You Can’t Stream Community

Well, happy Father's Day, Summit family. As you're making your way to Philippians chapter two, we're going to continue on in our journey through the book of Philippians. Let me just say, happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there. My wife was like, what do you want to do today? True story. I said, I just want to order some food, sit on my back porch, and watch the final round of the US Open. That's it for me. I just want to chill. Yeah, I got a couple of golf claps in on that. And so, brothers, this is our day. Get all you can and can all you get. Philippians chapter two, if you're new with us, we've been making our way through the book of Philippians, and we're going to finish out chapter two today. The guy who wrote this, his name is Paul, and Paul says these words, beginning in verse 19. I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you, for I have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare, for they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know Timothy's proven worth, how as a son with a father, he has served with me in the gospel. I hope therefore to send him just as soon as I see how it will go with me, and I trust in the Lord that shortly I myself will come also. I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, and your messenger and minister to my need, for he's been longing for you all, and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill. Indeed, he was ill near to death, but God had mercy on him, and not only on him, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. I am the more eager to send him, therefore, that you may rejoice at seeing him again,

and that I may be less anxious. So receive him in the Lord with all joy, and honor such men, for he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me. God, thank you. We are again grateful, Lord God, and we give honor to the dads here, and God, we pray that they feel encouraged today. Lord Jesus, the task before me is daunting. I'm ill-equipped in and of myself to meet all of the needs here, and the stuff that people come to church with. I've always been amazed in my years pastoring the problems and the pressures and the burdens people are carrying and facing. Again, I don't have the capacity in and of myself to address or meet those needs, but I'm talking to one who's more than capable and qualified. And so, Spirit of the living God, would you just visit with us? Would you be, Lord God, among us today? I pray, Father, that your word would be living and active, that it won't return void, that as I scatter the seed of your word, that it would fall on good ground, take great root, and produce much fruit in our lives. God, would someone give their life to Christ today? I pray in the name of Jesus. Would you convince us that these things are true? Spirit of the living God, would you press on us in those areas we need pressing? Would you encourage in those areas we need encouraging? It's in Jesus' name I ask all of this, amen and amen. Without a doubt, in my estimation, one of the most poignant and emotional scenes in all of sitcom history took place on the set in one of the particular episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Yes, I am going to take you all the way back to the late 80s, early 90s. In this one particular episode, Will Smith's long lost estranged dad, biological dad, shows up in his life.

You could just see the shock and later on excitement and joy that just is overflowing in Will Smith's own heart and life as in this episode, him and his dad get an opportunity to bond and reconnect with one another. They have wonderful times together. In fact, one scene, they go to an amusement park and you can just see them making up for lost time. It's going so well, in fact, that the biological dad actually says to his son, Will, why don't we take a trip? Why don't we spend this whole summer together? And Will, you could just see him grow a whole foot taller. It's like he's on cloud nine. And then it happens. At the 11th hour, Will's dad bails again. You could just see the excitement leak out of Will. You could see the disappointment rush back in. And in a moving scene that he has with his uncle Phil, you can see Will Smith. hiding behind a wall of bravado as he says these words. Will you look at them with me? Now, you know what, Uncle Phil? I'm gonna get through college without him. I'm gonna get a great job without him. I'm gonna marry me a beautiful honey and I'm gonna have me a whole bunch of kids. I'll be a better father than he ever was. And I sure don't need him for that because there ain't a thing he can ever teach me about how to love my kids. How come he don't want me, man? I share that story with you for several reasons. One, I'm well aware that for many of you,

this story hits real close to home. You know what it's like to have your dad bail on you, to punt on his responsibilities. Maybe it happened to you at a time when you were most vulnerable, when you really needed him, a blueprint, a guiding force in presence in your life. He just up and vanished. Now here you are in this journey of manhood or maybe you're just now becoming a father yourself and you're frustrated in your quiet moments. There is this anger, maybe rage even, where you're just like, man, I didn't get some core things and it just feels like I'm navigating life, making it up as I go along. I wanna encourage you. I don't say this to flatter you. Some of the best dads I know are dads who come from fatherless homes and yet some point along the journey, they said to themselves, my kids will never know that pain. They're just not gonna know it. So a lot of these guys are just godly guys. I'm gonna lean into the Spirit of God and the generational curse stops. I'm gonna write a new legacy. I just wanna encourage you that if that's your background, you don't have to continue the legacy.

