So I did get to spend this evening walking through some scriptures with you guys and talking about
some different things for us as a church. I will say I'm a little bit exhausted right now.
My family moved yesterday from one house to another in Moscow and as many of you know who've
ever had the experience of moving, that's a process. And so the pre-sermon sermon is that
I want to tell you guys that you hear about here tonight is you should throw stuff away
and get rid of stuff because you don't want to move it one day. That's found in the Bible
somewhere. So that's my first sermon. So I'm a little exhausted. I think I lost my mind yesterday.
Like literally it's in a box somewhere and I can't, I don't know where it is, but
excited about the opportunity to share these stuff. Luckily what we're talking about tonight is
something that I love to talk about. And so even if I fall asleep up here I'll still be able to
talk about it. So bunk beds, bunk beds. Yesterday we were moving some bunk beds and my sons Sam
and Jack, Sam's eight, Jack is three. They're sharing bunk beds these days. And so I had some of
U of I's finest engineering students working on getting these bunk beds out of the boys' room,
out of the house, and into the U-Haul. And so we thought we'd just be able to take them part,
two parts, send them down the stairs. And we got halfway down the stairs and discovered
they wouldn't fit. So we're like, all right, we got to take them apart. And so I left those guys
in charge. And we got them all the way to the new house and set up and we're only missing three
bolts. So they made it through the night. The beds didn't collapse on them. And so I was happy
about that. And I think we're gonna, I think we're gonna do it. And so the bunk beds, I have some
fallen memories in bunk beds. I got my first set of bunk beds when I was a young boy, about eight
years old, and my little brother moved into my room. And we got bunk beds. And when you first
get bunk beds, you're like, oh, top bunk dibs. And so, but I learned as I got older that really
the best bunk is the bottom bunk, because it's darker down there and you can sleep better and
you don't have to do as much work to get in and out of bed. And so I remember when I moved out of
the house as a sophomore in college, I moved into house with three other guys. And I took the bunk
beds with me. And so me and Dean were in one room. And then our roommates, Jay Russ and Fox were next
door in the other room. And those are nicknames. And so, but I convinced Dean, oh dude, I'll let you,
since you're older than me, I'll let you have the top bunk. And that's the bottom bunk, right? It's
the best bunk. And anyhow, but in those, in those bunk beds, me and Dean, we had some great chats.
It seemed like almost every day would end with us laying in bed, talking about the day, talking
about each other's lives, and asking each other questions. Man, what, how's that thing going that
you were talking about the other night? How's that relationship with that girl? How's, how's
stuff? How can I pray for it? Almost, it always almost ended up, almost always ended up in us
praying for each other. And sometimes we'd open the door and yell at Jay Russ and Fox next door,
and we didn't bite them into, well, they'd stay in their beds, but we'd yell back and forth, hey,
what's going on in your life? And we'd, you know, cut up and joke, and we'd end up praying for each
other. And it was that experience when I was in college, that I began to experience, I think,
for the first time ever, true Christian community, true gospel community. Well, we were, all of us
were growing in Christ. And honestly, that time in my life was one of the most spiritually
transforming times that I've ever had. And one of the time that really kickstarted some tremendous
growth in my life, that I would say it got me here to Idaho and Washington, because of those,
those nights, those times praying with my roommates and talking about life in the future and where God
was leading us. Those are my first experiences in community and true gospel community. Tonight,
I want us to look at some of Christianity's first experience in true gospel community. And we're
going to look at a passage of scripture out of the book of Acts that's, that is a, it's an amazing
picture of what community could be, what it has been, what it, we've seen glimpses of here, even
among, and resonate. And, and I want to talk about this here tonight. And this is strategic as,
is in the midst of our book of, our walk through the book of Ephesians, the, the series that we've
been, the second half of Ephesians, we've been calling Relentlessly Relational. And we'll reference
some of the Ephesian passages we've been talking about. We're going to move, we're not going to
talk about any new Ephesians passages. But I want us to hear in between as we take a break from Ephesians
a little bit with Easter and baptism coming up next week to not, to remind you where we are in
this and to not forget about who we are as a church and what, what Paul is communicating through
the book of Ephesians that we've been walking through. And also with that is, as we come off of
Easter last week and celebrating Christ's death and burial and resurrection and conquering death.
