At Home as it is in Heaven May 3, 2026

What Up! It's public holiday here in Cebu, and we're about to finish off our 2nd region tour. I know, it's been a while since my last vlog, but the Lugabear Peaks were among the top 2 stops in the destination for an evening drive. Good morning, it's good to be here with you at our Fellowship West Little Rock campus. I want to welcome those of you especially who are a part of our Senior Sunday today here for that. Man, I want to thank our students for helping to lead us in worship this morning. Just what a testament to what the Lord is doing in and through our student ministry and in our worship ministry here too, to see them up here leading us in worshiping the Lord together, knowing where the Lord's about to send them. Man, that's just a really, really good day. So glad you guys are here. For those of you joining us in the chapel, we're glad you're here. Those of you who are joining us through the Pando app in one of our prisons here in Arkansas, we want to welcome you too, let you know how glad we are that you are here joining us today. If we've not met yet, my name is Jay McGuirk, as Josh said, I'm the pastor of discipleship for all of our fellowship campuses here in Central Arkansas. If we've not had a chance to meet yet, I'd love to meet you or get a chance to introduce myself to you at the end of the service. That would really bless me if we got the opportunity to do that. So really glad you're here and we have a great service as we continue a series we've been in called at home as it has been, as it is in heaven. Let me ask you this, how many of you guys chew gum? You're gum chewers, not like, you know, professionally, but like as a hobby. So of course, one of the big gum companies, Wrigley's, founded in 1891 by William Wrigley. He did not start out selling gum. He started out by selling soap, which will make your breath smell better, but I wouldn't recommend chewing it. And in an effort to boost his soap sales, kind of set him apart.

One of the things he would do is that if you bought soap from him, he would give you a little bonus. He'd give you a little free gift. And of course, being William Wrigley, that free gift was baking powder. And why you thought gum, that's weird. So baking powder, he would give you the baking powder, which I also wouldn't recommend you chewing. But he began to notice that the more he gave away the baking powder, the more people wanted it and not the soap. They wanted the by-product. And so a couple of years later, he's been selling baking powder, and he decided to give away a free gift with that to try to boost sales. And of course, with that, he gave away gum, exactly. Why wouldn't it be gum? And so it's a Wrigley company. So he gives away gum as a part of that, and the same exact thing happens. He looks around and people are asking more for the gum than they are the baking powder. And so his whole business pivots and they become the gum company that they are today. He realized that the purpose of his business wasn't what he thought it was. That extra, that bonus, the by-product, that was the real purpose. That was what the people really wanted. Wrigley started out thinking that the people needed one thing, but his mission totally changed. And so here's a question I want to ask you as we start this morning. What if the thing that you're doing or that you're focused on or that you're passionate about, what if that's not really the thing? What if there was some other purpose, some other mission, some other by-product of the things that you're doing or that you enjoy doing that was the thing that actually mattered the most? And what if, unlike Wrigley, you didn't have to stop selling the soap, you didn't have

to stop selling the baking powder, but you took the thing that added the most value, the gum in this case, and what if you added it to what you were already doing instead of replacing it or instead of seeing what you thought was the original thing as the real thing? And that real thing not only gave you purpose, but it gave you life-giving energy to do something that really matters, not just in this life, but in eternity. Well that's what we're going to look at today. We're going to talk about taking one thing, and that thing is actually a couple things today, our hospitality and our hobbies, and instead of seeing them as the main thing that we might do in a different or certain scenario, today we're going to see how our hospitality and our hobbies can be used to get us to a greater purpose, how we can use those gifts and use those interests for our real purpose of making disciples. Like I said, the past few weeks we've been in this series called At Home As It Is In Heaven and it's a series that flows out of our mission statement here at Fellowship. At Fellowship we say that we are here to make disciples who live by God's grace and for his glory. both at home and across the world. And throughout this series, we've been using this analogy of how the rooms of our physical homes describe some of the most important aspects of how we make disciples. And so far, we've looked at the living room, we've looked at the study. Last week, Ben Parkinson, one of our teaching pastors, looked at the closet with us. And this week, we're actually gonna look at three different rooms in our homes and how they represent some of the tools we have when it comes to giving ourselves to the mission that Jesus left us.

