Life Together

Well, good morning again, and of course we want to welcome those that are joining from one of our campuses here in Austin, 13 Correctional Facilities. It's an honor to be with you as well, Illy. Mozambique is in the house as well. Shy, shy Mozambique. If you want to know where Mozambique is, just look at the map, and it's there, way over there, and we're just excited about all things that are happening. Mel and Diane Stauber leading our team, leading what has been called the best school in all of Mozambique, and our students are now graduating from our school, going into secondary education, getting law degrees, and becoming doctors. Just amazing. Celebration church. Can we just say hello to everybody? Good to see you guys. It's interesting that Jesus did not just say, take care of your own neighborhood. He said, beginning in your neighborhood, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and then he says, do what? Go to the ends of the earth. And I think Jesus on purpose made it hard for us. How many know that God does call you to do hard things? Because he's the God who makes up the difference. We barely can take care of our own family, much less taking care of families around the world, but God says, yeah, but you lean on me. I will lead you, and I'll provide for you. And maybe you're going through a hard time. Maybe right now this is a difficult season for you in some ways, economically, could be spiritually, relationally. But I want you to lean in today, because I really do believe that the Lord wants to speak to you, and he wants to give you what the Bible tells us he came to give us, and that is life. And that is not just surviving life, but life abundantly, conquering life, and overcoming

life. Many of us are just barely hanging on from week to week, day to day. That is far from what God intended for you. The Bible tells us, and I'll pray after this, in the book of Matthew, he told his disciples, in fact, Mark 3, let me just say, he went up on a mountain and he summoned those whom he wanted, and they came to him. And he appointed 12 for this reason, so that they would, what, be with him. And then, as a result of this fellowship, as a result of communing with him and spending time with him, then he could use them, he had a vocation for them, he had a purpose for them, but the very first thing that had to happen is he had to fellowship with them. I believe that God has appointed you today to spend time with him, so he can send you back, and that we could carry the kingdom of God to wherever we go. Father, speak to us today. I thank you that, Lord, as you went up on that mountain, and you brought those whom you wanted close to you, that they may be with you, that they may be together with you. Lord, today, may we say, at the end of our meeting today, that we've been with Jesus. And as a result, we can go wherever you tell us to go, with authority, with power, with victory, with hope. We give you the praise, and all of God's people said, amen. Our series, we're calling it Together. Can you just say that word for me? Together. And to God, the word together is not just a word. It is not just a statement, it's a fact. Theologically, it's a fact. It's a reality. It's the result of the cross of Christ. It's not a wish. It's more than a doctrine. It's more than just a statement.

And our whole series around this word together, and of course, we're taking it from all sorts of angles. Today, we're going to be talking about being together, and of course, together in a small group, together in relationship, not just in this room, or not just in a big room, or a big sanctuary, and not just coming to Christ individually, but we begin to realize that God wants us to be together with other people. This whole idea of together, when it comes to our togetherness, is something that God is not just commanding, but it's something that has been made. So when you consider the cross, when you consider what Jesus did on the cross, and why was he here? What did he come for? Well, ultimately, his 33 years on this planet led to the cross. It culminated at the cross. He had to be the lamb. that came to take away our sin. But it wasn't just to take away our sin. It wasn't just so that you and I individually could be forgiven, which is a fact, and that is true. It starts in the private. You have your own private relationship to Christ. But God does not let you just stay there, nor was the cross just dealing with your private sins or your private life and your private issues. He came so that we could eventually, in our private worlds, come together publicly, that we would begin to gather together, and this is what he came to do. He came, yes, to settle that which was a war, a war between Satan and God. We know that that was ultimately what he came to do,

and the Bible says it in 1 John. He came to destroy the works of the devil. Satan had a work. Satan did what he wanted to work in the world, and that is to divide and to separate. Well, Christ came to settle the dispute, the war, as to who is king, who is lord. How many are thankful that Christ is king, he is lord, Satan is not lord, he is not king. Satan is not the prince of this world. We know who the ultimate prince is. His name is Jesus. And so what Jesus came to do in the cross and by way of the cross was to conquer the enemy and to declare, and Jesus said it, all authority has been given unto me in heaven and in earth. And this was not just for Christians. This is not just whether you are a Christian or not. This is an eternal fact. This is from the creator himself that he sent his son into the world to declare over the world that he made that he now owns the world. And by way of the cross, the world was secured. This is the fact, this is the truth. We often think that what is for us from the scriptures just relates to our little context of the church, our little context of our Sunday morning Bible classes or our Sunday morning devotionals and we see that God is our king.

