Rooted in the Church

Our world defines success in so many different ways, but scripture defines success as faithfulness to him, as being separate from the culture around us. Your ultimate loyalty is to God's family, to his church, to the kingdom at large, not to a political party, a social movement, or a cultural trend. But you don't have to be like the weird guy that no one wants to be around or thinks is a buzzkill. But just by striving to be more like Christ, you'll start to stand out. When all of a sudden your co-workers realize you don't gossip this all of a sudden they say something is different about you. It's not because I'm amazing. It's because I know this amazing God. If you have your Bibles, we're going to be in 2 Corinthians chapter 6 starting in verse three. And as we've been going through this series talking about rooted in holiness, today we're going to look at what does it look like to have deep devotion, to have deep commitment and a community formed inside the church. And as we kind of start to launch into that, I have a question for you to start thinking in your head is if something went down at 2 a.m. besides calling the fire department or a cop or something like that, who would you call? If something is happening at 2 am or if a tragedy strikes in your life, you're not going to call an acquaintance. You're not going to call a co-orker. You're not going to call someone that you have a mild relationship with. You're going to call those and reach out to those people who are the closest to you. And sadly, I think as we dive into our text, there are times in our lives where we might not have that community that God places us around to walk through life together. Last year we have an amazing church couple in our church and last year um the wife had a tragic accident and she was um actually killed and we did her funeral here and she's an amazing woman in our church and her husband is still a part of our church and many of you know him and as he walked through that hardship it was amazing seeing his church family just wrap their arms around him and I heard from family member after family member saying that exact thing of how much they just loved how people loved them. And then this past year and and this church member, you may know him, his name is Mark, and he got diagnosed with cancer. He's been walking this battle knowing his days are limited here on earth. But in this time, and he's probably watching with us online, he has had this church family just engulf him. Mark, who's been a Bible group leader, a faithful servant, someone that has impacted your life as he has impacted my life. Over and over he saw that through this trial he became sweeter to Jesus and he saw this church family just wrap their arms in love around him. Do you have that type of family? Do you have that type of community when life gets hard? When life punches you in the face? When things happen that drive us further from God? Are those people around you that are bigger than yourselves to help you move in the right direction? Well, today as we dive into 2 Corinthians chapter 6, Paul is going to show us that exact thing. And he's going to do this in the form of two questions that we're going to ask and we're going to dissect and answer today. And here is the first question that we pose as we start to go down this path of finding this community in deep devotion is how do we root ourselves in church ministry? How do we root ourselves in in the life of the church and what the church is doing and the mission of the church and the things we do? And Paul starts in 2 Corinthians chapter 6 starting in verse three, he says this is we are not giving anyone an occasion for offense so that the ministry will not be blamed. As Paul opens this section, he he another way of saying this. He says we don't put up guard rails or barriers for people to come in. And Paul is going to start unpacking of how do we make sure that people are involved in what God's mission is? How do we make sure people are involved and don't have a hindrance to joining the ministry of what God is doing through his church and through the kingdom at large? And Paul as he dives into this, he starts to explore and dissect this in verse four. And he says this instead, "As God's ministers, we commend ourselves in everything. By great endurance, by afflictions, by hardships, by difficulties, by beatings, by imprisonments, by riots, by labors, by sleepless nights, by times of hunger." As we start to get into this and Paul starts to unpack of how do we get involved in a church ministry, he starts us here and he shows us that sometimes we need to embrace the hard. You see, Paul starts this section and and he starts listing out all the stuff that is really not fun to talk about. He has nine different hardships. And you're probably hearing that you're like, "Man, I I don't really want to be afflicted. I don't want to have hardships. I really don't want to be in a riot or be beaten or have a sleepless night." night. You're like, "I have melatonin for sleepless nights." Uh, right. You know who you are. Okay, fine. You just have it for your kids. Okay. Whenever my three-year-old takes a midday nap, we're like, "We're going to have to give him melatonin tonight." And it doesn't happen often, okay? When he falls asleep on the couch, don't judge us too hard. But Paul, he he gets into this. He's like, "Hey, this ministry thing is not easy." And he starts by naming all these hardships, all this stuff of life that comes. And it's not it's not in spite of ministry. It's actually because of the ministry. And and he says by these hardships, you see the difficulties actually become part of how he served God. And Paul starts as he unpacks this shows us that being rooted in church ministry, it means you embrace the hard stuff, not just the easy stuff. How do we do that? Is one, we embrace hard conversations. Ministry involves