We're gonna look at the kitchen, the playroom, and the garage. And we have a few passages we're gonna bounce around to today, but if you wanna open your Bibles or go to your apps, you can start in 2 Corinthians chapter five. We've also got some notes on the bulletins that you got on your way in today if you wanna write some things down and follow along. And as we talk about this idea of hospitality and hobbies as a tool for disciple-making today, I want you to think about the people you work with, the people you live near, the people you cross paths with in the community, at your kid's school, at your own school, or people you spend intentional time together with through your hobbies, through your interests. And we wanna look today at what it can be like if you seek to use those spaces, seek to use those relationships, and your hospitality and hobbies to intentionally both be a disciple of Jesus, but also to help make disciples of Jesus. And so let's start in 2 Corinthians five to see what our mindset in general should be just as we understand our mission as disciple-makers. Look at verse 17, it says this. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. The old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God,

who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Now, for those of us who have trusted Christ for salvation, we are now in him, we are a new creation. And Christ, Paul tells us here, has reconciled us to himself, to God the Father. And out of that relationship with him, we now have the mission to go and share the good news of Jesus with others. Anyone can be reconciled to God the Father through repentance and faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus. That's the first part of making disciples. You can write this down if you want to. Making disciples, it involves showing and sharing the gospel. Showing and sharing the gospel, that's the first step you think of as you make disciples, sharing the gospel with people who are in your circle of influence. Paul goes on to say that we are ambassadors for Christ in this manner.

And you know what an ambassador is. It's someone who represents their own country, their country's mission, values, purpose, goals, to another country that they don't belong to. The ambassador is a member of one country representing to another country. And as Christians, we are Christ's ambassadors for the kingdom of God in this world for his mission of seeking and saving the lost. We live out that purpose, and showing and sharing the gospel is the first part of making disciples. There's a second part that we live out too as disciple makers. Making disciples involves equipping, empowering, and encouraging other believers. Making disciples is not just about leading people to Christ, it's about helping those who are already Christians follow Jesus daily and to grow deeper in their love for him and for his church. And so to make disciples, we equip each other. We help others grow in the knowledge of God. We help them grow in his word, grow in his wisdom, grow in their faith, add to their hope, grow in their love. We also empower other believers. We all need to be reminded at times that the same power that raised Christ from the dead is available to us through the Holy Spirit,

through Christ in us. And because of that, we are empowered to love beyond our own strength, to resist temptation and sin, empowered to serve others, empowered to know and understand God's word. We can empower other believers to follow Christ faithfully through his grace alive and at work in us. And as disciples, we can also encourage one another. Thank goodness none of us ever face discouragement, right? We all need encouragement at times. We get weary, we need to be reminded of the hope that we have in Christ. You may not naturally be an encourager as gifting, as a gifting, but you can still be an encouragement to other believers. Remind them of God's truth. Walk with them when they're struggling. them when they're in need and remind them of the hope that we have in Christ. Equipping, empowering, and encouraging, that's just a part of how we can help others grow in their faith as we live on the mission of making disciples. Proverbs 27, 17, a verse you're likely familiar with, iron sharpens iron and one man sharpens another. We sharpen each other when we equip with God's truth, when we remind each other of how we're empowered by the Holy Spirit, and we encourage others

to persevere in our faith even when it's tough. Disciple making is like this process of sharpening one another. So we understand what our mission entails, showing and sharing the gospel, equipping, empowering, and encouraging other believers. And so let's walk through these three rooms of our house and understand how we can use what they represent as spaces and as tools in our disciple making. The Apostle Peter, in his first letter, he speaks to one of these areas that we can use as a tool to love and sharpen other believers and as a place to show and share the gospel. Here's what he says in 1 Peter chapter four. Peter says, above all, keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace. Whoever speaks is one who speaks oracles of God. Whoever serves is one who serves by the strength that God supplies in order that in everything, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever, amen. Well, let's look at the first room we'll examine in our house today. Let's talk about the kitchen. And here's what I want us to understand about making disciples as we think through the lens of our kitchen.