And then what does that mean for us as a church? I strongly believe what we celebrated last week
launches us into our subject in our, in our, in our talk for tonight and moves us forward into the
next place of where we're going as a church. And so if you, if you have your copy of scripture,
I invite you to open that up to Acts chapter two, Acts chapter two. And we're going to read a portion
of the scripture, but there's something you need to know that, that I believe and that we believe
as a church is that we are made to be in relationship. We are made to be in relationship, primarily in
relationship with our God and secondarily in relationship with each other. There's this time
with Jesus when he was hanging out on earth and teaching and he had a guy come up to him and,
and asked him a question. He said, hey, Jesus, what is the greatest commandment? What is the
greatest commandment? And Jesus said, well, to love the Lord your God with all your heart,
soul and strength. And then he said, interestingly, the second is a lot like it. Love your neighbor
as you love yourself. So he laid it out there. He said, relationship with God,
love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and strength and love your neighbors yourself.
Love each other, be in relationship with each other. And again, if you remember,
as we've gone through Ephesians, the first half of Ephesians chapters one, two and three, we talked
a ton about our relationship with God. And chapter one, we talked about all that God has done on our
behalf. He saw that we had an issue and he said, I'm going to do something about that. And chapter
two, he talked about going from death to life. And he saw that because of our sin, going back to
Adam and Eve and the guard, when sin entered into the world and that people began to deal with sin
and that automatically affected our relationship with God. We're made to be in relationship with
him. And then that sin did something to that relationship, brought separation between us.
And from that moment, God said, I'm going to do something about that. I'm going to take it upon
myself to rescue them out of this place they put themselves in. Now, as we talked about in Ephesians
chapter one and two, that he chose us, that he brought us into the family, he adopted us, that
he made us wholly and blameless in Christ. He sealed us with the Holy Spirit. In chapter two,
again, he brought us from death to life through his free gift of grace to save us. Nothing that
we can do to earn that, but he said, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do the work to save you,
to redeem you, to bring you back to myself, to bring you back into the relationship that you're
created to have with me. And then, as we've been talking about the past couple of weeks in chapters
four and five, there's this transition to absence and letter where Paul, it's almost like he just
gets into this list of do's and don'ts. Do this, do this, treat each other this way. Don't do this
to each other. Or it begins to communicate relationship with each other. Again, relationship
with God, relationship with others. And as we read this passage, we begin to see what it looks like
for us to be in relationship with each other, is we react to what God has done for us and how
that affects how we treat each other. Let's read this. Acts chapter two, Acts chapter two, verse
42 through 47. All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship
and to sharing in meals, including the Lord's Supper and to prayer. A deep sense of awe came
over them all. And the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. And all the believers
met together in one place and shared everything they had. They sold their property and possessions
and shared the money with those in need. They worshiped together in the temple each day. They
met in homes for the Lord's Supper and shared their meals with great joy and generosity.
All the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of the people. And each day the Lord added
to their fellowship those who are being saved. A beautiful picture of the church, the first church,
the initial church, the gathering of followers of Christ, the gathering of believers. Before they
even called themselves Christians, this is what they looked like. Now just prior to this, this is
49 days since what we talked about last week. 49 days since Jesus rose from the grave. He spent
about 40 days with his disciples and with his followers, recommunicating the things that he
had already said to them, affirming them and getting them ready because he was about to leave.
In 40 days after his resurrection, he ascended into the heavens. And you read about that in Acts
chapter one and he literally went up into the clouds and all the disciples are standing around
like, uh, what do we do now? And they're standing there and these two angels show up behind him
like, guys, what are you doing with your heads in the clouds? Go back to Jerusalem and wait on me.
