Christian Fellowship

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(upbeat music)

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- We do have amazing dads at Springhouse.

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That is for certain.

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Well, guys, hello, good morning.

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Boy, it's a good day to be here.

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It's been a good day.

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It's been a real rich morning so far,

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and I echo Pastor Allen, if you're joining us on livestream.

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We wish you were here,

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but I'm glad that we have livestreamed

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as a way for you to join us today.

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Guys, we're gonna continue in our series,

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His Church, this morning.

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One of the greatest gifts that we have here at Springhouse

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is we have a plethora of really anointed,

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great speakers here,

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just people that the Lord has really given a gift

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of speaking, and all of our pastoral team

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really carry that gift,

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and you're gonna hear from all of our pastors

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at some point this year.

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I know that traditionally you're used to hearing

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either myself or Justin or Barbie or Ronnie,

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but all of our pastoral team carry a gift of teaching,

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and all of them will be speaking throughout the year,

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and today we're in for a special treat.

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I am super excited.

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I've gotten to sit through the Word once,

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and I cannot wait to glean and receive from it again today,

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this morning, with you guys.

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Would you guys welcome our worship pastor,

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Pastor Jonathan Grisham.

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(congregation applauding)

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- Oh, I thought you were gonna go first.

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- I was about to say,

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I hope you're not carrying your own table out here.

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He carries the table out faithfully for me every week.

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- Well, I thought about this.

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I thought I could do that and just kinda look around,

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but I didn't wanna be struggling for breath

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while I was in my opening bit here, so.

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Happy Father's Day.

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How about this?

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Let's stand together and read the Word.

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They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching

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and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.

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Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders

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and signs performed by the apostles.

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All the believers were together

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and had everything in common.

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They sold property and possessions

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to give to anyone who had need.

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Every day they continued to meet together

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in the temple courts.

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They broke bread in their homes

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and ate together with glad and sincere hearts,

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praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people,

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and the Lord added to their number daily

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those who were being saved.

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Father God, I thank you that you are a God of fellowship,

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Lord, and I thank you that through the obedience

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of your Son, Jesus Christ,

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we have been reconciled into fellowship with you.

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Holy Spirit, we pray for a deeper understanding

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of your Word today, and Father, by your grace,

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we pray for deeper devotion into fellowship

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because you say it's worth devoting our lives to.

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In Jesus' name, you may be seated.

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Okay, so I gotta ask,

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who went on the whitewater rafting trip?

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Yeah, okay, and you're all still here.

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This is really good.

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Last year there were some close calls I heard,

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and I thought, that's gonna be a tough one to explain

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if I'm talking on fellowship

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and a portion of our fellowship doesn't make it

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because of extreme fellowshipping.

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I don't know how I'm gonna do that.

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So I'm glad that you're all here.

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So these verses right here I first started handling

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back in October of last year.

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I was asked to preside over communion,

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and I used it in my fourth week of teaching there

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because when I came across it,

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I was just really moved by the early church devotion

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to what they call the breaking of bread,

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and I don't think that that's simply

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just coming together over a meal.

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It has all that symbolism of what Christ did at the table.

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So when I refer to that,

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I'm gonna say that that's a devotion to communion,

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his body and blood and reflecting on that.

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And I felt very strongly at that time

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that the Holy Spirit told me, hang on to these verses,

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pay attention to them and apply them,

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and it's really gonna change your life going forward.

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So that's something I've been intentional to do,

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and it's just very simple.

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You hold your life up side by side with these scriptures,

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and we should do this often, and say,

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does my life reflect one that is devoted

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to these four simple things?

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And in some ways it was like, I'm doing okay,

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but specifically around fellowship,

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I was like, I don't know there.

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And I intentionally say it's an everyday thing

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because the word devotion in Greek

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is to give constant attention to a thing.

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The literal translation is they continually

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devoted themselves, so every morning when they wake up,

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somehow they've got it at the priority thought

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when they wake up, and they're carrying it with them

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through their day.