It's this, I can use hospitality as a tool to make disciples. I can use hospitality. Remember where we started today? What if the thing that I'm doing isn't really the thing? What if that's not really my purpose? What if that's not really my goal? What if the ways that we use our kitchen and everything that flows out of it isn't just for eating and cooking and gathering? What if we viewed our kitchen or the mindset of our kitchen as a tool to show and share the gospel to equip, empower and encourage other believers through our hospitality? See, Peter in this passage, he encourages us to love one another earnestly. Making disciples is just an outflow of what Jesus told us was the second greatest commandment, which is to love your neighbor as yourself. Making disciples is an act of love towards the people who are in our circles of influence. And Peter tells us that above all, above everything else, we should love each other. Now, the context of this passage is about the second coming of Jesus. And Peter is telling all of us who follow Jesus that one of the most important ways that we can spend our time while we are waiting on the return of Jesus is to love each other well.

And what's one of those ways that we can love each other well? Peter tells us, show hospitality to one another. Hospitality was one of the marks of the early Christian community after Jesus's resurrection because hospitality was crucial for Christians at a time when they were traveling a lot from place to place. Sometimes they were seeking to escape persecution. And so they could not afford to pay for lodging. And so for the spread of the gospel to continue as people escaped persecution, or as believers went out on missionary pilgrimages and journeys, it depended on the willingness of believers to provide a place to stay for those who visited. Peter tells us, show hospitality. But then he adds in this part, he says, show hospitality without grumbling. What? How dare he? I know that there are some of us, okay, some of you maybe, who are incredible and love to open up your home for other people. There are some of you who keep your kitchens and your guest bathrooms completely spotless and clean. Your dishes never stay dirty in the sink overnight. Your couch is never covered

with laundry waiting to be folded. We know who you are. And we normal people are secretly jealous. But for most of us, life is busy. And the yard needs cutting, the flower beds need the weeds picked out, the floor needs vacuuming. And we're trying to remember how long it's been since the last time we dusted the fan blades, if we've ever done that. And when people come over, it ends up being a little bit more than a chore than it is a joy, because we don't practice spring cleaning, we practice throw everything in the closet, guests are coming cleaning, right? Peter reminds us, everybody laughs because it's like, yeah, I'm that guy, that's me too. Peter reminds us not to grumble because for a lot of us, practicing good hospitality is hard. It's a chore to open up your home. to others, it's a chore to keep it clean or to get it clean. Plus, it's hard not to wonder, are people gonna judge my decor? Are they gonna notice my furniture's out of date? Are they gonna see that the walls need painting? Are they gonna see that the floors are cracked?

Are they gonna see the dust that we missed? But Peter says one of the best ways that you can love each other and a tool that you can use in your disciple making is through your hospitality. He says, as you've received a gift from God, use it to serve each other as good stewards of God's varied grace. And we can steward those gifts that he's given us to serve others. The word Peter uses here for serve, it can describe a lot of things. It can mean providing meals, visiting people in prison. It can mean providing financial support and all other sorts of ways that you can serve people. But when we use our gifts to serve others, we are stewarding or we are managing God's grace that he has given to us. And of those gifts, Peter refers to a couple of different types here. He talks about speaking gifts and serving gifts. Looking through the lens of our kitchen and thinking about hospitality as a tool for disciple making falls underneath those serving gifts. I mean, think about what your kitchen is or at least hopefully is. It's a place for meals. It's a place for conversation. It's a place for life.

And as you're having those meals that were cooked up by someone who used that gift of serving or at the very least warmed up or delivered, then think about the conversations that you have over those meals. How can you use those speaking gifts combined with hospitality as a tool for conversations that equip, empower, and encourage people in their faith? How can you use a conversation when you invite a neighbor who doesn't know Jesus over for a meal? We can use hospitality to serve others and just as a setting to speak the words of life, the very word of God to each other as we sharpen each other in our own faith or as we introduce Jesus to someone for the first time. We picture the kitchen and disciple making because hospitality so often comes in the form of food. Was at a funeral Friday night and one of our church members was saying to me, his mother-in-law passed away and he said, fellowship has blessed us so much these past few days. And the first thing he said was, oh my goodness, the food. He said, I don't even know where all the food is coming from. I just know it's coming from people at fellowship. Hospitality comes so often in the form of food.

