What Churchmanship Looks Like

When we are preaching the Bible, when we are making Jesus known, when we are loving people, when we are showing them who Jesus is, we need to know that God goes before us. You see, we'll never go to a place in our life where God has not already been. Well, as after I left our mission team and kind of sending them off before I went home yesterday, I was like, I can knock now two birds and one stone. I'm like, I left early. My kids slept in cuz they stayed up until who knows how late on Fourth of July. So, I'm like, I'm going to go and I I did a Sam's pickup order. All right. And I'm like, I'm going to pick this up at Sam's Club and and I went real early and I went and and I ordered online as part of that pickup a shed. All right. So, they did not put the dimensions of the box on the line of the box for the shed, just the actual shed itself. And I'm like, it's really small when it's in a box, so it's not bad. It'll fit in my car. I didn't take the minivan. I took the Honda or I took my SUV which also doesn't have a very big I put the seats down. I'm like this is totally going to work. I got there and it did not work. All right. And and they told me like they bro this isn't going to fit. You need someone with a truck. And I'm like it's just ruined my Saturday. I got to get home by a certain point cuz my wife has to go and she has a meeting and I got to stay home and the kids can't watch themselves. So I'm like I got to be there. I'm like all right. And then I remembered as I left the church campus, for some reason I saw Denny Mezman sitting in his truck in the parking lot just chilling. So I waved at him as I drove by and went 80 down Bell. Um and and then I thought I'm like Denny has a truck. Denny's my neighbor. He lives a couple streets over. I'm going to call Denny and ask him if he can come over. And I called Denny and I'm first I'm like why are you at the church? And he's like well his daughter is dating another youth kid who went on our Mexico mission trip. So, they had to say goodbye. Um, hopefully I'm going to miss you. I can't text you for two and a half days. It's going to be the longest two and a half days of my life. So, Debbie was there and I'm like, "Hey, can you come to Sam's tub real quick, put the shed in your trunk or in your truck and deliver it to my house?" And he's like, "Uh." And he's like, "Sure." Funny enough, this also happened at Home Depot with a toolbox and his dad was there, Denny's dad, and did the exact same thing, loaded up in his truck. So whenever I can't fit something in my car, God sends a mess into my life to just deliver it to my house. So the providence of God on display. All right? It's it's amazing. But here's how that happened. That doesn't just happen by accident. That doesn't happen all of a sudden. I have this relationship built. I know this family. I know who I can pester to come through for me. It happens when we are faithfully part of something bigger than ourselves. And the reason I know Denny, the reason I know the Mezmin family is because they show up to church. They serve in our church. They attend a Bible group in our church. And they're a faithful part of our church community. And today, as we come into second Corinthians in chapter 2, we're going to be starting our passage in verse 5. Paul is going to show us what it looks like to be rooted in a church family, rooted in something that is bigger and greater than ourselves. And how do we push into that and make sure it's rooted in holiness rather than other things? As we started this series, we said the theme throughout the book of second Corinthians that we'll see kind of in the first half and the first seven chapters is we use this phrase is what we are rooted in determines what we'll be ready for. If we are rooted in the holiness of God, we'll be ready for the trials that will come that our faith will endure. But if we're rooted in our sin, then we're just going to be tossed through and we're going to be ready for more destruction and more issues. And today, as we get to this passage, Paul is going to show us what does it look like to have an art of churchmanship. That's a word that kind of sounds old-fashioned, a word that we don't use a lot. And churchmanship is really the practice of being involved in a church, of being a part of a church, being committed to a church, serving in a church, and forming community within that church family. And as we start to unpack this passage, and the irony is as I went to write this sermon, prepared it, I'm like, I am preaching this on Fourth of July weekend, which is one of the most least attended and apathetic church services across our nation. And some of our church family, you're watching this from a beach, so hopefully it's a little bit cooler there. But we're going to talk about how do we root our churchmanship, our love of the church, and what God is doing in something holy and not in something that is fleeting and passes away. And in 2 Corinthians starting in chapter 2 and verse 5, Paul opens this up and he says it here. If anyone has caused pain as Paul begins this section where he's going to talk about just the love of the church in a lot of ways. He's going to talk about some of the trials of the church. He's going to talk about the mission of the church. At the end of this, he starts in, he says, "If anyone has