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Lord, you say that nothing can separate us. We believe that help our unto us a word this morning about that. How we rest in that and how we embrace our roles with you and with each other to share that Jesus. All right. If you thought there was no singing in this portion of church gathering today, you were. I'm gonna say the same thing. I think about eight different ways today. Hopefully, one of them sticks.

So can I ask you to sing this with me? And I want you to listen. Nothing can separate it. Jesus loves me. This I know. For the Bible, we get together in here every week like the very first followers of Jesus who gathered in homes when it was hostile on the first day of the week for them, it was Sunday. To remember that there says this do in remembrance of me. That's for communion. But really we.

This do life remembrance of me. Do everything. We come here to remember that Jesus loves me. And this is the second together. Sing that again, but replace the me with you and think of somebody in the room to whom you're singing. Okay? Jesus loves you. This I know. Come on, sing it out.

Yes, Jesus loves you. Yes, love. That's the first way I'm telling you. Probably. Basically, there's an individual component to everything that Jesus is about. He's. He's just. We rest individually, we grow in our work.

We've been talking about how your work includes your job, but it's bigger than your job. Your work is anything that brings light, good life, blessing, fruit to others, and glorifies God. Just like we grow up in our work, we rest individually, but also we cannot rest fully and work fully outside of church. There's something we miss when we don't. All right, let's take one. That's the Sermon 1.0. Let's go to 2.0. Are you ready? I'll show you a video from yesterday.

I went to. What's it called? Old Waverly, Old Town Park, Old Waverly something. Or rather over there off of 144. And I watched this Master blacksmith. That's it. It doesn't get any better than that, folks. It's just. It's just that the whole time I was so fascinated by what the blacksmith said of the word masterpiece.

So when you think of masterpiece, I. I didn't. I didn't maybe mean to, but I think of, like, something that's perfect, like Starry Night or Moonlit Sonata or Madman. Right, Heather? Am I right? Come on. But he said, for the person in this trade, a masterpiece is not something perfect. It's your piece of work that you submit that qualifies you. It's the work that you do that qualifies you as a master. Well, we talk a lot in this church about Ephesians 2:10.

We are all masterpieces of Christ, his handiwork. Listen, we've been talking about how Jesus is the teacher of this. Jesus does not build up his identity by his word. His identity comes before his work. We've been talking about that. Are you with me on that? He expresses his identity in his work, but his work does not make his identity. Sometimes we learn a hard lesson in life. Daggone cable is tied to this shoe big time.

When we lose our work, it challenges our identity. Sometimes that's when we see it right. Jesus expresses his identity in his work, but he has set the terms for his role. He says it of himself, the work that qualifies him as a master. What is it? You. You are his work that makes him the all day long, all day, every day. Jesus is like a blacksmith, working that peace, seeing it come into the vision that he has for it. He is working all the time.

He is excited about the work. He is excited about you. The uniqueness of you. You are one of. Of one. There's no one like you. His life's work is you. And he's given his whole life to build you up.

So again, there's an individual component that's just between you and Jesus. Every day, when you're not here in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, that's individual time. Sometimes it's me and Jesus yesterday at the kitchen table with my kids making noise. And I'm just trying to sit with Genesis 4 and sit with Jesus and let him work on me. Blacksmith, on the master, on the. On the creation. There's an individual component to our work and our rest where it's just us in our own individual time. And yet Jesus has also set the terms for this.

A primary way that we grow up into our masterpiece, the masterpiece creation that we are, is this. I cannot fully become who I am in Christ without you, without the. I can honestly, I'm be very honest. I wish there was another way because news flash, people are tough. I am. But man, I was so struck by. We're going to end with this today. I was so struck by this.

This phrase in Romans 12. He's like, he's giving. He's getting to the end of Romans. This letter to people who are trying to follow Jesus in a time when it's hard to do so. It's. It's hard to be an individual who follows Jesus. It's even harder to show up to a church community in that time and follow Jesus. To work and rest individually in Jesus and to work and rest together.

Tough. You're not allowed to. Few decades after that. No, like a few years after that letter was written, there was a fellow by the name of Nero who was not well and he wasn't getting his way. So he set a fire to some things in Rome and then he scapegoated these new followers of Jesus. It was hard to do it. And so Paul writes this letter and he has a line in chapter 12. He says, I can't believe it's in there.

