Lunch plans. Hey, my name is Keith Weezer.
I'm lead pastor here at Resnate Church.
Absolutely just excited about us getting to
start this new year,
new time to be together.
So, yeah, I really pumped about this.
I know that there might be a lot of people who are new here.
Welcome for the first time to Resnate.
Yeah, it's good and I know that some of you guys are
checking out this kind of thing and there's
like maybe some church dating that's going on.
So, I get that.
Hopefully, we're going to get to talk to you a little bit
today about what we're all about and not be weird about it,
not be that first date jitter kind of thing.
So, hopefully, we'll pull it off.
But yeah, if you're here,
this is a little bit,
if this is how you judge Resnate,
this is like going by a girl's work and trying to
figure out who is this girl by just checking out at work.
It just doesn't really work because this is
not the context where we're really ourself.
So, you got to come to a small group.
You can check those out as you leave.
There are things called villages.
That's really how you get to know what Resnate is all about.
So, this is just like showing somebody's work.
It's just kind of weird in terms of being able to
have that relational connection.
Hopefully, it'll begin to make more sense.
Hopefully, it'll stick around.
But I remember going to a place one time,
a spiritual environment that I had no clue about.
When I was in seminary,
I was in Northern California and one of my classes
was to be able to check out other religions.
And so, there in Northern California,
I thought Zen Buddhism, let's check that out.
And so, I had to write a paper on it.
So, I went to like this thing called
the Big Gulch Zen Ranch.
And so, I showed up, me and my wife,
showed up there at the Big Gulch Zen Ranch
there in Northern California.
And so, I didn't know anything about Buddhism
or what Zenning was and stuff like that.
I knew what Sinning was but not Zenning.
So, I wanted those down.
But we showed up there and it's like
this ranch slash garden and it's super peaceful
and there's a lot of running water
and awkward statues and stuff like that.
And so, we show up there and so,
we're looking around and it's like hard to find the place
that you're supposed to go to engage
in the meditation or the Zenning.
And so, we finally found the place to go
and so, there's somebody out of there
said there's a session going on.
But you can come into the next session
where you will receive balance.
And he talked like that, exactly like that.
And so, I was like, okay, that's cool, I'm off for that.
And so, I began to ask questions in our timeframe here
before we go into the Zen chapel.
What is this doing?
What are we about here?
And he said, what you're trying to achieve is balance.
And I was like, I caught that but what does that mean?
So, how do you do that?
And he said, you are to empty your mind.
And so, I tried that for about two seconds
and it did not work.
And so, I said, I need some help, bro.
Could you help me with that?
He said, I said, how do I empty my mind?
He said, here's a tip for a beginner.
Concentrate on your breathing.
And so, I was like, okay, that's a little weird,
here's your pillow, sir.
You know, and so, we walk in to this place
and a chime announces that we are beginning to Zen.
And so, sit down and I face a wall.
There's probably 20 other people, Zinning in there.
And so, I don't even know if that's a word.
I just made it up here on the spot.
Whatever we were doing there, meditating,
probably that's the right word.
And so, not Zinning, which is not a word.
So, we're sitting there and I remember, okay.
So, after having about a minute or two,
where I was just thinking about this environment
and how maybe strange this is
and trying to achieve balance.
I was sitting there and so, I was like,
then I remember him saying, okay,
you need to concentrate on your breathing
and that's how you'll be able to completely empty yourself.
So, I start to concentrate on my breathing
and so, I sit there and I was like, okay,
if I just concentrate on my breathing,
then I'll be able to empty myself.
And so, I sat there and I concentrated on breathing
and I just, I heard the air go in and out.
And then I wondered if I was just a little bit asthmatic
that day and then in and out
and then I wondered if I was bringing through my nose
or through my mouth and then in and out
and I could not do it and so, I whispered to the guy,
I was like, so, what are we supposed to be doing?
And he said, you're supposed to be connecting in balance.
And I said, with you, with the world around you.
And again, I was lost and so, I sat there
and I was like, okay, I'll go back to the breathing thing.
And so, I tried as hard as I could
and I concentrated on my breathing,
tried to make everything go away.
And so, I looked at my watch and I thought,
how long can I do this?
And I went as long as I could.
I breathed and over and over and I thought, this,
okay, this session must be almost over
because I've come to the end of my emptying.
And I look at my watch and it's been 37 seconds.
And this whole thing is kind of crazy.
But as I got through that thing,
I didn't know what was going on.
