Hey, man. Well, hey, my name is Josh Martin, and I'm one of the pastors here, and just for fun,
how many of you were here when we had our very first service at the Switzer Event Center? Anybody?
One's my wife, she doesn't count, all right? I mean, she counts, but not like that, right? It's cheating.
She's married to me. She had to be here, you know. We're only married at the time. Okay, she counts, all right.
My kid is here. She counts, right? Okay, and Josh and Jamie. All right, that was important.
So, new year, new location, new time, new clothes, new haircuts. I saw some of you walking in, like, didn't know where to sit.
You're like, where do I sit? I always sit in the same spot, but I've never been here. Oh, no, new chairs, right?
So, a lot of newness going on. Well, since only three or four of you were here for the original Resonate service,
I thought it would be worthwhile to take a quick trip down memory lane. Years ago, once upon a time,
I started like that, right? Once upon a time, there was a church that was meeting in a coffee shop on Sunday nights,
and we would gather together and we ate a lot of pizza, because that's what we could afford,
and we dreamed of what the church could be, and we had these things called the Resonate sessions where we'd get together
and talk about what we wanted the church to be, and we'd say, if this resonates with you, stick around with us.
If it doesn't resonate with you, please go away, because it's just better to break up now than later, right?
Trust me. So, we kind of did that for a while, then we didn't have a name. We're like, what do we call ourselves?
And Keith's wife paid, so what if we called ourselves Resonate? You've been saying the Resonate sessions, so we're like,
all right, I guess we're called Resonate, so we called ourselves Resonate. We had enough money to rent a space,
and the Switeservents Center was brand new in town, and we had enough money to rent the lobby.
The lobby was significantly cheaper than this room, so we're like, we'll take just the lobby.
Here is a check that we promise will actually not bounce, we think, okay? So, here we go, and we're in the lobby.
We set up 150 chairs, and we're in the sanctuary. We're in this room for one reason.
We have to iron two king-sized sheets that was our screen. I'm not kidding you.
We had two king-sized sheets that we projected song lyrics on, because we didn't have a screen back then,
and I led worship with a band that was leaving the next week. So, basically, we said, we'll have church once a month,
we'll go to villages, and then we'll kind of see what happens, and then we'll have another gathering,
and we'll do that for once a month. And so, this band was only here for one week, and we set up 150 chairs,
and then 190 people showed up, and so we were in trouble. So, we all stood at the sound board, and there were seven of us on staff,
and we're like, what do we do? And so, Keith, go up and make an announcement. We're going to meet next week again,
and hopefully they all leave, and we'll figure this out. And then the next week came, and 170 people showed up the next week.
And so, that was from August 19, 2007, until now, we have continued to meet as Resonate Church every single Sunday,
minus one Sunday a year, for the last six years, and that's been our story. We actually started the church at 6 p.m., believe it or not.
So, we started at 6 p.m., which now we're back to 6 p.m. After a year, we went to Moscow, and because Moscow didn't need to start at like 9 o'clock at night,
which it used to, way back when, how many of you were at like the original Moscow service? Yeah, I'm sorry about that.
Just, I'm glad you stuck around. It was bad. Like, if you weren't there, you didn't want to be there. We were learning, right?
But, we didn't want that to be at 9 o'clock, so we moved that to 7 p.m., which pushed us to 5 p.m.
And then two years ago, we physically outgrew the space of Switeservants Center. It's not like we didn't like it, we just outgrew it.
And so, we had 500 chairs in there, people on the back wall, we do baptism services, it was crazy, and we outgrew the space, we moved to Gladysh.
And then from Gladysh, we started a service a year and a half ago on campus at WSU, and if you guys go to the WSU on campus service, yeah, okay.
So, you know, kind of, I don't know, I don't know how I feel about it.
Well, that service created a lot of space for us, and now we had space to move back into the Switeservants Center.
So, that was the long story made really short, basically to say, it is a lot of fun to be back.
Two of your site pastors were baptized right here, like Jacob Dahl, came to my villages as a junior in college,
not necessarily really following the Lord, not really knowing the Lord, came to know Christ, and he got baptized right here.
And then five years later, he's a site pastor at the WSU service, Craig Lovelace.
Three years ago, baptized right here, we brought him the hot tub.