Whether you are a Christian or not, he's your king. Whether you believe it or not, you're on his planet. It's not just for Christians or it's not just for people of a faith or a belief or people that are spiritual. This world belongs to God. And when Jesus said all authority has been given unto me, that goes everywhere. That includes everyone. Jesus has ultimate authority over you whether you want him or not. Whether you like him or not. Whether you want it or not, he has all authority because he secured life again that had been lost in the garden as we know what had happened between God and man and in particular, man who was represented in Adam. God brought life back again by the cross. By this, not just the cross but by his death, burial and resurrection. By his cross or by the victory of his cross, ownership was brought back to God. Let's look at Ephesians chapter one and then we'll get into a little bit more practically. The Bible says in Ephesians 1, 20 and 23, he brought in Christ and it was all worked out in Christ and through Christ when he raised him from the dead, seated him at the right hand in heavenly places. Not church places, heavenly places. Far above all rule and authority and power and dominion

and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things in subjection under his feet. All things, all things are in subjection under his feet. And gave him, Christ, as head over all things to the church which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. Him who fills all in all. He made us alive. He made us to sit with him in heavenly places. Bible goes on to say a little bit deeper, Ephesians chapter two, you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formerly, in your life before God, you formerly walked according to the course of this world. And one of the young men that was baptized this morning at 17 years of age after worship, I just said to him at 17, most 17 year old boys are not making decisions to follow the Lord publicly in water baptism. I wanna just declare to you how proud I am. At 17, I wasn't thinking about walking with Jesus. The Bible says you once walked according to the world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now all over. working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lust of our flesh, indulging in the desires of our flesh and our mind. We were by nature children of wrath, but God being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive, and there's that word, together. One translation would say, one of the words in Greek is, He quickened us together with Christ, for by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus, for by grace you

have been saved through faith, and that it's not because of what you've done, it's because of the gift of God given to us at the cross. Through Christ's cross, through this resurrection, notice what he says, we have been made alive, and that word together is not the only time it's used in the New Testament, and especially in the book of Ephesians. The Bible goes on to tell us that we are planted together. We have been seated together. We've been gathered together. Joined together. Framed together. Knit together. Builded together. Live together. We're workers together. We're to strive together for the furtherance of the gospel. We meet together. We're glorified together. Look at the ultimate, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, and verse 17, we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. How many are ready for that day for the Lord to call us up together? Together we're going to be caught up. Together we leave if the Lord so has it arranged for us. Like Paul the apostle says, I thought I was going that way, but it looks like I'm going that way. Not hell, but he was saying, I had a thought I was going to leave this world by way of his powerful rapture, his powerful catching me up into the heavens, and then he goes, I'm going the way of the earth. I'm going to go in another direction, but ultimately we're going to go to heaven. This word together over and over and over and over is an emphasis by God, and everything about God is our togetherness. It's important for us to hear this because if you come to church for an individualistic message only, or if a pastor only preaches individually to you for your own individual lane, your own individual problems, your own individual word, but you never begin to understand the corporate nature of God, your understanding of Christ will be far below what Christ has intended for you. We can't just hear stuff for ourselves. We have to hear it for other people. We've got to hear it as it relates to community. Today the emphasis really is about us not just coming together in a large corporate expression, which is wonderful across our campuses, but the real reality is that we have to find, even out of the corporate gathering and even out of the larger gathering, we've got to find people that we know in a deeper and more understanding way. We've got to have people in our lives that know what we're walking through. We've got to have people in our lives that know when we're not here. I have watched in my whole life as a football background, my dad was an NFL football coach, and then I basically played at a league

