Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:06 No. And I pulled up at a traffic light on golf and as we're sitting there and all of a sudden I watched this black Mustang GT pull up right next to us. And if you've seen those Mustangs, you can just hear that rumbling of that engine. You know, just that one moment. And it's just sitting there and all, and, and all of a sudden that light changed. As soon as that light changed by, they popped that clutch a move off they were going, but you heard that rumble, you know, that, you know, the rumble I'm taller a deep rumble. And then all of a sudden you heard that pause where the clutch went in and the foot went off the gas and they shifted gear. Then they took off again. There's just something about driving a manual transmission. It just feels good when you're out there doing that. Somehow you can take that pause. You can rev that engine, but there's a lot of things you do with a manual transmission. You can find yourself sitting there with that clutch in and you don't have to go anywhere. And just that engine just idle so nicely, but there's other times you can sit there and you have that clutch in and you step on that gas and you can rev that engine up. And boy, they can just hear whoom,
Speaker 2 00:01:11 Whoom.
Speaker 1 00:01:13 And that's how you pop the clutch. And now you can take off real fast. And other times you can take off real slow, but somehow you can just sit there and idle
Speaker 2 00:01:22 That car.
Speaker 1 00:01:24 Well, I think over the last year and all, I think there's that wrestling of how often do we let the clutch out? And how often do we sit in idle? When it comes to our life in Jesus Christ? I think this pandemic had caused us to somehow step back and say, what do we do to re-engage? What does it really look like? We've been stepped back for a year where all of a sudden, we're not sure how we step forward, how we move forward. What's it going to look like when we go forward completely? Oh, things are opening up more. We've got a vaccine, which is a good thing, but then we're like, what do we do now with a vaccine? And we've been sitting there so much just sitting there, idling, just Island for the past year, trying to fit. What do we do as followers of Jesus Christ? Well, that's that mean for the life of the church or there's an folks have not been to church for over a year. This could be your first, Sunday back your second Sunday back in. You're just not sure what or who or how things are going. And you're hearing you see people you've never seen before, because things have changed during COVID. And even if you find yourself coming back, you're not sure. Do you go in quickly or do you go in slowly or are you sure you're even going to come,
Speaker 2 00:02:35 Oh, are you going to re-engage? How do we reengage in COVID times?
Speaker 1 00:02:43 And it happens when all of a sudden you get a pretty traumatic relationship or things get pretty traumatic or chaos going in the culture. Now they just start wrestling with those questions of how to re-engage nation of Israel wrestled with that. And the old Testament here, they were a nation of God find themselves living in Israel. And all of a sudden something changed dramatically. All of a sudden in five 97, BC, there's a King from Babylon who comes over to Israel. And all of a sudden he packs up a group of people in the halls and back from Jerusalem, all the way to Babylon and all of a sudden they're thrust into a new world, a new culture, a new place to live. And all of a sudden those Jews raised in Jerusalem now find themselves in this traumatic chaotic world of Babylon and they have to live.
Speaker 1 00:03:33 And all of a sudden their restaurants, the same question, how do we bring our faith? Our walk, our understanding of your way in this worship we have in the old Testament, how do we understand who God is and what he wants us to do? And how do we bring that faith over here to Babylon? And after all the chaos of being moved here and forced to move here, how do we re-engage as followers of your way in a new culture and a chaotic time and uncertainty, how do we do that? Here's how it starts off in Daniel chapter one, verse one, we read this
Speaker 3 00:04:19 In
Speaker 1 00:04:19 The third year of the reign of Jehoiakim King of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim King of Judah into his hand with some of the vessels of the house of God. And he brought them to the land, a Shiner to the house of his God and placed the vessels in the treasury of his God. So Nebuchadnezzar comes to Jerusalem. He takes the King and he also goes into the temple that Holy place of God, the place of worship. And he goes in there and he takes it, some of the vessels and the things out of there. And he hauls the King and we find out other people and takes them all the way back to Babylon to his own country. And then he takes these sacred things of God, out of the temple and places them in his own temple with all his pagan gods and there's transformation from Jerusalem to Babylon begins.
