The Avenue Church | Austin Fischer

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] he's born on church [Music] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] creations [Music] there was [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you make all things faith you make all things beautiful jesus you may call things new come on little lighter in this place [Applause] oh [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] is [Music] [Music] here we go [Music] holy spirit thank you [Music] god come over us come rest on us come rest on us like the spirit was moving over the water spirit come come rest on us [Applause] [Music] when you fill the room [Music] me oh jesus comes [Applause] [Music] do it again [Music] open up [Music] [Music] me [Music] holy spirit [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] holy spirit [Applause] [Music] [Music] when you feel the rule here [Music] me [Music] [Music] me [Applause] [Music] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] you're [Applause] [Music] mercy jesus [Music] they're at the start before the beginning [Music] you smoke the dark flesh [Music] if the stars were made to [Music] every burning stars of grace creation sings you praise these souls [Music] god is [Music] as you speak a hundred billion creatures [Music] [Music] everything [Music] [Applause] the creation's still [Music] i will praise [Music] if everything [Music] if if [Music] [Applause] 100 [Applause] wow [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] all you created [Music] come on [Music] so i can find it [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] every precious one a child you died [Music] you'll never leave us the rain of darkness now is ended in the kingdom of life [Music] you're the king of my life you're the king of my life one lifted up in this place [Music] thank you jesus [Music] come on [Music] [Music] jesus [Music] is [Music] seated alone in glory and thrown on the highest praise looked it up you sent the darkness running out of an empty grave now seated alone in glory [Music] darkness glory [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] jesus [Music] [Music] [Music] jesus yes [Music] song [Music] jesus [Music] good morning avenue church my name is mark one of the pastors here i want to say welcome to the avenue you can have a seat as we continue to worship the name who reigns above it all i want you to imagine all the stuff that's going on in your life right now and understand that there is a god who reigns above it all whatever you're holding today there is a god who's overcome it and we want to invite you into that experience today we're so glad that you're here with us today if this is your first time we want to say welcome to you especially we'd love to meet you in the hub immediately after the service we have a small gift of just appreciation for you checking us out today we'd love to to meet you after the service also if you're new with us today we expect nothing from you we hope that you have a great time that you feel welcomed and wanted and loved but here at the avenue church a part of our worship is also giving and so if you call the avenue church your church home we invite you to participate in worship through giving through understanding that god has given us everything and he trusts us to be a blessing to the community and so through giving we're able to do that we thank you for your generosity you can give here as the buckets pass or you can give online at the adminchurch.com give we're so grateful for what god is doing and continuing to do in our church through your generosity i want to invite everyone to lunch next week called startup startup is a very simple way for you to be connected here at the avenue church if you've been checking out checking us out for a little while or you've been here for a long time and you don't quite feel connected we'd love to invite you to lunch next week startup will happen at 12 30. next next sunday will provide lunch and childcare if you have kids it's a way for you to understand how to have a good start in your discipleship journey here at the avenue church what does it mean to be a member what does it mean to be a participant in what god is doing here we'll tell you more about god tell you more about the avenue and hopefully learn more about you at lunch next week it's a great way just to get connected to meet some good folks and to meet uh just what god is what is doing what god is doing here at the avenue church today we have a very special guest one of my close friends a pastor in temple texas at the vista community church austin is also an author he's a dad and a husband has an amazing family amazing church and has an amazing message for us today so why don't you welcome my friend austin fisher to the stage this morning good morning everybody oh man it is it is great to be here today like mark said i bring you greetings from your brothers and sisters in christ just down the road at vista community church uh mark and i we we do go back i think i i did his wedding 12 years ago which is crazy and as you can imagine uh the star of the show was was obviously mark's wonderful wife ashley but y'all mark miller mark miller can dance y'all did y'all know market dance hey martin yeah i think marcia come out here and show us a little some of what he's no we're not going to do that to him but i just thought that you should know that oh is it and don't put it past him i'm telling the man can move that in addition to having a wonderful and warm pastored preacher like david brown you also have the best dancing executive pastor in the greater dallas fort worth metroplex now just thought that you should be aware of what you have on your hands here so at my church we are in the middle