above the NFL at Louisiana State University, the Southeastern Conference, which really we are the NFL of college football, which we then allowed some of the lesser teams to come in, like the University of Texas and Texas A&M as part of our mentoring program for children. It's called the Southeastern Conference, not the Southwestern Conference. There used to be a conference called the Southwestern Conference, but it was thrown into the pit of hell after a couple of years. But having been in the world that I lived in, especially growing up as my father was the coach and attending football games and having the same seats, you started to have community with people that you sat next to. I've seen it, I've seen it at LSU, I've seen it even in my chaplain work here for the University of Texas and you sit in the same seats and people have season tickets and they get to know people to the point where they're doing life with people. And if you can get to know someone at a football game maybe seven times a year, that maybe you go seven times a year. You end up doing life with people, and you end up going to their birthday parties, or you end up celebrating their babies, or their grandbabies being born, or you keep in touch with each other all year long, and can't wait for the next season to come around for some God-awful reason to just be disappointed again. If it's happening in a football stadium, it should happen in the house of God. It should happen in church, because He's the God who has made us to be together. He came to fill all things. And when it says He came to fill all things, that He may be the fullness of all things, that's just saying that Christ taking residence, and taking dominion, and taking me, cannot allow me to distance myself from Aaron, who has the same God inside of him. This is not something that is personality. This is not something that is given to our personality, or to our frame of mind, or our background, or our disposition. This is all about the cross. But I have no excuse to say I can't be connected to people if I am connected to the cross. And you can't say you can't be connected to people in intimate ways, and in a deeper way other than just sitting beside them, if you're connected to the cross. See, it's not, again, it's not a statement, it's not a wish, it's the result of the cross

of Christ. It's what He did on the cross. And what Ephesians is telling us is by way of His death, burial, His resurrection, no longer can I live in isolation. I can't live separated. I can't live distanced. It's kind of like John 3 20 when he says, for everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. Let me bring it in a different context. For everyone who is still walking in their own will, in their own way, apart from Christ, or in evil, in darkness, which is what is clearly from the Scripture, the Bible says He's refusing, He's rejecting relationship, togetherness, not just with Christ, but with other people. For He doesn't want, they don't want to be found as exposed, as being needy, as being flawed, as being weak, as being broken, as being hurt and fearful. See, this is why the Bible tells us they don't come to the light unless they're found out to be human. I have news for you, you're human, which means you're broken. That means you're hurting. It means that there's areas in all of our lives where we are flawed, and we're not all that. This is where I'd like for you to just turn to the person next to you. Just look at them like this. Don't do that. You and I are all needy. We all have needs. We all have fears. We all have hurts. We all are selfish. The Bible says we all, like sheep, have gone where?

Astray. And the Bible says when we begin to experience this incredible love of Christ, we come to the end of ourselves. That's what baptism signifies. It's the end of ourselves. Our old life has been drowned in the sea. We've been raised by the power of God. Real baptism is not somebody picking you up out of that water. It's just you drowning and God picking you up out of that water. But we won't go there. We don't do those kind of baptisms. But that's the picture. It's you being lost and God finding you. It's you being hopeless and God finding you. It's you being broken and it's God finding you. It's almost like a type of the picture of Job, being lost, being broken, disobedient, but God had a prepared fish. I'm very thankful for the prepared plan, even when we're trying to run from the plan. I'm very thankful that God can put things in front of us and cause things to wake us up and eventually bring us back to the newness of life. This is God's whole plan. will and way is to bring us back together, not just with Him, but with each other. In Christ, yes, we are made new, but in Christ we're also made to be in community. Your newness allows you now to be in community, to be in relationship, one with another. This is why Paul would even make this statement in 2 Corinthians chapter 1 and 9. He says, indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead. We had the sentence of death within ourselves. It's like Paul is saying, and you're going to see this key word here, but he goes, it's like the Lord won't let us out from one problem after another.

