Word of the Year

TRANSCRIPTION

It's amazing. You know, like I, I love what God does in people's hearts when it's, when we're starting to talk about this and interrogations. Seriously. I had people in during the week, man, they were just like, pit bulls going after me all the time. And it's just, I find that just fascinating. Like, it's, it's just a word.

It's just a word until you hear it and then you realise. It's just a word. So what we're gonna do is I just wanna make a few comments about the start because. People often in the West, we live our lives and we're very segmented in how we live. And so we feel like, is this as good a life gets in my work?

Is this as good as it gets in my family? Is this as good it gets, am I, am I always gonna be single? Am I always gonna be married? Is that what I gotta do now? Just look after the kids. What's it all about? And I think that the journey that we went on for the last 10 years, God was bringing together everything.

There's a coming together of everything that's going on. So this, if this is, if you're new with us, this ties back to when the elders asked me to go and ask about what we should have as a vision. I went and prayed for a five-year vision as all good leaders do. Maybe an extra five, 'cause that's all of God in me, 10.

And anyway, the Lord gave us a thirty-year vision and he said there'll be 10 years, 10 years of dismantling. And there were five words in the first part of it. You can put those five words up just so they can see it. I'm not gonna make much comment on them. And these words were used to dismantle us and to bring us back to a place where God could actually piece us back together in a healthy way.

But the key word was starting. Word was freedom. And it's always been that. It's always been the pursuit of freedom because when the church started, the apostles fought. To their very, very end to stop the old covenant of Moses, as wonderful as it was being put back in with the gospel of Jesus. So we went through the first five years and that came through there and then God shifted and then went to multiply, and then there was another series of words that actually kept, he kept using to rebuild us.

Now. If you, if you are new here and want what that's all about, you can actually go and watch a a teaching we did on this called Under the Hood, and that will unpack that for you. But on every step of that journey, there were moments when Anne and I, Anne, we just wanted to give up. We seriously just want to go.

This is just too hard, too hard. And then there was the temptation to shortcut and. I like to be liked like everybody else, right? So there's this temptation because everybody's got an opinion. And so, well, if I just shortcut this, it'll please that person. If I don't do that, they're gonna go. But I had this sense that God was writing something that had gone horribly wrong many years ago, but I didn't really understand.

And then a few years ago, I saw a documentary on a bridge, which helped me understand this. So I wanna talk to you about Bridges for a minute. The Quebec Bridge. The engineer of that bridge was called Theodore Cooper. It had to span a river called the Lawrence River. It was about 400 eighty-eight metres across.

It was a fast moving river. Had a high tight tidal movement, went like five metres up and down. So it was a pretty significant thing, and it froze as well, which is hindering the problem. So they desperately wanted to build this bridge, and it started in about the 1850s that they wanted to do this. But in 18, 18 eighty-seven, they finally got the plans for it.

This is what it would look like. So this was the cantilever bridge that they were hoping was gonna be the be all end. All of everything. Before it started. Before they started to build this off the plans, Theodore decided that he was gonna extend the bridge. Bridge, another sixty-one metres, moving it out to 500 and forty-nine meters.

That would make it the largest cantilever bridge in the world. Knocking off the fourth bridge of Scotland, which was the current one. Now possibly in this. Was an element of Theodore's pride because he was in his early sixties. He was approaching his retirement and he felt like maybe this bridge would be his swan song of going out.

This would be his crown in his jewel, so to speak. So he was positioned in New York Theodore. Then he had a guy called Norman McClure that was the on-site manager. And so he was the one making sure everything was okay. Now. Before it even got started, they discovered a problem McClure. He discovered that there was an error in the dead weight calculations of the steel.

They were much heavier than they had anticipated in the structure. So Theodore went back and had a look at the investigator and he decided, you know what? The structure is well and truly capable of handling this no problem whatsoever. So they carried on also. At the same time, because it was now a longer bridge, they decided to move the pylons out of the deeper water and put them in the shallow water because that would save an enormous amount of cost.

What they hadn't taken into consideration is the extra pressure that would place on the cantilever and forgetting about the extra dead weight of the steel. So 1905, they started building and within months they started to notice a little bit of movement was going on, but not a big deal, but get two years in 1907 and they're starting to find there is some significant shifts going on.