I didn't know how to engage it.
But I walked out and the guy said, did you achieve balance?
And I said, I did not achieve balance.
And it was this interesting thing
because as he talked about it,
it was all about achieving this balance thing.
And they're trying to help you to lose yourself
to completely be emptied as far as I understood this thing.
And then I had to write a paper about my experience there.
But this whole thing was really interesting thing
as I went into this thing and they began to talk to me
about what this was all about
and what it was trying to accomplish.
And it was a fascinating thing.
Maybe some of you are coming into this.
Maybe you've never been to a church before.
Definitely maybe not in a church,
in a classroom before on a college campus.
But let me tell you a little bit about who we are
and about what we're doing.
And if you're coming into this
and having these kind of strange thoughts about
what is all this going on?
I really want to make it clear to you
what Resonate Church is all about.
You see, Resonate Church,
we are a group of people who unapologetically follow Jesus.
And Jesus was a Middle Eastern man
who was born about two millennia ago,
ended up being a Christmas baby.
So, I don't know, how many of you are Christmas babies?
Yeah, okay, great.
I don't know if you ever got the two for one gift.
I think Jesus might have gotten that.
So, but I'm sure he's always frustrated.
And even at the beginning of his birth,
some of you didn't catch that.
So, not your friend, it was actually funny.
So, I thought it was funny.
My wife thought it was funny.
My child thought it was funny.
So, it was something that,
from the very beginning Jesus' birth
was it was a dramatically different kind of thing.
There was something dramatically different about this man.
And growing up, there was something that everyone knew.
This Jesus is just not normal.
He's just not like everyone else.
And then at age 30, the secret got out.
He was not like everyone else.
He was not just another guy, another Middle Eastern guy
living about 2,000 years ago.
In fact, he started teaching these people a new way to live
and people would gather around.
He would flock to Jesus
because he has an authoritative way of teaching.
He began to tell people about a new way of living life
that was completely different
than anything that they had heard before.
And then everyone knew as there's something
that was definitely different about this guy,
that secret began to go public.
This wasn't just a guy.
This was the very Son of God.
This was God in flesh.
And he has come to this earth
and he is displaying what it means
to have a relationship with God,
telling people a new way to live
and beginning to present a worldview
that include this connection to their heavenly Father,
not a disconnection from their heavenly Father.
And so he began to teach this.
And then he didn't just teach people
about this new way to live.
He began to set a plan into motion.
And this plan was to get himself killed.
And so the goal wasn't just to tell people how to live
but to begin to give them the pathway to live.
And so his ultimate goal was to provide a way for people
and God to reconnect in a way
that not only changed their immediate life
but that changed their position in eternity.
And so Jesus's plan to kill himself worked
and he got himself killed on a Roman cross.
He spent three days, he was put into a grave,
spent three days in that grave.
And on the third day, he rose from the grave.
He resuscitated, I'm not sorry,
he did not resuscitate, he resurrected.
He was dead and then he was alive.
And he came out of the grave.
He rolled the stone away.
And in the next 40 days,
he revealed himself to his disciples
and the crowds of up to 500 people.
And it was unmistakable and the history books
began to talk about this Jesus who was unlike any other.
That they talk about this man who performed these miracles
who displayed that there was something
that was supernatural about him
and that indeed he was the son of God
and the fact that he overcame the ills of life.
He overcame sickness and he ultimately overcame death
is why we orient our lives around this man
who has transformed all of humanity for the last 2000 years.
And for the last 2000 years,
there's been a book that has put all the writings
and teachings of Jesus,
along with all the things that Jesus represented in God
and in the story of God is in this book called the Bible.
It's the best selling book of all time.
It is my job over this next year
to teach you how to live out the Bible.
It is your job to take this seriously
and the most important event
and the most important person in human history
is to orient your life around him,
to be able to not play games and be a lame-o
and all the stuff that will distract you in college
begin to say, but begin to say,
there's something worth my time, my effort,
my priority in my life.
There's something worth giving everything to
and that is the person and the work of Jesus Christ.
We take that seriously because everything else,
whatever is the issue in your life,
it all goes back to Jesus Christ.
And so this is what our church is about.
And Jesus, more than what I experienced
at the Big Gully Zen Ranch,
began to paint a picture of what it meant
to live a life of balance.
And this life of balance is one that Jesus did
in a brilliant way because he began to show,
this is how you live as a human.
Let me, as God, come to earth
and show you how you are to live.
And the problem is that most of us don't understand that.