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And sometime at the beginning of this year

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as the Lord was revealing these things to me,

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giving me revelation, I went to Pastor Kevin

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and I shared what God was doing,

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specifically around fellowship, and I was just like,

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ah, you know, I've gotta restructure all these things,

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and I had no idea we were gonna be teaching on it

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later in the year, and he said, well,

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you should teach on it.

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And I thought, well, that's the last time I trust him

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with any revelation that the Lord has given me.

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'Cause look now, here I am.

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(congregation laughing)

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And when I was asked to teach on fellowship,

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he asked me to answer two questions

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specifically this morning.

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What does a thriving Christian fellowship really look like,

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and who is at the center of it all?

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So I'm gonna start with the second one

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'cause I think it's easy and I think we all know it.

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Who's at the center of it?

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That's good, okay.

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It's the Children's Church answer.

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Okay, we can go, we're good, we're early,

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we can go to lunch.

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No.

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(congregation laughing)

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Okay, so when I first started looking at these scriptures,

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I told you I was just blown away

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by this early church model here of devotion

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to what is just, it's so simple.

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The apostles teaching, I'll call it the word of God,

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fellowship, communion, and prayer.

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And out of that devotion flows signs and wonders.

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Everything had every, everyone had everything in common.

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That wouldn't have worked.

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Meaning they were selling personal belongings

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every need within the body was filled.

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They enjoyed favor, and most importantly,

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salvations were happening and the church was growing.

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I think we all carry this desire inside of us

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for people to know Christ the way we know Christ.

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So I kinda just thought, well, that sounds pretty simple.

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If we can just all come together as the body of Christ

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and just devote our time, devote our resources, our thoughts

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and prioritize those four things,

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then we'll see more salvations.

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Unfortunately, that kinda puts us

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in the driver's seat of it all.

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And Pastor Kevin had mentioned

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regarding something several weeks ago,

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we don't wanna get to the end of anything

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and look back and go, look what we have built.

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Because that thing's probably gonna fall away.

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It is gonna fall away, that's the truth.

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We wanna look back and go, look what God has built

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and look how he used us through it.

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And that's the testimony.

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And that's confirmed in scripture

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at the end of Acts 2, 47,

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or at the end of Acts 2 in verse 47.

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Yes, there was this devotion.

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Yes, all these things flowed out.

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There was need fulfilled.

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There was favor in the community.

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But at the end of it, the Lord added to their number daily

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those who were being saved.

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The expansion of God's kingdom

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is a sovereign act of God's grace.

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So the believers here in Acts, the early church,

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they were not operating using methods or models or metrics.

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This was just a natural response that was coming out of them

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because their debt had been paid by Christ.

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And they were operating as what I'll call

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the Jubilee people of God,

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and they were forgiving debts

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because their debt had been paid.

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So it's this natural response out of us

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for what God has done.

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It's a natural response to represent

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the kingdom of God on earth.

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So since ultimately he is the one

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that draws all people to himself,

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we will say that God is the beginning of our fellowship,

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the center of our fellowship,

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and the purpose of our fellowship.

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With the expansion of his kingdom

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being a sovereign act of grace,

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it's by the same grace that he chooses to use

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the unity of his believers in fellowship

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to actually reveal himself as the son of God to the world.

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There's a great passage of scripture in John 17,

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17 through 21, I'm gonna read it over you.

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Pastor Justin mentioned several weeks ago

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or maybe a month ago,

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that it's actually a prayer that Jesus prays

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that's incredible because he prays it

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on behalf of the disciples and every single one of us

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sitting in this room and every single person

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who would come to believe in him through their word.

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Sanctify them in the truth, your word is truth.

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As you sent me into the world,

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so have I sent them into the world.

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And for their sake, I consecrate myself

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that they also may be sanctified in truth.

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I do not ask for these only, meaning the disciples,

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but also for those who will believe in me through their word

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and they may all be one just as you, Father in me,

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I in you and they also may be in us.

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So you have that shared fellowship, that share in Christ,

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so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

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When I was 21 years old,

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I was probably walking through

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the darkest period of my life.