caused you pain," he's about to unpack a situation that was tough, a situation that was hard, a situation that resulted in some relationships being broken, some strife and division that happened within the church. And as Paul starts this, here's what he's showing us right away as we kind of leap into this is he's going to show us of what does it look like to be for our churchmanship to be rooted in holiness for it to be something greater than us. And the first part of it that he shows us is there are times when we will need to be persevering through people hurt. You see, Paul starts that and he says, "Hey, if anyone has caused you pain," and what he's going to say right after this is he's going to unpack a painful situation that people have caused pain in the situation. And and Paul here starts when he addresses a situation that has caused him pain that has caused the church pain. It is someone in the church has opposed Paul. They cause division within the church. They've hurt a lot of people. But notice how Paul handles it. And let's keep reading through verse 5. And in verse 6, he said, "If anyone has caused pain, he has caused pain not so much to me, they hurt Paul directly, but to some degree, not to exaggerate, to all of you, to the entire church." Verse six, he said, "This punishment by the majority is sufficient for that person." Paul, as he starts to unpack this idea of like, how do we root our church in our churchmanship in in holiness and and pushing through? And he tells us, he's warning us. He's like, there's going to be people that hurt you. We're going to have to persevere through that hurt. And the first part of this idea of persevering through the hurt that people will cause is that we need to accept that it will happen. People will hurt you. And people will do dumb things that make you mad. And you will do dumb things that make people that make you mad. And all of it will result in people hurt other people. You see, Paul, he doesn't act surprised that someone in the church has caused problems. He He doesn't act surprised that someone has questioned him, that has personally attacked him. He knows it's coming cuz he knows people are broken and make mistakes. And he knows that whenever you put broken people together, there's going to be conflict. There's going to be disappointment. There's going to be hurt feelings. And sometimes, I think we almost have this like fairy tale idea that we think inside the church is going to be better than other places. Like when you're at work, you expect there to be some conflict. When when you're in your neighborhood, you expect a neighbor to do something dumb to maybe make you mad, right? And and then you just might like trim your trees and throw them over the fence um to kind of get back on them. I don't know. I've never done that. I promise. Um but I'm just giving you ideas in case you need to use it. All right. Uh my neighbors, I love them. Especially my neighbor who's gone 90% of the time and lives in is set for pulling his weeds. He's a great neighbor. All right. Um, but in all those places we expect people to hurt us. But I think sometimes we come to the church and when people act like people, we're shocked. Like, why would you say that? Why would you do that? Why would you do something to hurt me? Like, you should be perfect like Jesus. The problem is you are not perfect either. And I think there's this aspect, this fantasy that if we just find the right church with the right people led by the right pastor, that there won't be any problems inside the church. The problem is is the church will not be perfect until a new heaven and a new earth when Jesus fully sanctifies us and brings us to him. And if you do find a church that is perfect here on earth, do not go to it cuz it will no longer be perfect. And Paul as he starts this, he's like, "Hey, people will hurt you. It's just going to happen." But he keeps going in verse 7. He says, "As a result, they have hurt and and this person deserves punishment." He says, "Though as a result, here's what you should do. Even though this person has hurt me, has hurt the church. You should instead forgive and comfort him." Paul's talking about this guy who who has caused pain to Paul, who has caused pain to the church. He says you should forgive and comfort him. Otherwise, he may be overwhelmed by excessive grief. Therefore, I urge you to reaffirm your love to him. I wrote for this purpose to test your character to see if you are obedient in everything. Anyone you forgive, I do too. For what I have forgiven, if I forgiven anything, it is for your benefit in the presence of Christ. You see, Paul tells us when we're persevering through people hurt, that not only will it happen, but when it happens, it will also require forgiveness. And here's where churchmanship is different than just individual spirituality or just what we experience in our world is sometimes when people hurt us, it can be easy to just run away and cut them out of our lives. Someone hurts you at work. If it's a customer, you cut them out. You're like, I never want to see you again. If it's if it's a fellow peer, sometimes you're like, I just don't want to work with you. I'll keep it professional, but all of a sudden it doesn't go beyond a surface level. If it's a neighbor, uh like you're like, I'm just going to go inside, close the