You can turn the page. I also share that story because for some of you, dad hits close to home, but for different reasons, not because you were the son, but because you were the dad. Some of you know what it's like to, that I bailed on my kids and I upped and vanished and I wasn't an active presence the way that I should have been. Oh, I want you to receive the grace and mercy of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. My Bible records in Lamentations, morning by morning, new mercies we see, which means this, on June 21st, he didn't wake you up with June 20th mercies. He woke you up with a fresh batch of mercies, the very fact that you are inhaling and exhaling right now. It is God's gracious gift to you. It is his way of saying, I'm not finished with you yet. You have time to lean into me to repent. You can do something different. So maybe today, this week, he wants you to pick up the phone, make the phone call, send the text, send the email, write the letter, and turn the page and repent. But I also share this story because in general, who here doesn't know disappointment with people? All of us. People, people. It can be a trip.

And man, you just get all of these relational dings. In fact, I think life's deepest disappointments are relational. Maybe a, yeah, a dad who bailed or a mother who was impossible to please or stuff with your siblings and friends who ghosted you. And even the church. Some of you know what it's like. You came to the church and I just thought I was engaging with an authentic community. And man, did I learn real quick that it wasn't all that I thought it would be. And man, yeah, I got people in the church that gossiped about me, maybe slandered, lied on me, didn't come through on promises, whatever it may be. And so maybe for some of you, you've just taken enough relational hits along the way. And maybe for some of you, you've just gotten to the point where it's just like, look, man, I'm gonna tell you, I'm hanging in there with church, but all I want from church is just give me the teaching. Just give me the word. I'm just gonna come. get my word, and I'm not even gonna try to mess with people. Don't ask me to sit in a small group. Don't ask me to relationally connect. Give me the teaching. And I get it. And listen, I think when the hallmarks

of the local church should be gospel-centered, teaching anchored in the word of God, points you to Jesus, obviously I'm for that, I'm passionate about that, but I want you to understand if your vision of church is just give me teaching, that vision is way beneath the vision that Jesus in the New Testament has. A hundred times in the New Testament, we keep running into a little phrase, it's called one another. Over and over again in the New Testament, we're told to love one another, encourage one another, serve one another, stir one another up to faith and good deeds. What that phrase one another implies, it implies I'm not just there for the teaching, but I'm interpersonally invested. I'm engaged in community. In fact, Jesus, Jesus is gonna hit us with a left hook. I want you to just see his vision for the people of God. In John 13, beginning in verse 34, Jesus says these words, look at them with me. Jesus says, a new commandment I give to you, hear it, that you love, here's that phrase, one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are too. Here it is again, love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. He says, love one another, love one another.

The idea is we are connected, we are walking and living in community, and then notice the punchline. By this, all people will know you are my disciples, not by the sermons you listen to. Not by the amazing quiet time streak you have, but by the love, not tolerance. Tolerance is such a low ethic. I tolerate you. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. But by the love, do you see what Jesus is saying? Community is to be a witness to the world. That when I'm living in community, when I'm really doing life, when the people of God are loving one another, that's a potent witness to the world. And listen, I'm grateful for the technology. Literally, I was in Santa Cruz, California the other day, speaking at a conference, and a couple came up to me. They live in California, but man, they stream us all the time at the Summit Church, and they're just going on and on and on about how God's using this church to encourage them. Amen. I think when Jesus said, greater works will we do, I think part of us is utilizing that technology to extend our reach. Amen. But here's what I want you to understand. You can stream sermons,

but you were never meant to stream community. You gotta be connected. And that's what our passage is about. So we come down to our passage, and this is something else, man. I mean, I'm like, okay, what am I teaching on this week? There's a teaching calendar. Okay, Philippians 2, 19. All right, it's not ringing a bell, okay? Let me just go to Philippians 2, 19. So I start reading. I hope the Lord gives us intimities to you soon, so that you may be cheered by news of you, okay? For if no one like you, you'll be genuinely conserved by my welfare. And then we'll drop down a couple of verses. I thought it necessary to send you your path of guidance, my brother, my fellow, working fellow. What am I gonna do with this? You know you thought that when I read the scriptures. Where's he going with this? I'm like, doggone it. Pastor JD must be out of town. Give it to Brian. He'll figure out something to do with it. Meanwhile, he'll take, he who began the good work in you, will be faithful to complete it, all right? But then I had this thought, 2 Timothy 3, verse 16. Paul says to Timothy, all scripture is inspired by God, and it is profitable.