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I was struggling with sin, struggling with alcohol,

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lots of friction with friendships and family relationships

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and everything like that.

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And during that time, I actually had a friend get saved

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and invite me to a Bible study and it was on music row,

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it was only for musicians.

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It was led by this guy named Brian Simpson,

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but this friend of mine is actually somebody

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I kind of got crossways with during this time.

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So I really didn't want anything to do with him.

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And I certainly didn't want anything to do with God.

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I wanted to go about living my life how I wanted to live it.

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So I just continued on that path, that trajectory.

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And it was doing this the whole time, six or seven months,

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spiraling down till I hit my lowest point.

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And I had some friends post online that they had this cabin,

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they wanted to do a weekend trip,

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so they needed somebody to watch it.

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And I thought, that sounds really nice.

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I'm gonna offer to do that.

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Maybe I'll, you know, there'll be some peace there.

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I can kind of collect my thoughts

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and get back on with my life.

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So I reached out to them and said,

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"Hey, I love to do this."

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And they said, "Great, there's just one catch."

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And they told me they recently acquired some chickens

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so that they could start harvesting their own eggs.

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I'm not making this up.

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And I said, so they told me,

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"But one of the chickens was absolutely deathly ill

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"and was actually living in a cage in the cabin

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"and had to be given medicine three times a day."

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And I was like, okay, you know,

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like that kind of takes away the peace of it all.

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But I think I can get behind this

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if I can just give them some medicine

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a couple of times a day, put them in the cage.

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So I agree to do it.

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And I go there and I give this sick chicken medicine

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for 24 hours.

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And I told you going into this, I was at my lowest point.

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It turns out there is a lower point than that.

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And what it looks like is me all alone in isolation

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in a cabin with this sick chicken.

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That's what it looks like.

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Now,

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(congregation laughing)

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I did not pray in this moment.

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I did not have like a spiritual awakening

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or anything like that.

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I simply thought, God help, that was it.

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And that night I went to sleep

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and I had a vivid dream of the peace of God

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just touching all of those broken places in my life.

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And I got a phone call in the dream

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and on the caller ID it said, Brian Simpson,

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which is a name that I had not heard

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for six or seven months that amount of time.

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I don't dream often.

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I don't remember dreams often, but I remember this one.

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And I woke up and I knew that God was telling me,

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if you want to feel that peace in your real life

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and really touch those places, you will find Brian Simpson.

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So I contact my friend.

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I say, hey, what's the information?

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I need to go to this Bible study.

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And I go and I get there and I wanna blend in.

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I don't want them to know that I'm not saved or anything.

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So I'm just, they're doing this worship thing

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and they sit down and they go over the word.

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And Brian Simpson said,

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I guess it was the start of a new series.

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And he said, I feel like the Lord is leading me

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to do a study on prayer, just this simple thing.

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And everybody in there, 15, 20 men

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had been following the Lord for like over a year.

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I don't think anybody needed to hear a Bible study on prayer

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except for me during that time.

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And it's like, okay, I think we need to come to a place

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in our maturity where we realize that the kingdom of God

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doesn't revolve around us as individuals.

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They could have gone up to him and said,

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well, I'm not getting anything out of that sermon

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or whatever, but instead they were submitted to it.

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And I really think that the Lord was using that for me.

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I applied it in my life every day when I went home,

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I read the scriptures.

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And as it says in Acts 2, after Peter gives his sermon,

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it says that they were cut to the heart.

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And that's what was happening to me.

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So I get maybe two or three Bible study sessions in

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and I get there and Brian opens the floor for testimony

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and prayer requests or whatever.

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And I'm immediately on his left

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and he starts one guy after me

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and it goes around this whole room.

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So I'm the last and everybody that knows me

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knows that I love talking in front of people.

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But so I just begin to share

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and I get maybe two or three words out

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before I just explode in this puddle of tears and snot

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and whatever else was in there.

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And those guys led me to the Lord right there

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in that Bible study that day.