On the sixth, sorry, the 15th of July, they discovered there was a misalignment of about six or seven mills. No one was too overly concerned about that. So they persevered. On about August the sixth, they noticed bending in the support structures once again. Upon investigation, they came to the conclusion, these were probably bent when they came out of the factory, so they persevered on by the time it got to August 27th.

McClure is convinced that the bridge is failing. He's convinced it's failing, so he does a few tests and he demands that they cease work on the bridge, the tests that he come, comes back and gets discovers. What's going on is on August twenty-eight, when it goes from a three-quarter inch, which is a 1.9 centimeter gap to two and a quarter inches, which is a 5.7.

He realised something was going very wrong, so they stuck him on the train and sent him back to New York to Theodore to present the evidence. He gets there, he gets there and presents it to Theodore, and Theodore says, okay, you need to send a telegram back. We have to cease work on the bridge straight away so he doesn't send the telegram.

Why? Because he thinks. Work has stopped on the bridge on the twenty-seventh. When he made the calculations, I said, it stays right there. He didn't do it, but the foreman had sent everyone back straight away because of stoppages and work things and losing staff working on the bridge. He made the decision to go back because he believed what he had been told.

The steel was bent coming out of the factory. So he was believing a lie August 29th. It was very tense, very tense around the place. He gets back at five 15 P.M. McClure does to discover that work has continued on the bridge and he demands that it cease straight away. He has an altercation with the foreman and they decide, let's let them clock off in 15 minutes, finish their day.

And then we will make the decision in the morning what to do about whether we continue work. So at five 30 P.M. the whistle blows and the guys all make their way off the bridge. It takes 15 minutes for the workers to get off the bridge, back on to dry land. 5 37, there's a deafening crash, and they thought it was an earthquake.

And the cubic bridge collapsed in 15 seconds and the sound was heard. 45 kilometres away. We've got a couple of shots of the bridge and how it collapsed.

Many of the men, believe it or not, looking in that they actually survived the fall, but they were entrapped inside the metal and then they drowned when the five metre. Tide came in. Many of the men asked to be killed before, before they actually drowned. There was a hundred labourers on that bridge.

Seventy-six of them were lost, and many were never found. The results then went to a Royal Commission. Theodore, the bridge that was to be his crowning jewel of his career became his greatest failure. And he died a few months later. Despite this catastrophic incident. The decision to not build the bridge was never an option.

Quebec needed valuable resources from the other side if it was to survive as a city. So they spent the next two years removing the debris, getting ready to rebuild, not unlike. The ten-year period that we've been on dismantle, take the debris way and rebuild. Nineteen-twelve. They started construction again, nineteen-sixteen.

They lifting up the last piece of the bridge. There's another accident. It fails. Another 13 workers are killed. But it was never an option to not build the bridge. One year later on the 20th of September, 1917, hundreds of boats raised their flags as they had built the longest cantilever bridge in the world, but it had claimed eighty-nine lives.

That bridge, that cantilever bridge is the most studied bridge by engineers in the world today, but it came at a huge cost. So what has this got to do with us? Let me ask you a question. What is the span that most churches have tried to bridge for hundreds of years, and every time we think we've got it right, it comes crashing down in a big mess.

Most leaders today have so given up on this, but now they're settling for a lesser mission, which is really no mission at all. Do you wanna see what it is? Matthew Chapter twenty-eight. Jesus said this, all authority on heaven and earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the Father, son, and the Holy Spirit.

Get going and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I'll be with you to the end of the age. The span, the bridge is the going and making disciples. It's the going and making disciples. And I get this, if you're a leader this in another church and you're, and you're listening to this now, I get it.

It's disappointing. It's disillusioning and you get to the point where you just want to give up. But here's the deal. The option to not build the bridge of Jesus to go and make disciples is not an option. We have to build it. No matter how much pain, no matter how much it hurts, it is not the great suggestion.

It's the great command and commission. So we have this bridge to span. We have this bridge to build because there's area to span, because the resources of heaven have to make it down into the communities of broken people in this world that are tangled in the mess. So once a leader, once a leader gives up his, this is gonna be a bit provoking for some of you.