garage, and never see you again. All right. actually had a neighbor who came and their neighbors together and they're like, "I only see them at church." I'm like, "That is totally Phoenix, right? Just go into your garage, close it before anyone can see you, and then run inside uh to the AC." That it's hot out. That's the excuse we'll give right now. But in church, we can't just hide. We can't just run away. We aren't called to because here, Paul tells us that when hurt happens, we need to forgive so we can work towards reconciliation and restoration. But if we're honest, sometimes we don't like to do this. I told you last week of our kind of our kids, and we got four kids aging from 1 to nine. And we have different ways that we discipline them from spraying their mouth with apple cider vinegar to spanking them to doing quiet time, whatever works for that kid. But some of our really good friends inside our church, they have all boys and kind of around similar ages. And one of the things that works for their boys is when they're fighting and doing something and are out of bounds, they make them as a punishment then hold hands for like five minutes. Like they got to sit there and hold hands and then at the end of that they got to give each other a kiss. All right. Yeah. You're like, "Dang." And one of the kids has beat the system. He just like licks his whole mouth and stuff before that like all around and then he kisses his brother. And it's like that's like Roman Salt in the wound right there. Like he mastered it. Um, kids are jerks. Um, but anyway, I think sometimes when we say sorry, when we seek reconciliation, when we try to forgive one another inside the church, we're almost like kids holding hands mad about it. Like, man, I'm still I'm still angry at this person. They still hurt me. They still said that. They still offended me. And you will be offended at church, right? Pastor Jackie always says, "Cats are for kicking." I agree with him. Cats are from hell. that might offend you and make you mad. And sometimes reconciliation happens. And when the hurt comes, when we have to reconcile, sometimes if we're honest, part of us doesn't want to do it. But Paul calls us that that one of the ways we're part of this church family, when we're rooted in holiness, we're persevering through the people hurt because it happens. It'll require forgiveness. And look at where this leads in verse 11. I love this. He says, "Why do we forgive? Why do we reconcile? so that we may not be taken advantage of by Satan. For we are not ignorant of his schemes. You see, when we're persevering through people hurt, we need to know that it's going to happen. That's going to require forgiveness, but also it will require discernment. I I love here Paul, he doesn't just sweep the problem under the rug. He he doesn't say that there's no discipline and consequences. He even says early in that passage in verse 6 that there was punishment for this. But he also knows there's a time when we stop punishing, stop disciplining, and start restoring. And here's the reason behind the restoration. In verse 11, he's saying we do this so we may not be taken advantage of by Satan. He's saying Satan is a smart and a crafty enemy. Often times we don't want to forgive. We don't want to let go. We don't want to reconcile. We don't want to let go of the bitterness in our heart. And it's not hurting the person that we're refusing to fully forgive in our heart. It's hurting us because Satan is using that root of bitterness in our hearts to twist it and to do something with it. And you see, Satan, what Paul shows us here, he will use a festering and bitter heart to cause further division. Here's the irony, I think, is sometimes we want we want to forgive people in such a basic way and make up, but not the way that God makes up with us. You see, when God forgives our sin and when he restores his relationship, it says he casts our sin as far from the east as from the west. You can't even see them. They're not touching. He destroys our sin. Jesus's sacrifice, what we took in communion, it covers that sin. It makes it gone. God does not remember our sin anymore. But when people inside the church hurt us, we're like, "I'm going to forgive you, but I'm not going to forget about it. I'm going to remember it. I'm going to file that away because when you try to do this again, no, no, no, bro. I know you hurt me once and I know you're not going to hurt me again." And that's there's a problem. There's a process. You don't put yourself in in there's discerning. You don't set yourself up to be hurt, but you also don't expect to get hurt and not fully forgive that person. And Paul shows us as he is in a church at Corenth, a church that made a lot of issues, a church that Paul could have wrote off. Instead, he shows us how we continue to reconcile, we continue to forgive one another even through the hurt. But he continues and as he goes through this, he shows that our in order to root our churchmanships, our commitment, our community and holiness that we need to make sure we're persevering through the people hurt. But he continues in verse 13 and it shows this. He said, and and we're going to skip 12 and we'll come back to a second. In verse 13, he says, "I had no rest in my spirit." As Paul continues, he goes from saying, "Hey, there's this problem. There was this