Wait on him. He's going to send somebody to you. Nine days later at Pentecost, the celebration
that Jews are having in Jerusalem, the Holy Spirit shows up. God shows up in a new way to come and be
with them. God comes while no longer, Jesus is no longer there with them. The Holy Spirit comes
to be with them and he empowers them and crazy stuff starts happening. And all of a sudden,
they start telling the story and telling the truth about who Christ was and what he did
and thousands are being added to their numbers. Thousands are being added to their, to their,
to their group. One guy, Peter, who's one of Jesus closest followers who he had a rough time
around that whole crucifixion time and Christ's death. But Jesus affirmed him and encouraged
him to say, I got plans for you. And so after Jesus left, Peter was fired up and ready to go.
And he preaches this amazing sermon and as you read there in Acts chapter two, and really,
again, thousands of people become followers of Christ. They go from about 120 followers of
Christ while Jesus himself was here. He leaves, the Holy Spirit comes and boom, thousands of
followers of Christ. And at the end of Acts chapter two, you began to see this picture,
this picture of what it looked like when they were together, when they did life together,
the first community, the first gospel community that we see among Christians.
And so as we look at this, there's, there's three things. I've got three points, kind of three and
a half points, but I'm going to say three points, maybe we'll throw in the half later in, later on.
But three points that the, that I think we draw from is we as a church think of what does it
look like to live in gospel community? And honestly, this is, this is a time of learning
to think through, okay, what does this look like and how does this work? There's some nuts and
bolts. We're going to talk about, about how gospel community works, but all of it has implications
on you and how you live. We've been talking about relentlessly relational as we go through the book
of Ephesians. And if you remember it, we talked about you and me and us and him. And it's real
easy as we go through to, to talk about stuff and listen to sermons and think about me and think
about you. But we think about ourselves when we get self-consumed. There we are. There's the,
there's the graphic. So you, me, him and us, it's real easy to think about you. Sometimes it's
real, and it's real easy to think about me, but sometimes we don't get past that. We have to
think about God, our relationship with him and it's God to affect us. For truly interacting
with the gospel, it's going to eventually affect us. And so as we get into this, point number one,
gospel community is a product of God's love. Gospel community is a product of God's love. We see
this in this Acts 2 passage. We see this that in response to what Christ had done, in response to
what happened 49 days before, it affected the way they treated each other. As they experienced
God's love, it overwhelmed them. It changed the way they acted on a day-to-day basis. It changed
the way they related to each other. It was his love that changed them. As they proclaimed the
gospel of how much God loved them, of how much what God had done on their behalf, it changed the
way they treated each other and interacted with each other. What happens is in this, the way I
say it's a product of God's love, because it's a natural outflowing. When we experience God's love,
just like I said, it changes the way we view things. First of all, it changes the way we view
ourselves. Again, in relationship with God, as that relationship grows, it changes the way we
view ourselves. We go from being self-consumed and narcissistic and all about us to humbly about us.
Let me explain. It's when you begin to see yourself as God's creation, and you have a healthy
appreciation for yourself as God's creation, not in an arrogant way like, man, look how amazing I
am, all glory be to me. No, no, but like, man, I appreciate what God has done in creating Matthew
Young or insert your name. When you begin to see what God has done on your behalf to rescue you,
what He sacrificed for you, you begin to experience that He values you. Again, in Ephesians chapter
one, He chose you. He brought you into the family, adopted you. He sacrificed for you. And when
that begins to affect your thinking, when that begins to affect your soul, it changes the way
you feel about yourself. Again, it doesn't lead to self-glorification or to self-loathing and
beating yourself up. It leads to like, huh, I kind of appreciate what God has made in me. So
we all have, and part of just natural maturing as a person, you begin to become more and more
self-aware and you begin to recognize your personality traits and how they're different than
others. But in God's love, you begin to say, okay, God's got a purpose for that. You begin to look
at your life experiences from your past and you'll be able to say, wow, look at that. And some of
that was hard. Some of it was great. But I see that God has a purpose on all of those things and He
can use all of that. You begin to see your giftings and even the skills that you acquire. And you
begin to say, okay, okay, God's given me the ability to do these things. And now, man, I want to use
them to glorify God. And I appreciate what He's done and allow me to learn these things. All of
this is part of yourself learning, but it's not in a way that says, man, I'm an amazing person.
