How the Church can (Not) Self-Destruct

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] good morning welcome here to mount olive um welcome if you're here in person welcome if you're watching online um we got an exciting service planned for this morning and i'm excited to worship with you so i'm going to invite you to stand as we pray this prayer together that god would build his kingdom here through us [Music] now [Music] i [Music] we laid down [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] can stop [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] set [Applause] [Music] build your key [Music] [Music] amen [Music] scurrying on the clouds [Music] his broken hearts his praise [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] who can stop the lord [Music] who can stop [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] who can stop the love [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] everybody [Music] [Music] man you can have a seat thank you all right so much uh for leading us so glad that you joined us today we have a very very full house and those of you that are watching online uh welcome to mount all of our launch sunday uh my name's alvin and i'm one of the pastors here at mount olive and i'm going to lead you a little bit today and talk about a few things um now some of you in the live uh audience may be wondering what are we doing with masks and not masks and you know public spaces are supposed to have mass uh there is a caveat to that that uh worship services uh are not master not required for worship services and you can look at that online so it is optional if you wish to you are welcome to if you wish not to you are welcome not to as well so yeah we're just so excited to be together and to launch uh into the the fall into this new year i just have a few things i want to draw your attention we wanted to be outdoors today we wanted to have one service outdoors and just be all together and that did not happen because of the rain and so we're kind of sad about that but we're excited that we can still be together and it just makes for a really uh full couple services and i hope you bear with us uh on that just so you know we are gonna have food after the service if you wish there's a couple tents outside we're probably not all gonna fit under tents but if you wish to get some uh food you can do that afterwards and uh we'll have some fun with that as well um next week we are gonna have food also we're just trying to create as much community as possible okay but next week is not free i know we're gonna have food trucks though so there'll be a few food trucks after uh all the services from about 10 till 2 o'clock we'll have food trucks and so come invite a neighbor invite a friend tell the community to come out for food trucks and just have some community after the service next week as well also starting next week because our services are really full we will be going to three services and so next week we'll have 8 30 10 o'clock and then 11 30 service all right so you can uh pick the one that fits uh you best please don't all pick 10 o'clock um that's just my request of you um you know oftentimes uh on our launch sunday we take some time for you guys just to get to know us a little bit and so i just want to share a little bit about who we are as mount all maybe you're kind of new to thrills or new to the church and you're like what is this church all about so just so you know our mission as a church is to see people become devoted followers of jesus and so everything we do is about seeing people become followers of jesus and really all that means to simplify is that we would all take the next step towards christ and so maybe you're like well i'm not even a person of faith am i welcome here absolutely because our desire for you is the same as our desire is for the person who's walked with christ for a hundred years and that is would you just take the next step would you become a more devoted follower of jesus would you come closer to christ and know who he is and and walk with him so whatever wherever you find yourself wherever you find yourself in the journey of life in the journey of faith we want to be a church that just encourages encourages you to take steps towards following jesus and we believe that none of that happens alone we do that best in community and so our vision is to be a real and authentic church for all people a real and authentic church for all people that no matter where you find yourself in life what struggles you find yourself that you can be real here and you can be authentic and as we grow together we can grow towards christ together so to help introduce you a little bit to us as a church after church we're gonna have that meal where you can introduce yourselves to each other which is really important but we thought today we would introduce our staff to you just to be real and authentic uh we're gonna let you know a little bit about our staff so i wanna invite the staff up and to uh introduce the staff to you we're going to do it in kind of a fun way this past tuesday we spent some time as a staff brainstorming if each staff member was a superhero which superhero would they be and why and so we're going to talk a little bit about that and then we'll highlight three ministries that the staff oversee next week we'll highlight some more ministries okay so we're breaking it up over to uh sundays this year so maybe kids or students what are some of your favorite superheroes let's just see if we you know can can catch some of the ones that are what's some of your favorite superheroes green lantern any others spiderman