Most of us don't get what we are intended to live as,
what it was intended to look like.
And so we have issues in our life.
We have things that are jacked up in our life
because we do not understand the relationships
that are necessary for us to live a life of joy,
of meaning, of worth, of significance, of purpose,
all of these things that are intended
by your heavenly Father.
And so we just live through our life
and we don't get what the necessity of this really is.
And Jesus, as we look into his life,
paints a picture of what balance looks like.
And I want to get into that today.
I think it's crucial for you to get this
at the very beginning to understand both
who Jesus is, the rhythm of his life,
and then be able to kind of connect this back
to who Resonate Church is
and to see if this is the right fit for you.
And so I want to do this.
In my life, there's been these significant times of stress
in terms of what was going on in my life
and being able to navigate that.
And it all comes back to balance
and being able to have this foundation in my life
that things can happen in it, but it doesn't mess me up.
Things can go wrong, but my world doesn't fall apart.
And so it took me a while to understand the rhythm of Jesus
and I want to give this to you today
so that you understand that.
We're gonna be looking in a gospel,
the story of Jesus in the book of Luke, Luke chapter six,
verses 12 through 19, paints this picture of Jesus
who's interacting and gives us three different pictures.
So if you have your copy of scripture,
you can pull that out.
Or if you have your app, you can pull that out as well.
We're also gonna have it up on the screen.
Let's go for it, says this.
In these days, he, meaning Jesus,
went out to the mountain to pray.
And all night he continued in prayer to God.
And when the day came, he called his disciples
and chose from them 12 whom he named apostles,
Simon, whom he named Peter and Andrew's brother
and James and John and Philip and Bartholomew
and Matthew and Thomas and James, son of Alpheus
and Simon who was called the zealot
and Judas, son of James and Judas Iscariot
who became a traitor, verse 17.
And he came down with them and stood on a level place
with a great crowd of his disciples
and a great multitude of people
from all over Judea, Samaria and the Seacoast
of Tyre and Sidon who came to hear him
and to be healed of their diseases.
And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured
and all the crowds sought to touch him
for power came out of him and healed them all.
So this might seem like a kind of a random
collection of scripture, but in this,
we see three separate rhythms that Jesus did in his life.
These are the rhythms that are crucial in your life.
Jesus is saying, this is what it means to be a human.
This is what God intended for you to do as a human.
And if you don't get this, you're gonna have this life
that's out of balance, which means that you won't have
a strong foundation, which means that when junk happens
in your life, it'll push you over.
Think about, if you were just to stand on one leg
and if you were just to happen,
something can just so easily nudge you
and you go tumbling, right?
But if you have two legs, this is something
that provides stability.
And if you have people that are holding you
on the other side, this provides even more stability.
And so in this context, many of you are new into college.
There's going to be a lot, right, sophomores?
There's gonna be a lot of stuff that comes your way,
your freshman year.
You're gonna have to make decisions about this.
I want you to make good decisions,
decisions that are gonna benefit you, not hurt you.
As we begin to think about all of this,
what I want to do is introduce to you a shape
to kind of put this in our mind.
And this shape is this triangle
and this triangle has these three different aspects
of who Jesus is.
We'll throw this up on the screen.
It goes like this, that Jesus had this connection with God.
He had this connection with community
and he had this connection with mission.
So that there's this up, this in and this out.
And so your triangle, as we begin to think about
the rhythms of your life, we begin to think about
what Jesus is trying to help us to understand.
It has to be in balance.
And I know that that sounds weird,
but that's the one thing that I got
from the Big Gully Zen Ranch,
is that balance is key.
And Jesus displays this balance,
not the connection with the world around you
and emptying your mind, but Jesus begins to help us
to provide tangible understanding of what it means
to live in balance.
So let's look at this.
Let's kind of go through this
and see these different things.
It says this in verse 12.
In these days, he went out to the mountain to pray
and all night he continued in prayer to God.
As we begin to think about that up,
what Jesus did in a rhythmic fashion was connect with God.
See, Jesus prayed regularly.
It says in these days, not one day,
not one day Jesus did this, but regularly what Jesus did,
as we begin to think of God in flesh,
what he did is he connected with God.
The relationship between Jesus and God
was something that was significant,
that it was a regular thing,
that Jesus was in constant contact with his father,
whom he spoke of in a very personal, a very intimate way.
And what we begin to see is Jesus saying,
this is the way that you were to engage your spirituality.