of this series where we are reading through paul's letter to the romans right known as romans and we're actually reading through it backwards we're calling the series reading romans backwards and so we started in chapter 16. we're working our way back to the beginning of the letter and i don't know how much you know about reading but i'm gonna assume you know enough to know that reading backwards is usually a very bad idea and so why are we reading through romans backwards at my church and why are we going to do a very abbreviated backwards reading of romans today it's a good question show of hands anybody ever seen the movie the sixth sense any sixth sense yeah right if you haven't seen it it has like the biggest end of movie plot twist of any movie in like the last 30 years right and i hate to spoil this for you but i feel like the statute of spoiler limitations is up are we in agreement on this you've had 30 years to see this movie people if you have not seen the sixth sense this is on you so here's here's what goes down if you don't want it to be spoiled you can go get your little refill on your coffee but here's what goes down main character played by bruce willis he's this this therapist very first scene of the movie he gets shot by a very disturbed patient of his very tragic then the movie kind of jumps ahead in time though and we learned that that dear bruce has this very difficult relationship with his wife where she just like literally never talks to him also just known as marriage sometimes um and then he has this relationship with this really troubled little boy who can see dead people i see dead people remember that it's that movie and so the whole movie is bruce trying to save his marriage and help the little boy who can see dead people that's the movie at the very end of the movie though we have this final scene we get this big aha moment where we learn that bruce willis is dead right you remember he did he's been dead the whole movie that's why this little boy who can see dead people can see him because he's dead incidentally this is also why his wife goes like the whole movie without talking to him right because he's dead and i am stealing this observation but obviously the greatest thing in hindsight about the sixth sense is that we watch this guy get shot bam bleed out first scene of the movie okay and then we watch his wife literally not talk to him for a whole year and it never even occurs to us that he might be dead because it made more sense to us that his wife just didn't talk to him for a year then it made sense to us that he's dead we watch this man get shot bleed out die bang not talk to a few years we're all just like yup know what that's like i have been there before marriages are hard we got it's his fault he got shot and it's his fault somehow she's not even going to talk to him anyways the point is that the end of the story helps make sense of everything that goes before it in the story the end of the story sheds light on everything that happens before it and the same thing is true for the apostle paul's letter to the romans now if you've read romans before there's a good chance you you gave up somewhere between chapters 9 and 11. and that is because romans 1 through 11 contains some of the densest most complicated theological stuff in the new testament because of this it has led many people to believe that romans is like paul's his final theological dissertation where he he sits down he channels his deepest nerdiest self and he explains all the mysteries of god and god's ways in the world but far from being an abstract theological dissertation paper paul's letter to the romans is first and foremost like most every book in the new testament a letter to a church that's what romans is not a dissertation a letter to a church to be more specific it is a letter that paul wrote to five small house churches that existed in ancient rome the center and capital of the largest empire the world had ever seen around 55 ce and this little cluster of churches had a very very very big problem all right and i know it's going to be hard to relate to this because this is so long ago these are ancient people with ancient people problems but the really really really big problem that these ancient churches were facing is that they were filled with people that that was it that was the problem people who apparently had a habit of not getting on can you believe that people who don't get along i know ancient people anxious problems just bear with me i'll try to make this relate to you today when we read romans backwards we have this aha oh i see dead people this is dead moment where we realize that all the complicated theological stuff in the front half of the book is actually all in service to a very very simple goal that gets revealed at the very end of the book here's the goal here's the bruce willis dead moment okay paul is writing to these five small house churches located at the heart of the roman empire and filled with people who don't get along because they need to learn to get along because the gospel is in jeopardy because if they don't learn how to be the scandalously diverse and yet united family that god has called into being through christ and the power of the spirit then the gospel will be rendered unbelievable the world will not be able to believe in the gospel and the longest recorded prayer we have of his is known as his high priestly prayer jesus closes by saying this don't you pay careful attention here he says now i don't ask on behalf of these disciples alone but for all those who will believe in me through their word that they may all be one even as you father are in me and i'm in you that they may be in us this is important here so that the world may believe that you sent me now