batman okay we we we might cover some of those actually we might cover some of those so uh first guy we'll introduce is kenton can it come stand up in the middle here yeah so when we were talking about kenton's you know super uh what superhero he would be uh kenton actually piped up and he did all the talking so this is quote from kenton he would be batman why okay real authentic church right here we go because he's rich dark and mysterious and has a sordid past kenton also believes about himself that he would be superman because he's so super and he has the body of captain america though he did say he's simply just saying what he hears other people say about him so we tried as hard as we could to think of a superhero for ken and none of the staff would come up with one but he came up with a lot so we're really excited for that so wait hey stay here stay here kenton is a great guy and he's our youth pastor just so you know and we're gonna give a couple seconds for you or minutes for you to just talk about youth ministry uh for those of you that have students in that um awesome thanks so this last year has looked really weird um being a youth pastor and trying to run stuff for students and rules changing every month and stuff like that so i'm excited this fall at least for now um we're kicking off next sunday the 19th is going to be our youth kickoff and this is for junior and senior high together it's going to be four to nine next sunday and uh it's gonna be our big kind of celebration that we actually get to like do stuff together that's um different than how we've done it this whole past year but our youth program is going to kick off weekly after that sunday so tuesdays and wednesdays so if you're in the junior high you're going to be on tuesdays from 6 30 to 9 and senior high is wednesdays from 6 30 to 9. um and yeah if you're interested in talking about that and learning about it at all just come talk to me i would love to get to know you um but yeah i'm excited to kick off our youth year we're things are gonna look a little bit different this year we've had to we've learned some stuff from going through covet as youth and uh realized certain needs that we have and certain changes that i think need to be made um so things are gonna look a little bit different this year but i'm really excited and while i'm here i also wanted to just say if god has like kind of put on your heart at some point in the last while like hey maybe i could think about helping out with youth please come talk to me i'm still looking for um more leaders kovit i had more leaders than i've ever had before i think because everybody had nothing to do um but i have i have need for more and if if that's something not simply that you know you're interested in but that god is maybe laid on your heart please come talk to me i'd love to um chat with you about that and get you involved i'm really excited if you're a student um i want to invite you to youth it doesn't matter if you've never come before or if you don't normally go to this church or if you're a follower of jesus yeah or not um i want to invite you to youth you're welcome kind of like alvin said um we exist to see people become devoted followers of jesus but we also want youth to be a real place where kids can deal with their questions and their struggles and whatever in life so no matter where you're at i want to invite you if you're in grades seven to twelve um come try out youth come to our kick off on sunday next sunday and and uh yeah i'd love to get to know you thanks cool and just did you mention the theme for youth this year was that a surprise that's a surprise okay it's a surprise so you have to come to youth to find out so yeah there you go awesome thanks kenton uh the second staff member that we uh were kind of brainstorming on was uh cheryl uh she's our secretary and for cheryl uh she has the superpower of the invisible man or invisible woman so you actually can't see her because she's that super on her super power she has this ability to disappear oh there she is in the back never mind she's here nope she's gone okay there you go uh the third person wayne come on up as we were brainstorming wayne you know and his great abilities as a superhero we realized he would be best as captain underpants there is reasons to this because he seems to wear really short shorts whenever we shoot mount all videos when i make him yes and he doesn't have a filter and he says some really silly things he also has a great ability to pull a noodle through his nose and his mouth so we won't do that today but it is a superpower okay thanks wayne oh i should say before you go wayne is our recovery pastor and does a fantastic job at that and uh just so you know um after today um you know being called captain underpants is really hard and so he's gonna take a month off and uh we're gonna give him a bit of a break and so on so yeah if if you can just be praying for wayne and lydia and be praying for recovery ministry as well that would be awesome thank you yeah the next person i want to invite up is andrew andrew fletcher yeah andrew is our communications director and as we were thinking about andrew we were like you know what we're pretty sure andrew would be the hulk right um mostly because he's really muscular that's why he wore this jacket to he doesn't like to show that um he's really organized and you don't want to get on his bad side so he doesn't turn green he turns red so anyways uh this is andrew yeah he's not already red there you go he's not angry though okay um andrew is helping uh coordinate some of our small groups this fall as you know pastor