It's like He sentenced us to this kind of life, to this kind of trial, to these kinds of experiences, but then look at the purpose of God so that. Why are we walking through another death-like situation? Why are we walking through another season of pressure? Why are we walking through another season of crisis so that, Paul says, this is what I've learned about God, that I would not trust in myself, so that I would not trust in me but in God. See, God's trying to turn your focus from you to Him. It's always about coming back to Him. It's always about fellowship. The Bible contains a lot of facts and a lot of truths, but if there's ultimate purpose in what God is doing, and many of you would probably say, ultimately, the reason why Christ came to this world was to save me, to give me eternal life. Yes, but there's even more than that. It's fellowship. It's being together with Him. It's not being out of hell, and it's not just being in heaven. It's being in heaven for fellowship, for relationship, for togetherness, to be together, to be in community, to be in communion. He brought those to Himself that He might be with Him. And if the end of your walk with Christ doesn't lead to fellowship, if it doesn't lead to intimacy, if it doesn't lead to a connection, a gathering that is more than just, thank you, God, my sins are forgiven, but thank you, God, that my sins were forgiven so that I could be one with you, so I could know you, so I could see you, so I could touch you, so I could do life, an eternal life with you. This is the ultimate, and yes, there's a vocation, yes, there's a purpose out of that fellowship. Philippians tells us, therefore, Paul, watch how many times he puts, he's going to put some stress on this, if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if you have an ounce of affection and compassion. This is what he's saying.

Ultimately, this is how he's reading it in the Greek and writing it in the Greek. If you've heard God's voice, if you have experienced God's love, if you know the power of the Holy Spirit, if you have had a compassion that God meets you, if you have a heart not of stone, but of flesh, then he says, with all of this, make my joy complete by being together in the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in the Spirit, intent on one purpose, don't live for yourself, don't live out of selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, regard one another as more important than yourselves. He's not saying you're not important. He's just bringing us out of us because that's where life begins to truly happen. Life begins to happen when you get out of you and you get into the lives of other people. He goes on to say, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, do nothing from selfish or empty conceit, but with humility, regard, remember, focus on someone else. This is what ultimately is the expression of Christianity. It's not John 3.16 on the street corner. God sees you, boy. Turn or burn, hell is hot, hot, hot, hot. I see you over there. In fact, I saw you last Sunday, turn or burn, better turn. And I'm not saying that there's not some street preachers who are not called of God to do certain things and declare in those kind of public places, but let's face it, they often cause more problems. And actually don't reflect the goodness of God, the kindness of God, the mercy of God. Jesus, if that was the way, he would have just come down with a big old sandwich board and just said, turn or burn one day, turn or burn, that's it, I'm out, I'm gone. Why did he live through every season that you and I will ever live? Why did he live beginning as a baby all the way through? Because he wants fellowship, he wants relationship. He's not just trying to get you out of hell. He wants connection. And Paul is writing, don't be about yourself.

Don't be about your interests only, though you have interests and though you have areas of your own self needs, but your life is not just for your life. He says, your life depends upon the lives of other people. The church's life depends upon doing life with other people. The name of Jesus and the expression of Jesus in the earth depends upon how you do and how I do life with other people. And that's not just in the context of listening to a preacher sitting in rows, I'm talking about doing life in places that are hard. Something happens, not just naturally, but supernaturally in our togetherness. This is the story from T.J. and Rihanna Acosta. 2024 changed our life forever. At 43 years of age, I was diagnosed with stage 3 bladder cancer. Suddenly our lives were filled with fear, chemo treatments, sleepless nights, and much uncertainty. My wife, Rihanna, immediately began to reach out for prayer. During my first month of chemo, our friends, Brian and Deanna Settle, came to our house with food and prayed for us in our front yard. I had tubes and drains coming out of my body and was embarrassed for anyone to see me. But when I saw them, I walked outside, I hugged them, I broke down, I was desperate for prayer. You see, that's the so that. So that I would have true relationships. That I would have true intimacy. So that I would not trust in myself, but in God. I don't believe that God gives us this, because He went about healing people, taking it away from people. But He sure does redeem all things. What the enemy meant for evil, God can take and redeem it and pull good out of it. So he says, later they called and said God had put it on their hearts to give us a love offering. It covered an entire month of bills why I couldn't work, and Rihanna was caring for