the glory what you have given me i've given it to them that they may be one just as we are one i and them you and me that they may be perfected in unity here it is again so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you have loved me now have you ever wondered what it would take for the world to believe that god sent jesus everyone in that i wonder that all the time what would it take would it take like a a sign in the sky you know in the heavens uh the perfect rational argument for the existence of god a christian takeover of all world government surveillance footage of the resurrection what would it take what would it take for the world to believe that god sent jesus well here's what jesus said it would take you ready for this here's what jesus said we'll take if my disciples could get along that was it that's what jesus said if my disciples could get along then the world could believe that god sent me now according to jesus whose word i take very seriously on such matters the unity of his disciples determines the world's capacity to believe meaning our unity makes the gospel believable right our unity makes the gospel believable on the flip side this means our disunity does what it makes the gospel unbelievable people are unable to believe and receive the gospel does that make sense to you right it actually makes a lot of sense because y'all think about this how in the world is the world supposed to believe that jesus christ is capable of conquering sin suffering and death if he is apparently incapable of conquering the hostilities that divide conservatives and progressives and rich and poor and men and women in black and white and brown people how in the world is the world supposed to believe that jesus christ has conquered the grave if he cannot conquer the divisions that exist in this room this morning in jesus own family it's not believable every two years my church does this event called jesus for president we do it on midterm and presidential election nights the idea is very simple the idea is that on the most divisive night of the year we don't vote and then go home and watch cnn or fox news and sip on that gross partisan kool-aid and celebrate because we're so happy because we won and everything's better jesus is coming back oh we're so sad because we lost it's the worst thing ever no instead of doing that nonsense at my church we gather together we pledge our allegiance to king jesus and we remind ourselves that jesus is lord i don't care who the president is i know who the lord is the red republicans and the blue democrats they gather together around a common cup of purple communion wine come on now we remind ourselves that god in christ has done something to overcome our deepest disagreements we agree with god in christ that he has overcome our deepest disagreements and it's awesome you ought to do it we can do it together in a couple years if you want well i was telling another pastor about this event recently and he says to me man this sounds awesome it does but isn't it awkward when everybody is bombed because we lost i didn't took me back for a moment and i thought to myself who is this we you speak of i don't know i don't know this weed you're talking about we lost and what became clear is he was under the assumption that surely surely everybody in your church voted the same way i mean how could you even have a church if everybody doesn't vote the same way and so i told him that if we are ever a church where everybody is happy or everybody is sad on election nights because everybody voted the same then we are a church that has failed to be a church i don't know what we are but we're not a church because if churches are not places y'all where allegedly impossible divisions are being overcome by god in christ through the power of the spirit then they ain't churches whatever else they are they're not churches so now let's see what all this looks like in action let's see how all the complicated theological stuff that paul talks about in romans actually all builds to this really simple crescendo in romans 16. all right we're going to read romans 16 verses 1 through 20. it'll be on the screen for you i believe it's going to be real fun for you too because you'll hear me mispronounce all these these names that i don't know how to pronounce but i will do my best romans 16 1-20 paul says now i come into your sister phoebe who is a servant of the church which is at sancria that you receive her in the lord in a manner worthy of the saints and that you help her in whatever she may have need of you for she herself has been a helper of many and of myself as well now i want you to greet prisca and aquila my fellow workers in christ jesus who from my life risked their own necks to whom not only do i give thanks but also all the churches of the gentiles also greet the church that is in their house greet a payetness my beloved who is the first convert to christ from asia greet mary who has worked hard for you greet andronicus in junior my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners who are outstanding among the apostles who were also in christ before me greet and platus my beloved in the lord greet urbanists our fellow worker in christ and stack us my beloved greek appellate the approved in christ greet those who are of the household of aristophilist greet herodian my kinsmen greet those of the household of narcissists very unfortunate name who are in the lord greet chauffeuna and trifasa workers in the lord greet persons the beloved who has worked hard and lord great rufus choice man and lord also tells mom what's up she's great greek ace and kratos fleegan hermes patribus hermas and the brethren with them greet philo logos and julia nerius and his sister and olympus and all the saints