We actually had the grossest hot tub you've ever seen, ever, to do baptisms back in the day.
Like, bought it on Craigslist from a guy in Troy, Idaho, and like, he probably is a criminal, that kind of thing.
Like, I don't know, if he's watching the video, I don't mean that.
But Keith and I were like, we're paying cash, and we're driving fast out of here.
And so, that's how baptisms used to go down at Resonate.
And then we actually got a real baptismal, and so, the times they are are changing.
But it's really exciting to be back here, and to be back at six o'clock.
I hope we all grow the space again, guys.
Not necessarily to move somewhere, but just that we would continue to see God's hand upon us as a church here,
and we would continue to grow and see what God does.
But I tell you all that to say that what we are doing is nothing new.
What we are doing as a church, six years ago, we had a lot of dreams and a lot of vision, a lot of hopes.
We had no idea that God was going to launch this thing out the way that he has.
But what I want to tell you is that what we're doing isn't anything new.
God has been calling men and women to lead forward in the church for generations.
So, honestly, what we're doing is following Christ in two things.
Making disciples that then, in turn, make the church.
So you go make disciples and you plant churches, and that is our mission.
And the hope is that this venue specifically, the Pullman Adult Service,
Sophomore to Senior Service, we want freshmen and Greeks to go to WSU,
and we want this service to be the mothership that we can launch other churches out of.
We want this place to be the foundation by which we can send out and plant other churches.
And that is in us, and we are passionate about that.
But the reason we are passionate about that is because we understand
and we believe that Christ has called us to go and make disciples.
And when you do that, when people become Christians, you get churches that are started.
And we are passionate about seeing the church continue to move forward.
And so thinking about all this over break, when I knew I'd be speaking on it,
I basically asked myself a question.
We're starting this new year off. I wanted to ask one question.
What makes a great church?
What is it that you say, man, if the church does that,
that's the kind of thing that would be a great church.
Because I honestly think nobody in the room, really nobody in America or in the world,
even that goes to church, says, you know what, I don't want to go to a great church.
I want to go to a lame church. I don't think anybody would say that.
I want to go to a boring church. I want to go where I don't know anybody,
where the music's bad, the preaching's bad, and I complain all the time.
I don't think anybody would say that.
I think all of us would say I would like to be a part of something great.
But if we're not careful as the church, we'll take a few postures towards the city we're in
that will not allow us to be a church of impact, not allow us to be a great church.
So primarily churches, whether they know it or not, they take three positions towards a city.
Position number one is a position of apathy, where they look at a city and they go,
I'm in the city geographically, like if you looked on a map, I'm in the city,
but I don't care that much for the city.
And so I'm going to be apathetic towards it.
Now you might think that's not normal.
Well, it's subconsciously happening, whether they know it or not.
They have a posture of apathy towards the city they're in.
The second posture a lot of churches take towards cities is the posture of animosity.
This says I'm against the city.
Sure, I'm here geographically, but I'm against the city.
So those bad people out there, you don't have to be a part of them.
You could come and be a part of us and we'll keep you from them out there.
So it's kind of this us versus them mentality.
WSU, bad, resonate, good.
U of I, bad, resonate, safe, good.
Come here, I'll protect you.
I'll protect you from being that lost power.
We're our first week back at Swanson.
Alright, we're back.
Is that going to be a fix or should I prepare to speak loudly?
Oh, wow, we're back.
Thank you.
Be careful out there.
Any more lights.
So people take a posture of apathy towards the city.
I'm here geographically, I'm not interested.
People take animosity towards the city.
I'm not, they're bad, we're good.
And the last ones, they take a posture of imitation of the city.
So we say we want to be just like the city.
Whatever you're doing and think is cool, the church will mimic that.
We will imitate that.
We will come on board with that.
And in some ways that's okay, that's helpful, that's healthy.
But if you take that too far, the problem is you can bend so far to the culture
that you no longer have impact on the culture.
You no longer redeem the culture, but rather you are of the culture.
So the three postures people take towards the city as a church is they say
we're in the city, we're against the city, or we're of the city.
And what I want to talk to you tonight about is what I think Resonate is passionate about
is the fourth option.
We say we're not just going to be in the city geographically.