And please hear my heart on this because I've thought about this many times. Once a leader gives up trying to bridge that gap of going and making disciples, they settle for a safer mission, which involves attracting, stealing an entertaining sheep from other sheepfolds. It's a safe mission. But it is no mission at all.

It's not the mission of Jesus. And when a leader does give up on that and decides, we're just gonna play it safe, we're just gonna do this, what happens is he actually leaves his people entangled in the fallen bridge of the old and new Covenant we are. Eventually they drowned of disillusionment and disappointment thinking to themselves, is this it?

Is this all God has got for us? Does it not get any better than this? Why aren't we loving each other the way that Jesus said we should love each other, and they sit there in it? So the question is, what was the first bridge that we had to recover from? Give you quick, quick history. Lesson 12 disciples morphed into 2.5 to 3.5 million disciples by 300 ad.

God was building a bridge until the time of Emperor Constantine. The church grew fast. It was like an airborne virus. It was like they were everywhere. And these missional communities were going everywhere in the marketplace and in houses, and people were coming to faith and they were experiencing the life of Christ everywhere.

God was again mobile. God was mobile. He was no longer gonna be confined to a building. Now the problem was for Constantine, there were so many Christians everywhere. They're everywhere. They're taking up all the spaces. So he makes a really smart decision because he ends up giving his life to Christ. And then what he does, he shifts some things.

He goes, so the church of Jesus, the mobile disciple making movement, went from a persecuted minority to the accepted majority. And then he made the decision, now we're going to build buildings to put these Christians in 'cause it takes pressure off what else is going around. 'cause they're everywhere.

And what do you suppose he built? He built copies of the, there it is, the temple. He built copies of these temples, these religious buildings. What this did was send the signal to the church, the mobile spirit-led followers of Jesus that were going and making disciples everywhere it sent the message. We are going back to Moses and Faith is gonna once again be location specific at the same time he did that.

He decided to do the priesthood of all believers, but not Jesus priesthood of all believers. The priesthood of the Aaronic priesthood, he put back in place the professional clergy,

and guess what? The going and making disciples bridge came crashing down. It came crashing down because intentionally or unintentionally, I dunno what was going on in Constantine, no one can work it out, but it was reduced back to come and see our beautiful buildings and come listen to our great orators that will teach you the scriptures because you are not smart enough to read them for yourselves.

And that mobile movement that was growing exponentially came crashing down into a religious system, devoid of life. That was the crash, that was the bridge that failed because somebody shifted the pylons of how God was building and how it should work. See those pylons were sitting on for the first century church, when they were mobile was sitting on two things.

The Apostles teaching, which they were committed to, and then breaking bread in their homes daily. That was communion. But they were missional communities. They were missional.

And then the two pillars were they were everyday disciples making disciples. Their villages were missional. They were going and making disciples everywhere. And then alongside that came these third spaces, what I call junction points, places that would support and resource these little missional communities as they went and made disciples and made disciples.

And they continued to do that. And they used to, they used to meet in the temple courts. That was one of 'em. They'd meet in the hall of Tyrannus. They'd meet down by a, well, they'd meet down by a lake pretty much if there was a door open or something like that. That's where they met. And they were sharing the faith and the love of Christ, and God was with them and there was spectacular stuff happening.

So, as I said, intentionally or unintentionally, what, what Constantine put in place caused that bridge to come crashing down. And the explosive growth of the church of the people of the way, as we were noted, ground to a halt, God had been once again relegated back to a building. Now of course he wasn't going, but that's what they were wanting to do.

And it became location-specific building-specific with religious clergy that would teach you to understand the Scriptures 'cause you can't read it for yourselves and understand. And then they would take it and then they would manipulate people. And then leave them bound in the mixture of the old and the new.

And then what happens is once they get you in there, then you've gotta join a small group. And then we'll put you in a little small group over here. Now this is to help you get through the week, 'cause you can't possibly get through the week without some kind of a little input. So you've gotta have your little small group so then you can get enough pumped up so you can get back to, you can get back to US professionals back here.

We can help you again on Sunday.

This was to be the place to keep you away from the evils of this world evil. Now, the only problem with this is that when Jesus prayed for us out of the Great Commission, he says, look, father, I don't pray that you take him out of the world. What? I don't pray you take him outta the world. I pray you keep a minute.

