WEBVTT - André Butler - Oct 24 - 1:00 pm 0:00:00.400 --> 0:00:02.780 All right, today we're continuing a series we began last 0:00:02.840 --> 0:00:07.560 week called This Is Us. And as we said last week, 0:00:08.020 --> 0:00:11.800 if you're somebody that's chosen to follow Jesus, Jesus didn't 0:00:11.860 --> 0:00:16.550 just save you from something. He actually saved you into something. 0:00:17.190 --> 0:00:20.050 And that something is a family. And so last week 0:00:20.090 --> 0:00:23.450 we learned that church isn't just something you attend. 0:00:23.930 --> 0:00:26.940 It's who you are. We said, I am FX. Somebody 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:30.680 say this, I am FX. That's right. We are a 0:00:30.710 --> 0:00:31.230 fixed church. 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:34.670 And we learned that when the Bible talks about church, it, 0:00:34.780 --> 0:00:37.660 of course, is talking about the overall church of the 0:00:37.700 --> 0:00:40.740 Lord Jesus Christ. That's everybody on the planet that has 0:00:40.820 --> 0:00:43.659 chosen to follow Jesus. But there are also places in 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:47.380 the Bible where it talks about specific groups of people 0:00:47.420 --> 0:00:51.500 that come together to worship together on a regular basis 0:00:51.540 --> 0:00:54.540 or what we call church. We found that God has 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:57.280 actually called you to be a part of a local 0:00:57.360 --> 0:01:00.900 church and to have a pastor, and to follow the 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:03.840 vision God has given that church. And here at FX Church, 0:01:03.940 --> 0:01:07.220 our vision is for everybody we come in contact with 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:10.170 to go on a journey, a journey where they will 0:01:10.209 --> 0:01:13.050 know God for themselves. They'll find freedom from whatever's been 0:01:13.090 --> 0:01:15.830 holding them back. They'll discover the purpose God has for 0:01:15.850 --> 0:01:18.190 their lives, and then they'll make a difference in this world. 0:01:18.709 --> 0:01:22.560 And we want our FX family to distribute or exhibit 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:27.100 for values, which is that we love God, we love people, 0:01:27.180 --> 0:01:31.699 we pursue excellence, and we always choose joy. And then 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:34.680 we ended last week by just encouraging you to identify 0:01:34.819 --> 0:01:36.280 what your next step is. 0:01:36.340 --> 0:01:37.080 Is it know God? 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:39.919 Is it find freedom? Is it discover purpose? Whatever it is, 0:01:40.220 --> 0:01:43.360 and then take your next step. And for some of us, 0:01:43.459 --> 0:01:45.440 our next step is that we need to stop dating 0:01:45.500 --> 0:01:48.750 our church and commit to our church by becoming members. 0:01:49.340 --> 0:01:50.880 So today I want to go a different direction. I 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:54.560 want you to go up, if you will, to Mark 0:01:54.580 --> 0:01:59.720 chapter one. And the title of my message today is 0:01:59.820 --> 0:02:03.559 who's coaching you? Now, I've got up here a couple 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:06.440 of things that a coach would use. I've got the 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:11.120 headset and I've got a whistle with that's a little pink. 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:14.290 That's not my whistle. Don't look at me funny. And 0:02:14.430 --> 0:02:18.410 I've got a clipboard, right? And so these are things 0:02:18.430 --> 0:02:22.780 that a coach uses. And usually what's interesting about coaches, 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:24.840 of course, is usually they're not on the field. 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:27.240 They're not playing the game. 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:29.900 In fact, the person that is on the field, the 0:02:29.940 --> 0:02:32.820 person that is playing the game is younger, stronger, maybe 0:02:32.860 --> 0:02:37.369 even more talented. And yet they need the coach to 0:02:37.450 --> 0:02:41.130 help them to win, to fulfill their potential. 