We're certainly not going to have animosity towards the city
and we're not going to be of the city, but rather we're going to take on this fourth posture
that says we are going to exist for the city.
We're not in it, we're not of it, we're not against it.
We are for the city and I think if we would act as a church for the city
then this would be the kind of church that Christ himself would say that is a great church.
Because that's the church that I've called you to be.
So if you have your Bible, my mic is back on, let's do this.
Revelation chapter two, last book of the Bible, turn there if you would.
It'll be on the screen if you have the Resonate app, which you all should have by now.
If you have a smartphone, if you don't have a smartphone,
you really missed an opportunity on Christmas there to get yourself a smartphone.
Or maybe you don't want a smartphone and you're actually smarter than the rest of us.
You probably are, yeah.
It's not that good to have a smartphone sometimes.
Revelation chapter two is where we're going to be.
And if your Bible has headings, we're going to be in verse one.
The chapter title of this is to the church at Ephesus.
So before I read this to you, I want you to know that this is written by the apostle John.
Jesus had 12 disciples of the 12.
There was these three guys.
They were kind of his inner circle of guys.
And one of his best friends in the inner circle is a guy named John.
John's the apostle that Jesus on the cross looks down at John and says,
John, I want you to take care of my mom.
So John is like seriously connected to Christ.
John is an elder in the church at Ephesus.
We'll talk about that in a second.
And he gets in trouble for being a preacher of the gospel, being one of the 12 that walked with Jesus.
And they try to kill John for proclaiming Christ, proclaiming the gospel, and it doesn't work.
Like they try to kill him and it doesn't work.
So they exile him to an island.
And on this island, he writes the book of Revelation.
So, and he writes this.
And in chapter two, John hears from Jesus himself.
So this may be red letters in your Bible.
And Jesus himself says, I'm going to write to you.
I'm going to tell you what to write to seven different churches that are in existence.
And I want to speak to them and we're going to look at what he says to the church at Ephesus.
The church at Ephesus, before we read this, was started, if you read Acts 19, this was started by a guy named Paul.
Paul started the church.
He planted it.
He stayed there for two years.
And he turns the church over to a young guy named Timothy, who he's mentoring.
And John, the disciple who we just talked about, stays there as an elder of the church.
So I don't know if you're thinking like, man, our church staff is awesome.
Like we have Drew Worsham on our staff.
Like we have Keith Weezer on our staff.
We have, I hope you like our staff.
But like you say, man, our staff is awesome.
Friends, if you have people on your staff that wrote the Bible, they're better than you.
Right?
That is a stacked team.
Who's leading your church?
Paul started it.
He wrote two thirds of the New Testament.
The apostle John is one of our elders and overseers.
He wrote one, two, three, four, five books in the New Testament, right?
And Timothy, who's Paul's mentor, who got a couple of letters written to him specifically, and the church of Ephesus got a letter.
Yeah, those are our three leaders.
Oh, that's an all-star team.
That's cheating.
How do you get those guys?
That's like Jesus's boys started a church together and did well in that, right?
So that's the church at Ephesus.
And this is, when you got all these guys together, this is a great church staff.
So Jesus, through John, talking to the church of Ephesus says this.
And we're going to read this and talk about it as we go.
So don't jump ahead too much.
To the angel of the church in Ephesus, right.
The angel means to the leader, to Timothy, to the leaders of the church, right this.
This is Jesus starts talking about himself.
The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.
So this is a lot of imagery and metaphors.
I want to explain this to you.
The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand.
This is Jesus saying, I am the creator.
Just to remind you, I'm the instituter.
I'm the one that started the church.
I'm the one that holds the seven stars in his right hand, speaking of all things.
And secondarily, I am the one that walks among the seven golden lampstands.
Well, who are the seven golden lampstands?
That's the seven churches.
So he's referencing the churches as lampstands.
And he's saying two things.
One, I am the authoritative creator of all things.
And two, I'm the one that walks among you.
And what a statement, right?
That I'm the creator of all things.
But I'm also the one that walks among you.
So that is who I am.
Now I'm going to start speaking to you.
This is how Jesus, he's described himself.
Now he's going to talk about the church.
Verse two, I know your works.
Okay, so he walks amongst us.
He knows our works.
Your toil and your patient endurance and how you cannot bear with those who are evil,
but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not.