difficult decisions and difficult conversations. This past Sunday, uh, we talked about forgiveness and and I there's one is like, I'm not always the most forgiving person, but I'm like, okay, I can do this. Like, I can practice forgiveness. I'm like, this isn't too hard for me. It it circled some things in my heart, but I'm going to go do it. But I was amazed at so many conversations I have with church members and those who interact with our church of how hard it is for them. They're like, "Hey, I have this arange family member. I have this brother. I have this sister. I have this and I don't know if I can forgive them." And ministry is about having those hard conversations that sometimes, and not sometimes, but more often than not, and if it's not happening, then we are too comfortable. Is when we read the word of God, it starts cutting our hearts and it starts showing us some things that we need to clean up in our life. And it leads to these hard conversations we have with the people around us. But also, we embrace the hard seasons. Paul uses this verbiage, these sleepless nights, these times of hunger as Paul experienced seasons when ministry was costly. And every churchgoer goes through challenging periods where your commitment is tested. I I I said at first service, I have every right to complain about this because I'm in this season of life. But there is this new thing. Um, and maybe it's not that new, but I'm seeing it cuz I'm going through the season. But now, every time someone has a baby, they're like dead for a year. All right? I'm like, "Where did you go?" Like, "You had a kid. You did not fall off a cliff." All right. And and I've have four of them. So, I've gone through this. Um my wife might fall off a cliff, but I'm still here if it has. No, we got it. But I'm like, "Where?" I'm like, "Just because this life change and and you have one kid, it just blows up your life." And the more kids you have, your life just keeps blowing up. And you're like, "I have nothing else to blow up. Can it blow up more?" And God's like, "Bet. I got you." Right? But in these hard seasons where our commitment is tested, when when truly what we believe is tested, Paul says he has it, but he keeps on going. But all part of this, too, is we also need to embrace hard people. Let's be honest, some people in church are difficult to love. I'm talking mainly about myself. All right? But there are people that are hard to love. There are messy situations that we'll get into more that is tough. But being rooted in ministry means you don't just serve the people you like, but you serve everyone that God puts in your path. I think about our church and those who serve, especially in kids ministry. Kids ministry is not a fun thing to serve in. Okay. Um I did it after I graduated high school at the church I grew up in and I I I did my year and I'm like, can I go to youth now? I'm done with kids ministry. Um but now that I have kids, like if I wasn't here, like I would be serving in kids ministry mainly cuz my wife would probably force me to. But I I love it and see how that but I think of how many faithful people we have in our kids ministry that just when they have a hard week or or when they're going through difficulty or even when their mind is maybe not right cuz they're stressed about all the things that life stresses about. They show up, they serve, and they love the people around them. And Paul here, he starts out saying, "Hey, in ministry, we'll have to embrace the hard stuff." But he keeps going in verse six and he says, "By purity." And how do we embrace this? We we by purity, by knowledge, by patience, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love, by the word of truth, by the power of God through weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left. We don't just embrace our church ministry and root ourselves in church ministry by embracing the hard, but also by elevating our character. After listing these external hardship, Paul then goes to listing these internal character qualities. And this is huge. This is important here because it's not enough to just endure hard stuff and hard circumstances and hard seasons, but we have to grow through those hard times. And here Paul shows us that being rooted in church ministry means you're constantly working to become more like Jesus. The churchy word for this and the Bible word is sanctification. is we're slowly becoming more holy, more like Jesus and less like ourselves. It is iron sharpening iron. We're hitting out the impurities of our life through these hard things and it's moving us to more like Jesus. And look at the practical ways he talks about and some of the categories he uses here is he he mentions purity. In this purity, this isn't just moral purity, but that's part of it, but it's pure motives. Are you serving? Are you loving people? Are you kind to people to build God's kingdom or to build your reputation? Let's be honest, there's times when we're nice to people because we want people to think we're a nice person. And and you're probably not a nice person in your normal flesh. I know I am not a nice person, okay? And and just my normal Andrew if you take me at face value. Um the only nice part to me are what Jesus has chipped away of actual Andrew and revealed himself through. But like sometimes I think we try to do things to put an image of ourselves out there. Like I want people to think I'm nice, that I'm loving, that I'm caring, that I'm thoughtful. But are you doing that so people think that of you, or because you're actually serving what God is doing to help further him and build his kingdom? We think about knowledge. Paul tells us we need to grow in understanding of God's word and his ways. His ministry requires his understanding to turn to wisdom and discernment. He talks about patience. Let's skip that one. That one's not that important. But for real, ministry is slow