me. God was taking care of us through His people. A few months later, Brian and Deanna invited us to their small group. You see, for many years, my answer has always been no, small groups aren't for me. We've been attending Celebration Church since 2004. We just never had gone to a small group. But this time I said yes, and everything changed. Small groups gave us a place to be vulnerable, to pray, to grow in God's Word, to walk through one of the hardest seasons of our lives with people beside us. Our faith grew stronger, our marriage grew stronger, our relationship with Jesus grew stronger. It tried to take my joy, but God gave me gratitude. It tried to break me, but God used it to show me the power of the body of Christ. If we could tell anyone at Celebration one thing it would be, don't wait. Don't wait until life falls apart to discover the gift of community. We waited for more than 20 years to join a small group. Find your people, join a group, he says. Let yourself be known because sometimes God carries us through the people that are sitting next to Him. You see, you never know when you find yourself like T.J. I want to go now to the book of Acts chapter 14. It's probably one of my favorite stories. It helps us see even the power of people, the power of a small group, the power of a community beyond the corporate. Bible says in the book of Acts 14, it says... These Jews who had come from Antioch and Iconium, they turned the crowds against Paul. Paul, of course, was preaching, having great success, great fruit, and so they were so mad that they stoned Paul and they dragged him out of the city and he was dead. Most theologians, when it says they supposed him to be dead, they fact many people he said he did die.

But watch, look at verse 20. It's just amazing. Read your Bible verse if you have it in your own pages or your own cell phone. But while the disciples stood around him. It doesn't say while the disciples necessarily prayed over him. It doesn't say they sang over him. It doesn't say they laid hands on him. It doesn't say they anointed him with oil. They didn't say they got Benny Hinn to come and lay hands and the power of God, the manifestation. It just says these disciples, these followers, they just got around him. That word stood around him just simply means they encircled him. And then it says, miraculously, he got up. He was raised from the dead and he entered back into the city. How many of you would have entered into a six-year sabbatical? Paul gets raised from the dead after being stoned and the very next day he goes right back into the city. The next day he went away with Barnabas to Derbe and after that he preached the gospel to that city and made even more disciples and they returned to Lystra, to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith saying through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God. I want you to see that, don't miss this. Through many tribulations, you have to enter. And that's the entrance. Through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God. It's much like how a space shuttle or any kind of rocket that is sent from this world to the next or the outer world, there's that friction, there's that heat. Anytime it comes back, there's that friction, there's that heat, there's a transition. You might be going through some tribulation, tribulum, that's what the Greek word, tribulum, it's a threshing instrument. It's what they use to thresh out the wheat from the tarry.

Sometimes when we're going with Christ, we find ourselves being faced with some tribulum. It's a hitting, it's a blow. What the Bible tells us is, it exposes whether you're going to be of the real or the fake. Are you going to be of the eternal or the temporary? When people talk about deconstructing, it's just the old term, backsliding. When people leave the faith, it's called backsliding. It's not deconstructing. Oh, it sounds so smart. It sounds so academic. I used to be a Christian, but my eyes were awoke to truth. The truth of what? You're selfish. And that you don't like it. You don't like walking through tribulation. And that you're just backsliding, you're just walking away from God. God to you is not doing what you think God should be doing. God to you is you've made Him in your own image, in your own likeness. You have just created, or you were a part of a created version of Christianity that did not tell you that you walk through tribulations to enter into the kingdom of God. No, we are not paying for our sins. No, we are not suffering as Christ suffered once and for all. Can I hear an amen? But as His followers in this world, there are tribulations. And what God wants is gold or that which has been tried by fire to come out of your life. And so what you find in this story is, and then when they had appointed elders from them in every church, having prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed. Let me just give you what I see in this small group, and this is what I want ultimately for every single one of us, is to have a small group of friends. Lori and I have several small groups of friends, several small groups that we attend.