murray who has overseen small groups has stepped away from vocational ministry and so we haven't replaced uh that position yet so andrew's stepping in so andrew's going to say a few things about small groups yeah so if there's one thing that i'm sure we've all learned um over the last year and a half it's community matters uh maybe you went through the last year and a half and you were like wow this is amazing the people are close to me and they're calling me and they care for me or maybe not and so this is something that we have on our hearts we want to be able to create community groups small groups for all of you so what that means is we need leaders and we need people to attend groups so we're our goal is to start up in october beginning of october with small groups if you are interested in joining a small group you can email me or find me at connect mount all vfc.com or if you go on the website and click the connect button and fill out that form just make sure you hit the thing that says i want to be in a small group and yeah so if you want to get involved uh that would be awesome if you want to be a leader we definitely need leaders um so also connect with me um we are going to be doing a luncheon after service on september 26th uh kind of talk about where we're going this year and how we're how we're planning to move forward uh myself and alvin are going to be kind of filling in that gap until uh we hire the new associate pastor so really look forward to uh bringing us together again uh in in groups that care um so yeah thanks all right thanks andrew uh the next person on the list uh was me alvin so um as the staff thought about alvin and my superhero um they said i would be the ant-man and this was according to the shellenberg family simply because i look like the actor who acted the ant-man and i guess i can get really small i don't know what that means but that's me all right the next guy is david david come on up david is our worship coordinator currently and as we were thinking about david uh we figured david would be captain america because he's really nice he's really kind and he's clean-shaven so this is captain america and then quote david said this about himself he said i would be captain america before he got his serum the skinny version i don't know i give him some love i think he's really strong yeah come on yeah so mighty all right bill pastor bill come on up uh bill as we were he wasn't actually at the staff i mean he was away so we did all kinds of talking about bill and i will only share a few things but we thought bill would be drax the destroyer from the gardens guardians of the galaxy because if you've heard bill preach or talk he just says whatever comes to his mind whatever comes to his mind and we love that about bill it's just real and authentic and uh yeah bill's a great seniors pastor so thank you bill i looked up drax on the internet and he has no hair either yeah drax has no hair there you go all right and then the last one oh alexis call you up alexis is our children's ministry director and as we were thinking about lexus uh the superhero that came up for her was spider-man because she's really uh enthusiastic ready to jump in on anything maybe somewhat sticky but she said this about herself she said when you really get to know me sometimes i just don't know when to stop talking it would be the tom holland of spiderman so i'll let you get talk a little bit about children's ministry all right so kids kids church is starting next sunday for ages two to grade 4 for the 10 and 11 30 services and guys i am pumped for this i am so excited um i just wanted to let you know that we're going to be going through the book of genesis we're going to talk about creation we're going to talk about the fall and we're going to talk about god's plan of salvation even from the beginning and we're also going to look at this in our grades 5 to 6 after school program which we're calling next level and that's going to be on thursday afternoons right after school starting on september 30th and yeah so i'm really looking forward to hanging out with your kids and getting to know them if you are thinking hey where can i help out with kids well i have a few different positions that i'm still looking for people to help out with there's a display at the back of the foyer with a lot of different positions that need filling and so if you could pray about it think about it go stop by the board take a look at the different positions that are there and maybe fill out a card come talk to me um i'd love to get to know you and have you help out with us so yeah that's that all right thanks alexis why don't you just give a hand to our super hero staff thank you so much you guys can go sit down if you wish you can go sit down yeah yeah so there was a few ministries highlighted there's a number of other ministries we're going to highlight more ministry a few more ministries next week as well and uh yeah you know if you're trying to find ways to get involved in the church these are some serving is a great way just to rub shoulders with people as you join a body of believers so i just want to encourage you in those things and as i said you got kind of got to know us we have a meal afterwards where we can get to know you and get to know each other and because we're a church for all people we made this one free so the mennonites would stay as well so um and the dutch hahaha okay hey we're going to continue worshiping god um it's so good to be together and so let me just pray as we continue to worship god in song father thank you for the church thank you that um this wasn't even our idea