work. Did you know people don't change near as fast as you want them to change? Your kids, you tell them once, you hope they get it the first time, and they don't, or the second, or the third or the fourth. Have they got it yet? I don't know. Tell me when they're adults. Do they get it? I'm not sure. For those of you that have had kids for a while, it's like ministry is slow work and how it shapes us and being patient, that just sewing seed, waiting for God to bring the fruit. He talks about kindness and and and in this word of kindness is also wrapped up with gentleness is are you kind and gentle when you're frustrated this morning in our worship team in our meeting we pray through the prayer prompts that we do here as a church. So so we get to practice those before we come on stage and and we're saying praying through that and saying God is our refuge. And some person said when you're driving down Bell Road. I didn't say it. Okay. Someone else said it. But but are you kind when someone cuts you off? Are you kind when people drive you crazy? And and are you moving in this? And lastly, he leads to this sincere love. This love that's not fake, that's not manipulative, but his genuine care for people's well-being. You know, one of the things I love about our church in the location of our church is here in our Surprise campus. We are right by Sun City and Surprise. We're not far from Verado, from Festival. We're at this weird location, North Pure. We have people that come all over. And what it results in is we are super multigenerational church. We got young, we got old, and we got everything in between. And one of the things I love is so much of how those groups interact. And when I looked at these qualities and I read these this week and thought through our church, my face did not pop up as I'm reading these cuz I'm like Paul. I I know the worst of my heart and my sin. But I started to see some of the people that I looked up to in our church. And there are so many names that started popping in my head. But one, and I can embarrass him because he's humble so it won't get to his head. That's why I get to put this, is a man named Ron Pson. And Ron and his wife Mona. They are amazing. Ron serves. He helps lead our deacons. He's a Bible group leader. He took over Mark's group. When Mark can no longer do that, he serves and he's a part of our first impressions and greets people all the time. And I see that. And these are the qualities that exhibit. And what I love is as we get to see the different generations of our church, we get to see people who have had hardships go, but how that character has been built up over time of what God is doing. And you see, Paul doesn't stop there, though, because he he continues on in verse 8 as he talks about how do we rooting ourselves into the ministry that God is doing. He says, "We also do it through glory and dishonor, through slander and good report, regarded as deceivers yet true." Verse nine. As unknown yet recognized. As dying yet sea, we live as being disciplined yet not killed. As grieving yet always rejoicing. As poor yet enriching many. As having nothing yet possessing everything. Verse 11, he says, "We have spoken openly to you, Corinth." Corinthians, and our heart has been opened wide. We are not withholding our affection from you, but you are withholding yours from us. I speak to you as my children as a proper response. Open your heart to us. We root ourselves in a church ministry when we embrace the hard, when we elevate our character. But here, and this is probably the hardest one, when we expect a messy process. You see, Paul is all over the map here. He gives us these six paradoxes that describe ministry life. He's like, "Hey, uh, we're unknown yet we're recognized. Uh we have glory but we also have dishonor slander but good report recognized as deceivers yet we're true and Paul shows ministry is all over the map and it is hard and being in church rooted in church ministry means you expect the process to be messy and you expect the process at times not to make sense to the worlds. Paul says that sometimes people will misunderstand your motives. He uses this line he's regarded as deceivers yet true. Paul was often accused of being fake, yet he knew where his heart was and God knew where his heart was. He this line he he shows us that our influence might not be recognized. I love this line that Paul uses. He says unknown yet recognized. I don't know about you, but when I read about the Apostle Paul who wrote the majority of the New Testament, I thought he was a pretty big deal and everyone would know his name and people inside the church knew his name. But when Paul went places, he was not didn't have the rapport of Jesus that'd be like, "Oh, this guy's like might be the savior of the world or performing as many miracles as him." Like Paul was an unknown figure. Like I heard his Instagram account was pretty low. That's pretty crazy. He was making reals and people weren't even liking him. They were liking Peter's more than his and he was mad about it. Okay. But Paul was an unknown figure. He said, "Yet God recognized him." And here he shows us that even if we're not famous, even if we're not celebrated, God is still faithful in how he works inside his kingdom. And he tells us that we'll experience both joy and sorrow simultaneous. He says, grieving yet always rejoicing. Ministry involves celebrating with those who celebrate and mourning with those who mourn. And sometimes in the same day, this whole thing leads to this big messy situation. This past Friday, uh my wife was uh she works on Fridays, so I take the kids to and from school and my daughter wasn't feeling good. And so she stayed home and I just had to take the one kid to school and all of a sudden all the other ones wanted to like build forts and stuff and and my wife halfway through the day was like, "How's Arya feeling?" And I'm like, "I think