0:02:41.150 --> 0:02:42.380 I mean, think about it. 0:02:42.889 --> 0:02:50.079 Michael Jordan had coaches. Tom Brady had coaches. Serena Williams 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:53.880 had coaches. As great as they were as athletes, they 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:57.440 could not reach their potential. They could not be as 0:02:57.500 --> 0:03:01.760 successful as they wanted to be without a coach. And 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:06.840 they understood that. They actually often took more to coaching 0:03:07.150 --> 0:03:11.410 the higher up they went rather than the opposite where, well, 0:03:11.490 --> 0:03:12.150 I've arrived. 0:03:12.210 --> 0:03:14.850 I don't need that much help anymore. No, they recognized that. 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:18.000 That even though you might be great on the field, 0:03:18.380 --> 0:03:20.959 your coach on the sideline can see something that you 0:03:21.020 --> 0:03:24.559 can't see. And you need to learn from them that 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:27.600 you can be better, you can become who you wanted 0:03:27.650 --> 0:03:30.030 to be as an athlete. And the same thing is 0:03:30.070 --> 0:03:35.190 true spiritually. Somehow, when it comes to our spiritual lives, 0:03:35.270 --> 0:03:39.950 we've gotten this idea that, well, I've got Jesus, I've 0:03:39.990 --> 0:03:44.000 got my Bible, I go to church, so I'm good. 0:03:45.730 --> 0:03:51.090 But God never designed Christianity to work that way. God 0:03:51.370 --> 0:03:56.490 actually never intended for you to grow alone. So I 0:03:56.490 --> 0:03:57.970 want to draw your attention to something we put on 0:03:57.990 --> 0:04:04.130 the screens called the five circles of church. And I 0:04:04.170 --> 0:04:09.190 want you to recognize that a healthy Christian lives in 0:04:09.350 --> 0:04:13.720 all five circles. Their life operates in all five circles. 0:04:13.740 --> 0:04:15.910 So what are they? Well, first of all, you see 0:04:16.510 --> 0:04:23.289 your personal devotional life. Then you see life on life discipleship. 0:04:24.230 --> 0:04:26.010 Then you see church. 0:04:25.750 --> 0:04:27.000 From house to house. 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:30.880 We call that small groups. Then you see church gathered. 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:34.340 That's maybe for us Sunday mornings and first Wednesdays. Then 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:37.980 you see witnesses in the world. So these are five 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:43.060 circles of church. A healthy Christian is someone that actually 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:46.370 has all five circles in their life. 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:48.370 So let's walk through these for a moment. 0:04:50.330 --> 0:04:58.290 Mark chapter 1, verse 35. And in the morning, rising 0:04:58.350 --> 0:05:00.690 up a great while before day, he went out and 0:05:00.750 --> 0:05:06.920 departed into a solitary, somebody say solitary, a solitary place 0:05:07.100 --> 0:05:07.779 and their prey. 0:05:08.800 --> 0:05:11.979 This is talking about Jesus. And this is after Jesus. 0:05:11.740 --> 0:05:14.419 Has spent really a lot of the evening before ministering 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:19.060 to people, healing, casting out devils, etc. 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:22.140 The next morning he gets up early. 0:05:23.380 --> 0:05:26.420 He leaves what I believe was Peter's house and goes 0:05:26.540 --> 0:05:29.840 out to a solitary place. The idea here is to 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:34.559 be alone. And he does that so he can pray. Well, 0:05:34.580 --> 0:05:37.960 what's prayer? Prayer is just ultimately talking to God. So 0:05:37.980 --> 0:05:42.120 what Jesus was actually doing was making sure he had 0:05:42.180 --> 0:05:44.820 some one-on-one time with God. 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:47.779 And he did this consistently. 