That you were to engage your spirituality
in terms of this idea of abiding.
This idea of abiding is really,
let's kind of put that in juxtaposition with this idea
that I think that oftentimes our spirituality is characterized.
And that's this, what I would call the fly by,
where you just kind of come in,
kind of come close to being spiritual,
and then you kind of just bounce out,
that it's really contextual.
Maybe it's when you come to church,
or when you go to a Bible study,
or maybe you pray every now and then,
and that's kind of this moment
where you connect in the spiritual nature,
but then the rest of your life is disconnected
from anything spiritual, from anything
that is beyond your senses.
And so what Jesus is saying is,
it's not about the drive by, it's not about the fly by,
it's not about that thing where we say,
this is my spirituality, and then this is the rest of my life.
But Jesus is saying, it's integrated,
it's all a part of this, that you have to abide,
that it has to be this constant thing,
and this is the intent of God.
And what we have to understand is,
you have been created for this,
that you have been created for a relationship with God.
And when you ignore this relationship,
your life gets messed up, it gets jacked up.
And so what happens is,
oftentimes we can just ignore that there's anything else.
There's doubt in our mind that God is real,
there's doubt in our mind that he will do anything
or has any kind of bearing in our life.
And oftentimes this can come and kind of just disconnect us.
And all of a sudden we have this not rich relationship
with our heavenly Father,
but we just kind of have this every now and then kind of thing.
And so it's not, I mean,
let's think about developing a relationship.
Now, if you're trying to say,
if you're trying to say, I want to develop a relationship
with this guy, this girl,
and it's just one of these things
where you just really compartmentalize it.
So you just kind of hang out in this one time
and then you spend this significant time away
and then hang out this one time.
It doesn't really grow, does it?
You might have a little bit more knowledge,
but it doesn't necessarily have any kind of connection.
But when you're hanging around each other all the time,
that relationship is accelerated.
It's the same thing with your heavenly Father.
That you will have a truncated spirit
if you just are engaging in that.
I'll just do the spiritual thing,
but then I'll come and do the party scene,
or I'll hang out with my friends
and didn't have anything to do with God.
That's not what Jesus is telling us about.
This is not what this looks like.
See, what happens is our souls are connected
to our spirituality.
But oftentimes what we can do is divorce our souls
from our minds so that we can have suspicion,
say, I don't believe my soul.
I don't really believe that I need to have that.
And your soul is knocking on your door.
It's whispering through your window and saying,
hey, there's something that's really here.
There's something that you cannot keep ignoring.
And it creates this like angst in our heart
because we know that there's something missing.
And what we have to do is let our soul inform our mind.
And when that happens, what we begin to see
is we live in peace.
When we understand that there is an up to our life.
So if you poll Americans, if you say,
is there something beyond your senses?
Is there something called God?
Let's just go that low of a level.
90% of people say, yes, there is something that's there.
It is your soul crying out.
And you either try to stuff it and say, shut up soul.
Or you try to say, there's something there.
And if there's something there, if you
are made to be engaging in spiritual things, why ignore that?
Why push that away?
You haven't been created with that.
That'll create angst over and over in your heart.
So what do you do?
What are some things that you begin to engage this with?
What is it that this begins to look like?
One of the things would be, for me, when I say,
I want just to be able to understand what up looks like,
that I've been created for something beyond this.
Just ask and pray throughout the day.
I've worn stuff on my wrist.
I've done stuff, written stuff on my hand
to help me to have kick starters to remind myself
that I am living in a God-soaked world,
that God is all around me.
And being able to pray to God, God,
let me see you move in the world around me.
I promise you, if that begins to be the prayer that you pray,
as you begin to navigate in your classes, in your roommates,
in your work, then I think that there's
some significant things that God will
do to open your eyes to his movement supernaturally,
spiritually around you.
I've seen it in my life.
All of a sudden, it's like these blinders get pulled away.
All of a sudden, I begin to recognize that.
OK, so if you've ever owned a car, or if you've ever,
you don't even have to own a car, but maybe just
to have a car, your family had a car,
like I remember buying one of the first cars
that I got when I got here was a Ford Escape.
And then all of a sudden, I recognized
all these Ford Escapes, because I had one.
And then all of a sudden, I'm like, hey, there's one,
and there's one, and there's one, and there's one.
See, when we have something that we own, what we possess,
when we begin to see that stuff in the world around us,
and it is an exciting thing when you begin to check that out.
Engaging in God in your day, being able to pray,
being able to say it constantly, how can I begin
to go to God without?