And they would be a great witness for me and a great testimony for me. Are you, I hope you're catching, you've seen where the pillars have gone wrong, so it becomes everything. Come to the big thing, come to us. We'll do this, we'll perform, we'll do all that, and then we'll put you in this little community, keep you nice and safe, and then we'll pull you out once a week.

It's a complete reversal. And so the Spirit-led mobile guard is being domesticated back into that, the shifting of those pilots. Because the bridge that God was building with heaven's resources would encounter earth's need suddenly came crashing down. Now, for those of you that's been with us for the last 10 years or so stuff, I'm saying now you're gonna, oh yeah, I've heard this all before.

You know, I know we have, language wise, we have moved so much. Because that tangling together that happened there of the old and the new, that is deadly for people. If you want to be the people of God on mission making disciples that make disciples like you'll never hear us, or I shouldn't say never.

'cause sometimes we all have a brain something and we forget you. We will never refer to say to people, come down to the altar the minute I call this an altar. That makes this building a temple. What does that make me, Moses? And you know what was right? What was the fact about the temple? No sinful, wicked people were allowed in the temple, which means none of you guys could come to church, including me.

So we don't wanna project that. We don't wanna project that. We project the fact that your body is now the temple, the Holy Spirit lives in you. He wants to work through you. So every time we teach, we're trying to say, you have gotta look in here and ask God, who's on the altar here? Am I in charge? Or you in charge?

And if you are in charge, then you get to bring all the pieces of my life together. It was in our sub devotions last week if you were reading. God says, I will not dwell in buildings made by human hands. I built dwell within you. So we gotta be careful 'cause language can change things we never tell when we, we said ages ago, stop inviting people to church.

You can't invite people to church you, you are the church. Just go out and build relationships with them and teach them how to follow Jesus. And once he start and follow Jesus, he'll tell 'em where to go. Not everybody fits with our culture and our church, but there's hundreds of 'em. He'll show 'em. Yeah.

And we all give, and we all serve, and we all care because that's the priesthood of all believers and the, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Were never meant to be used by some professional clergy, just from the front, like a David Copperfield magic show that were never designed for that. You have a look at all the miracles.

You have a look at all the, the stuff that happened. It all happened out in the marketplace. There was only one that happened in the context of the temple, and that was only 'cause. Jesus wanted to stick it to the religious leaders and say, here's your Sabbath, and that's kind of what it was doing. No, we couldn't do anything on the Sabbath.

Oh, watch this. I think sometimes Jesus is more aggressive than we in a loving Jesus kinda way. Of course. So language for us has changed, but sometimes I, I think the practice probably hasn't moved on for all of us. It hasn't settled quite fully yet. Like some of us will still think I'm going to church. No, I never hear anyone say that around here, but I do hear in other places, like, I'm just going church.

Well, how do you go to church? You either are the church or you're not the church. You can't go to it. You are it. But sometimes you hear it. That is the product of the Constantine Bridge coming down where it's mix and match because Oh, oh yeah, yeah. I have to go to the temple location specific. No, no, you are, we just, we just come to a family gathering.

We're just a bunch of urban missionaries getting out there, doing things for Jesus. That's why Acts is this every day they continue to meet together in the temple courts. That's a third space, that's a junction space. They broke bread in their homes. They ate together with glad and sincere hearts enjoying the favour of all the people.

And what happened then? And the Lord added to their number daily. How often did he add? Daily What? Which, which means it was a little bit different. Now we, we are experiencing some of this a little bit now. We have a few villages that are actually, people have come to faith in Christ, in the village, and then Baptised in the village.

So God's already kinda like opening the way and he's, instead of saying, this is what it's about. So, so anyway, God wants to make some adjustments. We've got the language, but he wants to bring all pieces of our life together for mission discipleship purposes. So I think we've gotta become a little bit more r-rated.

R-rated. That's what we need to become a little bit more R-rated. 'cause God wants to shift the pylons back. He wants us to understand that discipleship and mission were never supposed to be separated. They were supposed to be together. Discipleship is the process of helping someone move from unbelief to belief in every year of their life.