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:50.520 If you read through the Gospels, you'll see time after 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:53.440 time where Jesus will go to a mountain away from 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:56.060 everybody else, or Jesus will go a little deeper into 0:05:56.110 --> 0:06:00.430 a garden away from everybody else. He prioritized having one-on-one 0:06:00.490 --> 0:06:05.109 time with God. And if Jesus needed one-on-one time with God, 0:06:05.130 --> 0:06:06.910 I mean, no, we need one-on-one time with God too. 0:06:07.850 --> 0:06:08.270 Yeah, we do. 0:06:08.330 --> 0:06:11.010 And the Bible tells us repeatedly that we should do that. 0:06:11.050 --> 0:06:14.190 It tells us to pray always. It tells us to 0:06:14.250 --> 0:06:18.130 spend time with God on a very consistent basis. But 0:06:18.170 --> 0:06:20.850 not only should we be praying with God or to 0:06:20.890 --> 0:06:25.490 God every single day, but look at Psalm chapter 1 0:06:27.310 --> 0:06:32.820 and verse 2. It says, but his delight... is in 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:37.310 the law of the Lord. And in his law, he 0:06:37.550 --> 0:06:38.890 meditates how often? 0:06:40.050 --> 0:06:43.570 Day and night. There's that everyday thing again. Day and night, 0:06:43.730 --> 0:06:44.270 every day. 0:06:44.550 --> 0:06:47.440 Now Psalm 1 is talking about a man who is 0:06:47.500 --> 0:06:51.620 successful because God's blessing is on him. God's prospering what 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:53.900 he puts his hand to. This is who we want 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:57.430 to be. And yet one of the keys to his success, 0:06:57.490 --> 0:07:01.570 like Jesus' success, the key to his success was his 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:04.799 personal devotional life. In this case, this scripture is talking 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:08.220 about spending time in the Bible, that this was a 0:07:08.260 --> 0:07:10.940 man who loved God's word. And so this was a 0:07:10.980 --> 0:07:14.140 man who was meditating, which means to imagine, to think about, 0:07:14.580 --> 0:07:19.140 ultimately to try to understand the Bible day and night. 0:07:20.170 --> 0:07:23.510 And so because of his personal time with God and 0:07:23.610 --> 0:07:28.060 reading the Bible, that's why he had great success. And 0:07:28.100 --> 0:07:32.300 so once again, you see this circle of having your 0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:36.340 personal devotional time with God. Because if you will spend 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:39.470 time with God like Jesus did, if you'll spend time 0:07:39.610 --> 0:07:43.950 in the Bible like the psalmist did, then you'll see 0:07:44.210 --> 0:07:45.910 that you'll have the future that you want. 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:48.520 But you got to do these two things. 0:07:48.820 --> 0:07:50.580 And this is where some of us miss it, is 0:07:50.620 --> 0:07:55.050 that we don't prioritize our time with God. You know, 0:07:55.130 --> 0:07:59.070 I grew up listening to a Christian singing group called Commissioned. 0:07:59.110 --> 0:08:01.630 Anybody remember Commissioned? All right, some of y'all in here 0:08:01.650 --> 0:08:04.600 do remember Commissioned. All right, so I know who's in 0:08:04.630 --> 0:08:08.900 this audience. And I remember when I was struggling with 0:08:08.940 --> 0:08:11.840 trying to do this on a consistent basis. You know, 0:08:11.860 --> 0:08:14.160 there were days where I meant to pray, but I didn't. 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:17.360 I meant to read my Bible, but I didn't. You know, 0:08:17.500 --> 0:08:20.500 I just couldn't get myself to be consistent. That they 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:25.170 had this one song that really spoke to me. And basically, 0:08:26.210 --> 0:08:30.010 the song was God singing to you. And God saying, 0:08:30.230 --> 0:08:34.830 I miss my time with you. And that spoke to me. 0:08:35.490 --> 0:08:37.209 Because it said to me, man, I have a date 0:08:37.290 --> 0:08:40.630 with God every day. I should not stand him up. 0:08:42.380 --> 0:08:45.150 I should show up every day. And if I do that, 0:08:45.570 --> 0:08:47.569 