And instead of saying, OK, I'm just
going to pray over meals, or I'm just
going to pray when things go wrong
and there's a crisis in my life, how is it
that I can just begin to pray?
Is there a rhythm in your life?
Every time you exit out your dorm,
you just say a quick prayer. Every time you go
into this classroom, you just say a quick prayer.
There's some things.
When I get on campus, here's what I do.
Every time I get on campus, every time I step foot on campus,
I pray, and I have a prayer.
I pray for leaders to be a part of this,
because I feel like the world is changed by leaders.
So the minute I, it's just like this natural instinct.
When I get on campus, as I walk across campus,
I pray, God, send leaders.
And I hope that some of you sitting in this room
have come that will begin to just have
a significant effect on Washington State University.
And I'm praying for you.
I've been doing that as I walk on campus.
And so how is it that we can integrate this
into the rhythm of our life?
Jesus integrated it into the rhythm of his life.
How long has it been since you've prayed all night?
You see, Jesus prioritized prayer.
He prayed all night.
He went up to this mountain.
He got away from everything, and he spent time with God.
Jesus is saying, OK, here's how humans should live.
That there should be a priority in your life
to spend time with your Heavenly Father.
That you will be out of whack unless there's
something there that is connecting you
to your Heavenly Father, to your Creator.
So Jesus is displaying this.
He's communicating it to us.
This is beautiful.
So the question is this, what do you do to connect with God?
What is it?
Answer that in your head.
What is it that you do to connect with God?
And is that a priority in your life?
Is that something Jesus says, this is how humans live.
Are you living as a human should live?
What does your up look like?
Think through that.
What does it look like?
Not only did Jesus live up, but he lived in.
And this idea of Jesus engaging in the people around him,
it says this.
And when that day came, he called his disciples
and chose from them 12 whom he named apostles.
So at age 30, he chooses 12 guys.
And these 12 guys, he spends the next three years with them.
Jesus, I don't know if you know this about Jesus.
Homeless dude, roaming the streets with his 12 guys.
Some of them had houses.
We read about that in the scripture,
but we never hear of Jesus's house.
So Jesus is spending time.
He's crashing at their places.
They're having significant interaction.
He pours his life into these guys.
He ate with them.
He had experiences with them.
He did life with these people.
He knew that he wasn't just the guy,
the wandering prophet that was wandering around
and having these times to be able to teach
and have these amazing things
that he communicated to people.
But Jesus did life with people.
He connected with people.
He was around him, was 12 guys that he poured his life into.
And they were able to see Jesus and be connected to Jesus.
And this was something that Jesus models for us.
For us, as we began to think through this,
what does it look like?
How is it that we live in terms of other people in our life?
The thing is, get this,
you need relationships with the people in your life
who know you deeply.
For some of you, that needs to be the priority
of your life right now.
It's to form relationships where you know people
and are known by people.
Jesus is saying, this is the rhythm of your life
to be healthy.
We need to be able to spend quality time
around quality people, having quality conversation.
And I know that we spend time in college.
Oftentimes, you can spend a time around a lot of people,
right?
There's a lot of people that you can connect with.
There's a lot of people that you can spend time around.
But oftentimes, it's not quality time.
And the thing that I long for is to help people
to talk about real things.
Because it's when you talk about real things
that real stuff happens in your life.
And it's when real relationships are formed.
One of the things about pastoring a church
with about 1,000 college students
is that you guys tend to fall in love and get married, right?
It just happens.
And so during the summertime, there's a lot of weddings.
And there's a lot of weddings, and you're a pastor
that sometimes takes a lot of engaging
in those kind of weddings and ceremonies and stuff like that.
I'm always fascinated to hear about bachelor parties.
So I don't really care what the girls do for some reason.
But the guys, it's all over the place.
It is just all over the place.
It's like, yeah, we spent two weeks hiking this thing,
or we went and played ski ball.
It's just really a broad kind of thing.
But I always ask, tell me, what did you guys talk about?
And so you'll know if I do your wedding,
I'll probably ask you this.
What did you guys talk about?
And it's so frustrating sometimes
when I hear what guys dialogue about.
Yeah, we talked about this time where we hung out
and did this thing together.
And then we talked about another time
where we were in the same place and this thing happened.
And we were there.
And it happened.
I just feel like, seriously, here's
this moment in your life where you're having your life
changed.
You're connecting in this covenant with this woman.
And all your friends are gathering around.