hurt and and we're we've forgiven it. We've moved on." But then he moves into the next section of the story. He said, "But there's this part that I have no rest in my heart." And Paul kind of opens up this next topic of what does a life look like that is rooted in holiness, that our churchmanship is rooted in holiness. We also need to make sure that we are preaching through life anxiety that comes our way. I I love this as Paul actually gets vulnerable here. He says that he was having issues in verse 13. This phrase, I had no rest in my spirit. If you take that little phrase no rest and you go back to the the original Greek language and you parse that out, it can be probably a more accurate definition is he had excruciating anxiety. Now, when I read that and I started studying that, my first thought was I didn't think they got anxious in the Bible. I thought anxiety was something we like invented in the past 50 years in, you know, in 2025. All right. No one used to get anxious like we get anxious today if we're being honest. Like anxiety is at an all-time high. Maybe we just define it better. But everyone in their mom is anxious now, including myself. Okay, that is just the world we live in. Um, and but Paul when he says this, he's like, "Oh, he's anxious, too." Oh, Paul lived like 2,000 plus years ago. Like Paul has excruciating anxiety about the situation he's going into. And here's what's fascinating is Paul had a a ministry that he was a part of. But as he was going in this ministry, all of a sudden Paul or God opened up a door through the Macedonian call to go into another area. And when he went in that other area, Paul could have continued down and being successful in planting more churches and doing all these things and writing more letters and just caring about the nice churches. But as he went this other way, it opened up a new gospel opportunity that God had for him. But with that gospel opportunity came more risk, came more uncertainty, and it also opened the door for him to have to deal with the heartache with this church at Corenth, which we'll see in just a second. But he was so anxious about all of this. And look at where it led in verse 12. He says this, "When I came to Trrowaz to preach the gospel of Christ, even though the Lord opened a door for me." So this is what precedes that verse of I had no rest. He says when he came to this opportunity that God opened up this uncertain gospel opportunity and he came here to preach the word all of a sudden this anxiety boiled up. Here's the first thing we need to learn when we talk about how we're preaching through life anxiety by rooting ourselves in churchmanship and holiness is that there is a choice. You see Paul, think about this for a second. He could have stayed in his comfortable apostilhip position and he's like, "I'm just going to stay on this side of the world. I'm going to let Corinth I wrote him enough letters. I'm already tired of these people. These people annoy me. I'm not going to go anymore." He's like, "Medonia, I don't even know those people. I don't know if I even want to go to that, but like I have enough on my plate. I'm going to stick in my lane over here." But instead, God opened up this door of uncertainty, one that was filled with anxiety, and he said, "Go through it." Well, here's what's important with Paul is there was a choice. And Paul could have chose to just go the way and taken the easy path and gone all this way, but instead he pushed through to preach this way, but he also to preach to the anxiety that came into his life, knowing that God was ultimately in control. I think when we step back and think about this for a second, we think about one that we can stay in the comfort and usually when we go down a path and we'll unpack this in a second that will have some obstacles we raise. But when our anxiety comes, we have a choice by how we fight it. And my question as I kind of wrote in my notes to myself and to our church as we're going through this is, have you made a choice not to let your anxiety control you? You see, Paul was going to uncertainty. Paul was going to something that caused him excruciating anxiety, but he knew God was behind it and knew God would see him through it. And there was a choice in Paul's life. He decided to go down that choice. And look at where it leads in verse 13. We'll read this full verse. It says, you know, when he went to preach to the Lord, he opened a door and it says, I had no rest in my spirit because I did not find my brother Titus. Titus is the one who gives him the report of all that's happening in Corinth in the church at Corinth. and telling him to why he has to write this letter. But he says, "Instead, I said goodbye to them and left for Macedonia." Paul ultimately chose to leave a successful ministry situation to go find Titus and to deal with this anxiety about the Corinthian church and to find these gospel opportunities to give in him. And Titus updated him on all this stuff. But this was not an easy choice to make. And when we talk about preaching through life anxiety, we need to see that there is a choice, but also that the right choice isn't necessarily the easy choice. You see, Paul could have stayed home. He could have lived an easier life. He could have not dealt with all these people at Corinth. He could have not dealt with the other issues. He could