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And looking back on it,

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really all I see are some people that came together

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in devotion to those four simple things.

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They came together to read the word of God,

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to be in fellowship with one another,

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to celebrate the body and blood of Christ

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and to pray together.

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And what it was doing,

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it was actually revealing the kingdom of God to me.

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They were carrying the peace

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that I experienced in the dream.

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And I knew, well, whatever, however they've got that,

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that's what I want.

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And I began to pursue that.

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So quite simply, they just existed

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to reveal the kingdom of God.

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And you see that in there.

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The word fellowship used in Acts two

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comes from the Greek word koinonia.

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It refers to the intimate bond of fellowship,

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which unites Christians.

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And the ESV translation says,

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they devoted themselves to the fellowship.

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So they're not devoted to the idea of fellowship,

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but they're actually devoted to the people

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who have a share in Christ with them.

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So you cannot be in biblical fellowship

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with people who have no share in Christ.

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You can be in friendship with them, no problem.

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But that kind of brings us to this conclusion

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that fellowship is something more than friendship.

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Like many words in our language,

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it doesn't carry the full weight and purpose

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that it used to either from misuse or overuse

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or whatever it is.

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So it's more than a meeting hall.

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It's more than a hangout.

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It's more than a potluck.

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And as I said, it's even more than friendship.

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All of those things simply exist as vehicles

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to get us into deeper fellowship with each other.

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And for the early church believers here,

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their context was persecution.

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That's the world they were living in.

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So for them, it worked out more as family

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than it did friends.

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It worked out as a means to persevere

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towards this unified goal

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of establishing the kingdom of God on earth.

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And this idea of fellowship as family

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tends to push against our culture of individualism.

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We're all about me and Jesus, my walk with Jesus,

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our personal family units, all that kind of stuff.

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We have sayings on shirts, please don't be offended,

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that says all I need is coffee and Jesus.

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Who has that shirt?

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No, I'm just kidding.

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(congregation laughing)

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It's okay.

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We have to add more.

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All we need is Jesus, right?

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Okay, but still we need to add more to that list

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'cause Jesus actually, the scripture tells us

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that he has designed us for each other,

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to need each other, to work in a group, to work as a flock.

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We see it in scripture when God says,

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in some of his earliest words,

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it's not good for man to be alone.

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And I thought about this a couple of days ago

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that the story of the man or the shepherd

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going after the one and leaving the 99,

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I often thought of that like, okay, he's going after the one

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and he's bringing the one back to himself.

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But no, he's not abandoning the 99.

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He's bringing the one back to himself and the 99

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because we're sheep, we're a flock,

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that's how we are designed to function.

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So there's certainly an individual devotion

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to the word of God and to all of these things

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that we should celebrate.

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But we really see in Acts more often than not

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in the book of the Bible, in the whole Bible

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that the corporate example of family

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works those things out together.

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When I see the early church devoted to the word of God

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and communion, I see a people that are Christ-centered.

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And when they're devoted to fellowship,

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which is a share, others who have a share in Christ,

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and prayer, and the way prayer,

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you see that work out in the book of Acts,

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is they go out and preach the word, the gospel boldly,

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they come back to their fellowship,

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they pray that they'll be filled with the Holy Spirit

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so they can go back out with boldness.

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So they're actually praying for each other.

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So when they're devoted to fellowship and prayer,

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I see a people that are others-focused.

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So a thriving Christian fellowship will be Christ-centered

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and others-focused.

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If the 12 disciples or the 120 or the first 3,000 believers

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only cared about their personal relationship with Christ

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and getting into heaven,

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I don't think any of us would be here today.

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Here are some, if you just, I encourage you,

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when you're sitting down with your Bible app

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or you go online for the Bible,

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just Google search fellowship or share in Christ,

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and you'll just have all these cross-references

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of how this plays out in Scripture.

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But here's some Scripture I just wanna read for you.

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Hebrews 10, 24 through 25.

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Let us consider how we may spur one another on

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toward love and good deeds,

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not giving up meeting together

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as some are in the habit of doing,

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but encouraging one another

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all the more as you see the day approaching.