And they're standing next to you and saying,
we're going to support this dude.
And you don't even really know each other.
And I get so frustrated about the weak, shallow dude
relationships that don't ever get
beyond we just hung out in the same vicinity
and had these shared experiences together.
Have a freaking conversation about real things.
This is what I get frustrated that you get in this moment
in your life when you don't have anything to say.
And these guys that are standing next to you
really don't know you.
And you don't really know them.
And these moments where you're supposed
to gather the people that know you best,
the reality of those relationships are so weak.
And that, unfortunately, is more normal than abnormal.
So ladies, men, be abnormal, be weird.
Have relationships that are deep and abiding and are known.
And I know with dudes, it's different, man.
You don't want to sit with a carton of ice cream
and the show playing in the background
and talk about that same conversation you had with that
girl over and over from a different angle.
But what did she say again?
How did she say it?
What did she look like when she said that?
Things you will never hear guys say to each other.
What was her face like?
No.
It's like, hey, dude, you want to go play racquetball?
No, I wasn't born in 1962.
I don't play racquetball.
But just to have that moment, and so I know guys,
like when you're connecting, or when you're playing
in your activity, and it's guys, it's a little bit more
shoulder to shoulder than face to face, right?
But just to be able to say, hey, bro,
I know that you're going through that.
I want to be able to be here for you.
Hey, thanks.
Thanks, man.
All of a sudden, that's the pathway to real relationships.
That's the pathway to say, dude, life sucks.
I don't know how I'm getting it.
My heart is broken.
I don't know where I'm going in life, man.
We're just a question away from some
of the most significant moments in our lives.
And if you will simply ask that question,
whole new realms of relationship will be open to you.
But what we do is we get scared of the question.
How are you doing?
Really.
Jesus says that's an unbalanced life when
you live life in isolation.
There is a statistic say, I was looking at him this week,
that you are the most disconnected and lonely generation
in the history of our nation.
There is an epidemic of loneliness.
Although that you are the most connected group of people
via social media, you are still the most lonely group of people
in the history of our country.
We live in silos.
Another research came out that began
to help us to understand why we live in silos.
It's because everybody wants to talk about themselves.
The new research is saying that people don't necessarily
connect with you when you say me too.
They connect with you when you have a question about their lives.
So freshman, do you want people to like you?
I'll give you a really quick little hint.
Ask questions about your lives.
Do you want to be out of this loneliness trap?
Simply get interested in other people's lives.
You say, how will that happen?
I promise you, if you get interested in other people's
lives, as you begin to ask questions about other people's
lives, you will not be lonely anymore.
As you begin to integrate them, if you engage them,
if you invite people into your life, let's do that.
Let's be a group of people.
Let's be this resonate church that
is the most connective group on campus.
That is the most connected group that anyone has ever
seen before, that we do community.
And we have friendships that are better than anybody else's
that you come in and you just are known, and you are loved,
and you are accepted.
And that is just the way we do things.
That's just the way we roll.
Why?
Because we've been connected to a God that says,
I am full of grace.
I have given you grace.
And so we dispense grace.
We dispense love.
It is an amazing and compelling thing
as we begin to live towards each other,
as we live in deep relationships.
And so your goal, what you need to be doing,
the priority of your life is connecting with God,
but also connecting deeply with other people,
having the friendships that will last the rest of your life.
I promise if you just put a little bit of time,
if you just open yourself just up a little bit,
you will have friendships that last for the rest of your life.
You'll see more growth in your life
than you've ever seen before.
This is something that God has called us to.
This is the rhythm of our life.
Do not be a statistic of loneliness.
Be known.
Be bold.
Be courageous.
Make the freaking phone call to ask somebody
to hang out.
And when you hang out, don't just talk about fluff.
Now, don't be a weirdo, but you know.
So do you blame it on your mother?
You know, as a second child, how did that feel?
Don't be weird.
Jesus, also, let me ask you, what
are you doing to intentionally connect
with the people around you?
What are you doing to intentionally connect
with the people around you?
What does that look like?
The last thing that Jesus says, both connecting up and in,
but what we see is Jesus also connecting out.
It says this in verse 17.
And when he came down to them, he stood on the level place
and with a great crowd of his disciples
and a great multitude of people from all Judeans, Jerusalem,
and the Seacos of Tyre and Sidon, who
came to hear him and be healed of their diseases.
And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured.
And the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him
and he healed them all.
See, Jesus didn't just connect with God,
didn't just connect with his boys.