have not dealt with having to start another church from scratch. Instead of doing any of that, he focused on the gospel opportunity more than the logical and convenient opportunity in front of him. And the irony is this was definitely the harder option. You know, one of the things I think that often we get wrong is sometimes we think that being spiritual means we don't struggle with things. Like spiritual maturity is reaching the point where I'm not anxious or I'm not depressed or I'm not struggling with an issue. And that's not necessarily the case. Spiritual maturity is knowing that you do struggle with that, but that God provides the strength and the process to keep pushing through it. And we live in a world today where there's been some shifts and some of those are good. One of those shifts is counseling and therapy are more at the forefront than they have ever been before. And it's good we're talking about our problems where we're seeking help on our problems. But here's where I think our world has taken it too far is often in those environments we want to just talk about our issues instead of doing something about our issues. And you see the heart of counseling and therapy and the heart of the gospel, how it transforms us is that when we talk about our issues, we get to the root cause of our issues, then we get resourcing to push past those root causes. And as Jesus is our strength, we start to move forward, not in an easy way, but the hard path that pushes us to something greater. And Paul here as he goes into this uncertain time, as he takes this hard path of having to deal with these difficult people who have hurt him and continue to hurt him, he continues to preach the gospel to himself to find the problems of his pain, but to preach past that pain. And all this leads to I just I love how this passage sets up. It feels so disjointed and weird, but there's just this cohesion and this beauty as Paul reads through it as he starts and he's saying, "Hey, these people have hurt us. Let's reconcile. Let's forgive. Hey, your life is anxious just as mine. You're uncertain about the opportunities, but keep pushing through. And all of it leads to verse 14 where he says, "But thanks be to God who always leads us in Christ's triumphal procession." You see, when we're pushing through the people hurt, when we're preaching to ourselves through the anxiety that life comes, all this leads to when we're inside a church family, when our churchmanship is rooted in holiness and the right stuff that then God allows us to be a part of proceeding through kingdom opportunities. I love this in verse 14. Paul's tone changes in this passage. And and it changes because all of a sudden it's not negative. It's not the people problems. It's not his problems, but instead it's what God is doing through all those problems. He says, "Thanks be to God who always leads us in Christ's triumphal procession." Paul chose to look at the victories that God was doing rather than the problems that was in front of him. And the way he does this as this keeps going and and we'll read that verse again. We've read it a few times, but there's so much power here in verse 14. He says, "Thanks be to God who what? who always leads us. That's an important part right there. Who always leads us in Christ's victory in Christ's triumphal procession. You see, when we are proceeding through kingdom opportunities, when we have to forgive people because they've hurt us because people hurt us and people do these things, when we have to move through and how to deal with our anxiety and keep preaching the gospel and keep moving forward and get the resources to deal with us, then we can all of a sudden see the opportunities that God has put in front of our face. And when we see these kingdom opportunities, these ways to make Jesus known, we can be scared. But here's some encouragement we get off the bat is at the bat is that God goes before us. When we are preaching the Bible, when we are making Jesus known, when we are loving people, when we are showing them who Jesus is, we need to know that God goes before us. You see, we'll never go to a place in our life where God has not already been. I love this. Every Sunday someone will come up to me and I joked in first service that it wouldn't happen and then it did happen like at the very end right before second service started. Someone will always come up to me and and they'll be like, "Your sermon spoke directly to me." Like this exactly what I need to hear. And you know what I think in my head? I had no idea what you needed to hear. All right? I'm like, I don't know your problems. I I can't know all of your problems. All right? I got my own problems. I barely know those problems. Uh I'm trying to understand my problems, understand my wife's problems so we can move forward together. And then people are like, "You spoke like it was like right to me." I'm like, "I didn't do that. God did that." And in that process, here's what's happened is the Holy Spirit has been working in our hearts. He's been taking the layers off our heart. One of the things we started the last couple weeks as we've gone through the book of Second Corinthians is every Thursday at 2:00, we gather live on all of our social media platforms and we read through the text and pray through the text. We call it the Sunday setup cuz we want God