One of them is on our street. If you live on our street, we're going to get you. We're coming after you. There's about 12 families that go to Celebration Church on our one street alone. We have a small group of about four families that we do regular life with that know all about us. We know all about them. We need that. We need people who can not just know what we're going through, nor can I just put it out there in front of everybody. But I also need them to come over and let Goose out or let Goose in. It's a small group that makes a circle around you in your time of crisis. You're going to have crisis. Who encircles you? A friend loves at all times, but a brother, a small group, frankly, the kind of brother that we all need, a kind of sister we all need is born for adversity. A friend loves at all times, but a brother, that intimate relationship is what he's putting there. I have two brothers. They wouldn't come for me in my time of adversity. He's talking about a Christian brother. I love you, Greg and Keith. God bless you. Nor would I come for you. Who gathers around you in your time of crisis? Who's there in your crisis? Number two, it's a small group, and as Paul went through it. Number two, it's a small group that is willing to suffer when you suffer. You understand, they risk their lives by coming close to Paul.

Having been stoned, having been attacked, having, frankly, trying to be murdered, or they were trying to murder him. Those who came around Paul were the next people in line to be murdered, to be stoned. And this is what Paul says. In fact, he talks about Prisca and Aquila, Romans 16, fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who for my life, they risk their own necks. They risk their necks. They put their necks out there. They suffered with me. The Bible says that we rejoice with those who rejoice, but we weep with those who weep. We suffer with those who suffer. See, this is where tribulation has a great work in our lives and suffering has a great work in our lives. It helps us to slow down and help other people with their suffering. It helps us to see other people in their suffering, to weep with other people in their suffering. Number three, it's a small group that sees the good when it's all bad. You know, it did not look all good. I'm sure when they got close to Paul, his face had to be mangled. It had to be marred. It had to be much like Jesus, so beaten, and so puffy, and so, frankly, bloody like Christ. It looked bad, but they saw the good. It's not if we're going to have bad days. It's not if we're going to have days where we went bad, we went south. Not just, of course, by the things that the world throws at us, but even by the things that we all still have in the side of us, days where we just made wrong choices.

Who's around you? Who's close enough to say, I'm going to be with you even in your bad day? I'm going to be with you even when you didn't say the right thing. I think that's where Paul says, we walk by faith, not by sight. That's not just in relationship to circumstances. I think that's in relationship to our sons, and our daughters, and to the people that are closest to us. I see great things in your life. Who can speak those kind of words to you? Who can prophesy future to you? Number four, it's a small group that offers us practical and quiet support. Practical and quiet support. I believe they probably changed Paul's clothes. I believe they addressed Paul's wounds, and they did it without a word. How many know some of the most powerful moments that we'll ever have with people are people that just are with us, and they don't say anything to us? Just sit there. Just sit there. Just to be there. Years ago, I had a friend of mine named Darren who was on our staff in Louisiana. His baby went into the NICU and barely alive at birth. And I drove the two and a half hours to Alexandria where the baby was, and he says, you're the only one that came. You came, you just came. I said, well, I'm just here to let you know we're thinking about you. I've never forgotten that. He just said, you came. You showed up. My family showed up. That's what we do.

That's what we do in small groups. That can only happen in the power of intimate relationships, and it's quiet. Titus 3, 14, our people, look at this, our people must learn. It's almost like God yelling to the church, church, you must learn to engage in good deeds, to meet pressing needs so that you will not be, and they will not be unfruitful. In other words, you're bringing the fruit to people, and it's your own fruitfulness. Number five is a small group that gets you back on your feet. In other words, they got Paul up. Paul got back up because of those. that we're gathered around him. How many believe that when you think someone in their coma is not hearing, they're hearing? Because it's spirit to spirit. Bible tells us in 3 John, "'Beloved, you are acting faithful "'in whatever you accomplish for the brethren, "'especially when they're strangers. "'They have testified to your love before the church. "'You do well to send them on their way "'in a manner worthy of the Lord, "'acting faithful in whatever you accomplish "'for the brethren and even for strangers.'" Pastor Joe, I don't know anybody. That's how you begin to get to know people, by being faithful to what Christ told us to do, and that is to be together. And then lastly, number six, it's a small group that makes room for others to join.