who are with them greet one another with the holy kiss all the churches of christ greet you now i urge you brothers and sisters i want you to keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned and i want you to turn away from them for such people are slaves but not of the lord jesus slaves of their own appetites and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting for the report of your obedience has reached to all therefore i am rejoicing over will you but i want you to be wise in what is good and innocent and what is evil the god of peace will soon crush satan under your feet all right romans 16 1-20 okay so paul writes this letter to five small house churches if you're paying attention you might have noticed that we know there were five small house churches because paul mentions five house churches there in romans 16. you notice he's like hey say hey to the church in that house and that house in that house and then paul sends this letter with someone named phoebe if you're paying attention you probably also notice that phoebe is a woman all right we learn in verse two that she is a servant of the church in sincrea that word servant comes from the greek word diaconae from which we get the english word deacon meaning she likely served in an official capacity as a deacon in her church and we need to pause here and understand the enormous trust that paul has placed in phoebe in choosing her out of all people to deliver this letter all right so let's put ourselves in the place of these uh early roman christians as they listen to phoebe read paul's letter to them now do you think that after listening to this absurdly long and complicated letter like you know how long romans is it's like three times longer than any other letter paul wrote it is absurdly long it is absurdly complicated do you think that after hearing this letter read to you you might have some questions anybody i would you should be like two words in i'd be like here in the back got a few questions for you and who do you think would have been responsible for answering people's questions about the letter paul's not there yeah paul can't do it phoebe phoebe would have been responsible because in addition for being responsible for delivering the letter and reading the letter phoebe would have also been responsible for interpreting the letter for helping all these people understand the letter i love the way scott mcknight puts this in his commentary on romans he says look writers like paul didn't hand their letters over to schmucks to stumble their way through the letters okay so phoebe phoebe was no schmuck she was a leader of her church she was responsible for delivering reading and then interpreting perhaps the most important letter that has ever been written and then we learned in verse two that she was a a helper of many which is a technical term that means she was a a benefactor a very wealthy woman who financially supported paul and many other missionaries all this to say the theological way to say this is that phoebe was a boss okay she was a boss and then after introducing phoebe paul starts this really long string of greetings you notice him oh man paul says what's up to everybody everybody gets a shout out paul mentions more people in romans 16 than he does all of his other letters combined 26 names and these 26 names tell us some very very interesting things about these early roman churches now first off and picking up where we left off with phoebe about half of the names that paul mentions are female meaning women were very involved in the leadership of these early roman house churches there are a lot of stories we could tell here but the most interesting story to tell is that of a woman named junia she is mentioned in verse 7 as being outstanding among the apostles and here's the short story version of junior's story the name junior okay you see it up there junia it is a female name everybody knows this everybody agrees upon this and so when paul says in verse 7 i want you to greet andronicus and junia he is clearly referring to a husband and wife team just like he does in verse three when he says i want you to greet prisca and aquila all right so everybody gets this everybody agrees upon this this is where things get interesting paul then goes on to say that junia is outstanding among the apostles which is a phrase that probably means that junior was an apostle okay now we need to understand here in the first century what's an apostle you didn't have all these official roles yet an apostle was somebody who had seen the resurrected christ who was an eyewitness to the resurrection and so a woman being an apostle is not something we should find particularly surprising because all the first apostles were women now you remember the story if you've only been here on easter sunday you've heard this story mary magdalene are friends they go to jesus tomb they're going to anoint him for burial you remember the story the stone is rolled away there are angels there's resurrected jesus bing bang bong the women are the first apostles they are the first eyewitnesses to the resurrection and y'all this again this should not surprise us because this is what god does this is god's mo right here's how paul puts in first corinthians 1 27-29 he says listen up god has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise and god has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong and the base things of the world and the despised things god has chosen the things that are not so that he may nullify the things that are so that nobody may boast before god it's all pretty clear and yet about a thousand years after paul wrote romans a thousand years later this really intense debate breaks out about junior because people started arguing that