My wife and I are part of an amazing D group here in West Little Rock with nine other couples on our campus. And more often than not, when we meet, we meet at Barrett and Kristen Ballew's house. And Kristen is incredibly gifted by God in hospitality. Sometimes she'll have a full meal for all of us. Sometimes it's something lighter. Sometimes we all bring something, but there is always food. And they're so willing to open up their home to us and to our kids and to make us all feel welcome and to use food to create this incredible environment and atmosphere where we can eat and laugh and talk and catch up on the week and just enjoy building and strengthening our relationships with each other before we dive into Bible study for the night. And I can say the same thing about everyone else in our group who has hosted us and been so generous to open their homes and provide food. We just, no matter where we meet, we have this warm and welcoming and hospitable environment that elevates what we are doing to be iron sharpening iron for each other. Food and hospitality play a huge role in disciple making. My three boys have all played varying levels of basketball from middle school, travel ball, high school. We'll have one that just wrapped up college ball. And because of all the basketball

we've been a part of the past several years, we spend a lot of time traveling with other families, eating meals on the road. And we just get these unique opportunities to spend this time with these families. And we have always sought to use those meals as a time to get to know people and as a time hopefully to have meaningful and spiritual conversations, which I mean, the apps at Chili's don't always afford that, but sometimes they do. Remember, sometimes the thing that you're doing, basketball travels, is not the real purpose. Making disciples is the real purpose. Now, as I'm telling you this and how this has played out in my life, I'll admit I have a headstart on most people when it comes to having spiritual conversations with the people I'm around. Because you know how this goes, hey, Jay, what do you do for a living? I'm a pastor. And it either opens up the door for a spiritual conversation or for someone to apologize to me for why they don't go to church. Like it's one of those two areas that we're going down. And so I get it. And sometimes those conversations work and sometimes they don't work. But our goal has always been to use hospitality and meals

to love others and to show them that we care about them in the hopes that we will. talk with them about Jesus or their faith. And we don't view people as projects, we don't view people as targets, we just view people as created in the image of God and we hope that the Lord will bring about an opportunity for us to get to talk about the things that really matter the most, not our kids, not the basketball, but eternal things. And again, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Over the past few years, my wife and I have had multiple meals with this one guy I can think of in particular, and in an effort to always try to have spiritual conversations, it's just never happened. In fact, half the time he forgets what I do for a living. It's like, hey, what do you do again? I'm a pastor. Oh yeah, and then it's on to other things. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but we're always looking to use those mealtimes and those spaces and those relationships intentionally. And when it comes to the kitchen, I saw the power of how this kind of hospitality worked very early on in our marriage. When about 20 years ago, I served a church and Jennifer and I were living in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

And I was doing student and college ministry at the time, and I had met a couple of guys who were students at James Madison University and started discipling them. And Jennifer had met a couple of girls who were students and she started discipling them. And with the guys, as I began to pour into them, they were like, dude, you need to come to our fraternity house and you need to share Jesus with all the people there. Like, come and debate them about Christianity. And I was like, you want me to argue with people for Jesus? I feel gifted at arguing, I can do that. And so I would go and sit there and these guys would peg me with questions and I would answer them and it was this real like, back and forth kind of thing. At the same time, Jennifer would have these two college girls over to our incredibly rundown, I'm a poor youth minister townhouse. And she would just cook for them and serve them and spend time with them. And one of the things that they loved the most was that she would make for them and then teach them how to make this really strange concoction they had never heard of called sweet tea. And they would just drink it by the gallon and they loved it and they loved her for that. And what I began to realize was,