Everybody glorify me, but it leads you to say, man, I appreciate what God has done here. I feel
loved. I feel overwhelmed by what God has done and what He's done for me to rescue me out of death,
that I may have life and that He may use this, use me, use what He's made. Praise God for
glorification, for creation. Praise God for creating me in the humblest way you can believe and think
then. And then what happens is when you begin to recognize that about yourself, when you begin to
see yourself as someone who is loved by God, you can't help but realize that that guy sitting next
to you, that person sitting over there, that person across the room, He created them too. And all of
that stuff about their unique individual and they have a personality and giftings and experiences
and all of this stuff, they're unique too. And my goodness, God is very creative because look
at what He made over there too. And so not only do you begin to experience God's love as you
appreciate God's creation in you, but then you begin to experience God's love as you recognize
and appreciate His creation in others. I want to show you a passage of Scripture that explains this
and shows how this works. In 1 John chapter four is a beautiful picture of how God's love works.
So I want to read this. I'm going to read it off of the screen here. 1 John 4 starting in verse 7,
Dear friends, let us love one another. For love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born
and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love. God is love. The only way
we're going to understand love is by knowing God. Again, relationship with Him. The only way we're
going to understand how to love one another is if we first experience loving Him and experience His love.
So let's keep reading. Sorry. This is how God showed His love among us. He sent His one and only
Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love. Not that we love God, but that He
loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved
us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God
lives in us and His love is made complete or perfected in us. So I don't know if you saw all
that through there, but God is love and we're called to love one another. And the only way we
know anything about love is from God. We don't worship love, we worship God. God is love,
but love is not God, okay? Keep those two straight. But in that, we experience God's love through Him.
His greatest act of love that it said back there in verse 10 ish or so. His greatest act of love,
when He said, all right, this is what love looks like. I'm going to send my Son for you. I recognize
that you guys are in trouble. You had that sin thing going on and you're headed towards death.
And His greatest act of love was giving part of Himself, His own Son, to die, to sacrifice. He
sacrificed part of His own, His own self for us. He gave so that we would have. He gave for us.
And so He demonstrated His love in that. Now there's that, there's that troubling thing for
us as people that no one's ever seen God. But as it said there in verse 12, if you, if we love one
another, His love is made complete in us. Oftentimes we experience God's love where we have this,
this idea of experiencing God's love in that I feel loved or in a worship experience or at a time of
reading scripture or a time when you feel loved by God. Again, when you recognize that God loves
you and sometimes it's an emotional feeling, a newy-gooey, warm, fuzzy feeling, whatever.
And sometimes we really enjoy that part. But you need to know, resonate, that if, if that's all
there is to it in your relationship with God, it's all about just you and just me and what I'm
getting out of it. His love isn't done yet. It's not made complete yet. It's not finished until
it overflows out of your life and begins to affect the lives of those around you. Until
your relationship with God begins to affect your relationship with others. Until it becomes about
us. It's not perfected. It's not done until it comes about us. And so gospel community is a product
of God's love. When we experience God's love, it overflows out of our lives and into the lives
of others. And then you're experiencing gospel community. That's what we see there in the book of
Acts chapter two. The second point, gospel community has sacrificial love. Gospel community
has sacrificial love. We saw it just in that passage in first John four that God's greatest
act of love was when he, was when he gave up so that we would have, when he sent his son as a
sacrifice for us. We see it throughout this passage in Acts two, let's read that in verse 44.