And you have found them to be false.
Verse three, I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my namesake.
And you have not grown weary.
So stop right there.
So far we have patient endurance.
Christ says, I'm the one that created everything.
I'm the one that walks among you.
I dwell among you.
I'm in your midst.
And here's what I know about you.
You patiently endure.
You cannot bear with those who are evil.
You have tested teachers and found them to be false and then rejected their teaching.
You have bared up things for my namesake,
which is a fancy way of saying you endure hardships for my namesake.
And in the middle of all of that, you have not grown weary.
Verse one through three says this church is killing it.
Nice job church at Ephesus.
They're absolutely killing it.
Listen, I've been in this church for six years now.
And I struggle with this.
That you would do all of this stuff and you would not grow weary.
That you would endure hardships for Christ's name.
That you would find things that are false and reject them and patiently endure the truth.
These are incredible things happening so far in the church of Ephesus.
They are theologically pure is what it says.
They are doctrinally vigilant and they are enduring hardships and they have not grown weary.
So, so far we have ourselves a great church.
But let's keep reading.
Verse four, Jesus says,
But this I have against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.
Remember therefore from where you have fallen and repent and do the works you did at first.
If not, and listen to this.
I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.
This is, this is Jesus's boys, right?
This is the church that these guys started.
I will come to you and I will remove the lampstand from its place unless you repent.
But this I have against you.
You have abandoned the love you had at first.
You are theologically accurate.
You are doctrinally vigilant.
You are pure in work.
You are constantly doing things, enduring hardship, not growing weary.
All of these things are going well, but I have something against you.
You forgot about me.
Jesus says, this word, you have abandoned me.
You have deserted me.
You have turned your back on me.
Your translation may say, you have forsaken your first love.
You have forgotten your first love.
You have holistically given up on this way of thinking.
You have withdrawn your support from me.
You've abandoned your first love.
Remember what you used to do.
Remember where you were and repent.
And if you don't, John, Paul, Timothy, if you don't, I will remove your lampstand.
Now John's not there, but just hear the founders of this church, this collection of godly men that started this church.
He looks at them and says, if you're not going to keep me foremost, then you don't get to keep on doing church.
So you have a decision to make.
So if you were to ask Jesus, what makes a great church Jesus?
I think the first thing he would tell you is when a church loves first its first love, you have a great church.
I know that language is a little weird, but when a church loves first its first love, then you have the opportunity of Jesus looking at you and saying, you are a great church.
Now some of you may think, man, this is super obvious.
Really? Like how obvious could you get?
Okay, we need to keep Jesus first.
Okay, let me write that in my notes.
Love, Josh said love Jesus a lot first, more.
Star, check.
You might be dismissing this if you're not careful.
But let me remind you, he says, to arguably the most influential church in the New Testament, depending, one of the most influential churches in the New Testament,
he looks at them and he says, you guys are killing it in some areas.
But this one area, if you forsake me in the middle of all the work, then this is a serious offense.
This is not something you get a pass on.
This is so foundational that if you don't do this, you don't have anything else to do.
If this ever becomes something, Jesus says, if who I am and your love for me, if it ever becomes something that is not foremost and utmost and all things about me.
If Christ says, if you're a church that you're trying to walk and lead and be a part of, if it's not first and foremost and utmost about me, then expect confrontation.
If your life that you're leading and walking in and all these good deeds and all this doctrinal purity and all this vigilance theologically.
If you're doing all of these things and you're checking it off really well, but first and foremost, do not have in your heart, in your head, in your hands a love and passion for the person and work of Jesus.
Then expect confrontation.
Christ says, you do not get a pass. You must love me.
And this love for me, Christ says, it is foundational and motivational.
That if you do not love me foundationally, then you should never, ever start a church.
And then once you start a church, if your love for me is not the motivation by which you keep the church going, then Christ will come against us.
We work in a church. Our staff is 29 people now. It's not seven anymore.
But if we think our job is simply giving us a past where we don't have to love Christ anymore, if our duty of serving in the church is not our delight in loving Jesus and there is going to be a confrontation.
And that is not simply for us. This is for all of us.
And this is harsh words. Jesus looks at this church and he says this.
He says, if you do not respond to my confrontation, I'm inviting you to repent because I love you.