He connected and he lived his life on mission.
He lived his life on purpose.
If you want to hear a little bit more of this
in an expanded way, last week our worship pastor, Josh Martin,
gave a great talk about that.
You can go on our Vimeo page and kind of see
what does it look like to live life on mission.
But Jesus, he says this, that not only lived up,
not only lived in, but he lived in a mission on the world.
He was connected to the world around him.
And here's what happened.
Look at this.
Jesus was popular.
I said that crowds surrounded Jesus.
He was sought after.
He was attractive.
People wanted to be around him.
See, he didn't just hide all these things,
this love of God thing.
He didn't just kind of put this in a corner.
He didn't just say, this is just for me and my boys.
And I'm just going to connect with God.
He says, this is for everyone.
The love of God, which transforms everything,
the thing that fixes everything, is worth telling other people
about.
It is not just good news about, hey,
we're going to go to heaven at the end.
But right now, immediately, the issue in your life
can be transformed if you will connect.
And so here's what Jesus did.
He said, I'm going to live towards these people.
And when people begin to see that,
they were attracted to Jesus.
Jesus said to us, you can do more than I did.
You can have more power than I had in this.
So maybe our power is not necessarily
in terms of doing the healing thing that displays that he
was actually the son of God and had supernatural powers.
But the supernatural thing that he did give us
is being loved in a way that was unconditional,
this agape, unconditional love of God dispensed to us
so that we could dispense it from us.
And as we begin to love other people, here's what I believe.
I believe that you, if you are living up in and out,
that you should be one of the popular people on campus,
that people should seek after you because somehow you
have this unending display of grace, of mercy, of love,
that people feel safe around you,
that people want to hang out because you're not judgmental,
because why?
You haven't been judged, right?
Because the blood of Jesus covers everything
that went wrong with you, all the sin in your life.
That covers everything.
And so you stand as not one who's been judged,
but has been given mercy.
So you are merciful.
You stand as one who has been loved.
And so you dispense love.
You are loving towards other people around you.
And this is this beautiful picture.
And this is how I believe that Resonate Church will take over
our campuses because people are flocking
to have love in their life.
To be able to answer the question about,
what does it mean to have a worldview that's
comprehensive and not just come some sort of confusing mishmash
of stuff just trying to get through the world?
Because I promise you, the things that the world says,
things like, get more money, have more sex, have more fun,
whatever that means, they're dead end streets.
It's only Jesus Christ who says, this is the pathway forward.
And at some point, here's the sad thing,
is that some of you will go down some of those dead end
streets.
You hear me talk about those dead end streets,
but you'll say, no, I don't believe that.
No, I really believe that I need to go down,
that I need to experience that.
There's tons of people out there that, evidently,
if that's the right thing, if Thursdays and Friday nights,
if that's the thing that everyone's doing,
it's got to be the right thing.
And you're going to end up learning the hard way
with tons of baggage and scars.
Don't want you to be like that.
Living out on mission, living out this thing that says,
I'm not going to compartmentalize this.
I'm going to live towards people with this gospel.
See, when we begin to have this all together,
it begins to have this beautiful balance of our lives.
And as we begin to live up towards God,
not running away from our souls and spirituality,
but pursuing that and saying, I want to connect with God.
As we run towards community, and we say, OK, you know what?
There's something that I need to have these deep relationships,
but it doesn't just end there.
This needs to be dispensed.
I need to live a life on mission with purpose.
These all fit together, and these provide this foundation.
So you're no longer just standing on one leg.
You're no longer just trying to say, you know what?
I'm just trying to get it in any kind of slight thing
and just push me over.
But you have stability in your life.
So you resonate, church, this is what we're about.
So we begin to think about, how does this all tie back
together?
Resonate church, it wants to be a place
where people come together.
And as you begin to interact in a resonate church,
it begins to reveal who God is.
My hope is that you get into relationships,
and those relationships start loving you the way
that God loves you.
And all of a sudden, your mind is blown.
You start to realize, I've never been loved like that.
Maybe my home life wasn't like that.
Maybe my friend group wasn't like that.
But all of a sudden, I have these people who accept me
for who I am, and it begins to help me to understand
who God is.
And so being around and being this connected
to this group of people, all of a sudden,
I begin to understand who God is.
I promise you, as we started this church,
I had this idea that when we begin to seek God together,
that God become more clear.
And it has absolutely been the case.
As I begin to see people who are pursuing God
as begin to open my mind and say, oh my goodness,
that's exactly it.