He says, we belong to each other. We belong to each other. One more time. We belong to each other. So as much as I want to quit you, I can't because I belong to you. You belong. I can't grow up into this masterpiece creation with just me and Jesus in our alone time. I need to rest in him, in my time when it's just me and him.

I need to grow up. I need to grow in my work with him. There needs to be some things in my work that are just between me and Jesus. Only he sees it, Only I see it. But then there are other things where I gotta. I gotta be with you. I gotta be around you. I get to be around you.

It's both, isn't it? Let's be honest. Sometimes like, man, I gotta be around them. I get to be around. I'm just kidding. I never feel that vice. I always. That was take two. That was 2.0.

We only got a few more. Are you still with me? All right, this is what we're talking about today. Jesus Life's work is to make for you a resting and restoring place with him and to build you up as he does life changing work with Him. It's between you. You're unique. One of one. And so I already said it. We are growing in disciplines and practices that help us rest individually in our unique way and grow up in our work individually in our unique way.

Are you with me? We also belong to. I get why people say I'm living out my faith without church. I don't need church. I get why people say that. There are many reasons. I understand it and I believe this is also. I believe it's true. But.

All right, let's talk about the problems that make it tough. There are many of them. But let's talk about there are three. It's like a three headed monster that's making it tough right now specifically to be in church, to be in a community where you rest in Jesus with others. That's what this is. Today. We're resting together. This is called a.

This room is called a what. Sometimes church has failed at providing sanction. We're working hard to make this a sanctuary for us together and we also grow in our work together. But there are three things that make it real tough right now. Division. I couldn't reduce that second thing. It's like. It's like a three headed monster.

But one head's got like three eyes on it or something. Individual individualism, isolation. I'll just read you a couple quotes if I can find them. 1. Oh, I didn't put this one on there. Okay. Well, I read one Gallup article that said it was 2024 data that says it's. This is not a theory, it's a fact.

We are more divided than according to our perception. Now we may not in fact be more divided than ever, but when they pulled people. We are more divided than ever. The data said based on our values, the perception we have. The perception more than ever that there is an us. Do you agree? I haven't heard from you yet today. Let's hear from you lovely people. I get to be with you today higher than ever.

The data says we perceive that there our perception is there's an us to them and the gap between the two is what you think we're more. You think we're. Do you feel that we're more divided than ever? PT thank you. Thank you. PT Interesting. Oh my God. That is a heck of a point. We're stunted in our growth.

PT Is saying that it's a normal part of development for us to go through a period where we're thinking it's us and them, but we've been stuck in that development that we don't get past that stage. How fast others do you think we're. Oh, Emily, go ahead. Even the sense of like us is what you're saying. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I used to feel like I belong to this group. Now I don't think I know this group. Anybody got that going on? Your groups of us can be defined in different ways.

As a part of that research, we're defining more us in terms. In terms of a very strict set of values. So we're reducing what it means to be us, if that makes sense. Either you agree about like say these two issues and you're us or you don't. That's what this Gallup if you want to find it, if you want to see the. The poll, I'll give it to you later. I have it on my. Go ahead.

Yeah, right. Yep. Right. Yeah, right, right, right. Yeah, yep, right. Sure. So and so in some ways, perhaps many ways, the church has been a part of the problem rather than the solution. Maybe a bit of perception, but also reality.

You know, in this case, perception may be reality. Anybody else? Go ahead, Lucy. Yeah, it's a kind of like Emily's saying, it's a moving target, you know, and one thing, Dina, go ahead. There's. There's some. Your experience was some sweeping under the rug. Go ahead, man in the orange sweater. Do you want me to find out, dad, if you're the oldest one in here, you mean, um.

Go ahead. Go ahead. Right, right. Yeah. So there was a cultural moment after World War II, and we were very sort of united. And it feels like there's more of a drift at the very least. So you always give me so many thoughts that make it hard for me to stay on the point. This is your fault.

Don't open the door, Adam. Okay, sure, sure, sure. Yep, yep. Key takeaway for me is there are folks who are sort of abusing power to kind of use and to even utilize division and tools and things like that to prop them. I know. You said what? Jack, go ahead. Yeah, sure. Good.

Good point, Jack. Okay. We got to keep going. Good stuff. If we go to 11 today, it's your fault. Okay? Don't think of any. Everything I'm saying in this sermon, I'm going against because I'm blaming you right now. Okay? Yes, I'm calling you.