He says, and all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had.
In the Greek, that word everything means everything. Yeah, there you go. Some Greek for you. They
sold their property and possessions and shared their money with those in need. They worshiped
together at the temple each day, met in the homes for the Lord's supper and shared their meals with
great joy and generosity and sincere hearts. Everything, they shared everything. They obviously,
the one that stands out to us, we say, oh, wow, they were like selling stuff and providing for each
other. They shared their money, they shared their possessions, they shared, obviously they shared
their time. They were meeting together daily. They were getting together regularly, they shared their
time. They shared their space. They were having in each other in each other's homes. They said,
come on over, let's eat. They shared their food. Again, their stuff. Maybe, I'm reading into this,
but I want to say that in everything they shared their emotions. They shared their feelings. They
shared their fears. They shared their joys. They shared everything they were together. They met
regularly and they were involved in each other's lives.
They didn't say, hey, that's getting too close, guys.
Let's, boundaries, they said, come on in, come on in.
Let's get to know each other.
Let's do this together.
Let's be in this with each other.
It's about us at this point.
It's not you and me, it's us.
As they experienced God's love,
it affected the way they treated each other.
In verse 46 there, there at the end, it said,
they had great joy or sincere hearts.
One translation says, they weren't coerced into this.
It wasn't guilt-driven, it was like, well, guys,
you really should be sharing your food.
And I was like, hey, here's my refrigerator,
it's open to you.
Come on in, let's eat, come into my space.
Hey, you have needs, I see your needs,
I'm gonna help take care of them.
It's that beautiful picture, just like Christ.
When he saw us, God, when he sees our issue,
our greatest issue of sin and separation
from that relationship with God,
he says, I'm not okay with it,
I'm gonna do something about it.
He saw a need, and he did what needed to happen
to take care of that need.
These early Christians, this first church,
this gospel community did the exact same thing
as they saw each other's needs,
they said, I'm gonna help take care of that.
I'm not backing away from it.
I'm gonna step into that, and I'm gonna help provide
whatever those needs were.
This beautiful picture of sacrifice.
To be a Christian means to live a life of sacrifice.
To be a follower of Jesus, it means to sacrifice,
to give up for others, so that others may have.
Jesus constantly said stuff that referenced this,
he said, the last will be first,
you must regularly, daily die to yourself,
you must give up for others.
He lived that, he displayed that,
and he calls us to walk in that.
I wanna give you a chance, hear this evening,
to experience a little bit of sacrifice, just a little bit.
I wanna call us to 30 seconds of sacrifice, okay?
In just a moment, we're gonna take 30 seconds,
and I want you to pray for someone.
I want you to pray for the person on your left, okay?
We're gonna spend 30 seconds praying
for the person on your left.
Now you guys, you have, on this far side of the auditorium,
if you're on the far, you're far left.
You guys over here, you have a task,
you have to pray for the people all the way over here
on the end of this row,
because they don't have anybody praying for them, okay?
So you kinda look over there,
get a feel for who's over there,
and so you're gonna pray for the person on your left,
you guys are going all the way across,
I'm gonna pray for the guy at the sound booth, okay?
And so, a small sacrifice,
where you're gonna give 30 seconds of your mental capacity,
30 seconds of prayer, that's not for you,
too often we spend time praying for ourselves.
You're gonna spend 30 seconds of praying for someone else.
And here's what you're gonna ask,
you're gonna go to God and ask them this,
God help them to understand how much you love them.
Help them to understand to grow
in an understanding of how much you love them.
Now, I know everybody here tonight may not,
this may be the first time you've ever started praying
in your life here in just a minute.
It's okay, go for it.
You don't even have to know what you're praying for.
Just ask God to help this person on your left
to understand how much he loves them, all right?
So you're gonna have 30 seconds on your marks, get set, go.
Amen.
So you just gave up 30 seconds of your day for somebody else.
And that was easy, that was simple,
and I helped lead you in that really well.