That's what it looks like to receive forgiveness.
That is what it looks like to walk in mercy.
And that's what it looks like to understand God
who is great and God who is good,
even in the midst of difficult circumstances.
As I begin to see this, it's begin to be more clear
as we see this.
In Resonate Church, together we begin
to understand what up looks like.
Not only that is when we begin to gather together
as a church, we are known because here's the thing.
We operate under this idea that we have been acted upon
by love and grace.
And so we are compelled to act that way
towards other people.
And so in any other place on this campus,
if you have a group of people,
I think there's this camaraderie thing
that binds them together.
I like you and so I'll hang around you.
But in this church, here's where it's different.
We believe that we have been unconditionally loved.
And so no longer do we live in this idea
of I've been loved, so I should love.
I like you and that when I cease to like you,
this relationship ceases to be okay,
but we are loved by our heavenly Father.
And so we love unconditionally the people around you,
which means this should be a safe environment.
This should be this place where you come into and say,
I don't have to worry about someone not liking me
because we are all under this idea of being loved by God.
And not only that, as our church connects together,
we provide a picture to the world about who God is.
So there's a ton of people here
that may not understand what being a Christian is about,
but when they see you live with another person
who believes in Jesus, follows Jesus,
all of a sudden they see you interact.
And there's a picture and here's what's happened.
There's story after story of people who've come into this
because they wanted to be a part of this community
but were suspicious of Jesus,
didn't understand who Jesus is,
but then they begin to see people live together
and they begin to see people operate
and kind of do life together.
And in that, what they begin to understand
is there's pictures of Jesus that are being displayed
and those pictures of Jesus begin to win their hearts
way more than an argument would about
whether God is real or not
or whether Jesus is the only way or not,
but they begin to see this and say, whatever it is,
I want that.
And the thing is, if right now you are suspicious of Jesus,
but you're here, maybe someone invited you,
maybe they promised you lunch and you go out
and they're gonna give you a hot pocket
or something like that and say, it's half thawed,
you know, whatever, thanks for coming.
Whatever, wherever you're here,
if you engage, I promise you'll be able to see a picture
of Jesus and if you hang around, it will stir your heart
and there'll be something there that you say, I want that.
Why am I so confident?
I've seen dozens and dozens of people who said,
I'm not sure if I believe in Jesus,
but they hung around a group of people
that displayed the love of Jesus
and they hung around this and they all of a sudden said,
if that's who Jesus is, I want that.
And that's why church continues to grow, to grow.
My desire is that it takes over this campus
and this is a place that's known for people
who have discovered a different way to live
through a community of people that says,
the simple thing is living out in each other's lives
what Christ has done to us.
And so the question, the challenge I have for you today
is how you connect.
Maybe this is your first time, come back.
Maybe you've been here a couple of times,
get into small groups.
For some of you, you've been coming to a worship gathering,
but again, it's like kind of going to someone's work
and trying to find out how you can date them
or trying to figure out how,
this is not the really real part of Resonate Church.
That happens in people's homes.
As we have meals together, as we discuss and dialogue
about what God is doing
and how we're processing spirituality,
how we're processing life,
how it works in the real world.
For some of you, maybe you've been doing that.
Let me press you and say,
find time in your life
to develop one or two new relationships,
to go deeper with one or two new people,
to really engage that.
For some of you, you just need to ask the question.
This week, the challenge for you is to get connected,
to find a new friend,
to go deeper with a friend
that you've established before in acquaintance,
to get involved in Resonate Church,
to do more than just bounce in, bounce out,
but find a group of people
who will transform your experience in college,
transform your experience in life.
This is what I believe about our church.
This is why we begin to start campus after campus.
This year, starting next week,
we'll have four different sites that we'll be doing
because Jesus is transforming lives
and is transforming the environments
that we've planted these churches in.
My goal is that it begins to spread like a wildfire,
and I want you to be a part of it.
Let me pray for us.
God,
I ask that you would help us to see
how balance in our life works.
I pray that you would help us to see
how we are absolutely, crucially connected to you,
connected to other people,
connected to the world around us.
Help us to see where we have lived
in places of unbalanced, Lord.
Help us to see where we need to change
the way that we are doing our lives
to be able to have more people that are engaging in our life,
to have more of you that's engaged in our life, Lord.
I pray that you would help us.
God, be real.
And this week, help us to find ways,
to push deeper into who you are in your holy name.
Amen.