Yes, it's you. It's. You're the fault. Really quick on the second point in this case. Individualism is not a bad thing. It is when we start to fully embrace it over and against community. And we isolate and then we settle into lonely. There is so much, so much so about the lonely.

But I'll read you this from an article from Psychology Today. I've got it linked if you want it. I'll send it to you. Gallup polls in the survey on American Life tell us that while in 1990. In 1990, 33% of Americans reported having 10 or more friends. By 2021, only 13 reported that number. In 1990, only 3% reported having no close friend. But in 2021, 12% reported that.

That's just one data point one amongst so many. How we are retreat from relation, community. And we're doing it. We have our good reasons but it's not still like what we need. The last thing. This is an important point. We're to the third head of the three headed monster. Are you ready? And a lot.

I'm going to point out the church on this one. I'm calling out the church. So brace yourself in our neck of the woods. This one's real bad. Uniformity. It's like. Have you ever had the experience of going into a church and it was like everybody was this walking robot Christian. Everybody thought the same way, they spoke the same way, they believed the same things, which wasn't true.

They were just falling in line with like we are uniform in our beliefs and practices and behaviors. And that was kind of a point or a target for the church. And here's a difference. There's a huge difference between uniformity, looking all the same. Unity. This is critically important. The difference. With unity you can actually celebrate how things are different.

You celebrate how people are different, perhaps have different perspectives, different giftings. And yet we still are unified in core beliefs, core practices, core. Those three things and about 4,500 other things I'm sure make it hard to be in community, to not just rest in Jesus and work with Jesus individually, but also to grow in our rest with each other, in our work together. Are you with me? Okay, now we're all. We're making good headway. Look, look. Do you see that? That's the only part of the outline we have left. So hang on, hang on tight.

This. Is this new? Is this a new problem? Ecclesiastes. It's a book in the Bible where a guy's really frustrated about life. Really frustrated. He says there is nothing new under the sun. That is true. What. Here's what was happening in Corinth.

They were dividing. There's an ancient city called Corinth and it's in Greece. Beautiful place. Paul. There's a guy named Paul. His work was to be an apostle. He was a sent out one. That's what the word apostle means.

He went around the world to start new faith communities who followed Jesus in a time when it was really hard to do. So one of his communities was in Corinth. So he wrote letters to the people in Corinth which are called Corinthians. Right. I've told you before, Corinth was like Vegas in a way. What happens in Corinth stays in Corinth. Major trade route. Major trade city.

Well, Paul noticed. He got a report about these churches. And just picture Paul. He's having his morning coffee. No, no, actually he was probably in jail somewhere. He was always in jail. And he got a report about people and Amazon. And I'll be honest with you, the report sounded like this.

Yeah, you're not gonna believe it. This person sleeping with this person. Literally, it's in the letter. I'm not making this up. They're dividing on, like. It's really weird how they're dividing. They were dividing. They were practicing individualism and division, not the third thing yet.

In two ways. One, they were separating and dividing into rival groups. This was already happening in the church. Are you kidding me? The church is like five minutes old. And already chapter one. Paul's like, I hear that you guys are dividing into rival groups. One of you says, I belong to Apollos. One of you says, you belong to me.

Who am I? I'm baptized in Jesus, but you're saying you belong to me. Another group is saying, I belong to Keph office, AKA Peter. What? Already? The church is five minutes old. You got a group of house churches going over there. That's the Apollo script. Weird. They're actually wicked people. And they're all dividing.

That's already happening. They're dividing into groups. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Then they're also dividing as individuals within the groups. What happened? Paul says it the second example, when they were having the Lord's Supper, the blessed Lord's Supper, you know what would happen? Some of the wealthier class folks, they were having just kind of a relaxed. And they'd walk into the group meeting, it's time for the Lord's Supper. Hey, Bill, not everyone's here yet. It's no big deal. Let's go ahead and break bread and eat the juice or the wine.

So they would start eating. The working class folks who work 6am to 6pm would be sweating, tired, and they would like stumble into the meeting, beaten it and just. And the Lord's Supper has already been eaten. So Paul's like, you guys are like dividing into. I'm greater than you. I'm more important than you. I'm smarter than you. You guys don't have unity.

And so he writes chapter 12 where he says this. We're on, like, sermon 4.0. We're getting there, folks. Hang in. All right? He basically says this in 1st Corinthians 12. The church is like a. Anyone know what he says in 12? Say it louder. Reverend Charles the church is like a body.