But if you do not respond to this confrontation, if you do not turn and repent and go the other way and go back to the love you had at first, the pure first love will sow two king-sized sheets together.
We'll rent the lobby because we love Jesus and want to start. If you don't go back to that first pure love, if you don't have that, then I will remove your lampstand.
I will take you from being a church to not being a church.
Christ says, if you don't do this and you're not following me and you're not a church.
So in other words, Jesus says, if you herald a message other than me, if you propagate a mission other than my mission, if you lead people to a place other than me, and if you do this all the time, over a period of time, I will confront you.
And if you do not respond to that confrontation and repent, then you will find yourselves gathering meaninglessly and providing programs meaninglessly.
Because what you will have is a club, not a church, because the church is who I dwell among.
I'm the one that holds the seven stars. I'm the one that holds the seven lamps. I dwell among you. And if you remove me from that first, foremost, utmost affection in your heart, motivation for your work, if you remove me from that, then I will remove you from church.
This is a heavy warning, Christ says.
Great churches see their love for Jesus as foundational and motivational.
And this is a good life principle because, right, it's January the 5th. We all have New Year's resolutions. Some of us already blew them five days in. Sorry about that. There's grace for that.
You're like, I'm going to go to the gym every day. You already haven't gone. I'm going to get up at 4.59 every morning and pray and you didn't do it like January 2nd.
I know. Listen, keeping Christ first in all things is a phenomenal life principle, not only in the church.
But number two, if you ask Jesus what makes a good church, he would say when a church lives the mission.
So number one, when a church first loves its first love, number two, when a church lives the mission, verse five, he says, go back to what you did at first. You forgot what you were doing.
So when you take your eyes off Jesus, it's not very long until you take your eyes off his mission.
These two things are inseparable. If you ask, well, what does it mean to follow God's mission? Well, God's mission is what we're doing as a church.
So our mission is God's mission to take the gospel, connecting the gospel to people, people to community, community to mission.
Well, what's the mission? To connect the gospel to people and then people to community and the community to mission. Well, what's the mission? You catch what I'm saying, right?
We are headed forward in the mission of Christ. But this is structurally. This is our mission statement as a church.
This is structurally what we're trying to accomplish. We want people to come to Christ, people to come to community, and people to leave and go tell other people about Christ, so they can come into community and then go tell other people about Christ.
That is the mission that Jesus has sent us on, but that's structurally. Here's where you and I come in.
We have individual responsibilities and even in the structure of the local church. So what makes a great church is not simply when the church lives on mission,
but when the people in the church recognize they've been called to the mission.
A missional church is a great church and a missional church is filled with missional believers.
Believers that recognize that they're responsible for the mission, that they're supposed to own this thing, that they're supposed to love Jesus first and move forward on that love individually.
So in the classic movie from 1989, The Dead Poets Society, have you seen this?
Robin Williams is a school teacher. He's an English teacher at this all boys school and these guys are super uptight and they've never experienced anything in life in some ways.
And you get them to stand on tables and you love poetry and then probably the most famous scene of the movie and the most overused phrase in all of earth probably comes from the scene that new people have taken to be Yolo, whatever.
So it'll make sense in a second.
So Dead Poets Society has this epic scene where Robin Williams takes his students out into this lobby area where there's all these bookcases filled with old pictures of history.
And he asks one of the students to read a poem and here's the poem.
The poem says, gather ye rose buds while ye may, old time is still flying.
And this same flower that smiles today, tomorrow will be dying.
And then Robin Williams says, the Latin term for this sentiment that this poem is about is the term carpe diem.
He says, why do you think that we use this term?
And then one of his students says, it's because he's in a hurry. The guy's in a hurry.
And Robin Williams says, no, no, no, you missed it completely. The guy is not in a hurry at all.
The guy is saying carpe diem because he's realizing we're going to die.
And he takes all the students and he makes them look at the bookshelf and he goes through and he says, all of these young men are just like you.
They had ambition. They had excitement. They had all these great things going on.
And then he says this very, maybe even offensive phrase to us tonight.
He looks at that and he says, you know what they all have in common?
They're all worms meat now.
And every student goes, whoa.
He says, so listen to what they're saying to you and the students lean in.