I'm going to have good results. I mean, with Jesus 0:08:47.890 --> 0:08:50.209 and even with the man we talked about in Psalm 1, 0:08:50.210 --> 0:08:53.330 when they spent this time with God, that led to 0:08:53.370 --> 0:08:58.050 them having joy and strength and supernatural power. And that's 0:08:58.090 --> 0:09:01.010 exactly what will happen when I have my time with God. 0:09:02.130 --> 0:09:05.720 And God wants us to do that, to actually have 0:09:06.059 --> 0:09:11.370 personal devotional time with him. Sometimes we don't understand why 0:09:11.410 --> 0:09:14.540 we're struggling so much in life, but if my phone 0:09:14.580 --> 0:09:19.280 were at 2%, nobody would look at a phone that's 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:21.160 at 2% and say, I don't know why my phone's 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:25.170 not working. We know why it's not working. You haven't 0:09:25.210 --> 0:09:27.950 plugged it into the source. There's a lot of 2% Christians. 0:09:30.500 --> 0:09:32.360 We're trying to figure out how come things aren't working 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:34.380 and the problem is you haven't plugged it into the source. 0:09:34.420 --> 0:09:35.520 Just like you need to charge this. 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:37.520 Every day, you've got to charge your spirit every day 0:09:37.540 --> 0:09:44.730 by having personal devotional time with God. Alright, so that's 0:09:44.830 --> 0:09:45.510 circle number one. 0:09:45.550 --> 0:09:50.010 Number two, life on life discipleship. 0:09:50.010 --> 0:09:54.900 Mark chapter 3 verse 14, excuse me, says this, and he, 0:09:54.900 --> 0:10:02.290 talking about Jesus, ordained 12 that they should be with 0:10:02.950 --> 0:10:07.410 him and that he might send them forth to preach. 0:10:07.929 --> 0:10:10.699 Now at this point in Jesus's ministry, he has thousands 0:10:10.740 --> 0:10:14.800 of people following him, but God put on his heart, 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:18.179 he found out in prayer that that there were 12 0:10:18.179 --> 0:10:24.490 men that were assigned to be his apostles. And so 0:10:24.510 --> 0:10:30.210 he pulled them from the bunch, and they got to 0:10:30.450 --> 0:10:32.710 be with him in a way. 0:10:32.550 --> 0:10:33.550 That no one else did. 0:10:33.570 --> 0:10:38.500 You know, he preached to the multitudes, but he discipled 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:44.579 the 12, right? He preached to the multitudes first, But 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:47.800 he traveled with the twelve. He ate with the twelve. 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:51.060 He slept with the twelve. He corrected the twelve. He 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:56.469 taught the twelve. He coached the twelve. And the reason 0:10:56.500 --> 0:10:59.270 why is, as the written scripture says, that he might 0:10:59.410 --> 0:11:04.350 send them forth to preach. So he was coaching them, 0:11:04.890 --> 0:11:06.670 getting them ready so that they could do what he 0:11:06.730 --> 0:11:10.439 was doing. And this one-on-one time with him and even 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:13.540 this group time with him that they had led to 0:11:13.540 --> 0:11:17.260 11 out of the 12 becoming the great apostles that 0:11:17.300 --> 0:11:19.660 we talk about to this day. But it was this 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:26.199 life-on-life discipleship that produced this. This wasn't classroom instruction. This 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:30.110 was personal coaching. You know, if you want to look 0:11:30.140 --> 0:11:32.610 a certain way, one of the ways you can get 0:11:32.690 --> 0:11:36.630 there is by hiring a personal trainer. And that personal 0:11:36.690 --> 0:11:38.970 trainer will tell you, this is how you should eat. 0:11:39.070 --> 0:11:40.859 And these are the exercises that you should do. And 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:43.140 they'll even encourage you to do this the right way. 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:45.040 Or they'll encourage you when you want to take a 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:48.220 day off. They're helping you to get to a destination. 