All means all. Even what seemed like random passages about Timothy and some dude named Epaphroditus. But Paul says it's profitable, which means there's gold here. It's useful. So what's the gold? Paul is now pulling us. I like it. He's not so much giving us points. He's not giving us deep doctrinal points. As much as he is, he's giving us a picture of community. It's almost as if he's saying, no, no, no, I want you to come here. I'm gonna show you something. Here's what I'm gonna show you. I'm gonna show you what Christ-centered community looks like. It's sort of like, I just did lunch the other day in Palo Alto with one of my sons in the ministry, guy by the name of Chris. I've known Chris Davis for 18 years, man. And Chris, he had just graduated from college and he came to our church right when he graduated, one of his first Sundays there. He reached out to me and says, I've just been coming here for a couple of weeks. I'd love to take you to coffee, go out to coffee with him. And he just says some very encouraging things to me. And then I said, man, what's your story? And he's like, man, I just graduated from college.

And he's one of the first people in his family to graduate from college. My dad's been locked up since I was two years old. I have no picture of what a godly man looks like. I have no picture what a responsible man looks like. I grew up in inner city St. Louis. And man, I've got cousins who've been killed and violence and all of that. Man, I'm just feeling called and vocational. Can I just get some time with you? And here's what I thought, and I don't mean this to sound arrogant. Here's what I thought. I'm like, yeah, yeah, he's gonna get time with me because he needs a picture. So we spent three years together. Dude ate me out of house and home. At the end of those three years, he's like, Brian, thank you. I just never saw a dad leave his family in devotions. I never saw a dad open up the script. Thank you for all the trips you took me on. Now, I had to choke back tears after lunch the other day. He's coming up on, I don't know, somewhere around 15 years of marriage, three beautiful kids, is pastoring an awesome church in downtown San Francisco. If you're ever there, go to Redemption Fellowship Church. And ultimately, God gets the glory. But I'd like to believe God used me as a picture

to inspire him in the same way Paul says, let me give you a picture. I just wanna give you a picture of community. And here's what he wants to say. Come here, come here. And here's what he's gonna say to us. Nothing compares to Christian community, nothing. Three reasons, and I'm done. Number one, nothing compares to Christian community because we have the best foundation. Here's Paul. He opens up by talking about Timothy. He meets Timothy in a town called Lystra. Paul goes there to Lystra. In Acts chapter 14, he preaches the gospel. Does not go well. People don't like it so much. They actually stone Paul, and Paul survives. I don't know about you, Summit, but you got one time to stone me. If I survive, I'm not coming back. Paul survives the stoning. Two chapters later, Acts 16, this joker is back in Lystra. He's back in town. I mean, it's just unbelievable. Meets a guy by the name of Timothy. We'll talk about some more about him in just a few moments. Now Paul takes Timothy under his wing, and now they spend the next couple decades together. Paul now writes to Philippians.

He's in jail. Timothy is with him. He says, I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon. And then I want you to just hear kind of one of the descriptive phrases Paul uses in this section on Timothy. Verse 24, Paul says, and I trust in the Lord, in the Lord, in the Lord. Next, he moves to Epaphroditus. We don't know much about Epaphroditus. In fact, just about everything we know about Epaphroditus comes from the book of Philippians, especially this passage. We do know this. Chapter four, we're gonna see that Paul, he's in prison. Philippians are concerned about him. So they raise up a collection. They raise up some money and they send it to him. And the person selected to get it to Paul is Epaphroditus. Notice how Paul describes his relationship with Epaphroditus, verse 29. So receive him in the Lord, in the Lord, in the Lord. It's almost as if Paul is saying, listen, man, our community is built not on geographical proximity. Our community is built not on just shared interests and we like the same hobby. Our community is not built on the fact that our kids are in the same season of life. There's a place for that.

But our community is built on the fact that Our community is built on the bedrock of Christ. our kids are in the same season of life. Our community is built, what keeps this thing humming, There's a place for that. the engine that drives this is we are in the Lord, in the Lord, in the Lord. I want you to put this image up. It's one of the most stunning photos. Many of us will recognize John Lewis. Became a follower of Jesus, John did early on in life. Actually thought he was gonna be a preacher. He ended up being one of the most courageous people in the civil rights movement. He became a freedom rider. Next to him, a guy by the name of Elwin Wilson. Elwin Wilson was a member of the KKK who almost killed John Lewis in 1961. Some years after that, Elwin actually gets saved. He becomes a Christian. The spirit of God leads Elwin to renounce his membership in the KKK. And then he just feels so profoundly convicted over what he did to John. He actually tracked John down, picked up the phone and called him. He says, hey man, I'm a Christian now. I almost killed you. It's decades later, will you forgive me? And because John is in the Lord, he forgave him.