Recognize you can do that whenever.
In simple stuff like prayers,
in big stuff like giving your time and your space,
providing for others' needs.
It takes a simple act of just saying,
what about somebody else?
What about us?
It's not all about me.
Certainly, the sacrifice that Christ gave
was much greater than that, and he's regularly,
the scriptures say he's regularly doing that for us,
interceding on our behalf, praying for us.
For us to pray for one another,
for us to experience what God has done on our behalf
and pray that that would happen in someone else's life.
May that be who we are, a Church of Sacrifice
who regularly walks in that,
who welcomes the opportunity to give up
to help someone else.
The third point, gospel community brings glory to God.
Gospel community brings glory to God.
And parenthetically, gospel community brings people to God.
That's 0.5, 3.5.
Gospel community brings people to God.
You see there at the end of that Acts chapter two passage
that it said, as people were watching this,
there was a sense of, at the beginning of that passage
in verse 43, that it says there was a sense of awe.
As people were experiencing what was going on,
they were in awe of what was happening.
And then at the end of that, you began to see
how it affected those who were experiencing this,
how they were seeing it, that all the while,
praising God and enjoying the glory of God
that all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill
of all the people in each day,
the Lord added to their fellowship,
those who are being saved.
So this gospel community, man, people were like,
I wanna be a part of that.
And they'd experience the love of God
as they heard the gospel preached and taught
and clarified to them.
And they would step into this gospel community
and they would be saved.
They would be added to those numbers.
We saw that Jesus did this, actually.
We saw him display this.
There's a sweet story in Luke chapter nine,
where Jesus is teaching and he's in this crowded house
and he's teaching all these people
and it's kind of towards the beginning of his ministry
and people have been hearing that he's doing
some amazing things and same some incredible things
and they're crowded into this house.
It was so crowded that nobody else could get in
and there was a group of friends
and one of their friends was paralyzed
and said, we gotta do something about this guy.
We heard this Jesus man will heal him
and they had great faith and said, we gotta get to him.
But he's in this crowded house, what are we gonna do?
So they go up on top of the roof,
they cut a hole in the roof
or they remove some of the tiles is what scripture is.
I don't know what that means.
I don't know what their roofs were like,
but somebody's roof had a hole in it afterwards.
And so they go up there, climb on the roof, cut a hole in it
and they drop him down, lower him down right there
in front of Jesus.
So Jesus like, all right, here we go.
And so recognizing what's going on
and Jesus says something crazy.
He says, your faith is great.
Your sins have been forgiven.
And I'm sure the friends are like, wait,
that's what we came here for.
The guy on the ground is like, wait, what?
But then all the religious leaders around them,
they're like, wait a minute, only God can forgive sins.
And so they're over here grumbling
and getting all frustrated about what Jesus is saying
and ready to start plotting his death.
And they're a little freaked out.
And Jesus recognizing what's going on,
recognizing the hearts of these religious leaders over here.
He says, so that you know that I can forgive sins,
I'll also heal him.
And he says this in Luke chapter,
Luke chapter, I'm sorry, chapter five, verse 25.
Immediately he stood up in front of them,
took what he had been lying on
and went home praising God.
Everyone was amazed and they gave praise to God.
And they were filled with awe
and said, we have never seen,
we have seen remarkable things today.
Matthew's version says, we've never seen anything like this.
I love that when they saw this happen,
just like in Acts chapter two,
the people gathered in that house, they were in awe.
They were in awe of seeing God at work.
That same feeling when they began to see God at work,
they put them in a state of awe.
And it also says there in verse 26,
everyone was amazed and gave praise to God.
It's interesting that Jesus, the Son of God,
standing there heals this man, he gets up and walks out.
And their response is to turn and praise God in heaven.
That Jesus' actions pointed people towards the Father,
pointed people towards God.
He said something very similar.
He summed this up in a statement that he made
in one of his greatest sermons, the Sermon on the Mount.