0:11:48.500 --> 0:11:50.280 And the same thing is true spiritually. I'm going to 0:11:50.300 --> 0:11:52.230 get into this a little bit later. But there's sometimes 0:11:52.510 --> 0:11:54.449 one of the things we need is we need some 0:11:54.510 --> 0:11:58.209 personal coaches. We need some life-on-life discipleship so that we 0:11:58.270 --> 0:12:00.870 look spiritually and our lives look the way we want 0:12:00.910 --> 0:12:04.470 them to look. That's one of the circles of church 0:12:04.790 --> 0:12:08.010 that maybe we have been missing out on. I'll come 0:12:08.050 --> 0:12:08.510 back to that. 0:12:08.830 --> 0:12:15.880 All right, number three. House to house. House to house. 0:12:16.500 --> 0:12:19.440 Acts 2 verse 46 says this about the early church. 0:12:20.940 --> 0:12:24.570 And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple 0:12:25.170 --> 0:12:31.940 and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:37.450 meat with gladness and singleness of heart. So notice that 0:12:37.500 --> 0:12:43.910 the church didn't just meet in large settings like this one. 0:12:44.610 --> 0:12:49.010 The church also met in small settings. The idea here 0:12:49.170 --> 0:12:52.720 is that the church of the Lord Jesus Christ actually 0:12:53.140 --> 0:12:57.560 spent time in each other's homes. And they were spending 0:12:57.580 --> 0:13:00.340 that time in each other's homes, first of all, just eating. 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:04.270 Just enjoying each other. You know, in fact, if you 0:13:04.290 --> 0:13:06.670 study this a little bit deeper, you find that the 0:13:06.690 --> 0:13:10.580 word gladness means great joy. So this isn't people who 0:13:10.620 --> 0:13:12.640 are going to a small group because my church said 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:13.660 I need to go to a small group. 0:13:14.780 --> 0:13:17.179 These people that were enjoying life together. 0:13:18.350 --> 0:13:20.950 And the Bible says singleness of heart, and that actually 0:13:20.990 --> 0:13:25.570 refers to there's an absence of pretense or ulterior motives. 0:13:25.830 --> 0:13:28.270 So these weren't people that were putting on a mask 0:13:28.540 --> 0:13:31.699 when they got around church people that were faking it. No, 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:33.860 they were real with their brothers and sisters. And this 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:37.980 scripture actually shows us what the relationship dynamic was of 0:13:38.020 --> 0:13:41.080 the early church. And this is what we want. The 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:43.800 early church was a place where they enjoyed each other. 0:13:44.059 --> 0:13:46.079 It was a place where they were real with each other. 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:48.960 It was a place where they worshiped together, not just 0:13:49.020 --> 0:13:52.300 in large settings like this, but also in small group settings. 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:54.920 I won't take it all the scriptures, but the Bible 0:13:54.980 --> 0:13:58.640 reveals repeatedly that they would often have times where they 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:01.970 heard the word of God or they worshiped God together 0:14:02.270 --> 0:14:06.610 in small groups. In fact, if you look at Jesus's ministry, 0:14:06.830 --> 0:14:10.250 you'll find that about half of his ministry miracles happened 0:14:10.450 --> 0:14:14.479 in small groups. We think of Jesus doing ministry miracles 0:14:14.550 --> 0:14:16.460 in a setting like this, and he did, but he 0:14:16.550 --> 0:14:19.380 also did them where, you know, there's people all packed 0:14:19.420 --> 0:14:21.500 into a house, and the Bible says the power of 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:24.640 the Lord is present to heal. And a man's friends 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:26.560 break up the roof and drop him down through the roof, 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:28.700 and Jesus heals the man right there on the spot. 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:29.860 That happened in a house. 