And in the epic scene, he, he leans in and he says that these voices from the past are whispering to you.
Seize the day. Make your life extraordinary.
Do something that matters with your life.
So you ask, what does it mean to be a missional church?
A missional church is filled with missional believers who inside the church realize one central truth.
We have 30 or 40 years to make our mark on this world.
We've got 30 or 40 years to make our mark on the great commission.
Then it is the next generation's turn.
So Jesus says, what makes a great church, a church that loves me and a church that recognizes I've given them 30 years of influence.
And they must seize that influence and move forward for my namesake in their generation.
So the next generation can do what I've called them to do a missional believer lives their life in the razor sharp truth of this reality.
That we have 30 years of our time.
How are we going to leverage that for the kingdom?
How are we going to use that for the sake of Christ's name in all the world?
It's our turn.
Missional believers recognize that it is our turn and we must do something.
We have a job to do.
We've been entrusted with the gospel.
We cannot sit on the gospel.
We own the gospel.
Therefore we owe the gospel.
We are the ones in the city that own Christ.
Therefore we must look at the city and recognize we owe Christ to the city.
We owe Christ to the apartments all around Switzer right now.
We owe Christ to Washington state, to U of I, to Moscow.
We owe Him.
We must seize our day with gospel urgency.
A great church is filled with people who recognize that they're going to use their 30 years for gospel impact.
And they're not going to let life go by and not make a difference in the world.
The last thing in this is if you ask Jesus what makes the great church,
he responds when a church becomes a great agent of transformation.
Number one, when you love first, your first love.
Number two, when you live the mission.
And number three, when a church becomes a great agent of transformation.
If you were to go back to Acts chapter 19 and you would read about the founding of the church at Ephesus,
Paul goes into the town of Ephesus and for three months starts preaching.
And he gets in trouble there and he has to move to another place and preach.
And for two years they're preaching the gospel and people are coming to Christ.
But there's one problem, the city of Ephesus.
And we're going to talk about this later in the semester when we actually preached through the book of Ephesus.
But really briefly, the city of Ephesus had a temple to the God Artemis.
And the way a lot of people in the city made money was making idols for worship.
So you would go and buy an idol made by one of these guys.
And that's a way that commerce was happening.
But Paul's preaching was so effective that idol shops were shutting down.
Idol shops are going out of business because there's so many people walking away from idols worshipping God.
And this creates a riot in the town.
There's a riot in the town because these people can't imagine their business is going down because someone is preaching the gospel.
So there was transformation that happened in the city.
The temple of Artemis was no longer making money because the church was in town.
You catch that?
The temple of Artemis became vacant.
And the church started by Paul and John and Timothy and these guys.
It started to fill up and affect the city and healings are happening all over town.
And it starts a riot and Paul eventually has to leave because of it.
And John stays and Timothy stays.
But the temple of Artemis couldn't continue to do what it was doing because God had made a massive move to the local church in the city.
I remember in college when I was studying church planting I was asked the question.
I didn't really have a framework for the question at the time but I was asked if the church you served in magically disappeared from the city would anybody care?
And I remember thinking like I don't really know. I think like 110 people would care because that's how many go to our church. You know that was my answer.
But my professor was saying like I don't know would the city grieve if somehow all of you and your people and your influence and your impact and your transformation
and all the ways you're living for the city.
Not just in the city, not of the city, not against the city, but all the ways you're living for the city.
You magically disappeared with your city grieve.
I had no answer. I was like, no, not at all. We're doing nothing for the city.
We're geographically here.
We're usually mad because those sinners out there need to come in here and get right.
And it was a broken mindset about the goal of the church.
But I think there was such impact happening in the church of Ephesus that if they magically would have went away the temple God guys would have been excited but the rest of the city would have grieved
because there was transformation happening.
And then later we studied a few different church models, popular church models that were happening.
Here's a way to plant a church. Here's another way to plant the church.
And in the middle of all these church models, like are you going to do it like this church in California?
Are you going to do it like this church in Chicago?
Are you going to do it like this church in Atlanta?
And the great church models, very helpful practices to learn from.
In the middle of all that, we heard about a church in London, England in 1850.
And we were presented a church model for the city.
And this church, I know I'm going to over speak sometimes, but I'm going to over speak right now.