Jesus visited her cuz she's been healed halfway through the day." Okay. Don't know what happened. But when my kids get excited, they they start bringing out like nuggets. And if you don't know what a nugget is, just like Google nugget. It's not like a chicken nugget, but it's like you could build forts with it. And they start bringing those out to the living room and they start bringing more stuff and like I blink and I'm like there is so much crap in my living room right now. Okay. Like I don't know what's happening. Like the couches are taking over everything. It is a giant mess. And before I start yelling and saying cleaning up everything, my wife's voice went through my head. They're playing. They're having fun. Just let it be messy for a little while. I was like, "Oh, can't I just put on like Iron Man and his awesome friends and um it' be a lot cleaner." But sometimes in the church, it's going to be messy, but God is still working. And when we when we root ourselves in the ministry of God's church, it is not always going to be like skipping through daisies and flowers. It is going to be tough, but God is using it to do his work. But Paul transitions to this second question and he see it kind of leaps off in verse 14. He says this, "Do not be yolked together with those who do not believe. For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness?" Paul, as he continues on here, he kind of shifts gears a little bit and he starts talking about all of a sudden how we to be separated. He starts using this this kind of different language. But here's what Paul is hinting at. This comes to the second question that we'll break down in the rest of this passage is how do we root ourselves in a church family? How do we be a part of something that is different from the world that is doing the ministry work of the world but that is also something we belong to and God builds us through. And as Paul starts to develop this thought and this idea of us being separated, this light there there'd be this separation from the world, we're going to see how this doesn't mean all of a sudden unfriending everyone who doesn't love Jesus. He's not saying that, but he's saying it is being a part of something. Keep going in verse 15. He says, "What agreement does Christ have with Bile?" That is a false god. Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? Verse 16. And what agreement does the temple of God have with idols? For we are the temple of the living God, as God has said, I will dwell and I will walk among them and I will be their God and they will be my people. As Paul shifts in this question of how do we root ourselves in a church family? The first thing we see is Paul's showing us that we need to choose the faithful over fake. We need to choose faithful over fake. Paul starts this and says, "Hey, what agreement does Christ have with this false god?" Or or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What does uh God's temple have in common with idols? What Paul is asking behind all those is who are you allowing to have the deepest influence in your life? Are they pointing you towards faithfulness or in God or are they pointing you in the opposite direction from it? You see, being rooted in a church family means you prioritize relationships with people who share your commitment with Jesus. Now, as I said before, this does not mean that you only have Christian friends. And and here's the thing is you should have people who are far from God. You should have what we would say lost or non-believers or those who have not found Jesus yet. That's what I always like to say. You don't know Jesus yet, but you will cuz I'm praying for it and I'm going to be stubborn and argue my way into your heart as much as I can. And it's like we need to have those friendships, but what Paul is convicting us of is we need to make sure that there's a priority to those. And the people that speak into our lives the most, our closest advisors, our most in intimate people in our lives need to be those who love Jesus and speak into us. I had my barber yesterday. Yeah, I got a new haircut. Hopefully you like it. If you don't, don't tell me. Um, I my mother-in-law said it kind of looked like Forest Frank, but I don't think I think she was lying to me. I want to know if the muscles come with the haircut of Forest Frank. All right. And the rapping ability of a white guy. Anyway, um, but my barber was talking to me and he he's about to propose in the next couple months to his girlfriend and we were talking through this and he's like, "What's the best part and worst part about being married?" And worst part, since my wife might watch this online, I said, "There's nothing. It's all great and amazing. But I said, one of the best parts is you get a get out of jail free card to saying no to anything you don't want to do. Cuz when people ask you, can you do this on such and such date? I say, I got to check with the boss being Sarah. And then I go to Sarah and I'm like, do we have anything on that day? She's like, no. I'm like, well, we do now. I'm going to say no. All right. Just kidding. I don't do that all the time, but sometimes. But for her, she she we work together. She is like the boss of our calendar. We make sure that our invites are in each other's calendars. And sometimes Apple ruins that. But we got to make sure that we are on the same page cuz she is my closest companion. She is my wife. She is the one that influences me more than anyone else outside of Jesus. And me vice versa to her. And I need to make sure her and the people that are closest to me that are pouring into me have this same love for Jesus Christ. And here's what amazes me. This is a little tangent. I could go off on another sermon for is sometimes I think people don't prioritize that in a relationship. Like I think they're good-looking, they think I'm good-looking, we're set, right? I'm like, "No, man." Like, there