And in Matthew chapter five, he says this in verse 14,
you are the light of the world,
a town built on a hill cannot be hidden.
Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl.
Instead, they put it on a stand
and it gives light to everyone in the house.
Verse 16, in the same way,
let your light shine before others
that they may see your good deeds
and glorify your Father in heaven.
When we live in gospel community
and we began to live for not just me,
we began to live for us.
We began to love each other,
love each other sacrificially,
to give up for one another's needs,
to care for one another,
to look beyond our own self and our own desires
and say, what do they need?
How can I help provide that?
It draws attention, not just to us.
They say, man, that Matthew young,
he's a giver, he's a great guy.
But when this is working with gospel communities,
being gospel community,
it automatically sends people back to God.
It automatically turns their attention towards the Father.
May they see our good deeds
and turn and praise our Father in heaven.
It's not self-glorifying, it's God-glorifying.
And it's life-giving to us, if I'm honest with you.
You get to experience life as you're created to experience it.
When your relationship with God affects
the way you look at others,
and when the way you treat others,
it begins to draw people to God,
and again, it brings glory back to God.
Our relationship with God affects the way we treat others.
Now as we treat others differently,
affects the way the world sees us,
and it points more people back to the Father.
It's the way gospel community works.
It's the way it's designed to work
in God's beautiful creation
of how we're supposed to do this together.
How we're called to be in this together.
Resonate, I want this to be who we are.
As I said, I think there's glimpses in this all over.
At this point in our villages,
you regularly see people posting in a village,
you're experiencing this,
where people, we've been together for two semesters
and we're drawing into this.
Some of you adult villages, family villages,
you guys have been together longer,
you're experiencing this,
of people giving up time, giving up energy,
giving up space in your home, caring for one another.
Don't stop.
This is what you were made for.
Do not for a second think
that you were supposed to do life alone.
That's a lie.
We were made to do life together
in relationship with our God
and in relationship with each other.
You understand that the only way you're gonna grow on that
is further growing in your relationship with God.
There's a reason when you come to church
and we say all the time,
hey, you should read your Bible
and you should spend time in prayer,
you should spend time with God.
Because that's where you experience life.
And as you do so is the more you know God, God is love.
And the more you know God,
the more he's gonna communicate your love,
his love for you.
It's going to affect the way you see the world around you.
It's gonna, he's gonna fill you up with his love
and it's gonna overflow out of your life
and the lives of others.
And as you sacrifice, as you give and as you serve,
and as you seek to perfect God's love,
to have his love be perfected through you,
it's gonna affect our community,
it's gonna affect our church,
it's gonna affect the way Pullman in Moscow
and the Palouse in Ellensburg sees who God is.
And he invites you to be into this,
invites you to live and experience this,
to experience gospel community,
to walk in this.
Back in the book of Ephesians,
we looked at this couple weeks ago
and at this prayer is Paul and his letters
making this transition from talking about
our relationship with God,
beginning to talk about our relationship with each other.
And as he begins to talk about a relationship
with each other, again,
as Josh preached two weeks ago, three weeks ago,
those two sermons where it looked like a list of rules,
these things of how we treat each other
and how we're supposed to do it.
Don't lie to each other, don't steal from each other,
don't let, don't sin in your anger.
And then he talks about,
don't have any sexual immorality among you
and how you use your mouth and all of these things.
All of those list of rules are to preserve
how we relate to one another.
It's not just about you and it's not just about me,
it's about us.
He's protecting the community, the gospel community.
I think that at the point of Paul when he became a Christian
prior to that, they called him Saul.
And I don't even think he was in Jerusalem
when Acts chapter two took place.
He was somewhere else becoming really smart in Judaism.
But I think he began to hear rumors
about what was going on there.
And he was like, no, no, I'm not okay with that.
They're doing something different
than we've ever done it before.
And he says, I'm gonna do something about it.
And he oversees the persecution of the first Christians,
and the first martyrs were done under his watch.