I was winning a lot of arguments, but she was winning a lot of hearts. And hospitality was playing a much bigger role than me arguing with a bunch of guys in our fraternity house was doing. Hospitality was winning over arguing because it showed the love of Jesus while sharing it. The kitchen's one of the most intimate rooms in our home. And to have someone in your kitchen is to say, you're sort of like family to me. The living room and the dining room are for guests, but the kitchen is for family. So how can you use meals and hospitality? And how can you use your serving and your speaking gifts as a tool for making disciples? What would it look like for you to host your D group in your home, to host your neighbors in your home, to eat meals with people, to have people over to serve them and talk with them? That's one way we make disciples. That's one way we show and share the gospel, equip with power and courage. It's hospitality, meals and time together over them. So let's look at the next room, the playroom. Here again, I wanna show you 1 Corinthians 9. Paul talks about his approach to making disciples in this passage. You're probably familiar with it, but he says in verse 19,

"'For though I am free from all, "'I have made myself a servant to all "'that I might win more of them. "'To the Jews I became as a Jew in order to win Jews. "'To those under the law, I became as one under the law, "'though not being myself under that law, "'that I might win those under the law. "'To those outside the law, "'I became as one outside the law, "'not being outside the law of God, "'but under the law of Christ, "'that I might win those outside the law. "'To the weak, I became weak, "'that I might win the weak. "'I have become all things to all people, "'that by all means I might save some. "'I do it all for the sake of the gospel "'that I may share with them in its blessings. "'Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, "'but only one receives the prize? "'So run that you may be able to obtain it. "'Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. "'They do it to receive a perishable wreath, "'but we an imperishable. "'So I do not run aimlessly. "'I do not box as one beating the air, "'but I discipline my body and I keep it under control, "'lest after preaching to others, "'I myself should be disqualified.'" So as we talk about the playroom,

and in just a minute talk about the garage, what I wanna show you here is that Paul is not a guy who is just interested in only theology and only church stuff. You can see he was clearly a sports fan too. He talks about running, he talks about boxing to describe his approach to disciple making. And the key here is that he tells us that he became all things to all people that he might win some to Christ. Whoever Paul was around, he found common ground, a shared humanity, a shared experience, a shared personality trait, a shared belief, a shared background, a shared interest. And he used that as a jumping off point to build a connection in an effort to make disciples. And so what does that look like in the playroom of our homes? The playroom in our homes represents our interests and our hobbies, and so to view these things through the lens of making disciples, here's the thing, I can make disciples through my interest in God. in my hobbies. I can make disciples through my interest in my hobbies. What do you like to do for fun at home? Like, do you, as a family, do you play games? Do you like doing puzzles? Are you on the Mahjong circuit here in West Little Rock? Ladies, I hear that's a big thing. Some of you guys too, we'll talk to you later about that.

Do you play video games? You have a golf simulator in your den? You have a fire pit outside your house? Or one of the words that, you know, one of the words we use for activities like this is the word recreation. And I don't know if you ever thought about it, but the word recreate is a part of that word. We tend to find hobbies and interests that recreate a sense of purpose and rest within us. It recreates us because not all of us get to work in a job or play a role in life that gives us rest, that gives us meaning, and that gives us purpose. And it's not that we wanna escape through these hobbies and interests in an unhealthy way, though some of us can and will do that from time to time. It's that we tend to fill our leisure time with the things that bring us rest, bring us joy, bring us recreation. And so like Paul, what would it look like and what would it mean to be all things to all people in this specific area of our life? What would it look like for you to see your entries and your interests and your hobbies as tools for discipleship? What would it look like if you saw your hobbies and your interests not as the main thing you do to recreate yourself, but as a vehicle for conversations about Christ?