needs to be this shared value. So, you're moving in the same direction of loving Jesus and getting closer to him. And a caveat to that, if you're married to an unbelieving spouse, that doesn't mean you cut the ties and runs. That means you pray for them. You drag them to church. You live out Jesus in front of them. and you can watch how God does amazing things. But here Paul is challenging us is are we going to be faithful? Are we going to let the right people speak into our life instead of the fake things of our world? And we need to choose friends. We need to choose family. We need to choose those who are most intimate with us to challenge us to grow in faithfulness rather than those who encourage us to compromise our convictions. But he keeps going in verse 17. He says, "Therefore, come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch any unclean thing, and I will welcome you." We root ourselves in a church family not just by choosing faithfulness over the fake, but also when we choose separation over sane. Now, being rooted in a church family means you're willing to live differently than the culture around you. And this is kind of the next step of that first one. First, we need to pick our friends wisely who is influencing us and speaking into us. But we also need to make sure that we're living counter to our culture rather than in alignment with it. How does this happen? Is well, we need to live separate in our values. Is you have to adopt uh you don't have to adopt I should say the definition of our world success, happiness or fulfillment. I saw the interview and by interview I mean I saw 10 seconds of a clip but I think that counts as watching the whole interview. But it was Ben Affleck who was a great Batman despite what people think. Um but he was being interviewed and he said people want success. Uh they want fame and success and to be rich and famous. He's like choose rich. Don't take the famous. He's like the famous will just destroy your life. And too often you're like I'll take the rich and have nobody know me. But someone will find out you have money and they will come asking for it in some way or another. Right? And here is like our world defines success in so many different ways. But scripture defines success as faithfulness to him as being separate from the culture around us. We also need to be separate in our priorities is our calendars, our budget, our our energy. They reflect kingdom priorities, not just cultural expectations of what we should do. We need to be separate in our allegiances. Your ultimate loyalty is to God's family, to his church, to the kingdom at large, not to a political party, a social movement, or a cultural trend. Now, here's what this doesn't mean. This doesn't mean you have to turn into the weird Christian at work. You've been around that person before, right? That judges everyone's sin, that calls everyone out, and you're not laughing because maybe you already are that person. All right? I don't know. But you don't have to be like the weird guy that no one wants to be around or thinks is a buzzkill. But just by striving to be more like Christ, you'll start to stand out. When all of a sudden your co-workers realize you don't gossip the same, that you don't tear people down, that you won't take the easy way out if it hurts someone else, that you do the right things the right way all the time. All of a sudden, they say something is different about you. And the opportunity is like, "It's not because I'm amazing. It's because I know this amazing God." And Paul, he calls us to be have this separation over being the same as our world. But look at how he wraps up this section in verse 18. And he says, "And I will be a father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty." You see, we root ourselves in a church family when we choose faithful over same. when we choose separation over the same, but we also choose adoption by the Almighty. Listen to this verse again. He says, "I will be a father to you and you will be my sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty." This is from God himself. And I just love this in a passage that Paul kind of airs a lot of different issues and kind of jumps around in these different grievance. This is kind of what unites this passage, this beautiful conclusion that when we root ourselves in God's family, we're not just joining an organization, we're being adopted into God's family. You see, being rooted in a church family means all of a sudden you understand that God is your father. And the other people in this room and outside this room that confess Jesus, they're your siblings. And sometimes siblings fight and want to punch each other and hit each other and and pull each other's hair out and hit each other with pillows and then two seconds later you'll say, "This is my best buddy." All right? It happens with toddlers. It also happens with adults. I promise. I've seen it. And here when we see this that we have siblings who are committed to your growth just like you're committed to their growth. And and we have a father who loves us unconditionally. We have inheritance that can't be taken away. You're not just a member of something, but you are part of a family that has something glorious waiting for us in eternity. This past week, uh, I was in a chat group with some guys from church, and we were talking about super important stuff of setting up our fantasy football league. All right. And we're like, "All right, we're going to invite some people. What are our rules going to be?" I was starting to talk about how the first year I ever played fantasy football was Leian Tomlinson's 31 touchdown year. All right, you guys are lame. Um, greatest year ever by a running back. 31 touchdowns. It was the peak of my fantasy. It's always gone downhill from there. Um, when I was in like junior high or something. I can't remember the year. But as we were