this was your idea and you said you were going to build it and nothing could stop it and that's because it would be built on the rock and jesus you are the rock you are the foundation and so as we go to worship in song may we lift up your name may you become the center of everything and we pray these things in your name jesus amen i'm going to invite you to stand again with us [Music] the sun comes up it's a new day it's time to sing your song again whatever may pass in whatever lies before me let me be singing when the evening [Music] [Applause] [Music] worship his whole name sing like never before oh my soul [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] your name is [Music] [Applause] [Music] 10 000 reasons [Applause] [Music] [Music] and on that day when my strength is failing the end draws near and my time has come oh still my soul will seek your praise [Music] bless the lord o my soul [Music] [Music] [Music] sing like never before oh my soul i'll worship your holy name [Music] great is thy faithfulness [Music] o god my father there is no shadow of turning with thee thou changes not thy compassions they fail not as thou hast been now forever [Music] great is my faithless [Music] is thy faithfulness [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is to thy great faithfulness [Music] [Applause] faithfulness [Music] [Applause] is [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] pardon forces [Music] strength [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] i love you lord [Music] oh your mercy never fails me and all my days i've been held in your hand from the moment that i wake up until i lay my head and i will sing of the goodness of god all my life you have been faithful all my life you have been so so good with every breath that i made [Music] you have led me through the fire [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] i've known you [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] i [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Applause] but your goodness [Music] is is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] breath that i am [Music] i was [Music] amen please have a seat [Music] [Applause] [Music] uh [Music] how to not self-destruct i bet you thought that about someone else haven't you you saw how their life was going and you saw the steps they were taking and you saw the destination where they would end and you thought no no no you are being your own worst enemy right now you are self-destructing and you don't even see it yeah isn't it true that we've all been our own worst enemy we've all done things where we have self-destructed and we've done things that have hurt ourselves well over the next few months in this fall uh this is our series how to not self-destruct and so if this is something that you think man this is important for me uh uh we invite you come back this fall uh all throughout the the fall we'll be hitting on different ways that we self-destruct and how we cannot self-destruct um if you know of someone maybe a family member or someone that you work with or a neighbor and you think this would be good for them i invite you to invite them to this fall's service often they're a launch service i'll do a teaser sermon to get everyone interested in the series and then we come back and we're all excited but this year i decided to do things a little bit different um we're not going to do a teaser that's the best teaser i got right there for you but rather than looking individually how do we not self-destruct individually what i want to do today is look at how do we not self-destruct as a church corporately how do we keep from self-destructing as a church so when it comes to church splits and family splits and marriage splits and and all the kind of splits that are out there um i have this thought i actually don't think that churches split over unimportant things i think churches only split on the main things and i think this is true of marriages marriages don't split on unimportant things businesses don't split on unimportant things i don't you may disagree with me but this is what i have come to believe that as churches we only split over important things what i call the main things this is true of all walks of life for example in a marriage i heard a woman had divorced or filed for divorce with her husband because he was too nice he said i love you too much and he was cooking so well that she was gaining weight that i need out right i mean we only split over important things right and this is true in churches right i mean churches may split over like the color of the wall right like what kind of paint are we gonna use like important important things you know what kind of music should we be playing or what instruments should be used i am convinced you may laugh but i'm convinced churches only split over important things i think the question we have to ask is this this is the question what is the main thing we are only going to split on the main thing and the moment a church splits over the paint color you can tell right then there what has become the main thing for that church every time the church splits over what instruments should be used in worship right there that has become the main thing because we will only split on the main thing because i think people are too smart to split over unimportant things we only split on the important things and i think right now in the season we're in right now in our society and in our church we are ripe for a split because it doesn't matter what topic you bring up we already disagree right i mean you just bring up a topic we already disagree we are divided