Stephen in Acts chapter seven was stoned
while Paul held the coats of those
who were doing the stoning.
And he loved it so much and he wanted to see it happen
so much that he got permission to go throughout
ancient Israel pursuing these Christians
and persecuting them and having them arrested
and seeing that they were killed.
In the process of doing that, Jesus met him
and said, I'm not okay with this, Paul.
You're gonna do something different with your life.
Changes his name from Saul to Paul,
and then he goes out and plants churches.
He gives his life.
He sacrifices his life planting churches
like the one in Ephesus.
And I think that he probably had his image
and heard stories of Acts chapter two.
He wasn't there, but I think he would have probably,
I'm guessing he would get together with people
who were there and the other apostles.
They say, hey, tell me more about Acts chapter two.
He didn't call it that, but tell me more
about what happened in Jerusalem when this thing got started.
Tell me more about that gospel community.
And I think he saw images and experienced it in Ephesus
and other places where he planted churches
where he saw this gospel community.
And as he writes this letter to the church
and Ephesus said, guys, hold it together.
We're in this together.
It's about us.
So concentrate and think about how you're treating one another.
Don't lie to each other.
Don't steal from each other.
Don't talk about each other behind their back.
Let's do this together.
Let's be for each other.
He said in Ephesians four, verse three,
he said, strive to keep the unity of the spirit
through the bonds of peace.
Strive for unity among us.
Even though we're all different, have different personalities
and different backgrounds and experiences,
let's strive for unity to be together in this.
And he prays a prayer for him in Ephesians chapter three,
there at the end as he makes that transition from,
this is who you are in Christ.
This is how we live together.
And he says this, he prays this prayer,
Ephesians three, 17 through 19,
and I pray that you being rooted and established in love
may have power together with all the saints,
with all of the Lord's people to grasp how wide
and long and high and deep is the love of Christ
and to know this love that surpasses knowledge
that you may be filled to the measure
of all the fullness of God.
He prays that you who are established in love
may know how much God loves you, the breadth
and height and depth and how big his love is,
that you may know this love that's unknowable.
You're established in love, get to know his love more,
it's unknowable, it's amazing, it's gonna blow you away.
His prayer right before he says,
all right guys, we gotta do this together
and this is how we do it together.
Know how much God loves you.
Your relationship with God and understanding
how much God loves you affects the way
you're gonna treat each other.
And the way you treat each other
affects the way that God is gonna perfect his love
through us as we love the world,
as we are on mission with God.
And that's gonna draw more people back to God,
back to their Creator to experience life
as He created us to experience it.
May that be who we are.
The band's gonna come up here in just a minute,
we're gonna sing a couple more songs.
During this time, I want us to continue to pray
and continue to ask ourselves to pray that prayer for us.
God, help me to grow in love
and understand how much you love me,
how much you've given for me,
how much you sacrificed for me,
even just so I can be in this room tonight.
And may that love overwhelm you.
And may that love affect the decisions you make this week
with the people that you interact with.
May that love affect the decisions you make tonight
as we begin to talk further about
giving towards Ellensburg.
May that love affect how we treat one another.
May this be about us.
So as we sing, I'm gonna pray over us.
And may you ask God to clarify His love to you tonight.
Father, we pray just that,
that you would do your work to communicate to us
how much you love us.
God, that you would give us clarity
as to how much you sacrificed on our behalf.
And God, as we meditate on as we think on that,
God, that we would be drawn into a deeper understanding
of how much you love us,
this love that we're not gonna understand without you.
So God, we ask now that you would clarify that for us.
God, we ask that it would affect us,
that it would affect our actions,
that it would catapult us into a life of sacrificial love
of gospel community here in Pullman.
And God, even as we send out a part of ourself
to a new town, to a new community, a new campus.
God, may that be, may people see these deeds
and may they turn and praise you,
may it draw people to yourself.
God, we ask that do your work in our hearts.
Change us.
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