He's like, the. The weaker members need the stronger and vice versa. And he's like, can the. Can the Hand, say to the foot, I don't need you. And he says, he's saying, like, hey, we belong to each other. We need each other. This thing that you're doing where you're divided is destroying you. And then after first Corinthians 12, he writes the chapter after first Corinthians 12, which is what? First Corinthians 13, folks.

It goes 12 and then 13. But what's that chapter about? Love is patient. Love is kind. Like, you can't do this alone. And when you try to do it alone, it says to me that you don't know Christ love you. That's what it tells me. When you try to grow up in Christ on your own, grow up in your work alone. When you try to rest in Christ on your own, and you divide yourself against other people and maybe even go so far as to think that you're smarter, better than them, that tells me you don't know Christ.

So that was sermon 4.0. We're about done. I'm going to give you one more picture. And then so what? Why do we care about anything we're saying? Today? Paul says it yet again in another letter. Watch this. Watch what he's going to do. He's going to point to unity, not uniformity. We're not all trying to be the same way.

We are not. Guys, think of heaven, earth, church. It's one of the most beautiful things about this church that I get. We are all very strange and different in this room. Come on. You all are some weird people. And I tell people this phrase. We specialize in weird.

I do not want us to be the same. I do want us to be unified. I do want us to be unified. And I want the different personalities that you are the one of one that you are the gift that you have, the role that you have in Christ. I want to see that come out such that when I look at you like, man, I could never do that. I could never do what that person's doing. Praise God. And we work together to build each other up.

And we go together into the fullness of Christ. Watch what he does here. He goes. Unity. Ephesians 4. He starts with unity. He goes to diversity of gifts and giftings, and then he makes his way back to unity. You're going to have to stay with me.

A lot of verses here. Therefore, as a prisoner for the Lord. Literally, the word for Lord in Greek, it's the same word they use for master. Gets translated the same. So, like, when we talk about being a masterpiece, that's how they saw Jesus, they would call him Lord or Master. I encourage you to live people. Live as people worthy of the call you've received from God. Conduct yourselves with all humility, gentleness and patience.

He's teaching them how to stay in some things. You need to be in community. Humility, gentleness and patience. How much gentleness do we got going in the world? Right, you read that next. Go ahead and read it. And one more time. You want to be in community. You want to rest together, you want to work together.

Might need that. And make an effort to preserve the of the spirit with the peace that ties you together. He's like, there is something that ties you together. That's not human. It's beyond you. Cultivate you. Go on and read this one. Go ahead.

You can try to separate yourself from one another, but all these people who are divided, at the end of the day, you're actually part of one body. And his name is. You got one unifying spirit and you got one hope that Christ is making all. Go ahead. You're up. Unity. Unity. Unity.

Unity. Go ahead. When Paul was standing up at something called the Areopagus, also called Mars Hill in Athens, it's this big fancy rock. You can look at the Acropolis when you're standing on it, you can see the Acropolis in Athens. He stood on this rock, preached to people who were from Athens. And he said it this way, like, we all belong to God. In him we live and move and have our being. Everyone you see, including yourself, in him.

We live and move and have our being. I'll take this part now. My. My turn. Okay. Diversity. God has given grace to each one of us. Boy, that's frustrating.

That means everybody's got it measured out by the gift that is given by Christ. Everybody's got a gift, basically. Translation. Jesus brought some really cool gifts from high above us. Yep, he's still on that thing. Bam. We're not going into this today, Emily. Don't worry.

He gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors, some teachers. There's some people who put this fancy thing into a phrase called apest shepherds instead of pastor. The church is made up of a five fold gifting. I have learned over the years. I'm an A. I want to help you figure we'll do this in another venue for another day. But each of you, I believe, is gifted. Somewhere in one of these areas not.

And it's not exclusive. You might have giftings in some, but a cool 30 second story. There was someone in Our church recently, who was really going through a hard time, really tough. And I showed up to the situation with my apostles. I called some people because apostles are sent out. They go out to meet people. If there's no maps, they're like, cool. I'm better that way.

I'm not a great shepherd. I do it like, out of commitment, not natural gift. So I was networking on this person's bs. Somebody else came to church that day, asked that person to go to a room. They talked about it, and she knelt with the person and prayed over from the depths of their heart. That person. I know, I know her pretty well. She wants to shower people with the good news of Jesus.