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So our fellowship actually exists to encourage each other

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and spur each other on towards love and good deeds.

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Hebrews 3, 12 through 14.

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See to it, brothers and sisters,

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that none of you has a sinful heart,

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unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.

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Encourage one another daily,

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as long as it's called the day,

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so that none of you may be hardened

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by sin's deceitfulness.

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We have come to share in Christ

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if indeed we hold our conviction firmly to the end.

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So our fellowship exists to help each other persevere

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and keep our conviction and faith to the very end.

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In Acts 2, 45, they sold property and possessions

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to give to anyone who had need.

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So our fellowship exists to help others who have need.

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When I was planning my day a couple months ago,

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I like to use a checklist app.

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Every morning I put in my to-do list

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and I kind of go through it during the day.

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And I knew after work, I wanted to go to the gym

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and walk a couple miles.

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I wanted to go to the library, drop some books off

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and get home and grill some burgers for my family.

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So go through my workday and I head to the gym.

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And my goal on the checklist, don't laugh at me,

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for all of you really fit people was to walk two miles.

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So I get on there and I just press go and I start going.

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And after 25 minutes, this machine goes into cool down mode

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and it slows way down.

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And I had forgotten that if you don't tell it,

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I wanna walk two miles or 40 minutes or whatever,

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goes into cool down mode after 25 minutes

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and it shuts off completely after 30 minutes.

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So I bring the speed back up.

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I had only walked like a mile and a half,

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bring the speed up and after five minutes, it shuts down.

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I still had like a quarter mile to go.

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And a normal person would get back on the treadmill,

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start it back up, finish that quarter mile

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and just know in your heart that you did it.

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But the way I'm wired, it's like,

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if it doesn't say two miles, I just feel incomplete.

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I feel weird about it and just I was frustrated

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and I was like, whatever,

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I'll go ahead and head to the library.

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So I go to the library and as I'm walking in,

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Pastor Wayne is walking out and he's a little sad.

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And he says, I'm so happy to see you, I just need a hug.

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So I give him a hug and I'm like, what's wrong?

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Did you read all the books already or what?

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(congregation laughing)

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And he was like, no.

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He told me when he was leaving for the day,

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he put a book on top of his car and he forgot about it

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and drove off and it flew off.

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But more importantly, there was a bookmark inside of it

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that was sentimental.

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Somebody very dear to him had made it maybe 15 years ago

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out of these materials from India.

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And I was like, oh, I'm sorry, gave him a hug.

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He went on his way and I dropped my books off,

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got in my car and I thought,

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I have two ways that I can go home from the library.

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I can go down Enon Springs or I can go down Hazelwood.

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Enon Springs is about 10 minutes faster for me to get home,

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to get home to my family.

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But I'm in fellowship with Pastor Wayne.

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He's been to my house multiple times,

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I've been to his house multiple times.

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And I know that the fastest point

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between his house and the library is probably Hazelwood.

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So I decide I'm gonna go down Hazelwood

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just to see if I could be like a hero or something

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and find this thing.

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So I go down Hazelwood, it's like no luck at first.

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And then all of a sudden I pass this book

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on the side of the road

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and I see stuff on the side of the road all the time.

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So I'm not certain it's his, but as I'm driving by,

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I see the most colorful bookmark I think I've ever seen.

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And if you know Pastor Wayne, he is a colorful individual.

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And I know that that's his immediately.

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So I pull in there and it's real awkward

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'cause a family's actually trying to get out

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of the driveway that I pull into.

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And I run, I kind of run into the road and grab the book

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and I'm sorry, I've repented for this.

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I didn't know what to say.

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I was so excited.

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I said, "Drop my book."

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And I got in the car, drove away.

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And I get to Pastor Wayne's house

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and we just spend maybe 10 minutes rejoicing

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at what the Lord just did.

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He's like, "I didn't have to pray for this.

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"God's favor and providence and blah, blah, blah, blah."

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And I'm just like, "I know."