And because John is in the Lord, John says, bright idea. Why don't we do workshops on grace, mercy, and forgiveness and reconciliation? And so in the winter years of their life, the civil rights worker and the former member of the KKK are going around the country talking about what it looks like to extend grace and mercy and forgiveness and reconciliation. And what brought them together wasn't a political agenda. What brought them together is the common ground they share in Christ. It's in the Lord. Hey, listen, I just wanna say this. Summit Church is not a perfect place. This is your first time here, man. I just, let me just state the obvious. Not a perfect place. You hang in here long enough, community is messy. I mean, you get close to me, I'm sure I'll say something, I'll do something, I'll come across a certain way that might be offensive to you. I'm gonna offend you because I'm a sinner. I won't mean to. You'll offend me because you're a sinner. So what makes Christian community distinctive? Here's what makes it distinctive. It is founded on the bedrock of Christ and the gospel. And here's the statement, don't forget this. If I really wanna know what you believe about the gospel, the best way to see that is how you relate

to people who mistreat you. Hear the words of Jesus, Matthew chapter five. If you love those that love you, what credit is that? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Big deal. You're nice to people who are nice to you. Big deal. What keeps Christian community humming? Is you wrong me? Let's have a hard conversation. In humility, you apologize. In humility, I give you grace, I give you mercy, I give you forgiveness. We work towards reconciliation. There's gonna come a time when you have to give me grace and mercy and forgiveness. Why do we give each other these things all the time? Because every single day, that's what Christ gives to us. Every single day, grace. Every single day, mercy. Every single day, forgiveness. And we must not be cesspools of his grace, mercy, and forgiveness. We must be running channels by in which they flow through us horizontally to others because I've received them vertically from God through Christ. That's what keeps this thing working. Secondly, nothing compares, Paul wants us to understand, to Christian community.

Secondly, because we have the strongest bond. Here's Paul, his affections for Timothy run deep. They run so deep that the last documented letter Paul writes is to Timothy, 2 Timothy. In fact, if you read chapter one, Paul runs down Timothy's genealogy, where he says, man, you've got a godly grandmother, you've got a godly mother. Absent from the list is a godly dad. Most scholars believe that Timothy's dad was not a God-fearing man. Paul, Acts chapter 16, sees the spiritual void in his life, and Paul now takes Timothy under his wing. But he never views Timothy as some resident or merely some intern to do the grunt work of church planting. He saw him as a son, and we see this in our text. Verse 22, Paul says, But you know Timothy's proven worth, how as a son, a son, a son with a father, he has served with me in the gospel. Then there's Epaphroditus. Notice what Paul says about Epaphroditus. I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus. Hear the description, my brother, my brother, my brother. Do you not see the familial language Paul uses? Timothy is my son, Epaphroditus is my brother. And I know we throw these terms around flippantly, but you have to understand, in the collectivist culture of Paul's day,

where family was everything, these were not light terms. In fact, Paul didn't come up with this idea of calling people who are in Christ family. He actually got this from his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In Matthew 12, they come to Jesus one time, and they say, listen, man, your mother, meaning your biological mother, your biological siblings are waiting on you. Notice Jesus' response. Who is my mother, and who are my brothers? Pointing to his disciples, he said, here are my mother and my brothers, for whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother. Do you see, Jesus just flipped the script. What he did was insulting to a culture that family was everything. Jesus pretty much says, just because we share physical DNA doesn't mean we have a deep relationship. No, the deepest bond is the spiritual DNA that you share with one another in Christ. Carmen Imes, I wanna encourage you, read anything she writes. Incredible scholar, incredible Bible teacher. She's a professor at Biola University. She says it better than I could. In her wonderful book, Becoming God's Family, she writes, Westerners often think of marriages as the building blocks of society. However, in the first century,

sibling relationships were primary. A wife was more likely to feel a close emotional bond with her brother than her husband, even long after getting married. Knowing this helps us understand the significance of sibling language in the New Testament. Hear it, when Jesus speaks of his followers as brothers and sisters, he's tapping into the deepest and most loyal bond anyone in the Mediterranean world experienced. Here it is, if you become my brother, it means I will drop anything to help you. And what does all this mean for us at the summit? Here's what it means. As followers of Jesus, we don't just bring our families to church, we come to church because it is our family. That's the vision. It's not a new vision. The vision Jesus offered was not a collection of people who were just here for the teaching. The vision he offered was a compelling one where this becomes family. And this is what the beautiful thing that we see in Acts chapter two, day of Pentecost. Peter gets up, preaches the gospel. What's the first thing this new community of faith, thousands of people, strangers, didn't know each other, what's the first thing they do? Acts chapter two, verse 42,