Speaker 1 00:05:22 But there's a description of what takes place next, as long as he takes those vessels, here's what happens next. Then the King commanded and Ash, Penez his chief unit to bring some of the people of Israel, both the Royal fam nobility used without blemish of good appearance, skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding, learning, and competent to stand in the King's palace. So he tells aspirin, as he says, I want you to look at all these Jewish people I brought over. I want you to look and find out some of these young men here who seem to have a keen and intellect. They just know knowledge and understanding how would they have that? They were trained in Jerusalem under the Torah. They knew the law and all the things they were taught here in Jerusalem. These are young men taught under Yar way, the priests and all that took place.
Speaker 1 00:06:20 All the knowledge. They have their understanding of the scriptures, all that wisdom. They gained from that, all the learning they'd had here. They brought that all with them over to Babylon. And he says, now, I want you to find men like that. Men have a keen intellect and understanding, and they know things in real wisdom and they gather them up. And here's what they do with them. And what will they do with these young men to teach them the literature and language of the Cambodians? What's the purpose of this gathering? Well, we're going to have you read all the Babylonian literature that's ever been written. Ever. You learn everything about the Caldeans. We're going to teach you our pagan theology. I'm gonna teach you about all of our gods, everything we believe about life and all you're going to learn. Our worldview is what we want to teach you. How does that take place? Here's what it adds. The King assigned them a daily portion of the food that the King ate and the wine that he drank. They were to be educated for three years. And at the end of the time, they were to stand before the King. So these young men going to get an education for three full years out of which the ideas they'll no longer be speaking Hebrew, they will understand Babylonian and be able to speak it. There'll be just like Babylonians and how they think
Speaker 4 00:07:56 The literature they've read
Speaker 1 00:07:58 The knowledge that they have. They'll be able to function in this pagan Babylonian culture, because we've taught them for three years. They go one more step. Here's what else we read first six among these were Daniel
Speaker 4 00:08:17 Hannah Naya,
Speaker 1 00:08:20 And Azariah of the tribe of Judah. Pay attention to that. The tribe of Judah remember who the tribe of Judah is. That's where Messiah is going to come from. These young men over here in Babylon are being trained to be the Babylonians and how these Babylonians are going to come. The tribe of Judah, which is where Messiah is going to come from. These are significant people for the history of Israel. It continues.
Speaker 4 00:08:48 And
Speaker 1 00:08:49 The chief of the Unix gave them names. Daniel, he called Bel Salazar and a nigh. He called Shamrock Michelle. He called me shack and Azariah he caught a Bendigo take note of their names. Originally, Daniel ends in an E L. You have Hannah Naya, which ends in an age, Michelle in an E L and me Meeshack. I'm sorry. As awry in an age, those <inaudible> are references to God L for Elohim or for our Yahweh. So they had their Hebrew names and all of a sudden, they get in this culture for three years, they changed their names. And they're all given Babylonian names now. And they're known by different names. And I want you to understand how significant it says, but how well it worked.
Speaker 2 00:09:42 So
Speaker 1 00:09:42 I've asked you the Hebrew name of Daniel. You would say,
Speaker 2 00:09:45 Daniel,
Speaker 1 00:09:47 Ashley, the Hebrew names of his three friends. You go ask you their names and you go, what Shadrach and Abednego, you know them all by their Babylonian names. You don't even know their Hebrew names. That's how well it worked. That's going to a new culture, getting new names and somehow overlooking the history of their Jewish culture. That's what they went through to understand what's taking place here. These Jewish, young men, this whole culture, these Jewish people found themselves being captured by a Babylonian King and moved all the way over to Babylon and in the process, their whole culture and world has changed. And somehow God's going to teach and want them to reengage in this new culture. Let me show you what I mean. I have a slide here just walked you through and you know this, but I'm just reminding you of some of this stuff.