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And then I was on the treadmill and it didn't work.

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And turns out God had a better plan all along.

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This is real stuff.

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(congregation applauding)

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And the dynamics of fellowship I see in that, very simple.

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Pastor Wayne was honest about a need that he had.

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And I know him and he was not gonna be wrecked by this.

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His life versus be content with any and all circumstances.

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He's not gonna be wrecked by that.

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But then there's me and I actually want to help him.

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I want to put aside my stuff for a while

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and go, "I'm gonna go down that road with you.

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"I'm gonna put a different set of eyes

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"on that situation with you maybe because I want to help."

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And what I see in the book of Acts is much more than that.

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So the question is, are we willing to be faithful

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in helping others if God asks us to sell our property?

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Sell possessions?

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That doesn't sound like there's,

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that's kind of no limit to what we'll do for others.

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Father Ray Cash came and spoke several weeks ago

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and as he shared, he said something that stuck with me.

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Probably he didn't even intend it this way.

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He said, "If you wanna learn how to pray,

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"then start praying."

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And that's been something that I've kind of applied

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for several months incidentally through fellowship.

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So as you begin to define what being devoted

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to the word of God and being devoted to the fellowship

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and communion and prayer looks like in your life,

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you will also start to refine what it looks like

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based on what you see in scripture.

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So my wife, Brittany and I,

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we invited people over to our house and they would leave

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and I would just kind of go, okay, I failed to ask them

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if they needed prayer for anything.

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I failed to encourage anybody.

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We had a great time, but I didn't spur them on towards love

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or any of that stuff.

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So I'm gonna get better at that.

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So you start to refine what it looks like.

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Many of you in this congregation have been my test subjects

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without knowing it.

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I found this out.

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If you really wanna freak somebody out

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and you come to church on Sunday, you say,

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"Hey, how are you doing?"

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And they say, "Fine or great."

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You just look them dead in their face and you say,

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"How are you really doing?"

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And they'll, I've been in some conversations

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where somebody told me they were doing fine.

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Turns out they were not doing fine.

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And they needed prayer right then and there.

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But it's that first question is almost a bit of a throwaway.

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So my challenge is let's go deeper.

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Let's actually mean it when we ask those things.

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Let's be forthcoming with what we're actually walking

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through so we can rejoice in the Lord together

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when he answers that.

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Acts 2 46 says, "Every day they continued to meet together

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in the temple courts.

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They broke bread in their homes and ate together

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with glad and sincere hearts."

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And I believe that there's this literal kind of pattern

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of them going to the temple and going to their homes

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and inviting people into their homes.

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But there's also symbolism in that.

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In your homes is, your home is a sacred place

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that not a lot of people get access to.

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So it's really inviting people into your life.

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When you invite somebody into your home,

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they will automatically know more about you

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than when they got there.

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Like if you come over to me and my wife's house,

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you will know that we are not alone

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just by the sheer volume of noise

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that two little toddlers can create

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or the chaos of toys that we tried our best to hide.

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You will know more about us.

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So start inviting each other into your homes,

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into your lives.

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Let each other know your needs, your prayer requests.

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And inevitably as you walk that out,

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if you haven't already noticed,

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if you haven't already found this out,

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we are a fellowship of imperfect people

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serving a perfect God.

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In this fellowship or any fellowship

Speaker: 00:27:41

you've been called to at some point,

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somebody's gonna say something you don't agree with.

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Somebody might do something you don't agree with

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or you get crossways with them.

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And I'm here to tell you that doesn't have to affect

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our unity around what actually matters.

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In Acts 6, flowing out of this,

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they're selling everything and no one has a need.

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Flowing out of that in Acts 6,

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there's a daily distribution of food

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that's going out to widows.

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But it turns out it's not going out equally.

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So some men bring a complaint to the apostles

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and say, hey, this is happening.

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And they say, okay, this is what we're gonna do.

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We're gonna appoint seven men full of the Spirit

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and full of wisdom and they're gonna oversee this

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so that we can get to the main thing,

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which is prayer and the ministry of the word of God.