to set up our hearts to do something great. And the Holy Spirit does that. He knows what you're going through. I do not. But he does. He's chipping the layers away so that when the word of God is proclaimed, when we hear the living, breathing word of God, all of a sudden you're like, "That's exactly what I need to hear." Not because some guy has good jokes or he's really good-looking on stage, but are both true. But because God knows you and his word does not return void. And when you see these gospel opportunities, know that God has gone before you. God has prepared the field. God is moving ahead of us. But Paul continues on in the second half of verse 14, I love it, is he leads us in Christ's triumphal possess procession. But then he and through us he spreads the aroma of the knowledge of him in every place. Through us, he spreads the anoma aroma. Here's I love this is when we proceed through kingdom opportunities, God not only goes before us, but God goes with us. That we are not alone. The literal knowledge of God is surrounding us. And and we're going to this word is kind of used again, but in this context, it's a little different than what we'll see in 15 on. But that knowledge of God is here with us. You see, the word of God, it is living. Meaning that we are not alone. We're not without a message from God. We're not lost without God. But God's word is breathed out of his mouth. God is literally with us as we read these words and we proclaim the living God. And he not only plants the seeds before we go out, but he comes alongside us and doing something that we cannot do alone. And I love all this cuz then it builds to verse 15 as we kind of close out the passage that Paul has been taking us through. He says, "For to God we are the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To some we are the aroma of death leading to death, but to others an aroma of life leading to life." Who is adequate for these things? For we do not market the word of God for a profit like so many. On the contrary, we speak with sincerity in Christ as from God and before God. You see, when we are proceeding through the opportunities that God has put for his kingdom, when we're pushing past the the people hurt, when we're preaching through the anxiety we have, and then all of a sudden, God starts opening up doors to share his word with us, but to share word with a a world around us. God before us. God is with us. But I love this. God also works through us. And in this, I love this so much. It it shows here, he he uses this illustration in 15 through1 17 that we are the fragrance of Christ. The word fragrance obviously talks about smell. And they say the aroma of Christ that all of a sudden like you can smell it. You know when you walk into something and you can smell it, right? I got one kid in diapers. The other three are not in diapers. When she poops, I can smell it. All right. I'm like, "Something doesn't smell right." Like, "Did you did you crap yourself?" That's what I said. Um I'm sorry. Cut that part offline. Um but like something doesn't smell right here. It's like I smell it. My wife, the the more kids we've had, I don't know what happens. It's seriously I think like as we've you know, she's become more sensitive to fragrances and so much so that she does not she can't stand synthetic fragrances. So, like when she looks on the label, she's one of those people that looks on the labels of things. You know, who looks on labels? Like, yeah, we're all like eating plastic. It's fine. Um, but she'll look at the labels and stuff and if something has the word fragrance on it, that's an added fake fragrance. So, it's not real. It's not like a real lemon. It's like a fake plastic lemon that they like put in the So, like you light a candle with fake fragrance and like if I burn that in my house, she will burn me. All right? So, like she is sensitive to those fragrances. is like she smells them and now I become sensitive to them. And I was like I can't even like smell Clorox now without being mad or whatever. I don't know. Um but but it's sensitive to it. And as I was thinking about this, people also smell stuff on us. And when you are around people, when you're around the world around you, do people smell Jesus on you? Before I became a pastor and I went to ASU, got my undergrad in business management. and I got a job in the corporate world and my district manager who I still talk to to this day. Uh he was like my boss's boss's boss. He like came up to me one time. He's like, "There's something different about you." I'm like, "That ain't good." All right, that's not a good way to start a conversation. He's like, "No, but in a positive way." He's like, "There's just something different." He's like, "There's something just more honest, more genuine, more more loving about you." And I kind of told him, I'm like, "That is not me." I'm like, "I am not that person. In my flesh, I'm a sinner and thinking horrible thoughts that I keep in my mind. But what that is is that is Jesus spilling out of me. And when we go into our world, do people smell Jesus on us? Is there something different about us? Do they smell that and be like, "You're not like everyone else in our world." Is there something that makes you distinct and sticks out? And as we reflect on this whole passage in 2 Corinthians 5 through17, here's what I