. There’s no way God could ever love me like that. That God would make me a full member of His family. Those are all lies. Lies straight from the pit of hell that would love to keep you out of God’s circle of grace, His family. Anybody can become a member of God’s family.

In fact, the Bible says that God loves to take the outcast. He loves to take the other. He loves to take the undeserving and make them His child to transform them from His enemies into His children. God loves to do that. That’s why we get to gather here. That’s why we get to sing songs of worship. That’s why we get to read our Bibles. That’s why we get to pray with and for one another because God has done something to rescue us.

The question is, have you become God’s child? Are you a member of God’s household? Are you still putting it off? Are you still just kind of keeping God at a arm’s length? Do you want to become a member? If you do, that’s simple. It’s hard, but it’s simple. You would admit that you are a sinner that’s in need of God’s grace. You would confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and that God raised Him from the dead, and you would give your life to Him. That’s a simple prayer. The power is not in a prayer. The power is in your motivation to give yourself to Jesus. But God would love to make you His son or His daughter today.

If that’s something you’ve never done before, I encourage you close your eyes, bow your head, and stop listening to me and you just pray honest words to your heavenly Father that loves you, that wants you, and that is pursuing you.

In Christ, we are a transformed people. So it’s natural that people Jesus transformed have a transformed purpose. Oh, it is so natural. If Jesus has transformed you, then He would give you a transformed purpose. Verses 21 and 22 say this. In Him in Christ, the whole building being put together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In Him, you are also being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit. Holy temple, God’s dwelling. Here’s the deal. In Christ, we have a new purpose in life, which is to be a home for God. The purpose of all people everywhere is for God to be at home inside and with them. That is the purpose you have been made for. Your heart is like a throne. It’s like a seat. And you have been made for God to sit on the throne of your heart. Which is why if you have not given yourself to Jesus, if Jesus has not saved you, you feel empty inside. Because nothing can fill that void.

Our hearts are kind of like a like a disposal and it’s always clicked on. And we try to feed ourselves things. We try to satisfy ourselves things, but the blades of the disposal just keep churning it up. We need somebody to turn off the disposal, take that out and put Himself in. And only God can do that for you. So, no family relationship can satisfy you because your soul’s just going to eat that up. No amount of money will ever satisfy you because that just burns a hole in your pocket and it doesn’t actually do anything for you. No amount of religion can actually satisfy you either. What you need is God to live inside of you. You have been made to be a temple and a home for God.

Imagine how wild this would have been for the Ephesian Christians to hear. They had a massive temple in their city, the temple of Diana, of Artemis, depending if you’re Greco or Roman. This incredible one of the seven wonders of the world. This meteor comes down from heaven. They think it’s a sign from one of the gods. So they create this temple over and around it and people start sacrificing lambs and animals and children to this false god. They had a temple. They had a a massive temple. You still go there today and you can still see some of the foundations and some of the pillars of it. But there was no God inside of that temple. No, make no mistake. There was not a living God in that temple.

The situation wasn’t much better in Jerusalem either. They also had a temple. They had this massive complex, this massive place where people went and they sacrificed animals. They did all the rituals. They thought they were obeying the law. But the living God of the whole universe did not reside in that. He took His glory out of that a long time ago. The Jews, the Ephesians, they had temples, but no gods living inside of them.

You and I are supposed to be temples of the living God. You and I are supposed to be where God dwells. God’s design is that God’s people are the temple of God. According to Paul, the church building is not God’s house. The church members are. What Paul is saying here is that Sauldam Baptist Church gathers at 5945 County Line Road. But Sauldam Baptist Church, the temple of God, goes with us wherever we are. Why else would Jesus have said where two or three are gathered there I’ll be also. We are the temple of God.

And if we are where God lives then our usefulness depends on our holiness. We will only be as useful to the God of the universe as we are submitted to Him, as we are surrendered to Him, as we are sanctified to Him. I’ll put it a little more sharply. We will fail to achieve our Christ-given purposes if we are not striving for holiness with God. We just we won’t accomplish the things that God gives us to do if we are not sanctified to Him. If we’re not living for Him.

Paul wrote some extremely sharp words to the Ephesians in chapter 4. No foul language should come from your mouth, but only what’s good for building up someone in need, so that it gives grace to those who hear. And don’t grieve God’s Holy Spirit. You were sealed by Him for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, anger, and wrath, shouting and slander, let those be removed from you along with all malice. And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ. Therefore, be imitators of God as dearly loved children, and walk in love as Christ also loved us and gave Himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God, but sexual immorality, any impurity or greed. They shouldn’t even be heard of among you, as is proper for the saints. Obscene and foolish talking or crude joking is not suitable, but rather giving thanks. For know and recognize this, Every sexually immoral or impure or greedy person who is an idolater does not have an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Wow. Lighten up, Paul. Right? Anybody else feeling this a little bit? We were just told that God loves us. We were just told that I’m sealed in God. We were just told that God richly poured out on us every single spiritual blessing in Christ. What gives? Man, it’s like Paul is saying, “Hey, you you can’t have your cake and eat it too.” You can’t be God’s child and live like the children of the world. You can’t be a home for God and also harbor sin and darkness. You got to have it one way or the other.