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They weren't dismissive of the issues.

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They simply course corrected and moved forward

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towards the main thing, towards the main cause

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that they've been entrusted with.

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When I was attending Springhouse, I was maybe,

Speaker: 00:28:49

it was right when I first started attending,

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they used to do this thing here where after the first song,

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they would ask people to go and greet somebody

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that they didn't know.

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And as an introvert, this is the most horrifying moment

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of the entire service.

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For me, it was a good opportunity to go to the restroom

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or best case scenario, I'm grabbing the hand of somebody

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I very much know and I'm holding on.

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And I'm like, I don't wanna deal with anybody else.

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But you hear these stories of first time visitors come in

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and nobody says hi to them and they get disheartened

Speaker: 00:29:28

and they don't come back.

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And I was like, God, I don't wanna be the reason

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that that happened.

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So I'll never forget one morning I woke up

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and I was passionate that I was gonna come to church

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and be not myself, I was gonna be an extrovert

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and I was gonna be the reason that somebody stayed

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at Springhouse because I said hi to them

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during this moment.

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I was gonna make sure of it, I was all fired up.

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The first song was happening and this sounds bad

Speaker: 00:29:54

for the worship pastor to say,

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but I was not worshiping at that time.

Speaker: 00:29:57

I was looking for my target in the room.

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Who's it gonna be?

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And I remember because it was traumatic,

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he was sitting right over here in this section in the middle

Speaker: 00:30:08

and they released us to go greet somebody

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and I beelined it to him.

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I said, hey, how you doing?

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I'm Jonathan, so good to meet you.

Speaker: 00:30:14

Are you a first time visitor?

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He said, no, I've been going here about nine years.

Speaker: 00:30:18

(congregation laughing)

Speaker: 00:30:21

He laughed, I died on the inside, went back to my seat.

Speaker: 00:30:39

But I'm not, but I'm gonna still pursue fellowship

Speaker: 00:30:44

because it's what God said is the right thing.

Speaker: 00:30:46

I'm not gonna let my mess up

Speaker: 00:30:49

affect how I walk out the word.

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I'm just gonna course correct.

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So I no longer say, are you a first time visitor?

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When I'm about to go talk to somebody, I practice

Speaker: 00:30:59

and I say, how long have you been coming to Springhouse?

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How long have you been coming to Springhouse?

Speaker: 00:31:03

I really think about it.

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(congregation laughing)

Speaker: 00:31:08

Worship team, can you come on out?

Speaker: 00:31:10

Let me go to my spot, no.

Speaker: 00:31:13

So if none of that stuff has to affect our unity,

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a thriving Christian fellowship will be unified

Speaker: 00:31:25

in its mission.

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In order to be unified in our mission,

Speaker: 00:31:28

we have to actually know what our mission is.

Speaker: 00:31:31

In Acts one, it says that after 40 days of Jesus

Speaker: 00:31:38

teaching the disciples about the kingdom of God,

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that the first thing they asked him is,

Speaker: 00:31:44

are you gonna restore the kingdom to Israel now?

Speaker: 00:31:47

And he's, I just imagine the disappointment.

Speaker: 00:31:50

Like, have you heard anything that I've said for 40 days?

Speaker: 00:31:54

Kingdom of God, kingdom to Israel.

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And I don't wanna kind of rush in

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and say that they had it all wrong.

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There's a great teaching.

Speaker: 00:32:02

I encourage you to get a book.

Speaker: 00:32:04

If you like a book, Acts for Everyone by N.T. Wright,

Speaker: 00:32:07

or you can YouTube search Acts N.T. Wright.

Speaker: 00:32:09

It's a 29 series video.

Speaker: 00:32:11

And it's kind of say, okay,

Speaker: 00:32:13

two thirds of our Bible is about this chosen people of God.

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So maybe we don't wanna throw out

Speaker: 00:32:19

those promises or whatever.

Speaker: 00:32:20

So maybe the best way to say it is,

Speaker: 00:32:23

yes, he's gonna do that,

Speaker: 00:32:24

but he's also gonna do so much more than that.