This church was pastored by the second greatest preacher of all time, under Jesus, right?
A guy named Charles Haddon Spurgeon was the pastor of the London Tabernacle in 1850.
They would fill the room with 5,000 people with no microphone.
Like what happened earlier was normal.
Like the mic never worked because it didn't exist, right?
And so he, catch me with me, okay, technology.
So he would have to project his voice.
There's a quote where he says, if you don't have the lungs to be a preacher, then you're not called to be a preacher.
Like he would just say that kind of stuff.
He was called the Prince of Preachers.
That was his nickname. If you read some of his stuff, it's just phenomenal the way the guy would stand in a room with all these people.
And his booming voice would just ring out through this place and call people back to Christ and call people to repentance.
And the church was growing like crazy.
The only problem was London was also growing like crazy.
So it was the Victorian era.
So there was lots of commerce and hundreds of thousands of people were headed to London.
The homeless population of London doubled almost overnight.
Like all of a sudden, there's all these homeless people living in downtown London, living around London.
Commerce is booming and most of the churches in that time ran for the suburbs.
Get away from all the crazy, but not the London tabernacle.
They said, we're going to stay right here in the middle of the city and we're going to be an agent of transformation for the city.
And listen, I may have called them the second greatest preacher under Jesus,
but what I mean is their church grew not because of great preaching.
Here's why they grew.
They loved Christ first.
They lived out his mission and they were an agent of transformation in their city.
The London tabernacle built over a dozen low income housing residencies in London called Alms houses.
Until the tabernacle built over a dozen, I think they built 14 or 15.
Only one existed in London at the time.
And this church built 14 of them.
The tabernacle.
They had 17 fully funded homes for the elderly.
They lived under the banner, allowing people to die with dignity.
It's 17 of these.
They built a school for homeless kids that housed over 400 kids.
They built this thing.
And they started a ministry that gave theological training to new believers who were coming out of this.
And they were sending out church plans and they were training up pastors.
And they built a home, a huge home with 40 plus rooms.
And all its goal was is that single moms can live here.
And all the food and all the clothes for the baby and for the mom are totally free.
This whole home was just for single moms.
They had a business training program at the time in the church where they would train young men to be entrepreneurs and to start business.
And they would ask them to head into the city with the gospel and with business.
And they would go and they would say be an agent of transformation in the city.
And because of this, because of this training, because of this influence,
they influence all sorts of segments of the city.
Whether it was politicians or the poorest of the poor or the richest of the rich,
the gospel was being implanted into all these places.
And they had over 5,000 people a week gathering.
But it wasn't because of great preaching, it was because the church was committed to be for the city.
They weren't in it, they weren't of it, they weren't against it.
They decided we're going to be for it.
And we want the London Tabernacle and the City of London to be a place of complete transformation in the city.
And I submit to you, if in the middle of all that, the London Tabernacle would have shut their doors,
the City of London would have grieved.
If in the middle of all that, the London Tabernacle would have said we're done, we're moving out,
none of us are going to do anything here, all influence, all transformation is leaving,
the City of London would have grieved.
And you ask yourself, would you want to go to that church?
I think everybody here is like, yeah, if I'm in London in 1850,
I kind of have a crush on Spurgeon as it is, I'd probably go there for him.
But also they would put me to work.
It seems like they're for the city.
I would want to be in that church, because things are happening in that church,
and everybody in the room right now, doesn't that just feel right?
When you hear that, you go, oh, that's what we're supposed to do, be for the city, be transforming the city.
The city would look and see us as good.
The church at Ephesus certainly transformed the city.
And Jesus says, you lost your first love of me, and you also lost your love of the city.
Go back to do what you used to do.
Go back and preach the gospel.
Go back and be an agent of transformation.
Religion says God needs to stay on Sunday, and needs to be in this building only,
but being for the city says this is just a gathering where the saints are encouraged,
and nonbelievers are welcome to be a part of this, obviously,
but this is not the most important gathering of the week.
We gather in homes all across the week, but also we gather in dorm rooms, we gather in offices,
and we are constantly looking at the city in the hope of being able to transform something about the city.
So tonight what I'm asking you is really simple.
It's not to do anything extra.
I'm not asking you to say, okay, Josh, that'd be for the city.