Speaker 1 00:10:50 Here's their Jew, Jerusalem, their Jewish culture. Here's where they were raised. And in that Jewish culture, it's monotheism. There's one, God, that's all they believe in. They have one temple that they worship God in. There's no other temple. And in that temple, they have the Ark of the covenant. The Ark of the covenant had two angels that are archangels met over top of the Ark of the covenant. There was this hollow space that where the glory of the Lord was there. That's where they sprinkled the blood for the forgiveness of sin. They had prophets who foretold the truth of God spoke on behalf of God. They had a theocracy. That means God was in charge of the country, the world, and all that they had. They had old Testament law, the Torah, which has taught them what to do. All that. Moses had written the whole old Testament and they kosher food. They had a special diet. They're supposed to things. They could need things they could eat. And finally, there were homogenous ethnicity. There were basically one people, they were all Jewish. Now here's the world. They were transferred to. That's the culture they were raised in. And now a Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar brings them all the way over here to Babylon. And this is their new culture in which they live no longer a monotheism. Now it's, polytheism airs many gods, not just one temple, numerous temples all over the place.
Speaker 1 00:12:22 When it came to their worship, there's no Ark of the covenant. They're just idols, idols, idols, and the falling down on worshiping them. Not only were their idols. Now you have not profits over here, but you've got magicians. You've got diviners. You've got those who are involved in those arts and everything. And those conjures take place. You've got a monarchy, not a King that looks to God King. That just looks to himself. You've got non-kosher food, their diet, whatever they, whatever they wanted to eat. All new foods for the Jewish people that they'd never seen and their culture. It's a Gentile culture. And the Babylonians. When they overcome another nation, they just bring all the people into their land. It's multi ethnicity here in this culture. You've got Daniel and his friends and God wants to re-engage them in relationship to one another with him. And how's he going to do that? What's he going to bring together as chaotic time to pause and say, somehow they need to reengage. As God's people in this tumultuous time in this chaotic culture where things are not going the way they expected, somehow God wants them to reengage. As God's people. Let me talk with you about our culture and how we see things. So our next slide, please.
Speaker 3 00:13:51 This is
Speaker 1 00:13:51 How ed statures put together the world we live in today. Just so identify we're all in the same place, but the culture has changed dramatically. There's things we feel about our culture, but we may not understand why we feel that way. In a sense, it's almost like the Jewish people were somehow we sense this is the culture we were raised in, but somehow we feel like we're living over in this other culture that we're living in. And here's some that had stature identified just from the United States. What's taken place over the last 20 or so years before 2000, we were identified this way. When we sought to have a secular culture, 25% of Americans, 25% would say they're non-Christians. They were secular. But all the people, other than that were somehow brought into the church. At some time, they may not have attended church anymore, but somehow they were exposed.
Speaker 1 00:14:50 So there were religious in some way. So when we started talking in those terms, you've got the cultural Christians, they're non church attenders, but they were there. They didn't go to church anymore. But if you talk to them, they had a religious upbringing or background. They talked about the second group, they call it congregational church. And these are the creatures. People go to church on Christmas and Easter. So they ended and attended church twice a year. And then the convictional Christians, that would be us evangelical Christian that's before 2000. Now here's what happened. All those people for a cultural Christians or congregational Christians had children. Those children now are bumped up. Everything moves up a notch or two. So by the time you get to 2000 or so, the world has changed. And the culture we're in now deals with this. When you look there, the secular culture is the dominant culture, not the religious culture.
Speaker 1 00:15:49 So all of a sudden you've got, non-Christians making up 25% cultural Christians making up twenty-five percent. You got creatures making up 25%, but they're secular and not religious. That's why, when all of a sudden you have those of us who were raised on this side, in this culture, talk about the way things used to be and what might be again. But those of you who grew up in this culture to have no idea of what that would be like on this side, let me illustrate it this way. Keep in mind for the Jewish people for Daniel and all his friends who grew up here, they found themselves having this background, this history that they knew. But what we're going to find is there's all these people who grew up over in Babylon is Jewish people in a seven-year time period. And they knew nothing about time back there.
Speaker 1 00:16:48 So what's going to happen in history is when the children of Israel go back to Israel, they transfer all the way back here. They get so excited because they're going to build a new temple and they build a new temple. It's a small temple, but it's a temple. And all the people who had grown up in Jerusalem who had gone to Babylon and came back, they wept, they cried because the temple was so small and did not compare to the temple of Solomon. But all the people who were born in Babylon came back and they were rejoicing because they finally had a temple to worship your way in two cultures, same event, two different emotional responses. We live in a culture of people. Those who have been here, and those who have been here as Christians and we at times feel this tension of what was, what might be.