talking about fantasy football, all of a sudden it got serious. And one of the guys said in there, "Hey, I'm about to talk to my dad who I have a strained relationship. Will you just pray for this situation as kind of step towards reconciliation?" And all of a sudden, like the tenor of the thing changed. I couldn't make any more jokes about fantasy football. I had to actually like step into this moment. But here was awesome is myself and everyone else on there was like, "Dude, we're praying for you. We're praying for you. Praying for the situation right now." And after he gives report on that, but this is the comment I love that says, "I appreciate having some guys who are strong in their faith in my corner." You see, that is what church family is all about. That you have people in your corner. You have a God in heaven who loves you, who calls you son and daughter when we proclaim his name and he surrounds us by brothers and sisters who are doing the work of ministry but also being a part of our church family. And as we begin to dwell on this passage, as we let this passage just sit with us and God start to circle the areas of our life that maybe we need to do better on, I want you to actually take this question. And I say this every week when I ask a question at the end as an action step is literally let this dwell on your heart and answer it honestly. And this is our holy reflection this week is are you part of the ministry? The stuff the church does and the family what the church is of God. Are you part of the ministry of God? Are you serving even when it's hard? Are you embracing that heart? Are you letting that hard form you and chip away your character where you have not given up to God and all of a sudden you need to give up more to him? Are you continuing to push through that? And are you expecting it to be messy knowing that people will make you mad and you'll make other people mad and guess what? Last week we talked about reconciliation, forgiveness, so you can go apply that again. Are you part of the ministry of what God's doing, but also you're a part of this family? Are you choosing to be faithful over the fake facade of our world? Are you choosing to be separate, to be holy, to be sanctified towards God instead of the same cultural values we see? And ultimately, are you choosing to be adopted by the God of the universe who changes everything in our lives? in 2016. This is a pretty big year for my family. And the more I look back on this, the crazier I see that God just did some stuff to wreck me and my wife and set us up for what he would do in the future in a huge way. In March of 2016, we uh finally surrendered to ministry and I quit my job that would have paid me a lot more money and would have had a much better retirement package on earth. I think God's retirement package in heaven's probably going to be better. But I quit that job and say like we're going to start a church and we joined Cross Church and we launched our Phoenix campus in March of 2016. And then later on that year and we were in this process of becoming foster parents. And in December of 2016, we had a couple kids come in and out on short-term placements. And then all of a sudden, we had this little 3-month old girl come into our house. as three-month old girl, when you do foster, here's the goal. The the goal is always to reunite with the family. It's reunification. And we had that mindset of like, man, she's beautiful. Man, she's amazing, but let's care for her for this season and let's see how God works in sending back home. Well, those days turned into weeks, those weeks turned into months. And as she just became part of our family and as she all of a sudden gripped all of a sudden we were showing signs and signs that God was closing other doors slowly severing rights. And a year and a half later in June of 2018, my wife and I had the privilege after fostering her for about a year and a half to adopt our daughter Arya. And she went being fostered by our family to being adopted into our home to being our daughter who we would have and hold for as long as we live. Too often I think we come to church and it's almost like we're being fostered by the church. They're there to help us, to support us, to being there when times are hard, and providing love and guidance, which is exactly, it's an amazing thing. But God doesn't want to stop at fostering you. God is not going to send you back to your home, your sin. That is no good for you. God wants to bring you to himself, to adopt you, to call you his son, to call you his daughter, to bring you into the family of the church, to bring you into the ministry that he is doing, and to change your life forever more. I don't know where you're at right now. Maybe you've said yes to Jesus. Maybe you're a part of this forever family, but maybe you need to start being a part of the ministry. You need to serve more even when it's hard. You need to let people come around you and help you be sanctified to chip away the parts of you that you hate. Let God and his people enter into that situation that's going to change it forever. And you need to be a part of this messy thing we call church week in and week out. But maybe that's not you yet. And maybe you've never said yes to the father who sent his son Jesus Christ to live a perfect life here on earth to die on a cross in our place to raise again to defeat the sins. So no longer do we have to hold on to the right of our sin, but he can forgive it. He can sever it. He can wipe it clean so that we can be adopted. We can be entered in to this great family of God. We're going to go into a time where I'm just going to pray over us. But in this time, I want you to pray individually. What is your next step God's asking you to be? How is he asking you to be deeply devoted into the life of his church? And maybe he's calling you to take the first step that will change your eternity forever.