through the end they began selling their possessions and giving to each one as they had need. Later on it would say there was no needy person among them. I mean, just can you imagine? There were people who were wealthy, they had the possessions to sell, and there were people who were poor. It's like the wealthiest, oh, you need something. Well, I got the extra house, let me sell the house. I got the piece of property, let me sell. I wanna tell you, you don't do that for an acquaintance. You only do that for family. All right, so Brian, help me. What does this really look like in my life? I've been wrestling with this, like what's a word that separates family from strangers, acquaintances, even friends? The best word I can come up with is is responsible. My family, I feel responsible for. So when my sister goes through a, true story, she goes through a brutal divorce a couple of years ago. Me and my other siblings, my parents, we just rushed in. And in essence, we said, we gotcha, we gotcha. We got you emotionally, we're gonna cover you spiritually. We got you financially. You ain't gonna fail, not on our watch. We gotcha. What do you need?

Okay, kids need school supplies, I gotcha. Kids need school clothes, I gotcha. My nephew needs a new car, dad's gotcha. We gotcha. And I have dropped three kids off at college. And if you ever dropped a kid off at college, you know, man, the most painful part of that weekend, man, it's like, it's time to say goodbye, man. Your car's this way, and their dorm room's that way, or whatever, and there's just this, and man, the feeling I got was the same feeling I had when I held him for the first time. I said, man, I'm gonna see you through. We're gonna figure this out. I think that's what the body of Christ is to be. Not on our watch. You're not gonna fail. We're connected. I'm lifting you up in prayer. Like when you come to me with a prayer request, with a prayer request, man, I'm gonna file that thing away. I'm gonna storm the gates. Now, I got you emotionally covered. I know I'm not your Messiah, man, but I'm with ya. You're not alone. We're family. Finally. Nothing compares to Christian community, Paul ends, because we have the best outlook. We're all familiar with the Greek philosopher, Aristotle.

Aristotle, he talked a lot about different kinds of friendships or communities. One kind he called a utilitarian community, idea of a utilitarian community. It's a transactional one where people kind of look at each other as commodities, where people's basic orientation in a transactional community, a utilitarian one is, man, what can you do for me? I hate to say this, but Paul actually makes mention that there's these kinds of people in the church. But look at what he says in our text, verse 21. Paul says, for they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. Paul says, let's just put it out here. Not everybody who comes to church comes to church with the best interests in mind. And I gotta tell you, that's still a problem that persists. It's everywhere, where people call you, but they only call you when they want something or when they need something. Yeah, they might start under the guise of just checking in, being concerned, but then they get to the real reason for calling, or every time you're around them, man, they just kind of either overtly or implicitly just kind of drop something they want you to do for them. And I just want to say, if that's you, man, don't do that. It's not Christ-like. There's another kind of community.

This kind of community, Aristotle says, no, it's not utilitarian. He actually uses the word, I don't like the word, but Aristotle calls it the perfect community. We would all say that's a poor choice of words, but let me tell you what Aristotle meant by the perfect community is he said, this community is the exact opposite of the utilitarian community. The perfect community is those whose outlook on other people is not what can they do for them, but their outlook on other people is just kind of, I'm in your life, how can I help you? How can I position you to flourish? I want you to know that it is this kind of community that Paul is pulling us into, this others-oriented community. Notice what he says about Timothy. I hope the Lord Jesus sent Timothy to you soon. And then he goes on to say, he will be genuinely concerned, not about his welfare, but about your welfare. We all want a friend like that. He goes on to talk. Talk about Epaphroditus, who's distressed for the Philippians because he hears that they've been distressed for him. And then there's the Philippians. They're concerned about Paul. They're concerned about Epaphroditus.