Evangelism or mission takes place when there's a confrontation with the gospel. And it affects their heart and changes the way that they think they've been evangelised. And then guess what? Then you gotta go back to disciple. It's a circular thing, discipleship a mission continually goes. So I think that's where God is pushing us to help us understand that it's not a one day a week, it's every day.

It's our life. And that's why we've gotta be R-rated. We have to get more R-rated. We've gotta get for our community. So here's the R-rated part. We're gotta learn to reorientate. We've got to learn to repurpose. And Steve Watson went, yeah, that's his word. We gotta learn to re refocus. Redeploy reposition.

Why? Because for God so loved the world. He loves the world. He wants heaven's resources to reach into the brokenness of people's hearts. That's his whole desire, and it's a bridge that has to be built. I don't care how many times, and if you're a church lady and you watch this, if it's failed. Do it again because it was not an option to not build.

We have to build. People are trapped and most of the people that you talk to that are upset with church, they're not upset with Jesus teaching. They're upset because they're stuck in this twisted metal and they're still thinking like they gotta go to the temple. And this, it's, it's horrible. And that bridge was so beautifully being built in those first years, and then suddenly because someone adjusted, the pillars came crashing down.

Wow. God is on the move. He's on the move and he wants to bring us together, and he says, guys, come on, if you will just surrender everything to me. Surrender is a good word, isn't it? It's not that one if you just surrender everything to me. If you could see that I am lord of your singleness. I'm Lord of your married state, and your kids, and your family, and your business, and everywhere you go, if you can bring that all together and love me with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.

I can do some things. I can actually do some things. So we need to shift maybe our, our villages. Maybe they need to become more everyday disciple villages. Maybe they need to come from the back, maybe more at the front, and they should be the missional connection at the front that's going and making disciples.

This is the bridge, and this part here becomes about what we do here. It's the family gathering, it's the junction point. It's a slightly larger one that just keeps resourcing and helping and supporting and encouraging the missional villages as they go. I think we've missed some power of things like, like,

this has never been a thing with a lot in my family, but family dinners, you know that table that you have, that you sit around hopefully at least once or twice or three times a week, that is to be a table of grace for you to disciple your kids and disciple your family, but it's also to be a table of grace for mission.

Yeah, and there is someone that I'm looking at at the moment that I'm kind of like considering partnering with, who's a bit further down the track in this. And their house is open all the time and their kids know you can bring anyone home anytime. Because if they need to be loved on, there's a table of grace here where we can help reinforce their identity and their love for God.

So I think there's some in, there's some things about our homes and our villages and that that could really be swung around to actually be very effective. And I think it's part of, it's part of the actual thing that God's doing and shifting the actual pylons back to the Christ Place, I think will evolve on our church online.

I think. I think there will be multiple junction points down the track because I kind of see it, I kind of see it as, you know, like your, you, you got your iPhone and then the signal falls away after a certain amount of distance and then you have to have something there to boost the signal up. It's the same thing.

Missional villages can move around. Like we can support probably for about 20, 25 minutes. People will drive and engage with this for extra support. Then it trails off, so then you've gotta have another junction point there. Not a church. A junction point filled with urban missionaries that'll resource and help and provide for the missional villages, the everyday disciple villages as they continue to explode.

And to do that we've gotta build a mobile junction point. But la alas, let me get back to R-rated. So we gotta reorientate, repurpose, refocus, redeploy. But nothing happens without this one world. You could build the bridge. Noah couldn't do it without it. When he built an ark, David couldn't face Goliath Without it, Mary could not have endured virgin birth.

Zacchaeus was a nut when he invited Jesus to his house because he stepped right into it. Paul discarded his whole pedigree as a Pharisee and a Sadducee because he goes, this is something way better. Even God himself, God himself, had to embrace this and you can't build any bridges without it, and all those words that we came along with, and it was so incredible.

Not a single one of those will ever come to fruition without it. Have you guessed the word yet? No. Seriously,

they're over here. You will not make a single move and a change anywhere in your life until you learn to embrace risk risk. Someone's down the back going, no risk. Nobody. Nobody guessed that. I think someone mentioned it once and I had to just pretend risk. Nothing changes. When you got married, was there a risk in that?