So now I've got to do all this new stuff.
I'm not asking you to do that.
I'm asking you to take an inventory of where you're at right now,
and look at Revelation chapter 2, where Jesus tells the church at Ephesus,
you're doctrinally pure, you're theologically vigilant,
but you've forsaken your first love of me,
you've forgotten my mission, and you're no longer transforming the city.
Could we personalize that tonight?
And personally embody the passion to love Christ first,
the passion to live out His mission individually in my life,
and pray that we would have eyes to see the needs in our city that we might be able to transform.
We're trying to systematically change some stuff.
We have a ministry called Restore that's kicking off,
and you're going to hear about it next year.
This year, sorry, it's right now, this year.
You're going to hear about it this year a lot more.
You're going to see it in the lobby in the future.
You're going to hear about it in your village in ways that we can serve the needy in our city,
and we're going to do that systematically, but that's not what I'm talking about tonight.
Tonight I'm talking about us doing that individually.
And so if you're here tonight, you're like,
man, truth be told, I've kind of gotten caught up in the program of church
and forgot that Christ is inviting me to love Him first.
And I don't know the last time I got up early to meet with Christ.
I don't know the last time I snuck away late to meet with Christ.
But man, when I'm around a crowd, I sure do like to be known as the guy that loves Christ.
I'm the first guy to serve in public.
I'm the last guy to fast in private.
I sure do like to be in the spotlight, but I sure don't like to be in the closet secretly praying,
fasting, meeting with Christ.
That's youth, and I think Christ says, repent of that.
If you're on the other end, you're like, man, me and Jesus are doing fine,
but you don't want to be on the mission of Jesus,
and you don't want to serve in ways in the church and present the gospel to your friends
and be a part of the mission, then Christ says, repent of that.
If you're going to love me, then you must do what I command you.
If you're only doing what I command, but don't love me, then you don't love me,
so repent of not loving, repent of not serving.
And lastly, if you say, man, I've never even really thought about being for the city.
Would you pray that God would give you eyes to see this year differently?
Would you pray that we wouldn't just be of the city or in the city or against the city,
but we before the city?
So I'm going to invite the band back up, and our response tonight is really simple.
I want us to be good news to the city as we live for the city.
And so how we're going to respond is, we don't always have opportunities to do this,
because usually we're having four different services, and it's busy, and there's a lot going on,
but tonight we have a little bit of time, a little bit of space,
so I want to invite the band just to play for five, maybe even ten minutes,
I don't know, just play some music, and right where you are, I want you to pray.
And if you know the people around you, these chairs actually move, believe it or not,
like the chairs, they're not bolted to the ground like usual,
and so if you wanted to create space and pray with the people around you,
and if you wanted to look at the person next to you and say, man, I am straight up not letting Jesus be my first love,
I love a lot of things about him, I'm not loving him,
then would you say that to your friend that you came with tonight?
Would you guys pray together?
Or if you say, man, I'm loving Jesus, but I'm not loving his mission.
Would you say that to the guy next to you tonight?
Would that guy be able to pray for you, would that girl be able to pray for you,
and say, okay, let's get you in the mission?
And then when that little part's over the inward part,
would you pray that God would give you eyes to see outwardly?
We're going to talk more about this next week as well,
but for this week specifically, I want you and I want me to ask ourselves,
are we loving Christ foundationally, above all else?
Are we living in his mission?
And are we going to do anything in the city?
Because he wants to speak to us about that.
So Father, I pray that tonight, we'd have boldness to hear what you're saying.
Got to pray that we would be able to respond to your word.
If we're not loving you first tonight, I pray that we would repent of that.
If we're not walking in your mission, I pray we repent of that.
And God, if we're not trying to be for the city, like the church of Ephesus,
like the London Tabernacle, God, then we would repent.
And you would give us eyes to see that differently.
So God, all around the room, as people pray, I ask that you would dwell among us.
Just like you said you do.
God, you're among us.
Would we feel that tonight in an evidential way?
Would we feel that you're among us?
Would you be in these small groups of people praying?
And God, would we be able to see our church be a great church?
And may we plant other churches that would ultimately impact other cities in the world.
Lord, we pray this in Jesus' name.
Lord, we pray this in Jesus' name.