Why not invite friends, your neighbors, or your D group to sit with you around the fire pit? What does it look like to have intentional conversations over mahjong or while you're playing board or video games or working on a puzzle? And look, I get that sometimes we do those things to get away and to be alone and to rest and to recharge, and that's good too. But what would it look like to invite others into those spaces and also use that time and those relationships to have meaningful and spiritual conversations? And the last room in the house is real similar, it's the garage. The garage helps us think through our outside activities, things we do away from our home. You can even use things outside your home that you enjoy doing, gardening, or if you like working on mechanical things like motors or your car, or even woodworking or welding, like those are all kinds of skills and projects that people are interested in. But we're also including the type of athletic hobbies like Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 9. We are so blessed here in Central Arkansas to have such a beautiful outdoor playground that God has created for us, and it's so close. There's a ton of runners, cyclists, pickleballers, tennis players, golfers, fishermen, hunters, swimmers, pickup basketball games, disc golf,

crossfitters, volleyball, skateboarding, hikers, walkers, you name it. And do you know what I found about every single one of those interests? It's that there's a thriving community of people who are involved in all of them, and they are more than happy for you to go and join them. There's this thriving community, or it may be that you're a parent who has kids that are involved in sports, and because of all of that, you find yourself constantly at meals, or in the stands, or in parking lots, or in a gym, or at a field with a bunch of other parents too that you can invest in while your kids are playing sports together. And so that's the point we're making about the garage. It's this, I can make disciples through my activities. I can make disciples through my activities. Sidney Fletcher, who attends our Midtown campus, she realized this within the last couple of years. And she was kind enough to share her story with us about what it looks like to use our activities as a tool for making disciples. Let's check out her story. Pickleball is a great way to build community. I actually am personally really passionate about having spiritual conversations with people and it not being weird. A year ago, I was talking to my childhood youth pastor and just asking about like, you know, how can I have these conversations more,

especially as someone who is in Christian circles often, and I was like really missing being in other contexts as well and having those opportunities. And he just asked me, you know, what are your spheres of influence like? Do you have any hobbies? And I was like, oh yeah, I like to play pickleball. And so some of my friends was like, let's go. So I didn't have to go by myself. Sidney and I became friends a couple of years ago. We actually met playing pickleball at Midtown. Last year, kind of spent time intentionally studying the word together, and Sidney was actually discipling me for a little while. And through that, we were just encouraging each other a lot. Here at Pickleball, we decided to kind of make this a place where we were more intentional about having conversations with people and making friends. Instead of just showing up, I. I had to be slightly more intentional and like pray and ask the Lord, like, okay, help me to like step out of my comfort zone a little bit, try to get to know people I don't know, introduce myself, but also just help me to be on the lookout for what you have. And then every week, you know, as it got just more and more normal, it was like, Oh, Hey, so-and-so. Hey, like, good to see you again. How's it been going? Because if you continually show up somewhere, then people are like, okay, you're not just passing through and like you can build connection points with I love our community that we've built because we've got people from India. We've got people from Nigeria.

We've got people from Arkansas all over the world. Last summer we played pickleball like every night after work one night afterwards, we were all really hungry. So we went out to eat. The topic of like our faith came up. And so me and one of my good friends were able to talk about our faith and what it means to us, but then also got to hear about our friends and their faith and their religion and got to find some common ground, but then also like shed light of the gospel into that. The only way we could have even had that conversation was through becoming friends and having this shared hobby to then go deeper. And that was after a few months. Relationships are not something you make happen or that they develop like overnight. It takes time and investment and getting to know people. And so just being your normal, natural self with a little bit of intentionality, no matter what you're doing, we all have places that we go to or people that we're near consistently and frequently think about that. And then wherever you are, just take a moment to pray and ask the Lord to like highlight like opportunities for good conversation. My vision was never to like build an international community with all these people. It was never that it was to go have fun. And then I was like, Lord, how can I invite you into this and what can you do through it? There's no need to have pressure, but just a little bit of intentionality and inviting the Lord in can go a really long way. Lord, how can I invite you into this? It's like Paul said to the pickleballers.