her name must have been like a like a shortened male nickname you know it's like there's someone named junior robert and he goes by junior for sure that makes sense right you would do that your name is elizabeth bob you'd obviously go by elizabeth if you were a dude no it doesn't make sense how does this all happen well because you know women can't be apostles we all know women can't be apostles because all these layers of bureaucracy had built up in the church and now there are all these fights about what roles women could and could not play and it's a really sad story of scripture being twisted and forced to conform to predetermined agendas all this to say look good and reasonable people can disagree about how to best interpret the entirety of what scripture says about the proper roles of women and the church right you probably live with that family tension here at the avenue we live with that family tension at my church good and reasonable people can disagree on that but junior y'all junior was a woman not junior bob junia was a woman and she was probably an apostle just like all the first women were apostles because y'all this is what god does god chooses the things that are not and god nullifies the things that are because god is on a mission to graciously humble all of us into a gospel family where the least or the greatest and the greatest or the least until there's no longer such thing as least and greatest and greatest at least because all that matters is serving each other and love amen that's not how christians talk who's the least who's the greatest we don't talk that way and this comes up again and again in the 26 names that paul mentions in romans 16. because in this list of names john this is so cool there are greek names there are latin names there are jewish names there are men there are women there are young there are old because long before diversity became fashionable and everybody wanted to talk about it the early church was living it like no other place in the ancient world early christian churches were places where people who did not belong together who allegedly could not belong together were learning how to belong together because they're being called together by god in christ through the power of the spirit and that brings us to this one final word this word greet paul uses it again and again in romans 16 says i want you to greet this person greet that person greet that person everybody gets a greeting in romans 16 it is the greek word espasmi and it doesn't mean like say hey what's up a spasm i want you to greet people it literally means like i want you i want you to draw them close and embrace them like literally i want you to hug them that's what paul's saying he then goes even further in verse 16 and he says i want you to greet one another in christ with a holy kiss now i know you pride yourselves on being very biblical here at the avenue so i would like everybody to turn to their neighbor whomever he or she may be pucker up and we're gonna i'm just kidding would not go over well in the time of covert um or ever probably but i do want to be clear here i'm not gonna make you kiss your neighbor but but but this is literally what paul is telling them to do it's not a metaphor paul is literally telling these people these people who again come from very different backgrounds greek jewish latin like you name it men and women rich and poor young and old he's telling us very different people who disagree about a lot like if you've read romans there's a lot of disagreement that especially about the bacon there are a lot of disagreements about the bacon between the jews and the gentiles and circumcision that was a big one too these people they disagreed about a lot of stuff and paul's telling them what literally i want you to embrace one another in christ and give each other a holy kiss that's what paul says my wife's father so my father-in-law i was the warmest most affectionate person i have ever met in my entire life i'll never forget the first time i met him we were hometown sweethearts you see so she's 16 years old i'm 19. i'm going to meet her dad very scary moment for me we pull up and and like immediately when we get out of the car her dad just comes running up to her full speed grabs her gives her the biggest daddy daughter bear hug you've ever seen in your life it's just it's adorable you know i'm like yes yeah this is great and then to to my great surprise he he kisses her on the lips now you understand a fish are family we're not lip kissers really as i don't think really any families are apparently except for my wife and her family and so i'm i'm very caught off guard by this i'm like oh my god what have i got myself am i in arkansas what is happening i'm not down with what's happening right now but you know he kisses her and then he turns to me and i have the smell and i'm like oh no [Laughter] he's kind of trying to kiss he's going to try to kiss me on the lips am i going to let him if the only way to her lips is through his lips then lay it on me man i'm here for it but i mean luckily he just came up give me a big bear hug give me a big kiss on the cheek we're best buddies from that moment on and that's what paul is talking about here and this is why this is so interesting let's go now to the very last thing that paul says in romans and i want you to notice the change in tone the change in temperature okay paul's just said look i want you literally to like welcome each other in christ with a holy kiss okay he said that now notice how quick the turn is here in verse 17. what does he say says now i urge you i want you to keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned and i want you to turn away from them no holy kisses for them i want you to turn away from them