0:14:31.530 --> 0:14:33.500 And so this is part of the Christian life is 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:36.960 that we are not just in rows, but we are 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:40.920 also in circles. Because there's some things that I can 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:43.280 get in rows in a setting like this, I can't 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:45.240 get in circles. But there are some things I can 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:48.690 get in circles that I can't get in rows. You know, 0:14:48.710 --> 0:14:50.590 if you're a football player, one of the things that 0:14:50.630 --> 0:14:52.530 you know is that you can be in a stadium 0:14:52.570 --> 0:14:56.170 with 65,000 people watching you, and that's great, but you 0:14:56.210 --> 0:14:58.670 can't build a deep relationship with the people in that stadium. 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:03.100 where you find your relationships in a locker room. And 0:15:03.140 --> 0:15:06.510 a locker room is where people can know you and 0:15:06.530 --> 0:15:09.530 you can connect with them and they can grow with you, right? 0:15:09.990 --> 0:15:13.820 And Sunday is the stadium, but your group is the 0:15:13.860 --> 0:15:17.020 locker room. And that's something that we need. In a 0:15:17.060 --> 0:15:20.100 large setting, we worship God together. We flow in the 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:23.760 gifts of the Spirit together. We celebrate and receive vision together. 0:15:23.980 --> 0:15:27.200 But in a small group setting, somebody knows when you're hurting. 0:15:27.420 --> 0:15:30.360 Somebody knows when you're struggling. Somebody knows when you're winning. 0:15:30.420 --> 0:15:35.359 Somebody knows when you're drifting. Somebody is intimately involved in 0:15:35.420 --> 0:15:38.880 your life. Your group can be that team that helps 0:15:38.940 --> 0:15:41.080 you to become who God's called you to be. 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:45.760 So that's your third circle. All right, number four. Now, 0:15:45.780 --> 0:15:46.860 you know I'm working on something, right? 0:15:47.870 --> 0:15:49.400 I'm taking you somewhere, but I want you to see 0:15:49.420 --> 0:15:51.010 this because I do want you to recognize, I'm getting 0:15:51.030 --> 0:15:53.370 a little ahead of myself, which circle are you missing? 0:15:55.110 --> 0:15:58.370 Because for some people, they've got one or two circles. Basically, 0:15:58.610 --> 0:16:02.310 it's me and Jesus and me and church. And so 0:16:02.330 --> 0:16:03.990 they're wondering, well, how come my life isn't really what 0:16:04.030 --> 0:16:06.390 I want it to be? Because there's five circles of church. 0:16:07.030 --> 0:16:10.810 Because you're unhealthy spiritually. It's like if you only eat 0:16:10.870 --> 0:16:13.010 certain foods, if you never eat vegetables, we're going to 0:16:13.030 --> 0:16:16.080 have a problem. If you never drink water, there's going 0:16:16.100 --> 0:16:18.760 to be a problem. If you never eat protein, there's 0:16:18.780 --> 0:16:20.920 going to be a problem. You need all of those things. 0:16:21.140 --> 0:16:23.310 And the same thing is true concerning your Christianity. 0:16:23.510 --> 0:16:24.470 Your walk with God. 0:16:24.710 --> 0:16:27.990 You need all five circles to be healthy spiritually and 0:16:28.030 --> 0:16:30.890 live the future that you long for. All right, so 0:16:30.910 --> 0:16:33.470 number four, we know this one, church gathered. 0:16:34.690 --> 0:16:35.610 Church, gather. 0:16:35.730 --> 0:16:38.190 Hebrews 10 verse 24 says this, let us consider one 0:16:38.230 --> 0:16:41.000 another in order to stir up love and good works, 0:16:41.580 --> 0:16:47.500 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:52.320 manner of some, but exhorting one another and so much 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:54.620 the more as you see the day approaching. 0:16:54.660 --> 0:16:57.130 So notice that he's talking. 0:16:56.790 --> 0:17:02.050 About our relationship with each other. And we might get 0:17:02.070 --> 0:17:03.570 a little deeper into this, but there are three things 0:17:03.610 --> 0:17:05.550 that he says we should be doing for each other. 