and we are polarized and i think this is an important issue for us to figure out is how do we keep from self-destructing and here's why i think it's so so important for us as a church and here's the deal if you're not a believer and you're watching or you're not a believer and you're here you know maybe more than we know as believers why this is so important because our ability as the church to remain united is often one of the reasons why outsiders to the faith will say yes i want in with jesus or not their ability to engage with the christian faith is based on our ability to remain united this isn't just like minor things this is a major important thing and jesus took this so so seriously and he understood the the the importance of unity in the church when it comes to unity and he said this 2000 years ago as he was going to the cross the night he would die he prayed for himself he prayed for his disciples and then he looked out over over the future over the next 2000 years he saw us and judy prayed for us and do you know why well in john chapter 17 we read that prayer and we read why jesus prayed this prayer this is what jesus prayed he said i pray that all of them may be one father just as you are in me and i am in you may they also be one be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me may they be one one with each other each other and one with the father and he goes on i have given them the glory that you gave me that they may be one as we're one i in them and you and me so that they may be brought to complete unity and you know in the greek the word unity is the exact same greek word that he has been using for one the entire time which in essence is just saying this jesus is saying god father would you make them one as we're one jesus and the father were one he said i want them to be one in us and with each other until they're brought to complete oneness oneness was so important to jesus why why does it even matter jesus says and he already said it in verse 21 but he says it again in verse 23 he says here's why it's so important then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved uh even as you have loved so here's the deal for jesus he understood that our greatest apologetic to the world who doesn't believe that jesus came from the father our greatest apologetic would be our oneness in him and our oneness with each other because i think this just makes sense because as an outsider if i wasn't a person of faith i would look at the church and say you claim to worship one god and you can't even get on one page you claim to worship one god but your god must not be very powerful if you can't even stay together right so this was important to jesus i think jesus understood that our unity brings credibility to what's already reality namely the person of jesus christ our unity brings credibility to what is already reality the person of jesus christ so this is a big big deal but how how do we keep unity right and jesus gives a few house but i want to dive into what the apostle paul writes to the church in ephesus and he gives us some great insight as to how to keep unity and i think he kind of just he blows my mind a little bit in the sense of like whoa i didn't understand unity worked like that and we're gonna see some core ingredients of unity and we're gonna see how unity works and so if you have your bibles go to ephesians chapter four and this we're gonna camp out ephesians chapter four verse one paul says this as a prisoner for the lord then i urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you've received now to give you context in the first three chapters paul has been talking about here's what god has done for you as followers of jesus and here's what you've been given in christ it's just amazing read the first three chapters but in essence what paul is saying in chapter four verse one is saying this that our salvation does not only change our destination right we now have life eternal in heaven with god on earth when he returns so not only does it change our destination it changes our lives right now so he says not only is your destination change but now live a life worthy of what you've just been given and then he's going to talk about unity how this plays out as we live together in a church and he says this and he gives four or five depending how you break it up key ingredients to unity okay and this is really really amazing he says be completely humble and gentle now by completely it means like fully holy a hundred percent right not like i was on friday but i'm not today right it's like all day every day fully completely humble the word humble is the idea of a servant it's putting oneself under another it's understanding the god-given intrinsic value of others and saying even though i disagree with you i will respect you even though i i see this completely even though i think you're off your rocker i will put myself under you and i will respect you see humility is not thinking less of ourselves like oh i'm just terrible person humility is thinking about ourselves less because we're spending so much time thinking about others and paul says be completely fully that that will help with your uni this is a key ingredient for unity and he goes on and be completely gentle gentle word can be uh uh interpreted as meekness another word we use gentle or meek um but here's the thing about meekness in secular ancient greek this same greek word that we translate gentle or meekness was used of animals that had been tamed so here's the thing about meekness or gentleness meekness isn't weakness but it is strength under control like an animal that's been