At least that’s how the gospel was shared with me when I was 15 in my buddy’s beat up little Nissan. And he said, “Jeremy, it’s time.” Man, it’s time to stop with the charade. It’s time to stop with the hypocrisy. It’s time to stop with the double-mindedness, man. Either lean into Jesus and actually enjoy this grace that you call amazing and be ready to throw all this stuff away, or man, just lean into whatever the world offers for you. But you got to stop calling yourself a Christian. You cannot do both. Which will it be for you? And God used that to save me. And I trust He still saves people that way.

God wants us to be holy unto Him. If we’re not pursuing holiness as a church, God will not inhabit us. The people of Israel kept doing all the sacrifices. They kept obeying the law in this sense of they they did the stuff. They brought the yearly offerings. They brought all the right stuff. I mean, Jesus even said, “Man, you’re tithing mint and dill. You’re going to the market and you’re getting spices and you’re taking a tenth off the spice just to make sure you’re obeying that particular law.” But Jesus also said, “Your hearts are far from Me. I’m not a home for you.” If we’re not pursuing holiness as individuals, God won’t live inside of us. If we’re not pursuing holiness as a church, God won’t live inside of us.

Man, if we want to see the supernatural work of God in our midst, we have got to have an otherworldly devotion to Him. Man, just think about it. Like, just answer this question in your mind. Is there any sin worth kicking God out of this house for? Is there really anything this world could offer you that would be worth not having God? There’s nothing. There’s nothing. There’s no other purpose we could ever live for than being God’s house. There’s nothing that’s satisfying in that way that this world could ever offer us.

My encouragement to you, if you’re living for any purpose other than being a home for God, and please drop that. That doesn’t mean that you can’t keep doing what you love for work. That doesn’t mean that you got to divorce your family. That doesn’t mean any of those things. What it means, though, is that God and honoring Him has to be at the core of your person. No life purpose measures up to the purpose that God has for you.

And this is the mission you’ve been given. Jesus, after He had risen on Easter Sunday, came near to His disciples as the resurrected Lord. And He tells them, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven on earth. So go therefore and make disciples. Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I’ve commanded you. And remember, I’m with you always to the end of the age.” God’s already given you a mission. He’s already given us a purpose. How could we live for anything else? Everything we are supposed to do as Christians and as Sauldam Baptist Church are supposed to be wrapped up in being a home for God and making more disciples for God. Everything we do, every ministry, every activity, every event, every business vote, every budget line item, every conversation we have as a church needs to have this goal in mind: to be God’s house, to make disciples for the Lord.

So that’s why we put on a movie night last night because we’re just trying to connect with people of our community so that more and more people can know there is a church at 5945, at least that gathers at 5945, that loves them because God loves them and we want to connect them with the life transforming grace of Jesus Christ. Everything We do as a church needs to be wrapped up in that. So, how do we do this individually? I’m going to start closing down here, but I think there’s three things that you’ve got to own to live as a transformed person with a transformed purpose. Three things. You got to own your disciplehip. You got to own our unity. And you got to own the mission. Let me walk through those.

You have to own your disciplehip. That means you got to proactively foster your own spiritual growth. Think about it. I’m going to preach for I guess 35 minutes right here. If you watch two hours of TV a week or scroll your phone for two hour, sorry, two hours of TV a day, which is below the national average. Or if you scroll your phone for an hour a day on top of that, again, below the national average, that’s three hours of media you’ve consumed per day across seven days. Says 21 hours. 21 hours of world, 35 minutes of this, that means this can’t be the only time you get in the word. Your engagement with God in His word has to be in it, has to be a daily thing, man. So I’m talking like a Bible study plan. I’m talking Sunday school and Wednesday night Bible study. I’m talking women’s ministry tomorrow morning at 10 o’clock. I’m talking creating a simple prayer calendar so that you can put people on it. You can pray for things, pray for the needs of SA and pray for the needs of our community. You got to own your disciplehip.