one of the things people fail to understand about paul right because you know paul's got a reputation right you know paul's reputation he's like this hardcore extremist uncompromising zealot who demanded that everybody agree with him about everything the apostle paul but i'm telling you paul is very misunderstood he was actually a very laid-back and open-minded guy he really was i promise paul actually had a lot of patience for a lot of people have you ever read the new testament it's paul putting up with knuckleheads that's like the whole that is the whole new testament there's your new testament survey class paul putting up with knuckleheads paul had patience for all kinds of people but but paul had no patience for people who delighted in causing division paul had no patience for people who delighted in causing division i don't think he would be going too far to say that a lot of us delight in people who delight in causing division we love their shows their talk shows we subscribe to their podcast we eagerly await their latest posts on social media we love it and i hear a lot nowadays about ah you know i mean our our society's being ruined by you know feeling like our society is being ruined by the liberals it's being ruined by the conservatives blah blah blah yeah just just listen to me nobody is ruining us nobody ruining you nobody's ruining us no we are ruining ourselves by hostility somebody's ruining you we are ruining ourselves by hostility due in large part to the fact that far too many of us pay far too much attention to people who delight in causing division that's why i love the imagery that paul uses here to close this most important of his letters because what does he say he says look instead of embracing those who delight in causing division what's paul said to do with them i want you to send them packing again no holy kisses for them you know you you don't welcome people who delight in causing division you send them packing for their good long term and for your good you you don't welcome them you send a pack and then instead of pushing away those who you find difficult or you disagree with what does paul say i want you to draw them in close embrace them in christ and give them you got to give them the holy kiss why why do we have to do that because that is what god in christ did for you and that's why you're here amen let's pray gracious god thank you for the gift of today we do not deserve to be here we are not entitled to good things every breath in and every breath out is a gracious gift from our creator we come to you this morning god and i pray for my friends here at the avenue church in waukahachi i know it's been a long year for a lot of people i know there is a lot that pulls us apart we disagree about a lot of stuff and yet if we can't find a way to accept that you in christ have overcome even our deepest disagreements then the world cannot believe that god sent jesus the greatest witness we can give to the world is not you know a cool sunday morning a clever explanation of the gospel now the greatest witness we can give the world is learning how to get along learning how to embrace one another in christ just as you in christ embraced us we trust that you're faithful to do this we confess all the ways that we have prevented you from doing this deep unifying work in our midst and we trust you with our future we pray these things in jesus name amen thank you i'm so grateful for austin's word to us today and i would pray as a pastor here that our unity would make the gospel believable to the world around us that we wouldn't lose our minds after we leave here on a sunday morning that we would go with the same spirit that brings us here every sunday and we'd live with that spirit in the world each and every day and that's my prayer as a pastor here at this church and i'm so thankful for just the diversity of this church and the different backgrounds and the different stories and the different home lives and lives in general that we have here at this church and i want to embrace that and want to live in a true unity um because of what christ has done for us and maybe this morning your response is to remember what christ has done for us the the action the the event that took place that would make us one um was him giving his life for us that his body was broken and his blood was poured out and this morning we want to give you a chance to remember that through communion each and every week communion is available here at the avenue but we want to take a special moment uh this morning just to be reminded of christ's body broken for us and his blood poured out for us and so if you'd like to participate in communion you still have eight minutes before your kids are done with their church uh experience and so um just take your time over the next few minutes to be reminded of what what has made us one what has made us one even though we are all so different so communion is available here at the right and at the left and so just give your your chance to give yourself a chance to remember who christ is and what he has done through his body and uh won't we live in peace this week live in unity and not lose our minds when we leave here that we would display the gospel to a world outside of these walls so so thankful for you church we love you each and every week we invite you to bring somebody with you so bring somebody back next week as pastor david rejoins us for a brand new series it's going to be a great time thank you here okay next week good work laughs oh nice thank you so much uh yes sir i can take it from you thanks dude is like i'll see you like this you

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Length: 77min 59sec (4679 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 03 2021