Oh hell yeah. I thought I knew this person. When you started your business, does that take some risk? Oh yeah. It takes risk. Is it gonna take risk to open your home and let someone in to be part of family? See Jesus with his disciples? He doesn't have, didn't have just a bunch of guys. They became family to him and he inputted into them and they, he walked with him and they got to experience his presence and his power and they got to catch some things.

You can't disciple people you don't see. You might be able to witness to someone. In a moment. But to disciple, you have to see them, you have to invite them in. You've gotta walk with them. Gotta let them into your world. This is where God is taking us, but that involves risk. Now here's the deal. We could spend, we got all of eternity to spend, you know, debating over how God created, and at the end of that, we probably still won't understand it, or we could spend all this time debating over what's gonna happen with this, this, this, this, this, this.

And why did Moses do this and why was that ugly thing happening over there? Yeah. Yeah. We can do that. And we can even, as much as I love singing and worship, we got eternity to sing and worship, but we have a very small window left. That I believe is closing to reach people who are far from God. And, and when that transition happens upon Jesus' return, you will never see another lost person again.

So we have to build the bridge. It's not an option to not build, and those things have to be shifted and yes, it is risky. And I know what you're thinking. Oh, but what if it doesn't work? I know it works 'cause it already did work. 12 guys turned into 2.5 to 3.5 million and people were being added daily to faith.

It was, it was growing exponentially. So we know it works and it would've been still working if not for the fact that someone intentionally or unintentionally moved the pillars. Mix some things back in and it all came crashing down and the vast majority of churches in the West are still struggling to get out of the debris because we're taught.

I go to Bible college, I went above. I'm taught how to mix and match the gospels. The gospels with the old Covenant. That's what we're taught, how to make them play nicely in the sandpit with each other. But both Paul and Jesus said, don't do that. He said, if you put one little piece of the law back in, you are now accountable for the whole law.

And he said, if you bring it in, the new becomes old. But that's how we are taught. 'cause you're gonna make it play cipher together. And that happened because after the apostles, the original apostles all died out. The old guard quickly mixed and matched it all back into play together, and it all went from mobile guard moving, making disciples and making disciples exponential growth to suddenly look at our buildings, check out my oratory style.

My voice changed and everything, and I never recovered. But we gotta take the risk parable of the talents. Matthew Chapter twenty-five. That's a stewardship thing. No, it's not. It's a risk thing. What is he saying there to the guy that's got one talent that doesn't use it? Holy cow, that's not nice. Take it from him and give it to someone who'll do something with it.

It's like, whoa, that's not pretty fair. Yes, but it's to do with risk. He wasn't willing to risk. Now, of course if you read deeper into it, your discovery was lazy as well, so that's not a different story. Then Hebrews chapter 11 is the Hall of Faith, all the ones you can read about them. All the ones that risked it all, and it's about reorientating that repurposing.

But at the end, it's gotta get to risk people that are willing to embrace the fullness, not just say, I'm a follower of Christ, but get to the point of saying. I'm yours. Everything I have belongs to you. It's all at your disposal for go making disciples that make disciples. That's change and that's the risk.

That's the spirit led life

and that's the bridge we have to build. Now I know some of you right now a seriously having heart palpitations and like feeling a sense of panic, and that's okay. I've been there all week. It's fine. It's fine because when God started to speak to me about that word risk, can I just be honest with you? I hated it.

I'm still not very fond of it, but I accept the fact it's what needs to happen. It's what needs to transpire. Covid. It made us all risk averse. Bunker down, don't do anything. Don't do it. Don't go there, whatever. And so God is saying, no, no, no. I need you to risk not stupid risk. I don't wanna hear so well.

I'll go out and start a new business and I'm not that kind of risk, or I'm gonna go out and buy new cars. No, not that kind of risk. The risk is not about you taking a risk to get more in this world. The risk is about you taking everything you have in this world and surrendering it to God. Yeah. And allowing God to use you in every environment and every circumstance.

Why wouldn't you share your faith with people that don't know Christ? I. Stephen did. Oh, that's not a good example. He got stoned to death. You won't get that. It won't happen to you, but why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you open your family home to let someone in and create this table of Grace, mission and discipleship?