tamed it is power under control and so be completely that power yes you are right yes you know better than them but you use your power not to run over them that's not strength under control but you use your strength your authority your power under control and paul says as you do this these are key ingredients to the unity that jesus prayed for when he went to the cross well what about we're all asking this question okay yep paul we get it but but what about those crazies out there right we all know who the crazies are right because they're out there and they're just like they just have the weirdest craziest ideas about pretty much everything and they're just super annoying and what do we do with those people and paul's like i'm glad you asked because the next characteristic is gonna deal with those people okay here's what he says about those people he says i want you to be patient literally long suffering which means you suffer them and you're tired of them and after you're so tired of suffering them you just suffer them a little longer it's patience yeah but just just be patient with them because here's the deal what they are to you you are to someone else and thought about that had you and someone else is going to need to have long suffering with you it's an interesting thought he goes on bearing bearing with them right like i just got to keep putting up with them bearing with them bearing with one another in love and love is the central ethic of the christian life it it it captures all of this right if you love well you'll be humble if you love well you'll be gentle if you love well you'll be patient and bearing love captures all of it so the question is this what does love require of you well paul continues this here's the ingredients to unity but what he says next astounded me it's something that i'd been kind of leaning into without coming to scripture just something i was feeling experientially in my life over the last 10 years of church ministry and yet i never put anything on i didn't realize this was in scripture but it just blew my mind and this is what paul says next about unity this is unreal he said make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace and i don't know if you grew up in the church you would have heard this many times and if you didn't grow up in the church you haven't heard this but you're going to hear it now often as christians we say we just need to pray for unity right and don't you're not a bad person if you've said that you're not a bad person if you've prayed for you i've prayed for you i've said that but here's what's interesting to me paul does not say pray for unity he doesn't say that because often as christians we just kind of pray for unity and then we wait for unity and we hope for unity as this as if god's just going to kind of drop unity out of heaven onto us and we're like boom we just showed up and we're unified what happened what just happened we are unified see we have this idea that unity is something that happens to us and paul doesn't say this happens to us he says make every effort in the greek that word every effort is actually a present tense verb which means this it's something we do right now and the next now that happens we keep doing it it's not like i tried unity last year with that guy it didn't work we're just we're just done we tried it uh it's all the time it never stops it's unending we keep working and working and trying and trying we keep making effort after effort to keep the unity because unity isn't something that just happens to us but here's the interesting thing about unity it doesn't happen to us but it is something that's given to us see the moment you put your faith in jesus and he saves you from your sin you are in christ and the moment that you are in christ that very moment you are in christ with everybody else who's in christ that means you are one with everyone else you didn't choose it it was given to you and paul says listen it doesn't happen to us but it's given to us but you can lose it you could lose it and that's why he says make every effort not to create unity we don't create it not to manufacture you we don't manufacture it it's something given to us by god in christ but he says now i want you to fight to keep it and i when i when i started in church ministry 13 years ago i had this kind of naive idea that you know in church we would just we all love jesus and it's just going to be fun we're all going the same direction and what i've come to realize especially in the last year that unity is probably the hardest thing that i do it is exhausting it is tiring because here's the deal humble and gentle never come naturally to me and bearing with people that are just i can't believe they think that way doesn't come natural to me it's an everyday if i take a break for one day we are destroyed the next we are disunified we are divided instantly it is efforts and i never thought that and often we look from a distance we're like why can't those two pastors get along and we look from a distance like why can't the elders get along with the pastor in the past why can't those two christians just get along because here's the deal unity is hard hard hard but it's so worth it so here's the question we have the ingredients to unity paul now says you got to make effort towards it but what are we actually united around right what is it and jesus hinted to this already in his passage him and the father we'd be one with him and the father paul says the exact same thing in the next few verses but he kind of elaborates he kind of gives a little more description to it he says it this way he says there is