Speaker 2 00:17:58 But what is
Speaker 1 00:18:00 David Kinnaman? Who's the president of Barna study and research did some things. And he describes it this way on our next slide. He talks about our Jerusalem, that we feel as believers. And he identifies it this way. We, as believers, as Jerusalem, sorta feel like faith is the center of our life. And what we do, we find that we hold home monotheism. There's one, God, three persons, father, son, and Holy spirit. We find ourselves being those who work at a slower pace. What I mean by that is as we find the scriptures teaching, we want to see how God's going to work in things and follow him where people also find ourselves that we wrestle with idols at times. And ours seems to be false piety. And the, I also identify as a control as an important thing. That is God's sovereignty, but we also find a linear thing where we find how God's going to work in the future.
Speaker 1 00:18:56 And finally, it's the idea of this aspiration for, I'll say a simple life, but that walking with Christ of what it can be, that's our Jerusalem and what we think might be. However, he identifies our digital Babylon reality of where we live. He says this, we start thinking of our digital Babylon. It's a faith is pushed to the margins. It's not the priority anymore. As we wanted in our life. He would say that we're pluralistic. That means there are so many ways to God. Now that there's not one, as we would see it through Jesus Christ, but you talked to neighbors and friends, even family, it's like, Oh, any way can get you to God. We live in a culture that's highly accelerated and frantic and everything moving so fast. He identifies the idols of today in our culture is everybody wanting to fit in or everyone want to keeping up to speed. And just adding a note here, even when it comes to our worship at times that we have to sing the latest song that's written that a song of 20 years ago is considered
Speaker 2 00:20:05 Old
Speaker 1 00:20:07 Because we always have to have the newest things moving along. When we start thinking about things, Vince open there's open source and nonlinear, and the idea of things being bitter or sweet tension, it goes those through and do not misunderstand what I comment on the worship. I'm not saying we shouldn't sing new songs. I'm just saying what we feel and sense that we have to have the newest things in life. And that's the culture we live in. Now. That's the culture we live in. All these Hebrew people are living here. They're struggling. What do I do next in this new culture? How do I function? How do we re-engage Jeremiah is a prophet he's way back in Jerusalem. And he hears about what's going on. So Jeremiah writes him a letter. So it turned to Jeremiah 29, Jeremiah 29,
Speaker 1 00:21:10 Jeremiah 29 and starting at verse one. So we have a group that were taken out in five 97. They continue taking more Jewish people out of Jerusalem and onto Babylon until five 86, BC five 86, BC Babylon comes in and actually destroys the temple and the city. There are people left behind in the city. There are also some people who take off for Egypt. And then between the time of that first part of captivity, Jeremiah, who's a prophet back in Jerusalem. Here's about what's going on in Babylon. And he gets concerned of what's taking place. There's been a prophet there, Hannah Naya, who's saying, look, this is almost over. It's going to be really quick and say, he's a, probably not, no of God's telling us what's going on. So pay attention to what I write to you. And this is his letter to the people.
Speaker 1 00:22:03 These are the words of the letter that Jeremiah, the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders of the exiles and to the priest, the prophets and all the people who never can, as her had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. This was after King Jack and I and the queen mother, the Unix, the officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen and the metal workers had departed from Jerusalem. The letter was sent by hand to Elyssa, the son of <inaudible> and gem Mariah, the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah the King of Judah, sent a Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon and it's. And here's a letter thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. The first thing Jeremiah wants them to understand though, Nebuchadnezzar is one who came to Jerusalem and took them from Jerusalem to Babylon.