Interesting thing about this whole thing of the table that I'm looking back into. They did some studies and 50% of Christian people's kids walk away from their faith. 50% of Muslim kids. Walk away from their faith. Ninety-nine 0.9 something percent of the Amish continue on in faith. And then what?

They've worked it out. It's the table. Every night they sit around the table. It's a table of grace. They reinforce identity, they reinforce love. They share their hopes, their dreams, their fears. So there's something in that table that just the communion table, Jesus never, when he was thinking communion was thinking, Hey, let's have a little plastic thing.

We'll pull the top off and you have a. There and have, I'm not being disrespectful, but it was never in his mind to do that. And if it was, it was a stupid thought because at 60, I can't even find the thing to pull it off and I'm not being disrespectful. And we do do a communion every so often like that, but that's not what it's about.

The communion was the communion of grace around the table. About extending love and grace to each other and then remembering what Christ has done for us. And the table is not just for us, but it's for others to come in and be a part of it as well. I mean, why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you risk it all?

Why wouldn't you invest your treasure in the kingdom of what he wants to do to build junction points or whatever? Why wouldn't you do that? 'cause it says whatever you invest in the kingdom, it does something for you on the other side. I don't know what, but it, it has some bearing. Why would you try and keep it all here?

Because let's face it, if we build everything up here, we die. What's the next generation? Do with it? Spend it. Isn't that right? The amount of people I go, oh man.

So why are not invested? Invested? Take a risk. Allow God to reposition us. God wants to add daily to his church, and I believe. That this is actually God going back to fixing up the covid thing as well, helping us understand how that bridge collapsed, what we need to tweak. We don't have to do much this, a little bit of tweaking, but it will require some risk.

But this position now will then move us back into orbit, I believe. Take us back into orbit, which will create momentum again, which is where it all stalled straight after nothing. Happens without a willingness to embrace risk. Nothing happens. There's no changes. If you're gonna have a child, that's risky.

If you're gonna step into something new, that's risky. If you're gonna open your mouth and share faith in Christ, that's risky. If you open your home, it's risky. Anne and I opened our home to Anita when she was 16 years of age. She never went away. That's risky. That's risky. And then we opened the Chris and he never went away.

And now we have this six of us in this little house and we go, what the It's, it's like chaos. It's like chaos all the time. But I said to them again, I've kind of warned them. I said, Hey. We're gonna figure this out even though we don't have any space, we're gonna figure out how this table of grace works of communion together and invites that inviting people in again.

'cause we only have one life to live. And as I said, we've got plenty of room for the other side to do, enjoy all that kinda stuff. But we only have a very small window now. Very small window, but which people that don't know Christ in our city. That are tangled in the mess that is left from Constantine, that need to hear the church speak with the right voice to say, we are for you because God is for you and he loves you more than you could ever imagine.

And that might be a foreign thing for them to hear, but you know what? When you then open up your life. And you open up your home and you connect with them and say, come walk with our family. Come be part of our family. Jesus said, they'll know you're my disciples by your love for one another. And that changes everything.

The human heart opens up to God when they experience the love of God through people. So without risk, nothing changes. Let's pray. Father, I know that, for some of us, we, we go risk. Yay, this is exciting. But by this afternoon we're gonna go risk. Ooh, this is terrifying because the implications of what it will mean for us personally to shift things.

And what it'll mean is us as families, local families, and as a family of believers. But Lord, we choose to let you reorientate things and redeploy things and, and Lord, this everyday disciple just, Lord, show us how to do it. How to make it happen. Position it right so that, so that the mobile you, the mobile God can go mobile again.

Make disciples that make disciples and our junction points will be there to love, support, and serve everyone in the midst of it. Lord, if we could just get serious about this, about this risking to build the church that Jesus you originally built. We know it works 'cause it worked already. We're just trying to give back to it.

Then I have every confidence, Lord, that that final 10 years that you talked about, that's not entered into our mind, whether we are here or not, the next generation is gonna go, wow. Look at what God has done in and through us. So Father, we just, we know you're a loving God. We know you care for us. We know, and this is not gonna happen overnight.

This will be something that you'll do like you did over a decade, and we're okay with that. We are just gonna position our hearts now to say we are prepared to take a risk with you for the sake of people that don't know Christ and for the sake of the Kingdom. So Holy Spirit, be with us we pray. Amen.