They didn't just keep it to themselves. They laid hands on other disciples in other cities. I believe what they said was, let's enlarge our small group. Yeah, we understand the power of the relationships that you are forming and you have with an intimate, regular group of people. There is a chemistry there. We're not trying to, nor do we want to see that broken up, but we also want to say, but make room for people that don't know where to go or what room to enter into. In other words, show hospitality. The Bible says, "'Don't neglect to show hospitality to strangers, "'for by this some have entertained angels.'" You just might be entertaining an angel when you entertain them in your home as a small group leader. You see, Pastor Joe, what do I do? My personality, my disposition, I just, in fact, maybe you were part of a small group and you didn't have the best experience. I get that. Not everybody's gonna be close to you. Not everybody should be close to you. But the first thing the Bible tells us to do is a man that hath friends must show himself friendly. In other words, you must begin to show, step up.

What do I do? How do I even start a small group? How do I engage? Well, we've got all of this set up for you. In fact, we've got QR codes all over this place. We got more QR codes than Delta Airlines and Alaska Airlines put together. We've got everything that is necessary for you to find out, number one, where is there a group? Or number two, helping you start a group. Helping you show up for other people. Lori and I showed up in this city 26 years ago without any relationships, without anyone waiting on us. We just showed up and that girl right there, put your hands up, Sharon, both of them. You're being stuck up right now. I'm just gonna. She was across the street. That guy was four houses down on the right. Put your hand up, Albert. 26 years ago, God put us on Eagle's Nest, 3916 Eagle's Nest. He didn't put us there to live in that house. He put us in there to be with Sharon and to be with Albert, Daphne, Sharon, and Craig. And that's the small group we've been a part of as well. We don't forget this. Oh, we've got thousands that attend our church. But that's not what makes church. It's what Jesus said to his own people. I don't call you slaves, I call you friends.

Even Jesus said, I need some friends. And so do you. Who would like to be a friend? Let me ask you a question. Let me ask you a question. As a Christian, who would like to be a friend that sticks closer than a brother? Who could be a better friend to people? I could. And number two, you need a friend, you need it. Even Jesus needed it. He says, I don't call you servants or slaves, I call you friends. Jesus needed a small group. And that's who he had. You could talk about Peter, James, Mark. You could talk about over and over. He went alone with the small group. And so Lord, as we today come to the conclusion of our time, it's not if people are going through the darkest day of their life, the hardest season of their life. In fact, as heads are bowed, eyes are closed, maybe you feel like Paul the Apostle. You have been dragged out of a job. Your health has been affected. Your finances. It's like you've been brought out to die. And you're wondering, is there anybody around me? Is there anybody that cares for me?

Can I tell you? God cares. And as Paul, the Bible says, would not just get back up. He'd go back into his body. future with power. It may be the worst day of your life, it may be the worst week of your life, it may be the worst season you've ever had. I'm here to tell you there are people, there's not just a God here, but there are people here who are ready, willing, and able to walk with you through your deepest, darkest trials. You're not alone. Lord, I thank you that you're the God of grace and mercy. Thank you that, Lord, in the right season, at the right time, you provide. Now, Lord, provide for each and every one of this church. Relationship, fellowship, connections, community that will last for eternity. And if you're here today and you'd say, Pastor Joe, I'm lost. I'm without Christ. I don't have the assurance of eternal life. I really don't have the security of knowing that my sins are forgiven, that I will be with God. When I die, I'm guilty. Please help me. What do I do? The Bible tells us to call upon the name of the Lord and you will be saved. If you're here today, would you like to pray that prayer? Can I see by the uplifting of hand? If you're here today and you'd say, Pastor Joe, pray with me about receiving Christ. Today, I want to do that. God sees. God knows. Can we say this out loud? Lord Jesus, thank you for your grace and your mercy that is supplied to me right now through your cross. Lord, you were crucified for me. You were judged for me. You died for me and you purchased me with your blood, my eternal life. Thank you for receiving me just as I am. In Jesus' name. Everybody said, can we just thank God for his kindness in this verse?