one body and one spirit just as you were called to one hope when you were called one lord and one faith and one baptism and one god and father of all who is over all and through all and in all i think you know what he's talking about he mentions one seven times three of them are referred to god our triune god who is three yet one right father god son he says lord but that's paul's way of saying jesus and spirit and so he says listen there is one body the body of christ there's not two there's one there's one spirit the spirit of god and you are called to one hope the hope we have in god through jesus and there's one lord that's jesus and there's one faith our faith that we have in jesus and one baptism you were baptized into christ and one god it's oneness it's oneness so here as simply as just kind of breaking it down as simply as i can maybe breaking it down to what jesus did in john 17. here's the point we are united in jesus it's not something we did it's something he did he gave us unity we are united in jesus but here's the deal when jesus remains the focus we will remain united we already have been given unity but as jesus remains the focus we will remain united but as jesus does not remain the focus we will self-destruct we will self-destruct so the question is this what will we make as the main thing what will we make as the main thing because we can make wall color the main thing and we'll self-destruct we can make music and what instruments should be used the main thing and we'll self-destruct what will we make the main thing and this is hard hard heart and the church struggled with this in the first century and let me give you three quick examples of where they were tempted to make a sub-thing the main thing and they were about to self-destruct in first corinthians chapter one and chapter three the corinthian church was getting all divided because they were arguing about who was the who's who of christianity and some of the church was like hey i follow paul and other people like i follow apollos another be like i follow peter and paul comes along and says you got this all wrong we aren't the main thing the only thing that counts is god keep the main thing the main thing in acts chapter 15 the very first church council was over a fight they were having and it was between the jews and the gentiles and the jews were saying hey gentiles who come to faith in christ they need to be circumcised because all throughout history god's people had been circumcised and now gentiles were part of god's people if it just makes sense they should be circumcised and they were having this great debate should they be circumcised they so they got together in jerusalem they had a big wrestling match over this and suddenly they realized wait we're making not the main thing the main thing and they concluded the only thing that matters is faith in christ everything else is not the main thing in acts or in romans chapter 14 and 15 there's an interesting dialogue again between jews and gentiles and they were fighting about which food is proper to eat and they had different understanding of what was proper to eat and paul comes along and says listen you guys are fighting about things that are conscience issues not moral issues you're making conscience issues the main thing he says you need to stop judging each other on conscience issues and make jesus the main thing but here's the deal keeping the main thing the main thing is really really really hard and to put into perspective just how hard this is let me say this now before i say this i need to forewarn you you're about to be offended okay so i need you to promise me this is true story i need you to promise me that you will not turn off the tv stop the podcast or get out of the building in the next 30 seconds when i severely offend you okay that you will give me five minutes give me five minutes hear me through all the way are you ready it by staying you have now committed you have signed the contract you're saying okay so to show you just how hard this is to put it into perspective let me just say this here's the question that our society is wrestling with right now and here's the question we as the church are wrestling many of us are wrestling with and the question is this what what do we do with the anti-vaxxers right i mean they are hurting our fight against kovid they're filling the hospitals let's be honest they don't really care about the health of others right they've caused the fourth wave you said you would not leave stay this is what we're wrestling with right but here's the other thing here's what we're wrestling with and many of us are wrestling with this and that's the question the question is this what do we do what do we do with the pro-vaxxers they are hurting themselves they are following blindly like sheep they are losing their rights and freedoms they're god-given rights and freedoms and on top of all that they're just falling for the agenda that's behind this whole clover thing and now you can see our problem you can fully see our challenge because in this church we have both those perspectives and how do we remain united when we are so divided how do we remain unified when we're so polarized on these things so i've been thinking about this for a real long time and i have a solution actually i'm going to call it a vision i have a vision and here's my vision see god gave us that land to the south which means this we now have the space to plant mount olive church vaccinated in that corner and we're going to plant mount olive unvaccinated over here and then we're going to plant mount all of masks over here and mount all of