I became a pickleballer. Pickleballing to the glory of God. I mean, like what a great story and what a great mindset to have about that. What would it look like for you to use the activities that God is giving you a gifting or a passion for to become all things to all people? What is the thing you find yourself doing? Pickleballing, running, cycling? What if that's really not what the thing was about? What if you viewed as a tool for a greater mission, one that has eternal dividends and blessings on this side of heaven? You know, knowing that this particular message was going to end up focusing in on how our activities can be used for disciple making and especially around this kind of athletic thing. I like to think our teaching pastors were sitting around and asking who's the most athletic guy on our staff we could get to deliver that message. And after those five or six guys couldn't do it, they came to me. Ben Parkinson, one of our teaching pastors once said that I am the most out of shape looking in shape guy he's ever seen. And I was like, thank you. I think I chose to focus on the in shape part of that. In our D group, we have a group of guys that they run and they ride bikes and they're a part of this community of other guys, both inside fellowship and outside fellowship just here in our community that do those things. And one night, a few years ago, I was complaining after I'd had COVID about being out of shape and being out of breath and all that. And two of the guys in our group, Stuart Finley and Barry Rush said, Hey, we go up pinnacle mountain at 6am two mornings a week. Why don't you come do that with us and kind of get back in shape. And I was like, that sounds easy in the dark. And, uh, and so I did. And the first time we went up the mountain,

I was about 15 or 20 minutes behind them and had to stop a bunch of times and was so out of breath and so embarrassed that when I got to the top, I was like, I'm never doing that again. And they just looked at me and they said, man, you're fine. Just come back Thursday. We'll do it again. So kept doing that. And I appreciate that invite, not only because of what we were doing, but the time that we were getting together. And so I did that and I got in better shape and some other guys jumped in. And before too long, we started talking about doing something crazy. And we decided two years ago that we were going to do something where we would go out to the grand Canyon hike all the way down to the Colorado river at the bottom, go all the way up the other side, and then come back and do that in 24 hours. Uh, it's 50 miles, uh, 12,000 feet of elevation climb. Uh, and it's called a rim to rim to rim. And apparently is a really big deal for what I now understand. And if you're going to do something like that, you know what that means for me, especially you have to train really, really hard to do that. You don't just get up off the couch and do that. And so the training and the big goal of completing this rim to rim to rim run sounds like the thing, but it turned out not to really be the thing. You see, the real thing became much more important than that. thing was the relationships and the conversations and the discipleship that happens when you're spending hours a time with each other, running and training and occasionally, like me, tripping and falling. And I wish I could tell you about every single one of the conversations that I've had with those guys over the past few years as we've done that.

They're not only conversations that have allowed me to make disciples, but they're conversations that have in turn shaped and formed me as we are iron sharpening iron for one another. Conversations like one morning, there was a guy who had recently jumped in with us going up and down Pinnacle Mountain and as we were coming down, he just looked over at me. He said, Jay, my dad died about six months ago and I'm not doing real well. He gave me an opportunity to minister to him and shared the hope and peace of the gospel with him in that. We've had conversations about marriage struggles. We've had conversations about parenting struggles. One time last year, we were doing a long training run for the Grand Canyon and we were 30 miles into a 37 mile training run. And I should point out the guys I do this with are a lot younger and faster than me. And so 30 miles in, I was cramping, I was exhausted, I was out of breath, I was just not in good shape. And one of the guys turned to me at that point and said, hey, what's the difference in all the Christian denominations? And why do some people handle rattlesnakes? So in between breaths, I kid you not, over the next few miles as we finished up, it opened up an opportunity to share the gospel with a guy that I had never got to share the gospel with before.

And after we were done and we were sitting over a meal, the guy got, I remember he went to the bathroom and two of the other guys looked at him like, oh my gosh, that's awesome, we just got to share the gospel with a guy. It's the thing that matters, not the thing you think that matters that's the most important. And so all that time together culminated not only in 2024 when we were completed the rim to rim to rim, I know some of the guys did it in 15 hours, I was in the group that did it in 18 hours, but it was so good that we took some new guys and we did the same thing last year in 2025. Same thing, a lot of time together, a lot of time training. In both years that we've gone, Clay Ramey, who goes to our West Little Rock campus here, who was the catalyst behind this trip and who does such a great job of just gathering guys and getting them together for this purpose. Clay asked me last year or both years, if I would lead the group in communion on the rim of the Grand Canyon before we started running that day. So you can imagine what it's like to stand on the edge of one of the greatest natural wonders of the world and try to figure out what to say as we remember Christ's death and resurrection and then go run 50 miles into the Grand Canyon.