love. The heart of all this that the way we can repair relationships with inside the church, the way that we can preach through and move through the anxiety we have, the way we can ready ourselves to make Jesus known to the world around us and be and smell like Jesus to the world around us. All of it only happens when we are rooted in a church environment. We are rooted in a church family. Our churchmanship is rooted in holiness. And as we reflect on how do we do that? How do we become that? How do we gain into our church family? Here's the question I want you to reflect on this week. And this holy reflection that isn't for you to ask someone else. It's for you to ask yourself in your heart. And it's between you and God. If you're being honest on the answer to this question is, have I replaced churchmanship? The things we see here. Have I replaced churchmanship? being committed, serving, being faithful, being a part of a community. Have I replaced churchmanship with searchmanship? I just made up a word. It's okay. We can go with it. All right. But have I replaced what God has given us inside the church? Have I replaced it with searching for something more? Here, here's the difference that we see, and I think this is huge in our world today because we love to search for things. When we don't know an answer, we Google it. Now when we don't know an answer, we just ask AI and it just makes up an answer and we think it's real, right? But we search so much to get knowledge to get the answer to have us and we even have infected this inside the church. Here's where I think the culture of the church is at today. Searchmanship, this idea when it's infected inside the church community and to us as followers, it says I'll get involved when I find the right church. Here's what churchmanship says. It says, "I'll be a part of what makes the church right by getting involved." Churchmanship says, "I'll forgive people when they deserve it. They'll forgive you when you deserve it." Churchmanship says, "I'll forgive because the church, including myself that I'm part of, needs it." Searchmanship says, "I'll serve when I feel equipped and anxietyfree." Good luck with that coming to pass. Churchmanship says, "I'll serve even when I'm struggling." Because that's what the body does. Churchmanship says, "I'll commit when everything's perfect." But churchmanship says, "I'll commit so that God can work through the imperfect." See, these past few weeks, we had student camp. We took about a day break, and then we went to kids camp. And through all that time, all we have a lot of leaders who are involved in all those are sleeping in closets in between services cuz they're all tired and need need a lot of rest after. But here's what I love about those camp experiences. I got to pop into both of those and see just how God was working. You got to hear some of the reports of those. But here's what I love more than anything is those kids who said yes to Jesus. who said, "I'm done searching for what the world says I need." The world says I need money. The world says I need influence. The world says I need people to see me. The world says I need to act this way. I need to be this type of person. I need to help. I need to have these problems and then talk about these problem. The world says all this stuff and they've searched for it cuz the world has told them to. But what I need is Jesus and his salvation and his forgiveness and his reconciliation back to us. I need a new life in Jesus that roots me in a church family that that churchmanship is rooted in holiness, becoming more like him so that I can start to live out the life that God wants for me. And here's the deal. When you start down that path, when you accept that yes, Jesus did come here for you. Yes, he did die for you. Yes, he did raise from the grave to defeat those sins. Yes, he's still intervening on your behalf. He's calling you to himself. What happens as a result and you say yes to that is you get to join a church family and it doesn't become easier because people are involved. It just becomes harder and they'll probably make you more mad. But through that process, as iron sharpens iron, as people love people, as all of a sudden we're bonded together through the trials, as all of a sudden we're looking to the right sources to deal with the hardships of life. Through all that, God is oper opening up opportunities to make Jesus known to go into our world to smell like Jesus so we can invite more people in to this messed up family that we're a part of. but that God is perfecting, that God is making more holy so that one day in a new heaven and new earth, we will all be worshiping and rejoicing together because our God loved us so much to invite us to be a part of this family. My prayer this week is that you're honest with your heart. What is holding you back? What are you searching for that you're not finding inside the world? What are you trying to do God's role for that's just ending in disappointment? Do you see need to say yes to Jesus for the first time? Do you need to say yes to getting more involved in a group of broken people inside his church? Do you need to say yes to opening up your life and being vulnerable in community? What do you need to say yes to that you've been searching for that you can only find in the love of God and in the love of his people? [Music]