And then here's Paul. Paul says, I'm sending Timothy to you. I'm sending Epaphroditus to you. Now, what's amazing about that is Paul's in prison. If it's me, I want at least one of you guys to stay with me, one of you guys to befriend me, one of you guys to talk to to serve me, but Paul's open-handed. No, no, I'm concerned about the Philippians. You guys go, encourage them. Everywhere we go, there's this other's orientation. I'm thinking now of Tim Keller. I love his definition of love. This just popped into my mind last service, so I don't have it in the notes for you. Take it down. Here's what Tim Keller, here's how he defines biblical love. Are you ready? Biblical love is inconveniencing yourself for the convenience of others. Biblical love is inconveniencing, give it up to the production team. That went even in the notes. So many times in my life, it feels like I function the opposite, where I convenience myself to the inconvenience of others. Which are you? Are you constantly inconveniencing yourself for the convenience of others?

You'll only do that if there's an other's orientation that you have. This is the Christian tradition we've come from. There was a group of Christians about 50 or so years after this letter was written, they called themselves the gamblers. I love that. But why do they call themselves this? They actually call themselves this named after a specific Greek word found in verse 30. Speaking of a passage in the Bible, it says, the gamblers, the gamblers, the gamblers, the gamblers, and in verse 30. Speaking of Epaphroditus, the last verse of our text, Paul says, for he nearly died for the work of Christ. Here's the Greek word risking, risking, risking his life. They took that Greek word risking, which is the idea of to gamble and they applied it to themselves. But notice when we use the word gambling, we take a risk to better ourselves. The way Epaphroditus is described as risking is that he's taking a gamble to better them. And so there's this whole group of Christians

they took this Greek word, they call themselves the gamblers. Why? Because when plague swept through the Roman world, everyone else was withdrawing from each other. You're contagious. I don't wanna get close to you. It was only this community of Christians who would rush in and who would put their lives on the line and says, forget about my life. You have a need. See the other's orientation. When there was a famine, they would give up their last food to help others. Everything for them was inspired to help others and that was rooted in the cross of Christ. Jesus Christ is the ultimate gambler. He more than risked his life for you and I. Jesus Christ, you wanna talk about the penultimate example of inconveniencing himself for the convenience of others. You and I are here to, can you imagine if Jesus was transactional? If he was utilitarian? No. Jesus Christ gave up all. He sacrificed. And to be a Christian

means we follow that example. We live in community. So growing up, I've been thinking a lot about my boys this week coming up on Father's Day. Man, my boys, when they were little, like I'm sure many of your kids, they were way into Legos. That was their jam. I can still see the little playroom there, a little home in Memphis upstairs, just littered with Legos. You know how Legos work. You can never buy them individually. They're a community package deal. In fact, the very design of Legos, they're designed to fit. in community with other Legos. They're designed that way. I mean, imagine being at the Lego store there, the Rockefeller Center in New York, man, this amazing store, and all they're selling is one solitary Lego. That's crazy. In fact, I was just thinking about this week, maybe I'm pushing the analogy too far, but you know the times I've hurt my foot walking in my kid's room littered with Legos? It's when I've stepped on one single, solitary Lego.

Those things hurt. An isolated Lego is dangerous. Peter gives us the theological premise for Legos. He writes, as you come to him, not as a Lego, but a living stone, rejected by men, but in the sight of God, chosen and precious, you yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. He says, you are that living stone, but you weren't created and called and saved to be by yourself. You're called to be connected into this thing called a spiritual house, a community of believers, where Christ is the cornerstone. So three questions I just wanna ask you. In what ways are you inconveniencing yourself for the convenience of others at our church? I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna make a big push for how we need volunteers or any of that. I'm just saying, is there a basic others orientation to how are you living out things like grace and mercy, forgiveness and reconciliation at the summit? It's not a perfect place. People will, people will bother you. People will get on your nerves, okay? Let's not bail on people. Let's not cut people off. Let's not, let's not devolve into just here

for the teaching. Finally, in what ways are you functioning as family in our church? I'm just telling you, if you can come here for any prolonged period of time, and you're just kind of in and out, and you're not known, and you don't know, that is not God's vision for you. So Father, we thank you for Jesus, our cornerstone. We thank you that all of these things that we've studied, we see in Jesus. We thank you that Christian community is rooted in Christ. We're daily, Lord God, we receive grace, and mercy, and forgiveness daily. We are reconciled to God through Christ experientially, Lord God, when our fellowship is broken. Thank you that we serve a Savior who will never leave us or forsake us. Thank you that the bond that we have, that Jesus says of us what he said of his disciples in Matthew 12, man, you're my brother, you're my sister. We're family. Now, thank you, Father, that Jesus is never transactional with us. Thank you that we don't have to perform. We respond to his love, but we never perform to receive it. God, thank you. May it be said of Summit Church, not a perfect place, but oh, how they love.

Oh, how they love. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen.