Episode 61: "No Rogue Christians: Why Community Is Essential"

Welcome, everyone, to the Growing and Grace podcast to podcast

of Grace Hills Church, where we take a deeper dive into the

previous Sunday morning's message.

My name is Matt and down here.

Once again, with Pastor Brandon today on Growing and Grace,

we're continuing our family portrait series by talking about

something that's absolutely essential to spiritual growth.

Biblical community.

And Ephesians chapter four Paul shows us that God designed

the church with leadership, purpose, and unity so that

every believer can grow into maturity.

Today we're going to talk about why there are no rogue

Christians.

How truth and love must work together and why isolation

leaves us vulnerable while community makes us resilient.

Our hope is that this episode challenges you to stop growing

alone and start living fully connected to the body of Christ.

So Pastor Brandon, quick, ice breaker question for you at

this morning.

What's one hobby or activity that you enjoy doing with other

people rather than alone?

And why do you prefer doing it with others?

I'm playing golf because I need somebody to watch my golf ball.

I'm a man.

If I play golf by myself, dude, I would spend

suede too much money on golf balls because I don't know where

they would be going.

You were so ready for that.

I'm so ready for that.

Yeah.

Now, I think golf is definitely one of those things that I think

is more enjoyable with other people, especially if they're

worse than you, which is pretty hard to do for me.

So I don't get to play enough because that's an expensive

hobby.

Yeah, I've never, this is really funny.

I've always wanted to try and go play by myself.

And I've never done it for that purpose.

I just never feel like I'm going to, then I'm

ever going to hit the ball good enough.

There's so many times that when I hit the ball and I look up,

and I'm like, hey, did you see where that went?

Then I'm afraid like, OK, what do I do now?

So I don't know.

Maybe I go, I'll probably go do it sometime.

I'll grab a box of like the bright orange or the neon yellow

golf balls so that I can see them see where they go.

That might help me a little bit.

I know there's one, there's one tour player who does that.

But he's colorblind.

He uses the orange golf balls.

It's kind of cool.

GPS monitoring on all the golf balls.

Yeah, man, that's, that was gone.

That we could have the rabbit trail, the guy who found your golf

ball from like three years ago to golf course, you know,

that's all you label them, you know, you'll get them back.

It might take some time.

All right, moving into today's questions, looking at this idea

that community is not optional.

You said biblical community isn't an option, but a necessity.

So why does so many Christians still treat it like an add-on

instead of a lifeline?

You know, I think there's so many things that people

are involved in these days.

Our schedules are so incredibly busy.

I heard somebody say one time that like, you know,

technology didn't make us more efficient.

It basically just allowed us to cram more stuff

into the same amount of time.

And so yeah, that's pretty true.

I think a lot of people, they don't,

they don't understand the purpose of biblical community.

They're not fully engaged into it.

They're not really going in with the understanding

and the idea of growing spiritually, not just individually,

but put together.

They don't understand the unifying manner of a life group

or coming together to worship on Sundays.

And so when they don't see the immediate impacts

of being in biblical community,

then it doesn't become a priority anymore.

It's like, hey, man, I like these people.

I like hanging out with them.

And that's kind of the extent of it.

So they don't really understand the purpose of it.

Or why we do what we do, but they're,

that throughout scripture, there is no spiritual growth

without the church.

Everything is in the context of the church,

it's in the context of other people.

Because we have to have other people speaking to our lives.

And we'll never see our own blind spots and our own needs.

So you explain that the church leadership

exists to equip the saints, amen?

Ephesians 4, 11, 12, not replace them.

So how does that truth reshape the way church members view

their own responsibility in ministry?

Yeah, I mean, and that verse Paul talks about

that he being Jesus being the spirit

gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets,

some to be evangelists, some to be pastors,

some to be teachers.

And there's a lot of biblical debate

to whether that pastor teacher is actually a one-roll

or two-rolls.

Wasn't able to figure that out even in my study time

because everything that I kind of read through

and tried to figure out, it's kind of cool.

When you see a lot of guys,

as you respect, that disagree,

but not a big doctrinal thing.

Because every pastor needs to be able to teach

per the qualifications of the elders.

But the spirit gifted certain people in certain roles

with these leadership roles to be able to build up

and to develop other followers of Christ.

And the purpose of that is to help to train them,

to equip them, to understand that what we do

on Sunday mornings, and this is a conversation

that you and I have all the time,

is primarily, I would say, to equip the saints.

It's primarily to build them up, it's to train them.

Like, if every follower of Christ thought

of Sunday morning gathering as a training center,

rather than just some kind of emotional gathering

or a place where I just come to make myself feel better

or maybe you would change the way that they think

about their roles.

But previously in that chapter,

it talks about being one faith, one unity, one baptism,

and throughout the letters that Paul writes,

he often talks about the gifts of the spirit.

And so if you're a follower of Christ,

you're gifted in some way, shape, or form

with the purpose of edifying the church.

You have a role to play in the body of Christ,

and that is how Paul talks about it in Corinthians.

That the church is the body of Christ,

Christ is the head of the church.

We are the body, we are the hands and the feet.

And so my job, your job, the elders job,

our responsibility is to help develop those gifts,

to challenge, to encourage, to give opportunities,

to walk alongside people and really help them

as Paul talked about, in Ephesians,

to grow in spiritual maturity, to grow in stature,

like Christ, which is we're growing in Christ, likeness,

we're being sanctified.

People are looking at us from the outside

and say, man, that person looks more and more like Christ.

And that's how we're effective.

Like you think about an immature,

just a physical body, a child,

is not going to be as strong as a fully grown man.

And Paul wants us, the spirit,

Paul wants us as a church to become unified and fully mature,

so that we can be effective on who we're called to be,

and everybody plays a role in that.

Amen, yeah, I stand firm on those two verses

right there, Ephesians 4 and 11 and 12,

and that's always like my constant mindset

when it comes to specifically worship ministry.

And that, if I get hit by a bus tomorrow

and the worship ministry just tanks, that's Matt's fault.

The fact that that's what my role is.

And sometimes I can be distorted,

even like with your role as well,

like not just from the outside,

but even from from the inside of our own congregations,

they can see, well, that's what you get paid to do.

That's what you should be the guy in the middle

with the guitar and the skinny jeans singing.

Like that's what you get paid to do, right?

There's the worst jeans.

Yeah, well, they would be not so skinny jeans, yeah.

So that has to be like the mindset with everything

that we do is like we're equipping the saints,

the brothers and sisters in Christ,

that it's not about us,

but that our role is to to equip.

And so it should look like the saints doing it.

We equip the saints for the work of ministry.

One of the really hard things for me

is a pastor when it comes to that equipping aspect,

because the reality is like if something happens to me

tomorrow, the preaching part,

the replacing the preaching part,

it's probably the easiest thing to do.

It's the other stuff that we do behind the scenes

that is hard to replace.

But one of the hardest things

that you and I have talked about this

is seeing people, and I will say men especially,

who I think God is working in and God has gifted in certain ways

and could really be affected for the kingdom

and really be powerful in the church, the body of Christ.

And they just don't see it in themselves

so they just don't ever take that initiative to do that.

And so, if you're out there listening,

and I'm coming to you and asking you to do something,

it's probably because I see something in you like,

we're not looking for warm bodies.

Warm bodies is what gets people in trouble,

gets churches in trouble,

when they just let anybody do anything.

And so, something to think through,

if you're out there not really involved

in a church or our church,

God has something there for you,

and you need to trust that He's gonna gift you,

sustain you, maintain you,

but you gotta do that within that context of the church

and trust the leadership.

We love you, we care for you,

we're trying to build you up

because we want more for you.

So does Jesus.

Yeah, on that same line of thought there,

you emphasize that the every follower of Christ is a saint,

so we'd love for you to unpack that as well

for a lot of our listeners,

is a saint with a gift.

So what happens to the church when people choose

to sit on the sidelines instead of stepping into their calling?

Yeah, I think Martin Luther described it as

simultaneously, sinner and saint is what he used to say

in the sense that like we're all born as a sin nature,

we all still sin.

We all are still in a world that's just been ravaged by sin,

but for those of us who have placed our faith

in trust in Jesus and have been redeemed,

we are now we are now our saint.

The saint basically scripturally just refers to somebody

who's a follower of Christ.

Now because of everything that we've done,

but because of the work of Christ in our lives

through his spirit and what he has done

and we have been cleansed, we have been regenerated,

we have been renewed, we have been transformed,

however you want to say it into a saint,

which basically is the fact that like,

when God sees us, He sees Jesus.

That's what He sees and when it comes to our salvation.

And so everybody has a role,

it goes back to that understanding of your follower of Christ,

you've been gifted with something,

like God wants everyone to be a part of it.

First Corinthians 12 talks about this.

He talks about the hands and feet

and even talks about the lesser parts,

like some of you about there are like,

man, I feel like the bottom of the foot,

because I just feel like I'm always getting stepped on the church

or you feel like, you know,

you feel like you're the appendix and you're going,

what do I do anyway?

Like what's my role?

Like I don't feel like I really matter or valued.

And Paul is saying that no, you have a role to play.

Like God has something there for you

and we want you to be a part of that.

Because if you think about your body

and say the other day and not, you know,

when we were taking down all the Christmas stuff,

I packed up the fake Christmas tree,

which, man, having a fake Christmas tree was awesome.

And I just picked it up to take it down to the basement

and like miss the first step.

And I rolled my foot in like my toes,

like the first three or four of them all turned like black

and blue and it just hurt for a couple of days.

And it affected the way that I walked,

it affected, you know, putting shoes on,

I couldn't really run, I couldn't, you know,

it was hard to put pressure on it.

So like when my foot wasn't operating properly,

it affected the rest of my body

and that's what happens in the body of Christ.

Like if you've committed to and committed with other believers

in a local church and you're not operating

and functioning the way that God has called you to,

you're harming the entire church.

And so people probably need to take

an inventory of their heart and say,

hey, am I really doing what God has called me to do?

That doesn't mean that you're gonna be

at the church every time the doors are open

or not gonna be at every Bible study,

here every event, like that's not what we're saying.

But there's a role for you to play somewhere

in there and not at the expense of your family.

But let's also make sure that, you know,

your personal preferences and desires

don't take precedent over the church.

Amen.

I like that analogy, the use of

taking down the Christmas tree stuff for it.

This is your first year with an artificial Christmas tree?

I don't think so.

It seems like you were pretty surprised by the, like,

you know, the fake trees are great.

Yeah.

Well, you know, so.

It's a whole other thing.

We'll spend a couple seconds on this.

Yeah.

No, you know, the, the in-laws picked it up for us.

I agree.

We were thankful for what we got to point.

We just hadn't had a, we hadn't gotten one yet.

And again, you're gonna get a look for a Christmas tree

and you've got teenagers and toddlers

and a pregnant wife.

Doesn't sound like a great time.

Yeah.

And, you know, just, it's messy.

Yeah, I've never had a real tree.

That's why that was just kind of curious thing.

Yeah, I think when Lindsay and I were just,

we'll just, her and I, we went and did that whole thing

and, you know, cut it down ourselves

with a saw that they give you and drag it back to your car

and last year we did it with the boys and the girls.

Yeah, I didn't quite have the roots in there

or whatever, but, or the squirrel popping up, thankfully.

But, you know, it was just, man,

it was just, it was so much easier.

Yeah.

And so many different ways and, and that whole thing, man,

that took it down a lot quicker than putting it up.

I'm sure.

I'm sure.

Our box is hanging on by the red.

So looking at this idea of ministry beyond the building,

you quoted that 95% of ministry happens

outside the walls of the church.

So what are some everyday overlooked opportunities

where believers can live out the work of ministry?

Yeah, so that quote, and I believe that's the number

that it used comes from Paul Tripp's incredible book,

Instruments in the Redeemer's Hand.

If you never read that, I would encourage you to do so.

You know, it's something that, even a small group

or a life group, that'd be a great book

to kind of go through together.

But he says in there, the most ministry happens

outside the walls of the church.

I think you put a percentage on it.

I could have read it somewhere else.

I could have heard him say it somewhere else.

I could be just completely wrong.

But I think it's very true.

Because when we talk about ministry,

you know, to minister to somebody,

it's usually happening within everyday life.

So you're, you know, given somebody a ride

when the car breaks down, you're praying over somebody,

you're providing meals when they're sick,

when they have a baby, you know,

you're helping somebody fix, you know, a lawn mower

at their house or helping them with a plumbing issue.

You know, those are the everyday ministry things

that really just kind of speak into somebody's life.

You're helping them maybe financially

when they're struggling to pay a bill.

And so, you know, even when it comes to things,

like, you know, discipleship,

discipleship doesn't always just happen formally

in, you know, set time and place.

It's often times outside of the walls

that church are taking somebody with you,

you're, you're doing things together,

taking them to, you know, as a pastor,

I've taken men with me to maybe go visit somebody

who's shutting, go visit the hospital,

kind of do some of the day-to-day things

that, you know, you don't really hear about or see,

you know, from week to week.

And so, there's plenty of opportunities

to minister to somebody.

It might, for somebody, it might just be speaking

a word of encouragement to them

because they're having a rough day.

And so, you know, as Christians,

we have to be intentional in looking for that

and also praying for God to give us opportunities

to speak into somebody's life.

But those are all things that don't happen

on Sunday morning.

They don't, they happen a little bit more in life group

and that's why we do life groups is,

you have a better opportunity to share life with them

and come into their groups and, hey,

this is what I'm in need of.

And those things can be picked up by people.

Like you said, you know, some happens to mad

and, you know, worship tanks that's on you.

I often say this, like if there's a need within a life group

and the life group leaders have to come to me

to say, hey, you know, what do we do with this

and that I'm kind of failed them?

I haven't equipped them well enough to do it.

Now, there's exceptions to that.

Obviously a massive financial need is one thing.

But, you know, if somebody's like,

this person just really needs a meal train

is like, hey, go set it up.

You don't need me for that, you know,

unless they've just never done it before

and need help with it.

But ministry is so much more than just

that the formal settings, man, if the church,

the only time you're serving other people

is when the church sets up a time to go to Matthew 25

or during one of our serve weekends

or only on, you know, the days that you're on the schedule

then you're missing what the point of what

what it means to serve other people

and what Paul's really talking about.

Yeah, and it doesn't always have to be like

some formalized event.

You know, like those are great to be a part of

for sure and you block them out in the calendar

and participate, but more of this like mindset

of like, hey, we're going out to serve.

Yeah, we're talking more about this on Sunday

when it comes to serving other people

because that happens, serving happens oftentimes

within the community, within the biblical communities

where, you know, Paul says, bear one another's burdens.

You can't bear a burden unless you're doing life

with somebody and we're taking that

on upon ourselves and saying, hey, I'm willing

to be inconvenienced.

I'm willing to be to put aside kind of my own path,

my own selfish needs, once desire is in order

to serve somebody else.

You talked about unity being rooted

and shared beliefs about Jesus, not shared preferences.

How can a church protect doctrinal unity

without becoming rigid or unloving?

Well, I would say this, it's impossible

to truly love somebody without truth.

Like, you can't, you can't be loving somebody

without being truthful to what is happening

in the situation.

And so, you know, there's a certain set of beliefs

that we hold as a church that we would say a primary,

meaning, you know, not fully understanding

or not believing certain, certain doctrinal points

really could affect your salvation.

And I won't get into all those here by that means,

but those things are, they're unifying,

they're not divisive in and of itself,

that shouldn't be, but they are things

that we believe in are foundational

to why we do what we do.

It's foundational to why we share the gospel,

foundational to why we value community,

foundational to why we want to serve other people,

foundational to why we want to multiply leaders.

All those things are what we're talking about

in the series right now.

And so, we're unified around them,

which means, you know, we hold those

to be highly important and to be true.

And they're not something that we compromise on

because if you begin to compromise

on primary, salvific issues,

then the way in which you are going to,

let's say, serve other people the way

in which you're going to conduct your Saturday morning

gatherings, the way you're going to teach,

the way you're going to counsel,

that's all going to be affected

if you aren't unified around these certain things.

So if I, you know, I've been part of a church one time

that wasn't there very long.

I remember the getting in there,

long story short, I was told that everything was like

at Orthodox and what they believed.

And then we kind of go through this membership process

and the pastors go, well, I don't believe in an airancy,

not an airtiss.

And I'm like, okay, wait a second here,

that's not what you just told me.

And I said, if you're not an airtiss

and that affects the way that you counsel,

that affects the way that you teach,

that affects the way that you do other things.

Now, he would, he used the terminology authoritative.

And so, it was very interesting on the ax I'm going to,

okay, so what do you consider authoritative

and what do you consider an airant?

Like, like, how do you know what's right,

what's wrong, like, you know,

in an airancy is a whole other thing.

We're talking about original manuscripts

through the Holy Spirit, through the original writers,

you know, not necessarily what we always read today.

But so, that's something that affects unity, you know,

for us, you know, where church membership is by baptized believers.

Those are things that we hold,

we hold as, I would say, primary,

the baptism is not necessarily salvific.

So, it's not a salvation issue,

but it does affect, I think, the way that you would do churches.

So, if somebody comes in and is like,

I don't need to be baptized,

I don't want to be a member of some of this is in the place for you.

Nothing gets you, but you need to find a church down the road

that agrees with you because it's,

you're going to have issues there.

And so, a certain thing would just have to be unified

around in order to function properly.

Paul warns against being spiritually immature

and tossed by every wave of teaching.

What are the signs that someone is active in church,

but still immature in faith?

These are the ones that are divisive.

They're divisive in nature, meaning,

there's a lot of things that can divide one.

Their personal preferences are more important than unity

or effectiveness.

There are ones that are uncoachable.

They are ones that have to be in charge,

have to be, they have to be the,

like if they're on platform, they're the ones

that they want all the attention, they want the big part,

they want the lead part, they want the solo.

If they're serving in a ministry,

they want to be the person in charge

making all the decisions.

And then if you disagree with them,

or you say, hey, we're not doing it this way,

they're the ones who get angry and frustrated

and stop out of the building or whatever.

That's what immaturity is.

Maturity one submits to the leadership of the church

and two puts unity over personal preference

without compromising those doctrinal things

that we talked about.

And so, if there's somebody that's just always complaining

that's always upset about something

that is a non-primary issue,

they're immature in their faith.

They're failing to understand the purpose

of what the gathering is,

what the purpose of what the body of Christ is.

And it's because it's become about their own

personal wants desires and what they want to see

and what makes them feel good or what makes them happy.

And so, not hard to spot.

And that's part of the other thing with the leadership.

Sometimes we've got to have those conversations

and it's tough.

They're hard conversations because from my experience

and experience with other pastors,

most of the time they're not seeing it.

Very rarely do you get somebody who's like,

you know what, you're right.

I need to work on this, this and this

and are able to move forward.

Typically, it typically comes with somebody leaving

and then bunch of accusations against abusive leadership

and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So, yeah, they're not hard to spot.

You said the most dangerous false teachers

are often the ones who sound right.

How can believers grow into discernment

without being cynical or fearful?

Man, you got to know scripture and understand scripture

in its context and how,

when we talk about context,

so when I'm studying scripture, studying for a sermon,

I want to know what the original author's intent

empowered by the Holy Spirit.

And so that takes into account things like,

so we're talking about the historical context,

we're talking about the grammatical context.

Like, if we really believe that the Word of God

has inspired, then we believe that it's inspired

even in this, I mean, we're talking about punctuation,

we're talking about tense,

we're talking about all that kind of stuff.

So, the historical grammatical,

there's another word in there, geographic,

I mean, just the context of what it is,

that's really to understand everything

because otherwise, pastors will just start,

they don't know that, it's easy to miss

what the scripture's trying to say,

you get into things where Jesus talks about,

we talk about the insurm in the mountain,

he says, if you write, I calls you to sin, cut it out.

Well, if you don't look at the context

of what he's trying to say there,

you're gonna have a pastor's gonna tell you

to cut your eye out, well, that's an obvious one.

The hard one sometimes come when a pastor

will kind of throw something in there about,

they won't say God wants you to be healthy and wealthy,

but in their message, they'll say things like,

your best God wants you to have your best life now

or God wants you to, he wants you to be generous

and wants you to be able to do, which is true,

but like just the way that he positions it,

it's almost as if, hey, if you're not financially able

to give this much, you know, a pastor's just going,

hey, you need to give more money to the church.

Like, there's so many different things in there

and we gotta be very, very aware of that.

I oftentimes have, especially younger people come

with some of these young, dynamic speakers, pastors,

some of them out there are very much,

if you're gonna mature in your faith,

you can hear something, that sounds right,

but the reality is they're completely missing

the point of the scripture.

I literally saw one of the other day

that somebody had a pastor broken down

from a really kind of well-known, well-known,

young pastors, a very dynamic speaker,

who's one that sounds right.

In fact, him and I have a degree

from sister universities and the same

to nominal background, but like his entire sermon

was based on a heading in the scripture

that wasn't even part of the original scripture.

He made this big point based around,

like his main point based around it and it made zero sense.

And yet, some people would look at that and be like,

man, that's true, that's so good.

That's not what this passage is,

that's not the point of the passage.

It was just a heading title from whoever did scripture.

There's not original by any means,

they're just there to help people kind of know

where sections of scripture are.

It's always very interesting in that sense, so.

Yeah, spoiler alert, there weren't verse numbers.

Yeah, verses were added and, you know,

kinda gracious.

This 1800s, I think, it was a 1600s,

one of those, I mean, they're very,

in the life of the church, they're very much new.

But helpful.

I mean, it's like GPS coordinates, you know,

latitude and longitude, basically, you know.

We say chapter and verse.

Yeah, they can't, they're definitely more helpful than not,

but there are some times where you're going,

hey, like, why did he divide?

Why did this chapter start here?

Because this is still the same story,

then you get into even in the Hebrew and the Hebrew,

there were no vowels, there were no spaces,

there were reading rights to left,

and so when he's really getting a textual criticism,

dude, it'll drive you insane,

unless you really enjoy and love that stuff.

You said that truth without love is harsh,

and love without truth is shallow.

What does it look like to actually practice

speaking the truth in love in relationships?

Yeah, man, this is something that needs to be done

with a very humble approach,

but also comes from doing life with people,

and really earning the right to speak into somebody's life.

If you're constantly correcting somebody,

but you've never really spent time with them,

share to meal with them,

you've never encouraged them or said something positive to them.

They're not going to take what you're saying to heart,

and they're probably, even if they don't bring it up

at that moment, I'm probably going to think,

and he's just really judgmental,

and always wants to kind of challenge

and change everybody in that sense.

But you can't have one without the other.

The last thing that we want to do

as followers of Christ is love people to hell,

and it's very easy sometimes to affirm people in their sin,

because we don't want to offend,

or we don't want to kind of cross this judgmental,

it's a really big thing in our society and in our culture today.

There's a lot of things that are being celebrated in our culture

that are against God that are sinful,

and people want to equate acceptance with love.

You can love a person and not agree with their lifestyle.

You can love a person and not agree with what they,

any parent should be able to say, yeah, you're right.

Like, I love my kid, but there are times when I have to correct them.

There are times when I have to confront them,

or I have to say, hey, you can't do that.

That is morally, ethically, spiritually,

biblically, that's just wrong.

So, we all do it.

We all functionally believe that you can love and care for somebody

without necessarily agreeing with their lifestyle.

And so, but we've got to be willing to speak the truth.

And sometimes you'll speak truth.

You'll be loving, you will do all those things

and they'll still call you judgmental.

I've seen that happen too.

I've seen people just be very loving in many situations

and in the moment they're just kind of like, hey, you know,

this is not biblical.

I've seen this with people in relationships

that are living together that aren't married

or someone, you know, homosexual relationship,

or I've seen this with somebody who's leaving their spouse

for a non-biblical reason where their friends are like, hey,

now we've been in a group together,

we've birthday parties together, we went to college together

and you know, you're claiming to be a follower of Christ,

we've got a church together, we do this life group together,

this small group together, what you're doing,

you're reasoning behind this is not biblical.

And I remember that person just,

oh, they don't care about me, they don't love me

because they don't agree with me.

When actually they are being a true brat.

Absolutely, yeah.

And they're showing them in scripture.

They're showing them why they're wrong

and showing them like, hey, this is a reason,

here's a reason for being able to biblically divorce

somebody else and that just this part,

that happens a lot.

And so, you struggle sometimes in those things

and thinking, I mean, does that person really know Jesus?

But we have to earn the right to speak into somebody's life.

And so, and we also have to be willing

to submit ourselves to other people.

I can be the only one that's ever saying anything

and then you get upset every time somebody says

I'm to you, you got a problem,

like you're part of the issue as well.

And so, you know, I think we all have people in our lives.

I know I have a few guys in my life,

even haven't seen in a long time

or I don't get to see much

because life's just taking different places.

I would just say, hey, like they ever came to me

and just said, hey, man, you know, I would know,

I know because of who they are

and because of a relationship

that they're not coming to me

out of anything other than love.

And every person out there should have at least three

or four people in their lives

that they're surrounding themselves with like that.

Yeah, I think in our culture,

we have this mindset that anybody's a coach to anything, right?

And they can do it without context

or without credentials or even without relationships.

And it's super important, especially in our church context

that, you know, to give it just an easy example, you know,

obviously brand, you know, I play pickable almost every day

and like I'm getting better, right?

And, you know, I'm kind of all gas, no breaks

when it comes to that game.

And there are certain guys that when I play with,

like they know, like they have permission to coach, right?

And because like I've given that to them, right?

Hey, man, hey, like y'all got full authority,

man, you see something, you don't call me out on it.

But then like when there's somebody that I don't know,

and just brand and pick up game

and they're like, hey, so we need to do it.

I'm like, dude, you don't even know my last name.

Like, like you do not have permission to coach,

you know, like, and you just hit that 10 feet out of the,

out of the square, you know, like that's everything.

And so our relationships matter,

especially in biblical community.

Like you just mentioned, there might be guys

that have been a part of your life for years

that you might not have seen in a long time,

but they, they know Brandon, right?

And they know what Brandon's been through, right?

And they've, you guys probably had some shared experiences

together, right?

You know, you got some battle scars together.

And that's, that's what we have to, to build together,

to actually be able to speak into somebody's life.

And so that question, yeah, like permission to coach,

like, is it really good?

Because somebody, even someone that's super close to you,

that like has that authority to talk to you like that,

it might not be should be the right time,

like in that moment, you know,

something might have just happened

and you might not be in the right mind frame to receive

what, what needs to be said.

So I think there's some discernment there

of knowing when and how to say that.

Yeah, yeah, there's definitely a time and a place.

And, you know, it's funny.

And this is kind of a similar example.

I remember one of my kids was playing baseball

and he got in frustrated with something.

And it was, it was obvious to the point

where like he got basically, we need to pull him off

the baseball field because he just, you know,

his head space wasn't there.

And one of the coaches was like,

man, did you, did you, you know,

you know, we had a break in between games.

Did you chew him out?

I'm like, dude, I would never chew my kid out

in front of a bunch of people.

Like there's no value in that whatsoever.

Like I'm never gonna just, you know,

because he was like, man, you know, my kid,

and he was a, he wasn't trying to be judgmental.

It was like my kid, I mean, he knows I would, you know,

flip out, I'm like, dude, like I don't flip out

on my kids for disciplinary reasons.

Like there's no reason to do that.

It doesn't help anything.

And so...

Yeah, we discipline the action.

You know, we love the kid.

You do, yeah, yeah.

I mean, it was just, it was just really interesting

to see kind of the different take

and like a parenting style.

And the funny thing about it sometimes

is like that parent, I've seen, do the very thing

that he said, I don't wanna see my kid do.

And it's like, it's time to understand that.

Just in the attitude and the frustration

and, you know, things that happen with coaches

and empires and all that kind of stuff.

So, but there's a time and a place.

You know, like even for you, if you got a guy

who wants to coach and pick a ball,

he's not on the side, like screaming at you

in front of everybody and telling you,

hey dude, like, you know, you shouldn't, you know,

you'd be like, you're looking at him,

go, hey dude, do you get something to say to me, man?

You can do this over here

right in front of the 25 people that are surrounding you.

You probably can see a ball coming at his head.

Yeah, I'm proud of him.

I'm proud of him.

Or a pat, yeah, yeah.

You'd probably miss him.

He'd miss, yeah.

You know, I really enjoyed this part of the message

on Sunday, this example of the Pando tree picture.

So that image of the Pando tree was really powerful.

So how does that illustration help us understand

why isolation is so spiritually dangerous?

Yeah, man, the Pando tree is a, it's actually one tree.

It is out in Utah in fish lake,

fish lake forest, fish lake national park,

I think is what it said.

I think I'm pretty sure that drove by many, many years ago

when I was out in Utah, visiting a friend

and we went to like Dead Horse Canyon

and we went to, good and it's gracious.

I'm going blank on the, oh, the really cool places

out there in Utah.

Um,

godly, the national parks, whatever.

But when you look at it, it looks like a forest

and the reality is it's one tree with like 47,000 stems

coming out of this one singular root system.

And so it looks like individual trees is actually

one organism and that's really what the church

is supposed to be.

It looks like individual people,

but it's really one organism unified

around those around faith in Jesus

and those doctrinal distinctions.

But what the tree does, it's like, hey, if, if one stem

or one part of the tree is lacking resources like,

let's say it needed more sunlight

or it's needed more shade or it needed more water

or needed more nutrients because of some kind

of external factor because we're too much shade

or because the way it rained, it didn't all go with it.

It will literally transfer throughout the root system

to the part that is hurting and that is in need.

If a fire was supposed to burn

and water was to be diseased,

like they would send all the necessary nutrients

to support that one stem to get it back to health.

That's exactly what the church is supposed to do.

If we have a person in our church that is hurting,

then we're resourcing them.

We're walking with them, bearing their burdens,

whether it's a loss of somebody special,

whether it's dealing with a disease,

whether a job loss, financial issues,

you know, our church, our people are coming together,

we're pulling our resources in order

to come and support that person.

And so it's a really powerful example

as to how the church is supposed to work.

We're individuals, but one organism, one local church

unified and coming together to really support

and help people who are in need

and that root system continues to sprout out stems.

And so, you know, we want to continue to grow,

we want to continue to reach people

who aren't part of the system and bring them in

and to be able to help them and love them and support them.

You were clear about this topic

that there are no rogue Christians.

So for someone listening who's been distant

from the church, specifically the local church,

what's one step they can take this week

toward re-engaging in biblical community?

Yeah, there's no rogue Christians, man.

You cannot love Jesus and hate his church.

And so, so many things that I could say on that

on what to do next.

The first thing I would say is to repent

because the reality is is you have a,

you have an, there's an issue there.

It could be a hard issue in the sense that you know

that you need biblical community scripturally

and you're refusing to do it.

It might be a doctrinal issue.

You may think that, hey, you know,

as long as I'm a follower of Christ,

then I'm going to, then I'm okay.

And that mentality is just, it's almost like

that the fire insurance mentality of like, hey,

I'm not going to hell.

So now I can, I'm good to do whatever

or I can do better on my own.

But the reality is is, I mean, you even,

the reality is is we need other people

to be able to speak into our lives

because they see things that we don't see.

You know, you're never going to grow,

you never grow without really submitting yourself

to something or somebody else.

We look at even people who work out,

people who have workout partners see more gains.

They see more results than people who work out alone.

You look at any type of program, recovery program.

It's all done within community.

It's never done alone.

I've never met somebody that was an addict

that stopped without being part of some sort of a group.

I've known people who have stopped drinking,

but they weren't necessarily alcoholics.

But I've never seen somebody be able to stop drinking

who was an alcoholic or I've never seen,

I don't think I've ever met a mature Christian

who wasn't part of a church.

Now again, how you define church

is could be a little different than what we've seen

in American culture.

I don't think that necessarily means

that you're part of somebody that meets every Sunday morning.

I think for a culture that's still very relevant,

but I do know some people that are heavily involved

in like a house church network

or they have a group of people,

15, 20 people that they meet with on a weekly basis

for praise worship study.

They've submitted their lives to them.

And I know some that are part of churches that do both

and they'll go to the small group,

but they won't go necessarily to the Sunday morning,

or it's just not as big of a priority to them.

But within the church, we do see identifiable leadership.

We do see baptized believers.

We do see that submitting to one another

in many facets.

And so if you're not going to step into a church

at a big church that meets every Sunday morning,

then you should be in one of those type of groups.

There's got to be other people involved in that.

And so I would say this, you need to repent.

You need to repent of either your heart issue

or you need to repent of your bad doctrine

or your bad theology.

And I see this with people.

Man, I see this with people online all the time.

I see this with friends who have been hurt by the church

and there is legitimate church hurt out there.

It has been by experience as a pastor

that most church hurt was really honestly

a lack of accountability.

They were people that refused to submit themselves

to the Word of God.

First and foremost, they refused to submit themselves

to biblical authority in the church

that God has clearly laid out and designed.

And then they call it church hurt

when they're confronted on something that they did.

Now there's exceptions to that.

I get that.

There are people who have literally been hurt

by the church and it's hard for them.

But it goes back to that that doesn't miss anything.

But like you have a bad experience in a restaurant.

You don't stop going out to eat at all restaurants.

You find a different one.

And so that might be something that somebody

does need to do.

There are times for that.

But for most of the time, the people who say

that they don't like the church

or they've been hurt by the church,

it's typically there's something within them

and something their own sin.

They just, the reality is like,

I don't want to be challenged to anything.

I don't want anybody to tell me that I'm,

that I need to grow in my faith

or I don't want anybody to tell me that my lifestyle is not good

because typically what they're doing,

they're comparing themselves with somebody else

down the street and like,

hey, if I'm a better nap person, I'm okay.

And that's just not what,

that's not what we see in scripture.

We never see a lone ranger.

We never see a rogue Christian.

So as we wrap up here, Pastor Brandon,

give me a preview of kind of this Sunday morning

with our next chapter of Family Portrait

and then we'll close in prayer.

Yeah, we're in our third value,

which is service-oriented.

And so we're gonna take a look

at what it looks like to biblically serve other people,

both inside the church and outside of the church.

That overlaps a little bit with our being community-minded.

It's also overlaps obviously with the gospel

because that's our foundation

and our reason for wanting to serve other people.

And so we're gonna look at why serving others is important

and how it is a reflection of a transformed life

because we see that when Christ returns,

the way that he often separates out the save from loss

or the sheep from the goats,

the repentant from the unrepentant

is those who were obedient.

Those who did what he called them to do before he left,

which was loving and caring for one another.

Now, we're not talking about earning your salvation.

You're saved by grace through faith alone,

but we're talking about the results of that

and what it really looks like to love and care for somebody else.

And why we value serving other people

in order to honor Christ and also to ensure the gospel.

Amen, let's pray, Father.

Thank you for the gift of community

and for placing us in the body of Christ.

Help us to see ourselves not as independent individuals,

but as interconnected parts of your church,

each with gifts and roles to play.

Give us the courage to commit more deeply

to build a community, to speak truth and love to one another

and to use our gifts for building up the body.

Where we have been trying to grow alone,

help us to recognize our need for others.

Where we have been passive, stir us to action.

Make us a church that truly reflects your love

and unity to a watching world in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Thanks for listening to Growing in Grace.

Until next time, keep your eyes on Jesus

and keep growing in Grace.