Not in some religious scripty kind of way. She wants to enliven people with the good news. She wanted to bless this person and this person was blessed by both. I want to see you grow up. And our discipleship pathway is built, so. Oh, and I told you. He makes his way back. Look at this.

His purpose was to equip God's people for the work of serving and building up the body of Christ until we all reach the unity of faith and knowledge of God's son. God's goal is for us to. It's back to PT's point. To keep developing, to mature. Some of us are stuck in our emotional maturity and spiritual maturity. It's okay, let's keep going. Don't accept being stuck. To be fully grown.

Measured by the standard of the fullness of Christ. Okay, we're at the end. Yay. This is a mosaic in Capernaum, where Jesus grew up. Well, you think he was. He grew up in Nazareth. He did, but Ian also kind of moved and hung out mostly in this place. This is Sermon 6.0.

Do you see. Do you see all the mosaic tiles? One of them is missing, boy. But yet sometimes we got this going on in our society. One little tile is going like, you know what? I'm done with. And I get why they do it. I get it. But boy, we're made to be emotional. Yes, it's good to find ways and disciplines to rest on your own Sabbath practices on your own, meditation on your own, sleep on your own, working in your own space.

But boy, we need each other. So. So what? No, no, we don't. We don't need any more from me. We'll close with what does this make you think? It's 1042. I'll give you a few. This is making you think, feel, want to do. Yeah.

So that goes back to the uniformity church. For good reasons have tried to make it about like programs and a formula to do this. You can't do. Community makes it not possible. It's a living, breathing thing. Community it is. Community is messy. Daggone it.

Yeah. Fight, flight or what is it? Fight, fight, freeze, flee. Is that it? I don't know. This is. This is the. The therapist in the room. This is your job. Else.

Anybody else? Yep. Actually Regina, that was in the Psychology Today article that one of the things that makes the division harder to overcome is when you have lived experience and you're. And your passion and compassion is coming from the lived experience and you observe others who don't. Aren't there and you're like. You have no idea what it's like. Right. So there was an example of therapists who haven't had substance use disorder who don't used evidence based practices. They just go to old stuff.

The folks who do have experience are willing to try out new evidence based practice. So it's in there. That's very true. It's hard when you have lived experience and other people don't. And you. And you experience for sure. One thing I'd say to that, I don't have lived experience with substance use disorder. And one of the best things ever happened to me is sitting.

Other thoughts. Nick, you have to. You have to. If you want community, you kind of have to prioritize that. Be willing to make sacrifices for it. All right. I'm. I'm only say.

Are you going to say something? Kaylee? Go for it. A lot of our own insecurity make it hard for us to like enter into community and be resilient. Do you think there are people in the church today who have struggles with insecurity? Okay. Anybody else? Everybody in the room, raise your hand. As long as you got breath in your lungs, you'll struggle with insecurity. She's right. So this is the only. This is it.

Last thing. We went long today. I'm not mad. Maybe you are. I'm not apologizing for it today. PT thank you. Yeah. What do you say? Yeah.

That's it. That's the only thing this is all building up to. You can't hate the Patriots any longer. That's right. That's it. Yes. Here's what here. I'm going to pick one thing for my.

So what? We're going to end here. One thing. I've got four points about so what? We're not getting it. We're going to do one. Be willing to do the hard stuff. To be in. Here's what that looks like. I'm not.

This is evidence throughout the Bible, but I'm going to take it from family. Family systems thinking teaches that if one person in the system feels anxiety, the whole system. So what do you do about Ross? If I, if I'm. If I'm feeling anxious, I go to the other person that's directly related to my anxiety and I go talk. I don't retreat. AA teaches it this way. Can I get a step nine from somebody in the room? Step nine? I want the wording to be right. It basically goes like this.

We go make amends with somebody so long as it doesn't do harm to them or us in the process. So here's what that sounds like. Are you willing to do this in this community? When you're in a group, when you're in this or when just a one on one thing, are you willing to go up to someone and say, hey, I'm saying this because I want said. Let's take simple stuff like that. That's hard stuff. Who wants to do that? You know what's easier? That church is evil. I'm not going there anymore. Like be willing to do the hard stuff to be a church.

I'm not saying leave yourself at the door. Bring your lived experience, please bring your authentic self in here. And when anxiety happens in the system, don't run. Actually draw close. Make us. All right, let's pray. Nope. Let's end on this.

Jesus loves you. Jesus loves you. This I know. Amen.