Speaker 1 00:23:09 Jeremiah writes, it says, the Lord sent you. The one thing Jeremiah wants them to understand is the sovereignty of God in the life that we live. Nothing surprises. God, no pandemic has surprised God, no trial, no tests that you face ever surprises. God, God is not surprised that they find themselves in Babylon. In fact, it's so much. So God actually sent them there. And the sovereignty of God in light of all of our circumstances that we face is an important truth to know and understand that God is truly sovereign in my life and in the world we live and all that's going on does not surprise God. Whether it's a pandemic, whether a war takes place, whether it's the persecuted church, God does not go, Ooh, what happened? God knows exactly what's going on in the life of the world. And every believer, that's the first thing Jeremiah wants them to understand. And then he writes this
Speaker 2 00:24:08 Verse five,
Speaker 1 00:24:10 Build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage that they may bear sons and daughters multiply there and do not increase. He says, I want them to have kids. And also he says, here's what happens
Speaker 2 00:24:29 While you're here while you're here,
Speaker 1 00:24:33 Start cultivating a normal life,
Speaker 2 00:24:36 Build a house, live in a home, planning
Speaker 1 00:24:40 The garden. It's spring, get ready for it, plant your garden. But also keep in mind.
Speaker 2 00:24:47 Married have children, have grandchildren live a normal life as much as you can. And then he adds this. And then he says,
Speaker 1 00:25:01 Versa seven here, but seek the where welfare, the city, where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on his behalf for, in its welfare, you will find your welfare. So then he gives him two commands. He says, while you're here in Babylon, I want you to seek, seek the welfare of the city. And I want you to pray for the welfare of the city.
Speaker 2 00:25:32 Now,
Speaker 1 00:25:32 Something to understand about this word, seek and the word, pray out of these two words. I know that Jeremiah's from Texas, Because what Jeremiah really says here is not you. He wrote to them and said, y'all, it's a second person, plural. And unfortunately our English language that doesn't translate unless you're from the South. And he writes y'all. In other words, his instructions and command here is not to us individually. He is not saying Mike, Bob, Susie, Aaron, he's not using names. It's not do it. Individually is not against that. That's not what he's saying. He's saying, listen,
Speaker 2 00:26:18 All of you together need to seek the Lord. All of you
Speaker 1 00:26:24 Do together. Need to pray that somehow we need to be together to pray. He's drawing up the way we're going to re-engage is not being separate and alone. The way we're going to re be engaged by coming together and doing something together, we need to re-engage together. And then he uses that word welfare, which I what's welfare. All you guys all know this word in Hebrew, ready for a Hebrew word that you know, Shalom. That's the word here? It means peace prosperity. It means the idea of things going well, it's friendship. It's this full-blown word that gets really big. He says, listen, here's what you need to do. The city you live in. When you find yourself in Babylon, don't go out and get isolated. You need to seek the welfare, the benefit, the prosperity, the peace, the relationships, the friendships within the city. And, and you also need to pray. You need to make requests of God that he gives you welfare shelter,
Speaker 2 00:27:38 Peace, prosperity relationships,
Speaker 1 00:27:44 Friendships in pack in your community. You need to come together. You need to see God at work. You need to be together in seeking and pray. When you find yourself in this chaotic culture of Babylon, you can't find yourself isolated. You have to find yourself coming together. And you've got to find a way to re-engage together to be followers of your way. And then he continues. He goes on, he describes what not to do. He says this in verse eight for thus says the Lord of hosts. The God do not let your profits and your diviners who are among you, deceive you and do not listen to the dreams that they dream for. It is a lie. They are prophesied you in my name. I did not send them declares, zoned, Jeremiah saying, listen, God hasn't sent any profits. There. There's no profits that are, that we have profits to here, but we don't have profits.
Speaker 1 00:28:48 There don't listen to them. God hasn't sent them after say assuring them that he comes here and he comes down to that. One of those favorite verses that we've all heard, we all love you even have it on the wall of your house or in your office. But here's the context for that verse for thus says the Lord, when 70 years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you. I will fulfill you my promise and bring you back to this place. Here's our verse four. I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord plans for your Shalom and not for evil to give you a future. And a hope God is saying to the children.