0:17:05.830 --> 0:17:09.270 We should be considering one another. We should be provoking 0:17:09.390 --> 0:17:12.330 one another to do good. We should be exhorting one another, 0:17:13.350 --> 0:17:15.770 which is why we should not skip it when we 0:17:15.810 --> 0:17:16.630 all come together. 0:17:16.650 --> 0:17:18.890 That's his point. 0:17:19.070 --> 0:17:21.689 He said some people had the habit of skipping church, 0:17:21.730 --> 0:17:24.469 and he wasn't just talking about missing a Sunday. The 0:17:24.630 --> 0:17:29.790 idea here is abandoning the idea of church. Anybody know 0:17:29.810 --> 0:17:32.389 some people that say things like this? I'm a Christian, 0:17:32.430 --> 0:17:35.170 but I don't need to go to church. I don't 0:17:35.190 --> 0:17:38.550 need that church. That pastor, I don't trust this church. 0:17:39.369 --> 0:17:42.340 And that's literally what he's talking about here, saying don't 0:17:42.450 --> 0:17:44.629 do that. And then the next scripture tells you why, 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:48.020 because if you start walking away from the church, what 0:17:48.060 --> 0:17:51.000 happens is you're now in danger of walking away from Jesus. 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:53.980 And that's what he was saying in this chapter. He 0:17:54.020 --> 0:17:56.400 talks about how they were in a real time of persecution. 0:17:56.660 --> 0:17:59.350 And so things were rough because they were following Jesus. 0:17:59.690 --> 0:18:02.270 And so you needed to go to church partly so 0:18:02.310 --> 0:18:05.369 that you can be encouraged to stick this out, to 0:18:05.410 --> 0:18:07.070 keep doing what you know to do. So you will 0:18:07.090 --> 0:18:09.910 not cast away your confidence. You will not shrink back 0:18:09.970 --> 0:18:12.449 from your faith in Jesus, but you keep on walking 0:18:12.490 --> 0:18:15.060 with him until you saw the breakthrough that you're waiting for. 0:18:16.260 --> 0:18:18.580 In fact, there's a scripture that some people have really misunderstood, 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:22.550 the next scripture, and he talks about how once a 0:18:22.609 --> 0:18:26.129 person has chosen to follow Jesus and then begins to 0:18:26.270 --> 0:18:30.050 sin willfully, that there's no more sacrifice for their sin. 0:18:30.830 --> 0:18:32.330 And some people have taken that and said, well, that 0:18:32.369 --> 0:18:34.710 means that if I follow Jesus and then I commit 0:18:34.950 --> 0:18:37.550 one sin and then Jesus comes back, I'm going to hell. 0:18:37.590 --> 0:18:38.590 That's not what that's talking about. 0:18:39.550 --> 0:18:43.600 That's talking about you being an individual that sins willfully 0:18:43.740 --> 0:18:45.460 and choosing to reject Jesus. 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:48.850 That's the context. I believed in him. 0:18:49.140 --> 0:18:52.420 I was following him, and now I've chosen to not 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:56.520 follow him anymore. Now you're in a position where there 0:18:56.580 --> 0:18:59.659 is no more sacrifice for you. You have put underfoot 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:02.900 the blood of Jesus. How do you get to that point? 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:08.770 Because you skipped church. Because when the church gathers, you 0:19:08.850 --> 0:19:12.879 are absent. So you don't have what you need and 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:16.210 you don't have people around you to help you stay 0:19:16.250 --> 0:19:20.670 the course. And you can see clearly here then that 0:19:21.109 --> 0:19:23.010 one of the things that a Christian should be doing 0:19:23.410 --> 0:19:25.950 is going to a local church. We looked at it 0:19:25.990 --> 0:19:28.620 last week when the scripture says, obey them that have 0:19:28.660 --> 0:19:31.720 the rule over you because they watch for your souls. 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:32.280 What's he saying? 0:19:32.720 --> 0:19:36.399 Somebody's supposed to be your pastor. Somebody is supposed to 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:39.060 be watching out for you spiritually. In James 5, it says, 0:19:39.140 --> 0:19:41.080 if there are any sick among you, let them call 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:42.280 for the elders of the church. 