unmask and while we're at it hear me through we're going to plant mount all of liberals over here and mount all of conservatives and people's party and green and ndp and we're even going to plant mount all black quebecois wait a second they're only in quebec right never mind we're not making room for them okay i hope you understand my heart that's a bad vision that's a bad vision but i'll tell you what it's an easier vision because if we can just put all the people that think the same on these subcategories in one spot it's so much easier but here's the deal if we divide and split up on all our subcategories and then somehow in two years there's going to be a new subcategory and what do we do we just keep dividing dividing dividing dividing and dividing and i think the world looks at us and say does your god have any power does your god have any power see one of the things i love i love about our church is we have diversity we have diversity on theological issues we have diversity on politics issues we have diversity on how we should handle covid issues and do what i actually believe i actually believe that our diversity actually makes us stronger it makes it so so so hard to keep the main thing the main thing but when we do i think the world looks at us and they say there must be something real about the god that they serve here's my vision i think this is what god would have for us that we would be completely humble and gentle that we would be patient burying with the anti-vaxxers and bearing with the vaxxers and bearing with the political left and bearing with the political right and bearing with those crazy crazy people that have the audacity to cheer for the calgary flames right okay i lost you again i think this would be god's vision for us but i think it's going to be so so hard and i know there's many questions you have many questions because i'm not going to answer all of how do we just navigate the future but i think if we take this posture we have a chance we have a chance to make a difference we have a chance to bring credibility to what's already reality the person of jesus so here's the challenge this isn't a sunday morning challenge this is an everyday challenge because here's the deal if all of us spend all of our time exclusively filling ourselves with our anti-vaccine news or exclusively filling ourselves with our pro-vaccine news or exclusively filling ourselves with our political left or political right if that's all we fill ourselves with in six days a week are we magically gonna show up at church on sunday or in our small groups throughout the week and somehow just be united no what are we gonna make the main thing and i'm not saying reading all those things and being involved and having opinion is wrong i think you should but what are we going to make the main thing as we go into the fall what are we individually going to make the main thing so when we show up in conversations when we show up on on social media when we show up in our world the sub things don't take place of the main thing and that means individually we need to be pursuing christ we need to be diving into his word we need to make that the main thing in our conversations otherwise i don't think we're going to keep the main thing the main thing so here's my here's what i want to say about mount olive you're the church i'm so proud of you because over the last 19 months i have seen you guys do this time and time again and none of us have done it perfectly i love that because it means we just have to bear with each other and none of us are going to do it perfectly but i don't think that can destroy our unity if we can keep christ at the center so here's my vision my vision is that as our world becomes more and more polarized as our world begins to disintegrate more and more at its very core that the church would rise up mount olive would rise up in our counties where god placed us we would rise up in unity and that our unity would bring credibility to that which is already a reality our lord and savior jesus christ amen amen in closing i want to play a song and i only came across this yesterday is brand new and i think it just punctuates the heart i hope your heart and ours let's play this amen i promised you guys food so this is your chance to go and put those differences aside and be united and some of you won't want to because it's raining that's okay but we have some tents out there you can just make your way out the main doors and out the back of the building and there will be food there for you but as we do that i invite all of us to stand and we're gonna close this way this is what the apostle paul wrote to the church in rome after he'd spent a great deal of time talking about keep the main thing the main thing about their food issues and he didn't write this as a prayer but i'm going to pray this over us as a church and it says this close your eyes and let's allow these words to wash over us may the god who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other the same attitude of mind toward each other that christ jesus had so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the god and father of our lord jesus christ accept one another then just as christ accepted you in order to bring praise to god amen to pray for the food we're going to sing the doxology as one church if you don't know the doxology just listen here we go praise god [Music] [Music] praise god [Music] amen you're dismissed you

Channel: Mount Olive Church

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Id: oqFHBxKtCg0

Length: 74min 4sec (4444 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 12 2021