Speaker 2 00:29:33 You know, when
Speaker 1 00:29:34 You were here in Jerusalem and never came and as her came and took you out and brought you over here to Babylon and you were stuck in this pagan culture and there's place that you did not want to be. And there's plays that you're isolating. I'm telling you, you need to come together. You need to understand, have a plan for you. My plan for you after 70 years is to take you back to Jerusalem and the promise land. That is what my plan is for you. And I've not forgotten you. And he makes us promise. This is tourists to the nation of Israel. So what God wants us to understand is that God's plan and design for us. When we find ourselves in chaotic culture, time like this, as they, he wants us to come together for community, but even community that's face-to-face, but for the purpose of worship and prayer, that somehow God wants his people together. And that somehow he's telling them there's that guys, you got to find a way to reengage in that fellowship that you have into that face-to-face community at the scriptures. Talk about what does community, what involves three things. One there's people to talk about a community, to have the people have something in common as followers of Christ. We have Christ and say, so there's a people, but second, there's a purpose. Turn to Hebrews 10 with me verses 24 and 25. There's a purpose. When we come together,
Speaker 1 00:31:24 When we gathered together, Hebrews 10 says this, let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works. Not neglecting to meet together as I have some, but encouraging one another and all the more to see the day drawing near where to stir up, where to stimulate, where to somehow in that stimulation being together, it somehow causes us to do something that caused us to be built up just by a presence with one another conversation. It stimulates us to do things. Somehow we gathered together like this, you get ready to leave. We start talking with somebody may hear some need and it prompts you to pray for your friend or fellow believer. You may hear of a need that pops up when all of a sudden realize, you know what? They could probably use a meal and you decide you're gonna send a meal over to their house.
Speaker 1 00:32:31 Something pops up that stimulates you to love and good deeds that you respond to do something. You may send them a text, give them a call, write an email, something that responds. Why? Because we're together. And we hear what's going on in life. There's a third thing that happens for community and that's proximity. Now, the end of the second and third, John, he closes both letters off exactly the same way. He concludes this way. There's so much more. I want to write to you, but I'm going to wait until we are face to face. Aren't you aware that there's something different about being face-to-face with somebody? Isn't it great to zoom with somebody? You don't see the body language. You don't see them like this.
Speaker 3 00:33:27 The
Speaker 1 00:33:27 Whole idea of being face to face. All of a sudden you respond to them emotionally because you see how they are responding. Oh, you may see their face, but somehow you see their body and they just seem to be tired, wearied that something's sort of weighing them down that you see why, because you're face to face. When you're face to face. All of a sudden you see their eyes light up. When you say something encouraged to them, because why you're face to face. You see them excited when, how they move and do things as they tell you the story. Cause why you're face to face. And somehow the scriptures understand there's something about the church that somehow it's important to be face to face. It's always interesting to me when you study the church in history, but especially the persecuted church, you know, at the persecuted church has always doing, they find some way to meet face to face and they hide. You hear stories and being in the woods and they change places also. So they're not caught because why they, they know they need to meet face Y for worship and prayer. That takes place in 1949. All the missionaries in China were kicked out.
Speaker 3 00:34:57 No missionaries were left. Okay.
Speaker 1 00:34:59 When the missionaries left, they figured there's probably a million Christians, maybe in all of China, I was as great concern. What will happen to the church in China in 2003, there's a book written called Jesus in Beijing. As he wrote the book and did the research and everything he found out and discovered there were 70 million Christians in China. How could that be? They couldn't meet publicly. They met underground as a persecuted church. They met underground. People didn't see them. And somehow they kept bringing more and more people to Christ because the church came together
Speaker 2 00:35:46 Because the
Speaker 1 00:35:46 Design of God for community, as we come together face to face for prayer, for worship, that it takes place. Are you aware of the only place I'm aware of that they use solitary confinement to isolate people. It's prisoners of war or in prison and what they discover when you isolate people for long periods of time, they get angry, anxious, their panic attacks. They get angry, they get hosta, they get depressed.
Speaker 2 00:36:21 How were the past year? I imagine for all of us,
Speaker 1 00:36:26 There are times that we send some of those emotions running through. When we found ourselves having to be restricted at home, having be alone from other people. All of a sudden we found emotions that were there that we didn't normally see in relationships. Why? Because that's the response that happens when you get isolated from other people. And all of a sudden it's pausing to say, God, if you're designed for us is to have community and to be face to face. What does that really look like? And as I share this with you, I'm aware we're still in a COVID time. The pandemic is still going on. There are peoples who are still dying from COVID. It is still serious. Do not misunderstand me. Say therefore, forget everything. All I'm raising. The question is, how do we reengage in this time of COVID time? When all of a sudden there are vaccines now, which give opportunity, but yet COVID is still present.