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:43.919 They'll pray over them. They'll be healed. 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:46.169 You can't call for the elders of your church if 0:19:46.210 --> 0:19:47.169 you don't have a church. 0:19:49.330 --> 0:19:49.530 Right? 0:19:49.740 --> 0:19:52.620 So clearly part of the Christian life is we come 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:56.300 together because we can grow together. 0:19:57.530 --> 0:19:58.389 Better, all right? 0:19:58.830 --> 0:20:02.370 Number five, still working on something. Somebody say working on something. 0:20:03.510 --> 0:20:05.189 You know, a picture of this, by the way, what 0:20:05.210 --> 0:20:09.280 I just said is picture of fire, And you pull 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:13.920 one burning coal away from the others. After a while, 0:20:13.940 --> 0:20:16.980 what's going to happen to that coal? It's going to 0:20:17.000 --> 0:20:20.119 cool off, right? If you put it back with the 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:23.890 other coals, it'll start heating up again. That's why God 0:20:23.930 --> 0:20:26.070 says don't have the habit of pulling away from church. 0:20:26.950 --> 0:20:30.990 Because you can be somebody who loves Jesus and still 0:20:31.109 --> 0:20:35.129 cool off because you're constantly separating yourself from God's people. 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:37.380 We need each other to grow. 0:20:39.369 --> 0:20:43.910 All right, number five, witness in this world. That fifth 0:20:44.410 --> 0:20:49.100 circle of the healthy Christian life is that I'm a 0:20:49.260 --> 0:20:52.460 witness in the world. Acts 1.8 says this, Jesus once 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:55.340 again speaking. He says, but you shall receive power. Somebody 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:59.970 say power. You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit 0:21:00.010 --> 0:21:03.430 has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses. 0:21:03.450 --> 0:21:08.859 Somebody say witnesses. to me in Jerusalem. 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:11.400 And all Judea and Samaria to the end of the earth. 0:21:11.420 --> 0:21:17.830 So notice that God wants you to be a witness 0:21:18.660 --> 0:21:24.170 of Jesus. Now notice a witness is an individual that 0:21:24.330 --> 0:21:28.810 ultimately provides evidence. And in this context, what he's talking 0:21:28.830 --> 0:21:33.050 about is you being someone who can just testify to 0:21:33.090 --> 0:21:37.650 what you know. to what you've experienced, to what you 0:21:37.710 --> 0:21:39.930 have seen. You know, if you were to sit in 0:21:39.990 --> 0:21:42.889 a courtroom and you were called to the witness stand, 0:21:43.190 --> 0:21:44.830 the attorney is not going to ask you, do you 0:21:44.869 --> 0:21:48.090 know everything about the law? The attorney is going to 0:21:48.230 --> 0:21:51.630 ask you about what you saw, about what you heard, 0:21:52.030 --> 0:21:54.859 about what you know. And sometimes we think, see the 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:56.639 word witness, and we think that means I got to 0:21:56.660 --> 0:21:58.790 know everything. I got to be a Bible school graduate. 0:21:58.980 --> 0:22:01.109 I got to have been a pastor and evangelist. I 0:22:01.130 --> 0:22:03.310 got to have gone through 12 classes, and then I 0:22:03.330 --> 0:22:04.270 can witness for Jesus. 0:22:04.310 --> 0:22:04.790 No, no, no. 0:22:05.090 --> 0:22:07.950 If you're somebody that's a follower of Jesus, he's already 0:22:08.030 --> 0:22:10.510 changed your life. You can be a witness for Jesus. 0:22:11.890 --> 0:22:15.510 In fact, look at Mark chapter 5 and verse 19. 0:22:17.180 --> 0:22:19.900 This man was possessed with a legion of demon spirits. 0:22:20.580 --> 0:22:23.200 And so he was cutting himself and he was living 0:22:23.270 --> 0:22:26.690 among the tombs. He had demonic strength. Then Jesus showed 0:22:26.790 --> 0:22:29.550 up and he set the man free. And so the 0:22:29.590 --> 0:22:33.310 man now wants to follow Jesus as he travels. But 0:22:33.369 --> 0:22:35.850