Speaker: 00:32:26

Their view of it was just a little bit too narrow.

Speaker: 00:32:35

It's not gonna look how you thought it would look.

Speaker: 00:32:37

It won't happen the way you think it should.

Speaker: 00:32:39

It won't happen as quickly as you think it should.

Speaker: 00:32:42

And guess what?

Speaker: 00:32:42

You're gonna have to share in my persecution.

Speaker: 00:32:45

You're gonna have to share in my sufferings.

Speaker: 00:32:47

So what will it look like?

Speaker: 00:32:49

How will it happen?

Speaker: 00:32:51

Acts 1, eight, Jesus says,

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"You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you,

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"and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem

Speaker: 00:32:58

"and all of Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth."

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So the mission of our fellowship is to establish

Speaker: 00:33:06

the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven

Speaker: 00:33:09

by the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Speaker: 00:33:12

And when Jesus ascended to the right hand of God,

Speaker: 00:33:16

you gotta go read this in Acts 1,

Speaker: 00:33:19

when he ascends to the right hand through the clouds,

Speaker: 00:33:23

it says that the disciples just look intently

Speaker: 00:33:26

into the clouds.

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And we don't know how long,

Speaker: 00:33:29

but it must have been pretty long

Speaker: 00:33:32

because two men dressed in white appeared out of nowhere

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and said in Acts 1, 11,

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"Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking into the sky?

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"This same Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven

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"will come back the same way

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"that you have seen him go into heaven."

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And I connect with that.

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We as the church, as believers,

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have this same longing to see Jesus again.

Speaker: 00:34:01

We wanna be with him or we want him to come back.

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We wanna be with him because we know there's no more tears,

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there's no more pain.

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I'll finally have abs.

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Maybe, I don't know.

Speaker: 00:34:16

That was an inappropriate moment to say that.

Speaker: 00:34:24

I feel that now, but I can't go back.

Speaker: 00:34:26

(congregation laughing)

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We want him to come again so he fixes this whole mess.

Speaker: 00:34:37

But we gotta do something with the next 24 hours,

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six months, 10 years, 80 years,

Speaker: 00:34:44

1,000 years until that happens.

Speaker: 00:34:47

So what we see in Acts 1 is a couple guys going,

Speaker: 00:34:52

"Hey, wake up, let's focus.

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"We've got a mission."

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(gentle music)

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I guess that's what I'm saying today.

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Let's look forward to our purpose as a fellowship,

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as the body of Christ,

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to establish the kingdom of God on earth,

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preach the gospel of his kingdom,

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and fill the earth with his glory.

Speaker: 00:35:14

They were devoted to the word of God,

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not because it's a guide to show us

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how to live in heaven one day,

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but because it shows us and teaches us

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how to live on earth as it is in heaven.

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And they were devoted to fellowship

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because the mission is way too much

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for us to carry by ourselves.

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Church, will you stand with me?

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Will those who are gonna pray please come forward?

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The altar space is open, as always, for prayer,

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but I just wanna say a couple encouragements

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based on the teaching in the book of Acts.

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I encourage you to come forward today in prayer.

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If God has called you here

Speaker: 00:36:04

and you want to go into deeper fellowship with him,

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any one of these people down here will lead you there.

Speaker: 00:36:10

I encourage you to come forward for prayer.

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If you have a need in your life

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that we can partner with you in or encourage you in

Speaker: 00:36:19

so that we can get on with our mission,

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and I encourage you to come forward

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if you would like to receive.

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In Acts 2, there's a baptism of the Holy Spirit

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that happens, but as you read through Acts,

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they come together and then they pray for a filling

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or a refilling of the Holy Spirit to happen

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so that they can walk out their mission with boldness.

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So if you want that today, if you want to come down

Speaker: 00:36:45

and pray for a filling or a refilling of the Holy Spirit,

Speaker: 00:36:48

please come as we lead you.

Speaker: 00:36:50

[MUSIC PLAYING]