Speaker 1 00:37:28 What does it look like for us as a church? For me individually, if I've not been to church for a year, where do I start? What do I do? And starting to think about those relationships of re-engagement. One is by attendance, where it could be in a small group of just a very few other believers that you're comfortable to be with. It could be a ministry group that's a little larger. It could be with mom's alive. It could be with a Bible study. It could be with first Tuesday, there could be something of that kinder, perennials that it's a smaller, a bigger group, but not the whole church, or it could be when you gathered with the whole church. So there's a place of attendance that you wrestle with, but there's also the place of knowing that part of it is worship folks for me, when I come here, as much as I enjoy. And I'm glad we have those who lead our worship. No. What I enjoy hearing when I'm out there is the voices of the congregation. Joining,
Speaker 2 00:38:41 Joining in worship with one voice
Speaker 1 00:38:45 Led by our worship leaders here brings our voices to join them in the praise of God. And then to think we gather, we can gather to pray corporately for God, to work in lives of people in our own city. That there's worse. That that takes place. When we come together for community there's fellowship, there's somehow connecting with people. You haven't seen somebody who may be here for the first time, second time, and you've seen them for the first time in a year. And all of a sudden, you get to show your affection with air high fives and not hugging, but greeting them and love and Jesus Christ as fellow believers and all of a sudden, seeing the people in fellowship and sharing life together and find that there's a place of serving where all of a sudden know I serve as important. You may think service is important cause we need places to fill.
Speaker 1 00:39:46 That's not true. God has given us gifts, given us gifts and callings on our lives, that would actually happen to when you use your gift, it fills your tank. It encourage you spiritually. You are more effective as a follower of Christ because you're using your gifts whether to speak or to serve and the places that may be. And all of a sudden God's opening the doors and saying, so where do you reengage in COVID times? How do you do it safely? How do you do it wisely? But somehow, somehow God looks at his people and says, he's wired us and made us. There's always somehow gathered together for community face to face. So we can worship and praise and pray to the God of the universe. Who's sovereign over all things. And that's why he says to the people in Israel, guys, you need to reengage and seek the welfare of the city and seek and pray for the welfare, which is the same for us as God's people to seek the welfare for our city and to gather, to pray, to pray for the welfare for one another and for our city. Why? Because God's designed us for community to be face to face that we can pray and that we can worship God together. Let's bow for prayer.
Speaker 1 00:41:28 Our Lord, we give you thanks that you're the of the universe that no pandemic surprises you, no circumstances. We face surprise you yet. Lord, you caused us to be a people who somehow step forward to re-engage in the way that you call us to and Lord for each one of us, it's free to give us direction. There's not a specific answer for each person, but there's a place for all of us Lord that we engaged reengage for community, for that place of prayer. For that place of worship with fellow believers, it's in Christ's name that we pray. Amen. It seems appropriate. If we talk about community that we really do practice communion, communion brings together that communion, that community with God, but also that community with one another. So just to reflect on our communion with one another, we're going to take a time of silence just for you and your relationship with God and what that may be or reflect on your relationship with Christ. You should find by your seats, a communion cup, the cellophane that covers you pull it.
Speaker 5 00:42:52 You'll hear that wonderful sound. We all try to be silent with that. Don't don't hear it
Speaker 1 00:42:59 Anyways. We got the bread. And then if you pull the next one, it's a little quieter, but then you you're concerned. You're going to spill it. We have stains on the floor to prove it anyways. Then you've got the cup and you've got both of those and we're going to partake together and don't get ahead of me. We got a plan for this today. Okay. So communion first is with God. Okay. So now you're all ready for our communion with God and one another, but don't do it yet. We'll all do it together. Now we'll take our time of silence for prayer and I'll tell you our next steps. Okay.
Speaker 5 00:43:36 Let's go to prayer.