Again, to be a transformed person with a transformed purpose, you also need to own our unity. I tell you, man, a divided house is a hard home for God to live in. Which means courageous conversations right here are needed for us to be unified. Which means every member of our church, you have a God-given assignment to squash disunityity. We’ve got to keep Soda inhospitable for division. So, I have to be really clear. Any gossip that would tear people down has got to be a mole on the whack-a-ole that you squash. Any slander which smears somebody’s reputation, whack-a-ole. Any rumor milling where you breed distrust by intentionally saying false things. None of those things are allowed. None of that makes for a united church. None of that’s appropriate for us being God’s family together.

Man, look around. God is bringing more and more people to Sodam. Last Sunday, between our attendance in the worship service and our kids wing, we had 213 people here. Isn’t that incredible? And as we get larger and more diverse, you know who would love to mess that up? Satan. He would love to slide right on in say, “How can I disrupt all of this?” And the best way he could do that is to pit us against each other. So I say as God continues to grow us, as our diversity continues to grow, as our size continues to grow, man, please squash any any disunityity, own our unity.

Finally, for us to be a transformed people with a transformed purpose, I need you to own the mission. I need you to own the mission that’s revolves around serving and giving. I’ll take, I’ll tackle serving first. We have a an enormous list of ways that we need folks to serve. You just look in the bulletin, you see a little insert of all the teams that we need people to serve in, all the ministries that we need people to plug in with. It’s not just serving in kids. It’s also hanging out with Carter and the students. It looks like serving for VBS here in a couple months. By the way, we still need a VBS director. It might look like coming on Sunday mornings and joining us in the boiler room to serve the church by praying for each other. To serve the church by coming and just kind of warming the place up with our prayers. We need folks to serve. For the mission of Sodam to go on, we need people to plug in and give their time.

Not only that, and I don’t like talking about money, but for the mission of Sodam to continue, we need folks to give money. It takes some money to be able to turn the lights on and have the comfortable AC. It takes money for us to gather on Wednesday night and have an incredible dinner and hang out with each other. It just takes resources. I I encourage you if you’re going to own the mission of our church that you would consider how you’re giving financially to the church. We Have a number of folks here that are more than qualified to help you look at your budget and re-wizzle some things. And you need to know I never [inaudible] who gives what amount. And I don’t ever want to see that. So, if you got any weirdness about giving to church because you’re concerned that it might just get to the pastor or I might look at that and try to manipulate that for my ends, please rest assured, I never touch any of that.

Some folks really trust me and they give me their tithe check and I immediately walk that joker over to Mr. Michael because I don’t—I just don’t want any part of that. The money doesn’t really come to me. And God doesn’t need our money. The functions of our church family do. God can get His resources from anywhere. But for you to own the mission of our church looks like financially giving to the mission.

One primary example of that is our baptistry fund, which if you’re paying attention, man, we have been given an incredibly generous check in the last week to take that number, our initial goal of 15,000. It’s met at this point. Isn’t that incredible? Man, absolutely incredible.

There were two folks that were incredibly moved last Sunday. They saw what God did and they saw us using what I’m calling a portable baptistry and they said, “Man, I want to give to that because the full-time baptistry is still in disrepair.” Here’s the deal. 15,000 was the original quote and that was before we understood the extent of how expensive this is going to be and we’re still waiting for more—more reliable quotes to come in. But rest assured, I [inaudible] it’s going to be more than 15,000.

So if you wanted to give to the Baptistry fund and you see this morning that that 15,000’s already been raised and you haven’t given to it yet, please still give. If we raise more than what the project needs, we will make sure that everybody knows exactly what we will do with that excess. We need people to give to that.

I’ve already gone way over, so I just want to tie it all together. Christ has done everything necessary to transform you. His power on the cross can make you a son or daughter of His, can give you citizenship in God’s family. What He has done can transform your whole life purpose away from just living for a career that’ll never really satisfy or getting that perfect spouse or accomplishment that will never actually satisfy. He has done everything necessary to transform that. How could we not respond with fully surrendering back to Him?

I encourage you this morning as we sing our final song that you would do so as a prayer of dedication, man, that God would do something inside of you that you desperately need Him to do. If you will just go ahead and bow your heads and close your eyes with me.

I pray for us as we just consider, Lord, what do you want for us? God, we—we’re a group of people that want to know what our next assignment is from you. God, you’ve transformed us. You’ve given us a new identity in Jesus. You’ve given us a new purpose in yourself. And God, we want to be unleashed to do the next assignment. God, I pray that you would help us to see. Are we supposed to make a move in owning our mission by giving or serving? Are we supposed to make a move by owning our unity and squashing something? God, are we supposed to make a move by owning our disciplehip and starting a Bible reading plan or something like that? Lord, I pray you would speak of the next plan undertoe. God, make us a hospitable home for you as individuals, but also as a church family. Lord, thank you for what you’ve done for us. God, we love you. We give ourselves to you.