This past year, you can see this picture from this past, it was so dark, it's four in the morning and the only light you get is from headlights and all that and we're just standing there and the only thing I could think about was the glory of the Lord. Not just in the beauty that we were about to see all day long, but as we stood there in the dark, I thought about the glory of the Lord that exists in the relationships of this group of men that we've built together, that the mission that we had created for ourselves wasn't really the thing, the relationships that sharpened us were the thing. See, sometimes you aim at community with other people, but you will fall short of that. But when you have a group of people and you aim at a mission together, especially a great, grand, or even godly mission together, community becomes a byproduct of that mission. The relationships are formed over that mission together with a group of guys like that and that's what we had, a discipleship-oriented community that was created out of a mission together. And so standing there, I quoted what is basically a paraphrase of a statement that Irenaeus, a second century theologian, once said, you may have heard it, but the paraphrase is this, the glory of the Lord is a man who is fully alive. And we got to be fully alive running through

one of God's most creative playgrounds on earth together. Even during the day, I remember stopping to take a break on our final climb out just before sunset. Taylor Moore and I were climbing out together and we were talking about Proverbs 22 and how God had used it and blessed it in my life. Because being in God's glory together somehow makes you want to give him even more glory. Activities, they can be used as a tool for disciple making if you understand that the thing is not always the real thing. It's the mission that matters, it's the eternal part that matters the most. And like Paul being all things to all people, if you keep hobbies and interests and activities in the proper perspective, it can all be used for the glory of God. Colossians 3, 17, Paul said, whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. And then Paul later on in 1 Corinthians 10, he says, even eating and drinking, getting back to that hospitality, he says, so whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Going back to that first Peter passage in verse 11, he says that when we use our gifts to make disciples, God is glorified in everything that we do. That's a part of our mission, to live for his glory.

And when we make disciples, we bring him glory. Sometimes we forget that the thing is not the real thing. And like Paul says, we end up just boxing at the air. We train, but we never compete in the sense that we use it when it comes to making disciples. And so let's commit to using our hospitality, our hobbies, our interests, and our activities, and let's compete for the prize, to live out Christ's mission, to receive the blessings that come with it. And look, if you wanna grow in this area, if you go, man, I wanna do those things, Jay, I just don't really know how, reach out to me, reach out to one of the folks on our staff, reach out to one of our elders, your dGroup leader. Let us help equip and empower and encourage you as a disciple maker, as you seek to live on Christ's mission too. And let's experience the joy of being used by our creator to help others experience the same joy that we have. You're gonna be in a lot of spaces and a lot of places with a lot of people this week. What if you didn't see it as work, you didn't see it as interest, you didn't see it as hobbies, you didn't see it as just cooking a meal? What if you saw that as a tool for making disciples? How can the Lord use that for you to show and share the gospel and equip, empower, and encourage other believers?

And how can we do that for God's glory, trusting that he is at work alive in us? I know this, if you are willing to be used by him, he will use you and you will see his glory at work and on display in your life. Would you pray with me? Lord, thank you for what you have done to give us an example of what it can look like when we see all of life as a part of your kingdom. Lord, we're not people who believe that we separate our lives out. We have the spiritual part, we have the worldly part, we have the job part. Lord, all of it is yours. All of who we are is yours. And I pray that in everything we do, that you will show us not only just to give us the gifting to be disciple makers through everything that we do, Lord, but that you would give us the passion and the heart and the desire to be people who boldly want to live on the mission that you've given us. Lord, empower us by your spirit. Encourage us when we need it. Lord, equip us through your word. And then help to, through your grace, find us faithful. Lord, it's in your strength and your power we do this, not in our own. And as we do that, Lord, again, it is for your glory. And it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Thanks again for listening to the word of God.

We are blessed to reach you throughout the week through whatever platform you're listening on. If you're needing prayer or you want to talk to someone about your walk with Jesus, reach out to us at fellowshipar.com slash contact. Have a great week.